Miloslav Neuberg

* 1930  †︎ 2019

  • “On 21 August 1990 I flew to Moscow to the staff of the Warsaw Pact. My wife and I packed our duvets, pots, because we’d been given a flat with furniture, but without all of these other things. Sometime around 20 December 1990, I remember that as if it was today, President Havel was waving a leather pouch around in Prague and saying: ‘I have a stamp here, I’m now the commander-in-chief of the Warsaw Pact.’ The presidents [of the countries] took turns every two years, pro forma. ‘I promise you I’ll dissolve that Warsaw Pact as soon as possible.’ On 23 or 22 December, after four and a half months, my wife and I packed all the duvets and pots up again and flew back to Prague.”

  • “I remember one very beautiful episode. It was in April 1945. One afternoon some ten heavy Henkel 117 bombers landed at the airfield in Kbely, making a great racket. Those were the four-engine types. The next morning around nine o’clock a swarm of Mustangs flew up and shot all of the German bombers to pieces, so that the only things left were the tips of their wings and the tail.”

  • “About the third day four tanks arrived in Bechyně, some company commander. He came to me, reported to me. So I told what place I’d give him. I gave him a spot on the grass on the other side of the airfield, let him check on the running of the airbase with his tanks, but by no means should they enter the barracks because they know what the situation is. If something happened, he was to come to me. After that there was one meeting of sorts on the airfield. I remember that as if it was today, an Il-28 flew by about three times with its bomb bay open and cameras photographing what was going on. The next day the aircraft landed there.”

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Hradec Králové, 05.04.2013

    (audio)
    délka: 01:28:31
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I wasn’t a bad pilot. I survived twenty-five years of my flying

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zdroj: Archiv Miloslava Neuberga

Colonel of the General Staff (ret.) Ing. Miloslav Neuberg was born on 26 December 1930 in the colony of Čína (China) in Prague-Hloubětín, near the Kbely airbase. His father was a carpenter, he helped build the dome of the Prague planetarium. His mother was a housewife. Towards the end of World War II Miloslav Neuberg witnessed the bombing of Vysočany and the Kbely airbase. In his youth he took an interest in music, and he signed up to study at a conservatoire. However, he did not pass the entrance exams, and so he decided to choose the career of a military pilot. In 1948 he joined the Military Aviation Academy. He underwent training in Šternberk, Olomouc, and Prostějov. After completing his training he was stationed with the air force wing in Pilsen. In 1951 in Milovice he retrained to MiG-15 jet fighters and then served at the military airfield in Líní near Pilsen. In 1953 he was given the offer to study at the military academy in Monin near Moscow. He accepted this offer. He studied in the Soviet Union, where he met his future wife, until 1956. After his return he briefly functioned as deputy wing commander in Kbely, in 1957-1961 he was commander of the 4th Air Force Wing in Pardubice. He was then transferred to the airbase in Bechyně in southern Bohemia, where he was made commander of the 1st Zvolen-Ostrava Division in 1962. He was the division‘s commander during the events of August 1968, when his division‘s airfields were occupied by Soviet soldiers. At the end of August 1968 he left to Moscow for a two-year course at Voroshilov Military Academy. He returned to Czechoslovakia in 1970, and a year later he was discharged from the army for political reasons. Until his retirement in 1985 he worked in Svazarm (an association of military and technology enthusiasts) In 1990 he rejoined the army and served briefly in the Warsaw Pact staff in Moscow. In 1991 he retired a second time. He is the now chairman of the Pilots‘ Union in Hradec Králové.