YOUTH

As a young boy, he grew up in a financially quite well situated family. He was healthy and smart and it seemed that he would have no problems studying the branch he was most interested in. He did well at school. He liked science, later medicine.

Young Mr J.Z.

He was talented in many fields but the family's later financial situation only enabled vocational training. Then Mr J.Z. was called to the army and his military service in Prague Kbely, where air crew was situated, commenced. Do not imagine any modern polished machines, our first aviator Kašpar had just flown for the first time.

During one of our meetings, Mr J.Z. made me laugh with a story about when, as a young soldier, he was, together with some other fellows, sent for wood for heating. They were supposed to take an axe, go to the nearest combed out plane and dismantle it. In those days, planes used to be made of wood and canvas. The punchline is that they mistakenly chose a plane in ‘active service’. Unintentionally they caused a bigger damage to the Czechoslovak air force than a prospective enemy.