Ernst Valenta was a member of the Royal Air Force murdered by the Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 in March 1944.

Capture

Valenta's final flight was a mission in a Vickers Wellington

Vickers Wellington

The Vickers Wellington was a British twin-engine, long range medium bomber designed in the mid-1930s at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey, by Vickers-Armstrongs' Chief Designer, R. K. Pierson. It was widely used as a night bomber in the early years of the Second World War, before being displaced as a...

 Mk.IC, operated by No. 311 Squadron RAF

No. 311 Squadron RAF

No. 311 Squadron RAF was a Czechoslovakian-manned bomber squadron of the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.It was first formed at Honington on 29 July 1940, equipped with Wellington I bombers and crewed mostly by escaped Czechslovakian aircrew. It was transferred from Bomber Command to...

, a Czechoslovakian manned bomber squadron. He departed from the airport at East Wretham on February 6, 1941 for a mission to Boulogne. He was force-landed and his aircraft was captured intact at an unknown location. The Wellington was later flown by the Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

 at its Experimental and Test Facility at Rechlin

Rechlin

Rechlin is a municipality in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. The town's airport has a long history and was the Luftwaffe's main testing ground for new aircraft designs during the Third Reich....

.

The Great Escape

Valenta was one of 50 men killed following a mass escape from Stalag Luft III

Stalag Luft III

Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war camp during World War II that housed captured air force servicemen. It was in the German Province of Lower Silesia near the town of Sagan , southeast of Berlin...

 prisoner of war camp in World War II. The camp was located in Sagan

Sagan

-Places:* German name of Żagań, Poland and the Silesian Duchy of Żagań* Sagan, Ethiopia* The Sagan River of Ethiopia* Şağan, Azerbaijan-People:* Carl Sagan, American astronomer, science writer, and advocate for rationalism and skepticism...

 (now Żagań) in Poland.

Reportedly, he was amongst early pairs of escapees from the tunnel during the escape attempt of March 24, 1944. Recaptured in the Gorlitz

Görlitz

Görlitz is a town in Germany. It is the easternmost town in the country, located on the Lusatian Neisse River in the Bundesland of Saxony. It is opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was a part of Görlitz until 1945. Historically, Görlitz was in the region of Upper Lusatia...

 area and last seen alive on March 31, 1944, he was amongst a group of ten RAF officers in the charge of Oberregierungsrat Walter Scharpwinkel.

Fifty of the recaptured escapees were murdered

Stalag Luft III murders

The Stalag Luft III murders was a war crime perpetrated by members of the Gestapo following the "Great Escape" of Allied prisoners of war from the German Air Force prison camp known as Stalag Luft III on March 25, 1944. Of a total of 76 successful escapees, 73 were recaptured, mostly within days of...

 by the Gestapo on Hitler's orders.

Nationalities of the 50 executed

21 British

Canada 6 Canadian

6 Polish

5 Australian

3 South African

2 New Zealanders

2 Norwegian

1 Belgian

1 Czechoslovak

1 Frenchman

1 Greek

1 Lithuanian Romualdas Marcinkus Romualdas Marcinkus was a Lithuanian pilot. Marcinkus participated in an early trans-European flight on 25 June 1934, and was the only Lithuanian pilot to serve in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War...

Other crew

• P/O 82541 F. Cigos, RAF PoW No.402
• Sgt 787198 P. Uraba, RAF PoW No.450
• P/O 82588 E. Busina, PAF PoW No.401
• Sgt 787232 G. Kopal, RAF PoW No.441
• P/O 82903 K. Krizek, RAF PoW No.407

External links

• http://www.praha14.cz/MC/letci/valenta.html