About Author

PAVEL VANČATA is a respected Czech aviation historian, author and journalist specializing in Czechoslovaks who served in the RAF in World War 2. Books authored by him are: Mechanikem RCAF (2002), Klikař Roger (2004), RCAF bylo jejich osudem (2008), Letec po hvězdách (2009), Z deníku radiotelegrafisty (2013), 311 Squadron (2013 in English), Moonlight Flyer (2016 in English), Říkali mu Zeke (2017), Poslední let Wellingtonu T2624 (2018), Vocelovej (2020) and Velitel palubních mechaniků (2023).

His writings are noted for their meticulous and extensive research into the subject often uncovering new facts and photographs. Pavel’s research sources include his extensive private archive, personal contact with many of those who served in the RAF or their families, either in the Czech Republic or from elsewhere in the world as well as archives in the Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.

Between 2003 and 2007 he made numerous research trips to the United Kingdom to visit RAF airfields, cemeteries, museums, and also Czechoslovak RAF veterans living there. Amongst Pavel’s most memorable achievements from these trips was in May 2007 when he visited the crash site of the Oxford PH404 aircraft, from 311 (Czechoslovak) Squadron, which had crashed at Beinn a-B'huird in the Cairngorm mountains, Scotland, on 10^th January 1945.

He is Prague born and bred and in 2003 graduated as a Telecommunication Engineer from the České vysoké učení technické (Czech Technical University) in Prague. He worked many years as a Technical Support Manager in an international telecommunication company and he is currently employed as a Release Manager in a bank.