Second World War hero Antonin Spacek dies at 89

One of the country's biggest Second World War heroes RAF pilot Antonin Spacek has died at the age of eighty-nine. Like other war veterans who flew with the RAF he met with a sad fate after his return to post-war Czechoslovakia. After the communist putsch in 1948 he attempted to flee the country with his family in order to escape communist persecution but only his British born wife and child got out. Antonin Spacek was sentenced to ten years in a show trial and sent to work in the uranium mines. After the fall of communism in 1989 he was rehabilitated and awarded the rank of major general. Antonin Spacek was chairman of the Czechoslovak Legionaries Union and in 2006 he received the highest state distinction - the Order of the White Lion.