RAF pilot Stanislav Hlučka dies at 88

One of the country's Second World War heroes, RAF pilot Stanislav Hlučka has died at the age of eighty-eight. Brigadier Hlučka, who received a number of state awards and distinctions for bravery, was arrested after the 1948 communist coup in Czechoslovakia and sentenced to a year in prison. After being released he was not allowed to return to the military and earned his living by manual labour. He was rehabilitated in the 1960s and allowed to return to the military. After the fall of communism he assisted in the rehabilitation of pilots who had been persecuted by the communists and received the Order of T. G. Masaryk.