in French-ruled Lebanon. French Air Force In Beirut, staff of the Czechoslovak Embassy came to meet them and explained their only options were to either join the French Foreign Legion or be deported to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The four airmen joined the legion at the local barracks. A week later the four embarked on a Messageries Maritimes cargo ship, the Theophile Gautier, which landed them at Marseille on 20 October 1939. They continued training at the Foreign Legion base in Marseille. A Polish sergeant recognised their Polish war decorations and helped to get them released to join the new Free Polish Air Force at le Bourget. Once in France, escaped Czechoslovak airmen were being retrained to fly l'Armée d'Air equipment. Košař was a naturalised Polish citizen but with Balejka, František and Pavlovič went to see the Czechoslovak Air Attaché to ask to be transferred to join fellow Czechoslovaks in l'Armée d'Air. The attaché accused them of deserting the Foreign Legion, so František accused the Czechoslovak Air Force of failing to evacuate its aircraft to Poland when Germany invaded in March 1939, whereupon the attaché called the French police. The police found the trio's Polish military identity documents to be in order and refused to arrest them. Balejka, František and Pavlovič remained with their Free Polish units. František was posted to a Polish airbase at Clermont-Ferrand where he served as a mechanic. He tried to learn to fly as many types of French aircraft as he could. He also got into trouble several times for going absent without leave. There are no official French records to confirm he flew combat missions during the Battle of France, though some older sources credit him with 11 victories: nine in the air and two on the ground. In his home town of Otaslavice there is a museum in his memory and its collection of his medals includes a Croix de Guerre. His French Air Force records are known to have been destroyed, so there is no official confirmation of whether or why the cross was awarded to him. Royal Air Force After France surrendered, František fled to Britain and after training on 2 August was assigned to Polish No. 303 Squadron based at RAF Northolt, flying Hawker Hurricane fighters. František was used to obsolescent aircraft with fixed landing gear, and on 8 August at the end of a training flight, he