Ceremonies in Prague pay tribute to Czechoslovak RAF pilots

Ceremonies paying tribute to the 2,500 Czechoslovak pilots who flew with the RAF during WWII took place in Prague on Thursday. People gathered at the Memorial to Czechoslovak Airmen in Prague’s Dejvice district and at the Winged Lion Memorial at Klárov Park, a gift from Prague's British expatriate community, to lay flowers and pay their respects 70 years after the country’s heroes returned to their homeland in August of 1945. Five hundred of them never returned, the rest were given a heroes’ welcome on Old Town Square, but the nation’s gratitude was short-lived. When the communists came to power in 1948 they were portrayed as enemies of the state, jailed and persecuted.