Cemetery: Brookwood Military Cemetery
Country: England
Area: Surrey
Rank: Flight Sergeant (Flt. Engr.)
Force: Royal Air Force
Official Number: 787650
Unit: 311 (Czech) Sqdn.
Country of Service: British
Details:
5th October 1945. Age 33. Of Czechoslovakia. 28.D.13 His wife, LAC Edita Sedlakova WAAF, who died in the same air accident, is commemorated on this headstone and buried in Brookwood Cemetery.
The story of Zdeneks death along with his wife Edita. A recent change is that Edita has now had her name engraved on his headstone.
Editas Story:
She died on 5th October 1945 aged 19. Wife of Flight Sergeant Zdenek Sedlack . Both were killed when their plane crashed soon after take off at Blackbushe , Hampshire.
On 4 October 1945 LACW 1st Class, Edita Sedlákova, a ground-based wireless-operator with 311 Sqn was due to fly to Prague on board Liberator GR VI, PP-N which was repatriating Czechoslovak refugees from Blackbushe, England back to their homeland. Her husband was Zdenek Sedlák, a Flight Engineer, on that flight.
Due to technical difficulties the flight was re-scheduled to the following day. However, the following day Edita and another Czech RAF airman were told that they were unable to travel on that flight as their seats had been allocated to two other passengers.
It is known that Edita had already arranged to meet her brother at Ruzně airport, Prague as they both wanted to search for any family members who may have survived German occupation in Czechoslovakia. Whilst exact details will now never be known, it is believed that this was the motivation for her urgent need to get to Prague and with her husband being a crew member this gave an alternative opportunity to get on board the aircraft so she was effectively a ‘stowaway’ and not on the official manifest.
At 12:43 hrs the Liberator, crewed by pilot – P/O Jaroslav Kudláček, co-pilot: W/O Antonín Brož, navigator: P/O Karel Rybníček, Wireless Operator: F/O Bohumil Vaverka, Flight Engineer: F/Sgt Zdeněk Sedlák, took-off with 17 passengers including 9 women and 5 children .
Within a few minutes of take-off a fire broke out around the inner-port engines. The pilots tried to return the stricken aircraft back to Blackbushe, but about 1½ miles short of the airfield; it developed a steep turn to port. With the port wing facing down it was diving at an angle of 30 deg. At high speed, the port wing tip clipped a hedgerow which caused the aircraft to spin, the port engine then hit the ground causing the aircraft to cartwheel, disintegrate and burst into flames when it hit the ground. All 5 crew and 17 passengers including Edita, the stowaway, were killed.
The Military crew were interred in the Czechoslovak section at the CWGC cemetery at Brookwood, Surrey and the passengers were interred in a communal grave in the civilian section of that cemetery.
Edita Sedlakova was also buried in this communal grave despite being a serving WAAF. However, this anomaly obviously occurred as Edita was technically illegally on board the aircraft which probably confused the rescuers.
Photograph by Steve Rogers / Norman Brice
