INVASION (JUNE 1944)
Shortly before the start of the Allied invasion, Czechoslovak fighter squadrons moved to the airfield at Appledram, which was less than four kilometres southwest of the town of Chichester in West Sussex. From there, the Czechoslovak fighters flew all their operational flights, starting as early as 4 April 1944. Three Czechoslovak squadrons, Nos. 310, 312 and 313, were then combined to form the 134th Czechoslovak Wing of the RAF.
It was not until the end of the month, 28 June 1944, that all Czechoslovak squadrons flew to the B-10 airfield near the village of Plumetot, north of the town of Caen, which was still burning after heavy fighting. It was actually an unmown straight meadow, which was only reinforced by the engineers with bands of wire mesh. However, on June 29th, after several operational flights, the Czechoslovak wing was withdrawn from this airfield.
The Czechoslovak pilots took this news badly, but the obvious reason was the British command’s desire to ensure that as many Czechoslovak airmen as possible survived the war. The airmen were determined, but there were no Czechoslovak air reserves, so it would not have been possible to replace the fallen or wounded in the event of heavy losses. In fact, a war diary of the No. 310 Squadron, says this directly: "Today we received the sad news that all three of our squadrons will be recalled from the Tactical Air Force to the Air Defence of Great Britain. It was a great disappointment for all of us, as everyone was looking forward to going to the front. Discipline was good, but the morale was crippled by sad news."
From June 3rd to 6th June 1944, the Czechoslovak fighter squadrons conducted 1877 combat sorties in support of the Allied troops during the landings, lasting 3622 hours 5 minutes of flight time. They shot down five aircraft, certainly, one probably and damaged another seven aircraft. Apart from one Messerschmitt Bf 109 that was probably shot down, the rest were aircraft of the type Focke-Wulf Fw 190. Three were shot down by Otto Smik, one by the commander of the Czechoslovak wing Jan Čermák and one by Vít Angetter. Three Czechoslovak fighters were killed during this period, one remained missing, but later returned to the unit and one suffered a severe injury.
The Appledram airfield, near the present-day village of Apuldram, was used only by Czechoslovak and Polish fighter squadrons. Already in November 1944, the command of the British Royal Air Force decided that the use of this airport was no longer of interest and it was released for agricultural purposes. In January 1945, buildings and hangars were finally torn down and the airfield was ploughed up.