Colonel Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of ...

Jaroslav Šrámek (3 May 1929 – 16 February 2015 Pilot Jaroslav Šrámek nás opustil
Airmen Association of the Czech Republic.) was a Czechoslovak

fighter pilot A fighter pilot is a military aviator trained to engage in air-to-air combat, air-to-ground combat and sometimes electronic warfare while in the cockpit of a fighter aircraft. Fighter pilots undergo specialized training in aerial warfare and ...

, active during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

. He is known as the only pilot from the

Czechoslovak Air Force The Czechoslovak Air Force (''Československé letectvo'') or the Czechoslovak Army Air Force (''Československé vojenské letectvo'') was the air force branch of the Czechoslovak Army formed in October 1918. The armed forces of Czechoslovakia ce ...

ever to have shot down an enemy jet-propelled plane. He flew more than 2,000 operational hours during his career, which spanned 1951 to 1989.

Career

Early career

Šrámek had an interest in aviation from a young age, making

model aircraft A model aircraft is a small unmanned aircraft. Many are replicas of real aircraft. Model aircraft are divided into two basic groups: flying and non-flying. Non-flying models are also termed static, display, or shelf models. Aircraft manufactur ...

as a child. After graduating from secondary school, he attended the Czechoslovak Air Force Academy, a move which began his career in aviation.

Air battle over Merklín

On 10 March 1953, Lt. Šrámek (5th Fighter Regiment, 2nd Squadron,

Plzeň Plzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, in German ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the Statutory city (Czech Republic), fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 169,000 inhabita ...

-Líně air base) had been flying close to the town of

Domažlice Domažlice (; german: Taus) is a town in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 11,000 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument reservation. Administrative parts The tow ...

in the west of Bohemia. His unit was assigned to patrol the edge of Czechoslovak airspace, close to the frontier with

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

. Šrámek, who was flying a

MiG-15 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (russian: Микоя́н и Гуре́вич МиГ-15; USAF/DoD designation: Type 14; NATO reporting name: Fagot) is a jet fighter aircraft developed by Mikoyan-Gurevich for the Soviet Union. The MiG-15 was one of ...

, encountered two American

F-84 Thunderjet The Republic F-84 Thunderjet was an American turbojet fighter-bomber aircraft. Originating as a 1944 United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) proposal for a "day fighter", the F-84 first flew in 1946. Although it entered service in 1947, the Thu ...

planes above Merklín, a small village within Czechoslovak territory. The two American aircraft split, and one escaped. The remaining craft was piloted by Lt. Warren G. A. Brown, a veteran of the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

. No missiles were fired; Šrámek fired two cannon shots. The American plane sustained two hits, with the second one, from the N-37 cannon, causing a fire to break out. Brown

ejected Ejection or Eject may refer to: * Ejection (sports), the act of officially removing someone from a game * Eject (''Transformers''), a fictional character from ''The Transformers'' television series * "Eject" (song), 1993 rap rock single by Sense ...

from the aircraft, which crash-landed in German territory, near

Falkenstein, Bavaria Falkenstein is a municipality in the district of Cham in Bavaria in Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and th ...

, approximately from the border, and survived.

Late career

Later in his career, Šrámek became the first Czechoslovak to fly the

MiG-23 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-23; NATO reporting name: Flogger) is a variable-geometry fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau in the Soviet Union. It is a third-generatio ...

. He flew in the Czechoslovak Air Force until the 1980s, where he piloted

aircraft. He described the MiG-23 as the best aircraft he had flown, because "it was the fastest". Šrámek ended his career with a total of 2,353 flight hours.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sramek, Jaroslav 2015 deaths 1929 births Military personnel of the Cold War Czechoslovak Air Force officers