The flight commander initially assessed Jaroslav Doktor as a very good pilot, but due to frequent disciplinary problems between 1931 and 1933, he received six sentences and served exactly 100 days in military prison.This last sentence meant the end of his Czechoslovak Air Force career. He was demoted to the rank of Vojín ( Private} on September 22, 1933, transferred to reserve flight at the end of the month he and finally dismissed from the flying staff on 6 October.
From 15 April 1940, he continued with training at Châteauroux airbase, from where the training unit was evacuated on 10 June to Tarbes airfield. On 16 June, Caporal-Chef Doctor was assigned to the operational unit “DASO” at Châteauroux. According to his training, it can be assumed that he was assigned to the Groupe de Bombardement d’assaut GBA II/35, which at that time served as an operational training unit with Breguet 693 aircraft. On June 19, he left Bordeaux aboard the Dutch ship Karanan and two days later landed in Falmouth, England.
On 26 April, 1941, the Doktor’s crew bombed Hamburg and had problems with navigation on their return due to a malfunction of the wireless set. When the Wellington began to run short of fuel, Sgt Doktor made a forced landing, at 03.59, with undercarriage down approximately 3.5 km northwest of the village of Wetherby, Yorkshire. During the landing, the aircraft stood on its nose and the fuselage under the front turret was damaged, resulting in the Wellington having to be dismantled and taken for repair. Apart from second pilot Sgt Miroslav Styblík suffering a bumped knee, the remaining crew members escaped unharmed.
That he did not have a single accident as a pilot during his service in Lichfield speaks highly of his pilot qualities. However, on October 5, 1942, he flew as a passenger in a Beaufighter Mk.VI EL457 piloted by Polish pilot F/O Władysław Radwański (service number P-1006), who crashed on landing from a test flight. The pilot escaped unharmed, Sgt Doktor suffered injuries to both knees.
His first assignment with No. 1 ADF on 14 September – to fly Mustang Mk.I AG356 belonging to No. 239 Squadron from Hornchurch to No. 430 Squadron to Gatwick. Shortly after takeoff at 16.45 he crashed in a short distance from the airport at Dover’s Farm near Rainham, Essex. He managed to get out of the cockpit before the plane was engulfed in flames, and with injured elbows and knees he was taken to Rush Green Hospital at Romford, Essex.
He commenced treatment of injuries he had suffered during the war and from 19 September 1945 he was posted to the Czechoslovak depot at Cosford, with the remark that he was ill and awaiting repatriation. He arrived in Prague on 16 November 1945, at 15.50 aboard No. 311 Squadron Liberator GR Mk.VI EW295 “PP- E” with Captained by F/O Arnošt Jedounek. After return to his homeland Lt. Doctor was posted to the 1st Air Reserve Regiment based at Prague-Kbely.
On 31 January 1946, he demobilised and re-joined ČSA as a commercial pilot. On 6 March, he was awarded the Czechoslovak Za zásluhy (Medal of Merit) grade I. He flew for the first time on 9 April as a co-pilot with Captain Stanislav Huňáček on a Junkers Ju 52 OK-TDI with fifteen passengers on the route Prague – Bratislava. His maiden flight on a foreign route was the flight to Zurich on the Ju 52 OK-ZDO with Captain Ladislav Světlík on 17 May. He then moved to Dakotas and as a co-pilot flew to Amsterdam, Brussels, London and Paris. He flew for the first time, as a Captain, on Dakota OK-XDG to Brussels on 6 September. Before the end of 1946, he received other awards for his war military service – he was awarded his third and fourth válečný kříž 1939 (Czechoslovak War Cross 1939), both on 5 October.
In 1947, he added Athens, Belgrade, Brindisi, Hamburg, Cairo, Copenhagen, Oslo, Rome, Tel Aviv, Zadar and Zagreb to his list of foreign destinations and flew virtually all the Dakotas in the ČSA fleet. In February 1948, his daughter Jaroslava was born, but otherwise the “Victorious February” – the Communist take-over of Czechoslovakia – did not bode anything good for him. After returning from London on 25 February, he did not fly again until 10 March, but then he was allowed to return to flying foreign routes. The turning point came on 11 July 11 1948, when he was “grounded” after returning from London. He was not permitted to resume flying until 1 November, 1948, but only on domestic routes and only with an armed member of the Sboru národní bezpečnosti (National Security Corps) on board.
The final “grounding” came on 28 April 1949 after his return from Košice and on 30 September 1949 he was dismissed from ČSA. On 9 December 1949, the Ministry of National Defense informed him that he had been demoted to the rank of a Private in reserve. As a former RAF pilot, he had a problem finding a job, only on 30 May 1950, he joined the municipal company Autoslužba in Prague in the position of a machine operator – cylinder grinder. In April 1958, he was anle to get new employment as a clerk in the Department of Safety at Work at the headquarters of the Autoopravna company in Prague, from where he retired on 1 April 1966. On 15 November 1963, he sent a request for rehabilitation to the Ministry of National Defense, his previous rank was re-instated and received a further promotion to Major (retired). In 1968 he participated as a consultant in the filming of “Nebeští jezdci” [Riders in the Sky] film and in one of the scenes, he played an RAF officer walking in a funeral procession.
Jaroslav Doktor, who had flown over 4,562 hours in the cockpits of more than fifty-five different types of aircraft, died on 13 August 1986.
As a part of political and moral rehabilitation, he was promoted, in memoriam, to the rank of plukovníka [Colonel] on 17 June 1991. The British awards he received were the 1939–1945 Star, Air Crew Europe Star with France & Germany Clasp, War Medal and Defense Medal. In the spring of 2015, his family received the Bomber Command Clasp for his 1939–1945 Star.
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