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The story of Army General Rudolf Pernický


    Part 4 :General Rudolf Pernický (retired) – The Story of one of the Czechoslovak Parachutists


Every one of the young men who had participated in rigorous training in the Scottish Highlands has his own very personal story to tell. The best of them were chosen for uncertain and risky operations in the Protectorate or elsewhere in Europe. Many of them died on operations, hunted by the enemy or in the line of fire, yet they all contributed to the final defeat of Nazism in Europe. Some of them, unfortunately, were unable to withstand the pressures of life behind enemy lines and collaborated.

Those, who were lucky and survived the war, had to face a new totalitarian regime a few years later. They were considered an „unhealthy burden“ and were dealt with accordingly. Some managed to flee abroad once more. Others stayed and after February 1948 they found themselves isolated, at best, or at worst, faced political show trials and were sentenced to many years of imprisonment or even death.

One of those whose journey to freedom lasted an incredible 50 years (1939-1989) was General Rudolf Pernický (retired), the man whose motto was: „I found any dictatorship of the 20th century unacceptable – both the brown one and later the red one.“

Božena Pernická, Rudolf Pernický’s mother with her children. From left Rudolf, Miroslava and Olga.

Rudolf Pernický was born on 1st July 1915 at Krhová near Valašské Meziříčí. Thanks to his father, a grammar school teacher and a great patriot, he developed his love for Czechoslovakia´s First Republic. He rejected his parents´ wish to continue the family´s teaching tradition and instead he decided to join the army. The reason, in his own words, was „an enthusiasm for patriotic struggle.“ His love of horses led him to enlist in an artillery regiment. After completing officer cadet training, he was posted to Artillery Regiment 108 at Hranice na Moravě.

During the increasingly worsening political situation between 1937-1938 he attended and graduated from the Military Academy and was promoted to the rank of artillery lieutenant. Munich deeply shocked him. This mere word often led him to ask himself the question whether Czechoslovakia should not have had rejected the Diktat of the Superpowers.



Like many other young men, he found the consequent developments, which culminated in the Nazi occupation of Bohemia and Moravia, unacceptable. He therefore decided to go abroad, where he believed he would be able to fight for the restoration of the Republic he loved. Towards the end of June 1939 he crossed the border into Poland with the help of the illegal Falcon organization, at Morávka, hidden in the wagon of a coal train. After a ten day internment at Prostřední Bludowice, Poland, he reported for duty at the Czech Consulate in Krakow. At that time in the summer of 1939 the only possibility for Czechoslovak volunteers to stand against Nazi Germany was to join the French Foreign Legion. Rudolf Pernický signed up for five years and left from Polish Gdynia on board the steamship Chrobrý towards the end of July 1939.

He found his way to elite legionnaire troops in North Africa via France and the famous Fort Saint Jean of Marseille. When France went to war with Germany, Czechoslovak soldiers, including Rudolf Pernický, were released from their obligation to serve in the Legion, based on an earlier agreement, and were allowed to return to southern France where a new Czechoslovak army in exile was being formed. Because of a lack of equipment, Pernický´s artillery troops could not fight the Nazi war machine directly and had to merely observe the fall of the host country from a distance. Following an agreement with the British, Czechoslovak soldiers were evacuated ro UK territory from France, which had now undergone German occupation. Like others Rudolf Pernický sailed on board the colliery ship Northmoor from Séte in southern France.



At the beginning of January 1942 he was approached by Staff Captain Jaroslav Šustr from the 2nd Department (Intelligence) of the Ministry of National Defence-in-Exile and asked if he would be willing to return „home“ to carry out missions in the occupied motherland. Rudolf Pernický agreed and thus started on another adventure. He volunteered for parachute training.

He successfully completed the basic training as a future parachutist. For his excellent sniper skills he was selected to become an instructor for other fighting volunteers. Until 1944 he worked as an instructor with Special Group D, one of sub-sections of the 2nd Department of the Czechoslovak MND in exile, tasked with the training of future Czechoslovak parachutists for special operations in the enemy backyard. He trained many young men who were getting ready for their hazardous task in the occupied motherland.



In 1944 Rudolf Pernický was chosen for a special operation. He did not hesitate and immediately accepted the mission. The main task of the Operation code-named Tungsten, planned jointly by Czechoslovak intelligence officers and SIS, was to act as a reception party for special flights, personnel and equipment. The target of the operation, to be carried out by two men, was the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands (Českomoravská vrchovina). Leopold Musil, a Staff Sergeant, was Rudolf Pernický´s comrade-at-arms.

After the final briefing, equipped with operational materials and instructions, Pernický and Musil were transported to Bari, Italy, in September 1944. After a failed attempt to drop them on 7 October and the postponement of November flights, they were called up on 21 December 1944. They took off, jointly with the Embassy Group, on board a Halifax bomber from Brindisi Airport on their mission to Central Europe. This time they succeeded. The two-man Tungsten Group landed on Protectorate territory one hour before midnight.

The two parachutists were, however, unlucky. Instead of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands they landed on fields near the village of Libenice by Kutná Hora. They only discovered where they were the following evening. They found out that their intended site of operation at Studnice near Nové Město na Moravě was 80 km away – a seven night long march along forestry roads and through snowdrifts. Exhausted, hungry and frostbitten, they managed to reach their contact address, Cyril Musil, a resistance fighter. They fullfilled the task given to them in Great Britain.

They were locating suitable landing sites for cargo drops and passed on their precise position, together with information on Protectorate life and strategically important intelligence on the deployment of German troops via couriers to the hideout of the Calcium Group, who in turn transmitted these to the Allies. The greatest achievement of Tungsten was the successful drop of an Allied cargo and the parachutist Pavel Hromko, code-named Operation Bauxite on 22 March 1945.



Pernický spent the final months of the war as District Military Commander at Nové Město na Moravě. He was tasked with the co-ordination of activities hindering the retreat of Nazi troops. He was also a liaison officer with the approaching Red Army. In the final days of the war he helped to protect hamlets and isolated settlements near Polička against raids of desperate German deserters.

Rudolf Pernický´s resistance did not even end after 1945. As a pre-war army officer he remained on active service. He married and graduated from the University of Military Warfare. After the Communist takeover, he was arrested on 1.11.1948 and charged with subversive activities. On 3.3.1949, after several months of harsh interrogation, he was sentenced to 20 years hard labour and the loss of his military rank, decorations and all civic rights for 10 years.



He first found himself at Plzeň-Bory Prison. He also tasted „the comfort“ of the Military Penitentiary at Opava. Except for a one-year stay at Leopoldov, he served most of his sentence working underground in the uranium mines in Western Bohemia. He passed through famous prison camps in the Jachymov and Příbram areas. In 1960 while in the Correctional Work Camp at Bytíz, he was granted a pardon and his sentence ended.

He returned home, believing that he was finally free. It was, however, not to be so simple. The persecution of the Communist regime continued until the Velvet Revolution of 1989. Pernický toiled in the brickworks at Libčice; he worked at a chemist´s shop in Prague and as a pensioner he earned extra money in the boiler room of the Máj Department Store in Prague.



In 1989 his life finally changed for the better. He was fully restored to his former position, promoted to the rank of army General in retirement and decorated with the Order of Milan Rastislav Štefánik. He became the co-founder and the first chairman of the Confederation of Political Prisoners. On 28 October 2005 his active life reached its peak when he received the highest state order – The Order of the White Lion. On that occasion he proved his reputation as a fighter extraordinaire – he received it in person although merely a fortnight earlier he had undergone a serious operation (the amputation of his left leg due to advanced diabetes) in the Central Military Hospital in Prague -Střešovice.

He was, however, not able to relish this high honour for long. His health deteriorated. On 21.12.2005 for the first time in his life he had no strength left to overcome his enemy. It seems highly symbolic that General Rudolf Pernický died on the same day and at nearly the same hour sixty one years after he had jumped from his plane over the snow-covered Protectorate. His story is to a degree, the story of 20th century Czechoslovakia, a contrasting tale of happiness and sadness, democracy and resistance to totalitarianism.