Českoslovenští letci v jednotkách dopravního letectva RAF v letech 1942–1945 – Pajer Miloslav (2023)

Aviation, like all other fields of human activity, carries with it many risks threatening human life, especially during wartime conflicts. The vast expanses of the world battlefield during World War II forced the armed forces of individual states to pay great attention to air transport means, both for the smooth supply of distant battlefields and for their direct and rapid connection with the relevant command center managing offensive or defensive operations centrally. During wartime conflicts, compared to civilian operations, there are different economic indicators for air transport. Often, the number of people on board the aircraft or the weight of the transported cargo does not determine the outcome. What matters is the need for it and, above all, the time, which in aviation operations is counted not in days but in hours. The subject of the following article is not a comprehensive overview of the aviation accidents of the mentioned RAF transport unit; it is merely a selection of some of them – during a total of seven reported aviation accidents, there were eighty-five losses of human lives. It is an example that in a war conflict, a person does not only die in direct combat but often throughout the entire scope of the concept of military service. ***** Correction: page 14 is missing...