10 May 2021
New inscription unites Czech couple at Brookwood
A new inscription commemorating a husband and wife killed in the same air crash has been unveiled at Brookwood Military Cemetery. In the presence of the Czech and Slovakian Ambassadors to the UK a new headstone for Flight Sergeant Zdenek Sedlak and Aircraftwoman Edita Sedlakova was rededicated yesterday, 9 May.
Zdenek served with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve 311 (Czech) Sqdn. and was killed in the same collision as his wife Edita, who served with the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). As both Zdenek and Edita served with Commonwealth forces, they are commemorated by the Commission.
Edita first arrived in the UK in July 1939 as one of hundreds of children rescued by Sir Nicholas Winton. She was taken in by a foster family and after her education, worked as a seamstress providing much needed cloth for the war effort.
Shortly after reaching conscription age, Edita enlisted with the WAAF in October 1943. Ten days after the war ended in Europe in May 1945, she married her husband Zdenek, who was then serving as a mechanic in the squadron she’d been attached to.
The pair were aboard a flight that was due to take them back to their native Czechoslovakia when it crashed shortly after take-off on 5 October 1945.
In the confusion after the crash Edita was buried in a collective grave in the civilian section of Brookwood Cemetery, while her husband was interred in the Czechoslovakian plot at the neighbouring Brookwood Military Cemetery.
The new headstone, installed at the request of the Czech Ambassador, contains a new inscription that pays tribute to both at Zdenek’s grave.
The headstone is in the distinctive style reserved for Czechoslovakian war casualties – one of more than 20 designs produced by CWGC’s headstone production unit in Beaurains, France.
His Excellency Libor Sečka, Ambassador of the Czech Republic in London, said: “The story of Edita Sedlakova reminds us of one important and often forgotten fact - that besides men, thousands of brave women played a crucial role in defeating Germany and winning the Second World War. Edita served as radio operator in the Czechoslovak 311 RAF Squadron and I am glad that with the help of CWGC, 76 years after the War, she finally received the full military honours she deserved.”
Brookwood Military Cemetery is our largest war cemetery in the UK. It contains more than 5,400 graves, including men and women from all six of our Commonwealth member nations as well as plots for Czech, Italian and Polish service personnel.