Otto Smik

On 28 August 2002 Sliač airbase was renamed his in honour. On 1 July 2009 a wing of the Slovak Air Force based at Sliač was renamed the Zmiešane Krídlo Generála Otta Smika, Sliač ("Combined Wing of General Otto Smik, Sliač"). It is now called the Taktické krídlo generálmajora Otta Smika Sliač ("Tactical Wing of Major General Otto Smik Sliač"). On 26 October 2010 a bust of Smik was unveiled at the headquarters of the "Combined Wing of General Otto Smik, Sliač". There is an annual air show at Sliač. Since 2012 it has included a "Best display Smik Trophy".

In 1994 Slovenská televízia broadcast a documentary Stratený syn Slovenska ("Lost Son of Slovakia") about Smik. On 19 July 1995 the Slovak Air Force posthumously promoted Smik to Major-General. In 2006 the British Ambassador in Bratislava presented a replica of Smik's DFC to the Slovak Air Force headquarters at Zvolen in central Slovakia.

In 1992–93 Czechoslovakia was dissolved. In 1994 the government of Slovakia had Smik's body exhumed again and on 12 September he was reinterred in Slávičie Údolie cemetery in Bratislava.

In Bratislava there is a bronze plaque commemorating Smik designed by the sculptor Milan Struhárik. In March 1992 a plaque was unveiled at the farm at Blooksteed in the Netherlands where Smik crashed and died.

On 12 May 1965 workmen digging in the dyke at Kampen found Spitfire RR229 and the remains of Henri Taymans' body. As a result, Smik's body was removed from the vault in Brussels and reburied, this time at Adegem Canadian War Cemetery near Ghent in East Flanders.

In October 1944 Smik survived being shot down behind enemy lines in the Netherlands, successfully evaded capture and returned to Allied-held territory. In November 1944 the RAF promoted him to Squadron Leader and put him in command of No. 312 (Czechoslovak) Squadron RAF. On 28 November he was shot down again over the German-held territory in the Netherlands and was killed.

After four years of war many RAF airmen had been killed, captured or too badly wounded to resume flying. The RAF tried to attract Czech and Slovak Americans and Czech and Slovak Canadians to join its Czechoslovak squadrons, but with little success. So on 15 March 1944 Smik was recalled to combat service.

On 13 June 1944 the first German V-1 flying bomb had hit London. Allied countermeasures included training fighter pilots to intercept them. In one sortie on 8 July Smik brought down three V-1 bombs in 32 minutes.

On 11 July 1944 Smik was promoted to Flight Lieutenant and posted to 312 Squadron to command its "B" flight. But here some pilots still resented him, feeling that they should have been promoted to that position. But the squadron's senior officers recognised Smik's achievements and suitability for the job, and resentment of him was quashed.

On 3 September 1944 Smik took part in the escort of Ramrod 1258, which was bomber raid on Soesterberg Air Base in Utrecht Province. On the way back Smik saw about 30 Junkers Ju 188 medium bombers on the ground at Gilze-Rijen Air Base in North Brabant. Smik led his flight of four Spitfires to attack, but the airfield's ground defences retaliated with intense and accurate anti-aircraft fire. Smik hit two Ju 188s and set them on fire, but his Spitfire was badly hit and he had to make a forced landing near the village of Prinsenbeek.

In November 1944 Smik was promoted to Squadron Leader and given command of No. 127 Squadron RAF, which was then operating Spitfire LF Mark IXe and Mark XVIe aircraft. The squadron was based at Grimbergen Airfield in Belgium and helping Allied ground forces such as the First Canadian Army to liberate the Netherlands.

On 5 January 1943 Smik was finally posted to an operational unit: No. 312 (Czechoslovak) Squadron RAF at RAF Church Stanton in Somerset. But he lasted only a week there before being transferred to a different Czechoslovak unit, No. 310 Squadron RAF.

Smik responded by requesting a transfer to a non-Czechoslovak squadron. The RAF agreed, and on 15 January sent him to No. 131 Squadron RAF, which at the time was at RAF Castletown in Caithness, Scotland for a period of rest and recuperation. But then in March 1943 Smik was transferred again, to No. 122 Squadron RAF at RAF Hornchurch in Essex.

At the time 122 Squadron was operating the Spitfire Mk IXC, with which it escorted bombers over German-occupied Europe. On 13 March 1943 Smik achieved his first "probable" shooting down of an enemy aircraft: a Messerschmitt Bf 109G-4 over Lumbres in the Pas-de-Calais. On 29 April No. 222 Squadron RAF arrived at Hornchurch, and on 18 May 122 Squadron moved to RAF Eastchurch in Kent for R&R. But Smik was still a fresh arrival, so he was transferred to 222 Squadron in order to remain at Hornchurch.

With 222 Squadron Smik became a fighter ace. On 15 July 1943 he shot down a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-4 near Le Crotoy on the Baie de Somme. It was the first of 10½ enemy aircraft that he shot down between then and 27 September: five Fw 190s, five Bf 109s plus a shared victory when he and a South African pilot, Flight Lieutenant J Lardner-Burke DFC, brought down a Bf 109G-6 near Boulogne-sur-Mer on 8 September.

Smik acquired a reputation as a talented and aggressive pilot who took every opportunity to attack the enemy. He was the RAF's highest-scoring Czechoslovak pilot for the year 1943. On 1 November he was posted to the Central Gunnery School to be trained as in instructor. In the same month he was awarded the DFC. On 12 December he completed his course and was posted to No. 13 Armament Practice Camp at RAF Llanbedr in Merionethshire, Wales.

Accordingly, 312 Squadron's rôle shifted to attacking targets on the ground. As with 222 Squadron in 1943, Smik again proved to be an aggressive pilot who seldom missed an opportunity to attack. Railway locomotives were a favourite target.

Smik was the RAF's highest-scoring Czechoslovak ace in 1943 and again in 1944: a period when Luftwaffe presented far fewer airborne targets than it had earlier in the war. He was the RAF's fifth-highest scoring Czechoslovak ace and highest-scoring Slovak ace in the Second World War.

In 1942 Smik and his group then waited at No. 3 Personnel Reception Centre at Moncton, New Brunswick for a ship back to the UK. Smik returned to Britain in July. He then had further training at No. 5 Advanced Training Unit at RAF Ternhill in Shropshire and final training to become a fighter pilot at No. 61 Operational Training Unit. Also in 1942 Smik was commissioned as a Pilot Officer.

From September to the end of November he was in a group of Czechoslovak trainees at No. 3 Elementary Flying Training School, where they learnt to fly the de Havilland Tiger Moth II. At the end of November four of them completed the course and went to RAF Clyffe Pypard in Wiltshire for further Tiger Moth training. At the end of 1941 they sailed to Canada for training at No. 39 Service Flying Training School at Swift Current airfield in Saskatchewan under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Smik completed his course, rated as an "excellent" pupil.

On 3 June 1940 Smik joined the Czechoslovak Army, which the Czechoslovak government-in-exile had reconstituted in France since October 1939. He was posted to a Czechoslovak training unit in Agde on the coast of Languedoc, where he applied to transfer to the Czechoslovak Air Force group in the French Armée de l'Air.

But Smik had only been a civilian glider pilot. On 24 July 1940 he joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve as an Aircraftman 2nd Class. He then spent almost two and a half years in training. His first few months were as a batman at the RAF's new central training depôt for Czechoslovak recruits, which was at RAF Cosford in Shropshire. In March 1941 he was promoted to Leading Aircraftman and posted to No. 1 Reception Wing at Babbacombe in Devon to start training to be a pilot. From June to September 1941 he was at No. 4 Initial Training Wing at Paignton.

On 15 March 1939 Nazi Germany partitioned the Second Czechoslovak Republic. Bratislava remained the capital of the Slovak Republic, which became a client state of Germany. Smik decided to escape to France to fight Germany. On 18 March 1940 he crossed illegally into Hungary, planning to reach the French Consulate in Budapest. Hungarian authorities arrested him and detained him in Toloncház prison, but was soon released.

Some of the more experienced Czechoslovak pilots quickly resented Smik. Many had fought in the Battle of France and some had fought in the RAF from the Battle of Britain onwards. Some had first fought in the defence of Poland in September 1939. They had many flying hours' of operation experience, had frequently been in combat, but many of them were still only sergeants. Smik was younger than they, had no combat experience, had only just qualified to fly a Supermarine Spitfire but was already an officer.

Smik learnt Slovak, which he spoke with a Russian accent. He also learnt English. As a child his hobby was aeromodelling. As a teenager he became a glider pilot, and by the age of 17 he had completed 22 flying hours. From 1937 to 1939 he trained at a private business school. He then got a job as a clerk in the head office of a power station in Bratislava.

Antonina bore Rudolf Smik three sons, of whom Otto was the second. Smik grew up fluent in Russian and Georgian and with some knowledge of Hungarian. (Tisovec had been in the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary when his father lived there.) In 1934 the Smik family moved to Czechoslovakia, initially to Hájniky near Sliač in central Slovakia and then to Bratislava.

Otto Smik DFC (20 January 1922 – 28 November 1944) was a Czechoslovak pilot who became a fighter ace in the Royal Air Force. He joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in July 1940 and was in training until the end of 1942. Between March 1943 and June 1944 he shot down 13 Luftwaffe fighter aircraft probably shot down one more and shared in the shooting down of two others. In July 1944 he shot down three V-1 flying bombs.

Smik's mother Antonina (née Davydova) was the daughter of a Russian army officer who had guarded Rudolf Smik. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Rudolf and Antonina were married and the couple lived in Borjomi in the briefly-independent Democratic Republic of Georgia, which in 1921 was taken over by the Bolsheviks and became part of the Soviet Union in 1922.