Karel Janoušek

Karel Janoušek, (30 October 1893 – 27 October 1971) was a senior Czechoslovak Air Force officer. He began his career as a soldier, serving in the Austrian Imperial-Royal Landwehr (1915–16), Czechoslovak Legion (1916–20) and Czechoslovak Army (1920–24).

In 1924 Janoušek transferred to the Czechoslovak Air Force and in 1926 he qualified as an aircraft pilot. In 1930 he co-wrote a textbook on aerial warfare tactics. In the 1930s he was a staff officer. From 1936 he studied meteorology and geophysics at the Charles University and in 1939 he was awarded a doctorate in natural sciences (RNDr).

In the Second World War Janoušek escaped first to France and then the United Kingdom. In the UK he commanded the RAF's Czechoslovak squadrons, was knighted by HM King George VI and ultimately promoted to Air Marshal. In occupied Czechoslovakia the Nazis retaliated against Janoušek's Free Czechoslovak service by jailing his wife and much of their family.

In 1945 Janoušek returned to Czechoslovakia, where he found his wife and several of their relatives had died in imprisonment. He was sidelined by the increasingly pro-Communist commanders of the Czechoslovak Air Force. After the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état Janoušek was court-martialled, sentenced to 18 years in prison and stripped of his rank, doctorate and awards. In 1949 his sentence was extended to 19 years. In 1950 it was extended to life imprisonment for a separate offence, but in 1955 this sentence was shortened to 25 years.

In 1956 Janoušek' sentences were reduced and in 1960 he was released in a Presidential amnesty. A military tribunal cancelled his convictions in the Prague Spring in 1968. Janoušek died in Prague in 1971. He was not fully rehabilitated until after the 1989 Velvet Revolution ended the Communist dictatorship.

Early life Janoušek was born in Přerov, Moravia, the second child of a clerk on the Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways. His father, also called Karel Janoušek, was a founding member of the Czech Social Democratic Party. Janoušek's mother, Adelheid, died when Janoušek was two years old. His father remarried and had another nine children by his second wife, Božena.

Janoušek completed secondary school in 1912 and then went to a German business school. He spent the first three years of his working life as a clerk in a local business that belonged to a distant relative. However, Brig Gen Vicherek was stuck in France until 27 June and did not reach Britain until 7 July. Hence for a fortnight Janoušek was the most senior Czechoslovak Air force officer in the United Kingdom. He has also been posthumously awarded the Milan Rastislav Stefanik Order Second Class. In the Czech Republic there is a General Janoušek Flying Club, which in October 2013 took part in commemorations of the 120th anniversary of Janoušek's birth.

In 2014 Janoušek's remains were exhumed from the Libeň Cemetery in Prague and on 12 May they were reinterred in the Šárka Cemetery.

Janoušek's life in the Second World War is the subject of Swedish power metal band Sabaton's song Far from the Fame, on their 2014 album Heroes.