page_title: Karel Kuttelwascher
section_title: French service
hierarchical_section_title: Karel Kuttelwascher / French service
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Francuski samolot myśliwski Dewoitine D.520.
context_page_description: Karel Miloslav Kuttelwascher DFC and Bar was a Czech fighter pilot, and a flying ace of the UK's Royal Air Force in the Second World War. He was in combat service from May 1940 to October 1942, first with the French Air Force and then with the RAF.
  Kuttelwascher, nicknamed "Kut", was the RAF's most successful Czechoslovak pilot, and one of the RAF's highest-scoring flying aces overall. In RAF service he shot down 18 enemy aircraft. He may also have scored numerous victories in French Air Force service, but these are unconfirmed as many French records were lost.
  In 1945 Kuttelwascher returned to Czechoslovakia but in 1946 he returned to Britain, where he made a civilian flying career with British European Airways. He died of a heart attack in 1959, aged 42.
context_section_description: Peacetime regulations did not allow the French Air Force to enlist people who were not French citizens. But the Czechoslovak Ambassador in Paris reached agreement with the French Government that Czechoslovak volunteers could join the French Foreign Legion for a five-year term, on the understanding that if war broke out they would be released to form a Czechoslovak army in exile. Kuttelwascher and his group joined the Foreign Legion and were posted to Sidi Bel Abbès in French Algeria for army training and to learn French.
  On 3 September 1939 France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. On 17 November the French Government and Czechoslovak National Liberation Committee agreed that Czechoslovak airmen would be transferred from the Foreign Legion to the French Air Force pending the formation of a Czechoslovak air force. Kuttelwascher was one of about 100 who were transferred to the fighter training base at Chartres Aerodrome, where he quickly learnt to fly the Morane-Saulnier M.S.406C.1 fighter. However, he was not transferred to a combat squadron until 17 May 1940, when he was transferred to Groupe de Chasse III/3 at Beauvais–Tillé.
  Four days later GC III/3 moved to Cormeilles-en-Vexin, where it was re-equipped with the more modern Dewoitine D.520C.1 fighter. As German forces advanced in the Battle of France, GC III/3 retreated first to Illiers-l'Évêque and then successively to Germinon, Chapelle-Vallon, Montargis, Grand Mallerey, Avord Air Base, and Perpignan-La Salanque.
  On 17 June the UK Foreign Office sent a signal to its Ambassador to France, Sir Ronald Campbell, who had evacuated from Paris to Bordeaux, asking him to give the Czechoslovak General Ingr an order from President Beneš to evacuate all Czechoslovak personnel and as many aircraft as possible to England. However, in the chaos engulfing France the order reached few if any Czechoslovak personnel, and Kuttelwascher and his comrades continued to serve with their French units.
  Kuttelwascher claimed that while with the French Air Force he destroyed or damaged several enemy aircraft. French records for that period are incomplete, but those which survive include two confirmed kills and one probable by Kuttelwascher.
  On 22 June 1940 remnants of GC III/3 withdrew to Realizane in Algeria, but that same day France surrendered. The defeated French Air Force discharged its Czechoslovak personnel on 1 July. A group including Kuttelwascher travelled by train to Casablanca in Morocco, where Czechoslovak personnel were assembling to escape to the UK. On 9 July they left the Port of Casablanca aboard a Scottish ferry, the Royal Scotsman, which took them to Gibraltar. On 19 July they left Gibraltar aboard the Elder Dempster Lines ship David Livingstone, by which they reached Cardiff Docks in Wales on 5 August.
caption: A Dewoitine D.520 fighter aircraft
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