Remains of five Czechoslovak RAF Airmen from a plane shot down over the netherlands were identified

In June 2021 the wreckage of Vickers Wellington T2990 of 311 (Czechoslovak) Squadron, Royal Air Force was recovered from a meadow in the community of Hollands Kroon (the Netherlands). The recovery was part of the national program for the recovery of aircraft wrecks with missing crewmembers. T2990 was one of 41 RAF bombers that bombed Bremen in the night of 22/23 June 1941. On its return flight it was intercepted by a German night fighter and shot down. It crashed in flames and only one crewmember was able to bail out and was made prisoner of war. The other five Czech crewmembers were listed as missing since that night. During the recovery 80 years later human remains were found and it has now been established that these belong to all five missing crewmembers of the Royal Air Force. F/Sgt Jan Hejna, P/O Vilem Konštatský, F/Sgt Alois Rozum, P/O Leonard Smrček en F/Sgt Karel Valach are thus no longer missing in action. They will receive a funeral with military honors in a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in the Netherlands in 2022.

The national program for the recovery of aircraft wrecks with missing crewmembers was established in 2018 by the minister of the Interior and Kingdom Affairs upon request of the Dutch parliament, after an initiative of the Dutch Air War Study Group 1939-1945. It aims to recover all aircraft wrecks which may still hold the remains of missing crewmembers and whose recovery is classified as ‘favorable’. The Dutch government bears the costs of these recoveries. Until now, five recoveries have taken place, in which of four aircraft missing crewmembers have been found. These recoveries are done by a team of the Royal Netherlands Armed Forces, supported by a civilian contractor and of course the community concerned.