Jindřich Svoboda (May 23, 1917[1] – January 17, 1942) was a Czech colonel in memoriam, a captain of the bomber of the 311th Squadron RAF.
Jindřich Svoboda was born in Jungmann’s Street in Třebíč. Then his family moved to Zámostí where they lived in No. 119. He was a member of the Junák association (Association of Scouts and Guides of the Czech Republic) and his nick was Horse.[2] In the year 1936 he attended the Military Aviation School in Prostějov.[2] When the Czech country was in danger he joined the air force as a volunteer.
On 24 January 1940 Svoboda went to Slovakia and from there he travelled via Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Syria and North Africa to France and then to Great Britain where he was trained as a bomber pilot. He accomplished 24 battle flights in total, 16 of them as a captain.
His last flight was raid on Bremen. Their Vickers Wellington was shot down and crashed in the Nederlands.[1] J. Svoboda, J. Brož and R. Mašek died while K. Batelka, Z. Sichrovský and J. Šnajdr survived. Jindřich Svoboda is buried in the military cemetery at Vredenhof in Tilburg in Nederlands.
The Junák association of Třebíč[3] and in 2003 the footbridge in Třebíč[1] are named after him. In 2006 a commemorative plaque was unveiled on the townhall building in Třebíč in memory of aviators of the RAF who were born in Třebíč.