Background
Špaček was born in Brzice in Bohemia.
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Career
He served an apprenticeship as an electrician. After flying school, he joined the Czechoslovak Air Force in the 1930s. He fled to Poland after the Nazi invasion in June 1939, and then escaped to France, where he served with French Air Force in 1940.
After the fall of France, he moved to Britain and joined the Royal Air Force as a fighter pilot in June 1940.
Špaček initially joined Number. 312 Squadron Royal Air Force, but moved to Number.
313 Squadron Royal Air Force in 1941, flying Spitfires with many other exiled Czechoslovakian and Slovak pilots. Špaček was injured in 1940 and survived three air crashes during World World War World War II Špaček took part in close air support for the Doctorate-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944.
Špaček returned to Czechoslovakia after the end of World World War II, but was expelled from the army when the Communists took power in Czechoslovakia in 1948.
He once again left Czechoslovakia in 1949 and took his family into exile in Canada, where he operated a petrol station. Špaček remained in exile until the fall of the Communist government of Czechoslovakia in 1989. He returned to the Czechoslovakian Republic from Canada in 1993, and was promoted to the rank of brigadier general.
Otto Špaček died at the age of 89.
His funeral took place in Prague.
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Born
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Died
September 24, 2007 (aged 89)