Letecká válka nad jižními Čechami 1939 až 1945 – Šašek Jiří (2025)

This Czech-language book describes the serious aviation accidents that occurred in the present-day South Bohemian Region during the Second World War, continuing the author’s earlier work on the air war over the Vysočina region. The author’s interest in aviation history began in 1997, when, as a nine-year-old, he learned that a German pilot had fatally crashed near Ratmírov Pond during an air battle over the Jindřichův Hradec area on 24 August 1944, while a B-24H from the 464th Bombardment Group came down near Vlčice, with only the wounded radio operator surviving from its ten-man crew. The book provides detailed accounts of accidents connected with combat operations throughout the region. German training-aircraft accidents are generally covered in detail only when they involved crashes or serious damage, apart from those involving units based at České Budějovice airport. Emergency landings are not included exhaustively, since many aircraft landed undamaged because of disorientation or lack of fuel and soon took off again. Large-scale Allied low-level attacks are mentioned only in connection with losses of combat aircraft. The book covers events from the predominantly German training-aircraft crashes at the start of the war through the American B-24 bomber shot down near Lhenice on 22 February 1944, the numerous accidents involving the I./SG 102 combat group at Planá near České Budějovice, the major American-German air battle over the Jindřichův Hradec area on 24 August 1944, and the B-17 forced down near Dolní Dvořiště on 9 December 1944, when local Nazis murdered six of its ten crew members. The final year of the war is also covered in detail, including the downing of American fighters near Srubec, Boršov nad Vltavou and Záluží.