Islander honoured for liberating Czech town in 1945

Tuesday 15 June 2021

A Jersey resident has been made an Honorary Citizen of a Czech town, 76 years after he was part of the unit that liberated it from German occupation.

94-year-old Charles Strasser OBE was recently notified of the award by the Mayor of Kasejovice, a town of 1,300 people in the west of the country.

As a teenager, Mr Strasser was a dispatch rider with the Czech Independent Armoured Brigade, part of the British Army that liberated the country in 1945, before the iron curtain closed around the country.

Sharing his story, Mr Strasser told Express: “With a German invasion inevitable, I came to the UK as a refugee without my parents in 1938 and was taken in by a kind family in Bury.

"At the time, the British Government was willing to take children in as long as there was a guarantor who would be prepared to look after them until they turned 18. 

“I didn’t speak a word of English when I arrived, but I joined the local village school and college and learned the language."

Pictured: Charles Strasser with his wartime medals, including his citizenship medallion.

He continued: “Fortunately, my parents got out too and joined me. My father had worked for a pottery manufacturer in Czechoslovakia, so they moved to Stoke on Trent, where I joined them after a year of being in England.

“I went to junior technical school there, but I joined the army as soon as I turned 17 in late 1944.

“My unit, the Czech Independent Armoured Brigade, was part of the British Army and I was first posted to Dunkirk in early 1945. The Germans in the town had refused to surrender and it had been under siege for months. They were virtual prisoners but didn’t surrender until after VE Day.

“Before then, however, we had left the French coast to move into Germany and towards Czechoslovakia, taking all the army vehicles back. I was a despatch rider at the head of a 50-vehicle convoy, and we were the first Allied unit to enter the town of Kasejovice after six years of German occupation.

“At Yalta, the Allies had agreed that Czechoslovakia would fall within Russian influence but at the time there was a demarcation line between Prague and Pilsen with the British on one side and the Russians on the other. 

“I was given a pass to go into the Russian-controlled zone to look for relatives in my hometown, but no one was left so I came back.”

After helping to round up German soldiers fleeing the Russian zone, Mr Strasser was given permission to take leave back in England, but he stopped at an Allied transit camp in Nuremburg. By this time, the war crimes investigations and trials had started and - being fluent in English, German and Czech - he joined the Czech war-crimes delegation, helping to investigate and prosecute war crimes committed in the country.

After demobbing back to England, Mr Strasser started a photography business in Newcastle-under-Lyme. An agent for a German camera manufacturer, he travelled around the UK but realised it would be far easier flying himself around the country, so he earned his pilot’s licence.

It was the flying connection that bought him to Jersey, as in the 1950s the Island’s International Air Rally was a highpoint on the general aviation calendar. 

Wanting a holiday home by the sea, he bought a cottage at Anne Port and then retired to the Island when his business listed on the stock exchange. 

He still lives in the same property and is still strongly associated with flying in Jersey. He remains Vice-President of the Vice President at Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and only gave up flying last year, aged 93, when he could no longer “tick all the boxes” on the medical questionnaire.

Mr Strasser said: “I am honoured to become a Citizen of Kasejovice. Due to the virus travel restrictions, the ceremonial award has had to be postponed but in the meantime I have received a certificate of the Honorary Citizenship and a medallion.” 

Pictured top: Mr Strasser astride a BSA motorcycle in 1945