When the German Wehrmacht in the Second World War occupied a country, one (or more) resistance movement(s) soon formed there. And abroad, an army in exile was usually formed to fight against Germany as part of the Allied forces. The Czechoslovaks also deployed troops – but unlike the Norwegian, French, Dutch or Belgian exile troops, the Czechs and Slovaks were not recognized until later.
Spring 1945: The German surrender was imminent, but the fighting was still going on in Bohemia. A small troop of Czech and Slovakian soldiers prepared to march on to Prague, which was within reach. This was the moment many of them had been waiting for for a long time: at last they had the chance to liberate the capital of their homeland from the occupying forces on their own, and the thought filled the men with pride. Who could have guessed that a Prague government would deny this mission only years later … How could it even come to this? It was not even a matter of course that Czechs and Slovaks were ready to take action against the Germans as part of the Allies. But after the occupation of the so-called “Resttschechechei” in March 1939, many Czechs and Slovaks had left their homeland and made their way to France, sometimes by adventurous routes. On January 15, 1940, the 1eme Division Tchécoslovaque was formed there from Czechs and Slovaks in exile. With 11,405 men, the division was weak in manpower (a French infantry division had 17,500 men) and was unable to fight against the Wehrmacht as a cohesive unit in the summer of 1940, but was assigned to various large French units regimentally.
Around 4,000 Czechoslovak soldiers and 500 Czechoslovak civilians were able to flee to Great Britain after the defeat of France. Smaller Czechoslovakian units were regrouped there, equipped with British equipment and trained in the same way as the British troops. In mid-April 1943, these units were combined into an infantry brigade, from which the 1st Czechoslovak Independent Armored Brigade Group (later simplified to Czechoslovak Armored Brigade) was formed on 1 September. Some of the soldiers already had considerable combat experience, gained mainly in North Africa. Two years earlier, they had fought their way through Lebanon to the British Mandate of Palestine, where they formed the 11th Infantry Battalion and then took part in the battle against the Vichy-French forces in Syria. Afterwards, as part of a Polish brigade in exile, they helped to defend Tobruk, which was besieged by the Italians and the Afrika Korps. The 200th (Czech) Light AA Regiment was then formed from the remnants of the battalion. With the introduction of compulsory military service for all Czechoslovak citizens living abroad in January 1942, the administrative basis for the formation of larger units had been created. The Czechoslovak Armored Brigade
At the end of this development was the Czechoslovak Armored Brigade, formed in 1943. An Independent Armored Brigade and an Independent Tank Brigade were each intended to support an infantry division in the British Army. Tank brigades were usually equipped with the slower infantry tanks (Matilda, Valentine or Churchill), while armored brigades were equipped with the faster cruiser tanks (Crusader, Cromwell or Centaur). The Czech brigade consisted of two tank battalions with Cromwell IV and Cromwell VII tanks, a motorized infantry battalion, a tank destroyer company, an artillery battalion with two batteries, anti-tank reconnaissance, anti-aircraft, engineers, telecommunication and logistics troops. The tank reconnaissance units later became a third tank battalion, and additional firepower was provided by the arrival of Sherman Firefly tanks. Equipped in this way, the Czechs and Slovaks were eager to finally be able to contribute to the liberation of the European mainland and thus also their homeland. https://militaeraktuell.at/ueber-einen-panzerjaeger-der-nie-ins-gefecht-kam/ The brigade trained on British soil and joined the Allied troops in Normandy at the end of August 1944. There was not much to do at first, much to the chagrin of the soldiers. This did not escape the notice of their commander, Major General Alois Liška. He turned directly to the commander-in-chief of the western Czechoslovak army in exile, General Sergěj Ingr. Liška asked him to send his brigade to the front as quickly as possible. Because any further delay “would not help the morale of the troops”. General Ingr personally inspected the condition of the unit between September 21 and 25. He then went directly to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. However, Montgomery refused to deploy the Czechoslovak Armored Brigade to the front.
It was still not complete, there were supply problems and the tank crews were insufficiently trained. The actual reasons why Montgomery forbade the deployment of the Czechoslovaks were political in nature. For a post-war order in Czechoslovakia, an intact large Czechoslovakian unit seemed very important as a counterweight to communist groups. However, the Briton found an almost Solomonic solution: he ordered the brigade to besiege the port city of Dunkirk on October 4, 1944. The Germans had turned Dunkirk into an almost impregnable fortress. 12,000 German soldiers, 2,000 of them from the Waffen SS, held the city, with enough ammunition and food to last a year. The Czechs and Slovaks therefore had a tough nut to crack. And indeed, despite the support of British, Canadian and French units, they did not succeed in conquering Dunkirk. Liška, a conscript in the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War, curiously had more men at his disposal than at the beginning of the siege, despite the battle losses, as many Czech and Slovakian forced laborers joined the brigade, which had an actual strength of 5,900 men in the spring of 1945. The idea arose that the brigade could be transferred to the US units in Germany, as they would in all likelihood be the first Western Allied troops to reach Czech territory. However, this was not possible, Montgomery did not want to give up any troops, and the Czechoslovaks were armed and equipped by the British, which would have caused logistical problems in conjunction with US troops.
The Token Force
However, when American units reached the old border between Germany and Czechoslovakia on April 18, 1945, a detachment of the Czechoslovak Armored Brigade was requested to accompany the Americans as they continued their advance. The so-called “Token Force” was assembled, consisting of eight officers and 131 non-commissioned officers and men, with seven motorcycles and 26 motor vehicles, plus six Bofors anti-aircraft guns. Lieutenant Colonel Alois Sítek was in command, along with a British liaison officer. The Token Force set off on April 24 and reached the old German-Czech border on May 1. Soon afterwards, the troops entered Eger, whose Sudeten German population viewed the soldiers with suspicion. The reception in Pilsen on May 7, however, was enthusiastic. The Czech population cheered and longed for the onward march to Prague. One day later, the Token Force was in Kyšice and then continued on towards Prague. However, this raised the realistic possibility that the small force could end up in the Red Army’s area of operations, which the Allied High Command wanted to avoid at all costs. However, the order to halt came too late, and so the small formation was the only unit from the Western Allied side to enter Prague, but soon had to leave the city again: neither the Soviets nor the Czech Communists, who were in thrall to them, wanted a Western Allied presence in Prague. https://militaeraktuell.at/wie-der-m24-auch-zum-bundesheer-kam/ Back home
From 12 to 22 May 1945, the remaining units of the Czechoslovak Armored Brigade, supported by 300 Canadian tank transporters, also entered Czechoslovakia. Thousands of soldiers saw their homeland again for the first time in years. With its 300 charged tanks, 230 armored vehicles and transporters, along with 1,300 other vehicles and 96 artillery pieces, the brigade was initially stationed in the US sector in Šumava. On May 30, the Soviet commander of Prague allowed the brigade to parade in the capital. The soldiers had ammunition for their small arms, but the tanks and guns were not ammunitioned – this was a condition of the Soviets. The jubilation of the people of Prague was overwhelming: it was a mixture of relief at the end of the German occupation, pride in their own soldiers and the hope that the communists would not remain the only armed force in the Czech Republic. However, the Czechoslovak Independent Armored Brigade had already reached the pinnacle of its existence and would soon be a thing of the past: It was disbanded at the end of the summer of 1945. And after the communists came to power in 1948, the new rulers took revenge on the Czechoslovaks who had fought on the western side and thus with the “class enemy” in the Second World War. Many of the former brigade members had to flee into exile again, some were executed and countless were imprisoned. Liška, whose family had experienced terrible things under Nazi rule (his wife and daughter had been deported to a concentration camp but survived; his son Jaroslav had been shot), also had to go into exile again.
He died in London in 1977.
Prescribed oblivion and later triumph
Although the communist regime endeavored to erase the memory of the US army and the Czech troops in exile who had liberated West Bohemia, this memory has always remained alive among the population in the region. Around 1968, memorial plaques for the US soldiers were even installed in some places in West Bohemia – but these quickly disappeared again after the failed “Prague Spring”. In schools, children only learned about the Red Army, while the fact that US troops had stood outside Prague in 1945 was ignored. There was silence about the Czechoslovak Armored Brigade, but the Czechoslovak exile units under the command of the Soviet Army were glorified. However, since the end of communism, those exiled troops who once fought in the ranks of the Western Allies have also come into their own again, and not just in schools and the media. They experience a kind of “resurrection” for everyone to see at the annual anniversary celebrations in Pilsen and elsewhere – when reenactors from Germany and abroad dress up in American uniforms and bring the past to life with Jeeps and Sherman tanks. What lay hidden under a cloak of silence for 45 years among our neighbors is now a natural part of their historical heritage – which is proudly presented.
