POWs Armed To the Teeth

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During the fights in the northern Africa, Jan Šanovec experienced, according to his words, a very strange occurrence with the Italians. The Australian division captured over a hundred thousand Italian soldiers and their weaponry as well. The Australians begged the Czechoslovaks to transfer the captives from Tobruk to Alexandria. Jan Šanovec was assigned ten men with few weapons. When he saw the whole captured Italian brigade, he was thrown off his balance: “They had armored cars, cannons and everything. And I said: ‛Jeez, what about those weapons?’ They guided me through, showed me those cars. Of course inside they had ammunition for their machine guns and cartridges for the guns. And then we could set off.” Jan Šanovec and the ten poorly equipped soldiers transferred the Italian prisoners of war armed to the teeth to Alexandria. Šanovec recalls: “We did not have to take care of them, they watched for themselves. In the evening they always sang a song and that was all. They were glad they are captured and do not have to fight.”

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Lieutenant Colonel Jan Šanovec

Jan Šanovec was born in Prague. Even before the outbreak of the war he studied at the War College and during the mobilization of the Czechoslovak army he commanded a battery of the 30th reserve regiment. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the German army he crossed the border with Poland. However, after the German attack on Poland he fled to Romania. He was caught by the Soviets on the run. Afterwards he was supposed to continue to France but instead he headed to the Middle East where he fought in Syria, Lebanon and Tobruk. Later he sailed on a ship around Africa to England where he became a cryptographer in the intelligence group of František Moravec. He re-entered Czechoslovakia on May 5, 1945, as a soldier of the 2nd infantry division of the U.S. army. He saw the end of fighting in Pilsen. After the war he went to the Military Academy and became an army intelligence officer. Later he served with the Battalion command in Pilsen. In 1948 he was dismissed from army service for alleged "anti-Soviet activities" during the war and shortly afterwards arrested and imprisoned. He was kept in solitary confinement in a prison in Mladá Boleslav for half a year. From Mladá Boleslav he was transferred to Mírov. Due to a lack of evidence he was only sentenced to two years of forced-labor camp in 1950. After his release from the camp he worked in a paper mill. He was rehabilitated in 1968 and promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

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Tobruk

Available in: English | Česky

The North-African port of Tobruk was the cause of a number of battles of WW2. The city was captured repeatedly by both sides. In October 1941, units of the Czechoslovak Army under Lt Col Karel Klapálek also took part in the defense of the city.