THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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PRAGUE, Czech Republic - A man considered one of the best Czech fighter pilots of the Second World War has died.

Maj.-Gen. Stanislav Hlucka was 88.

The Czech Defence Ministry said Wednesday that Hlucka died in Prague's military hospital overnight.

Hlucka was born Oct 19, 1919, in the eastern village of Blazovice, but fled what was then Czechoslovakia in advance of the Nazi occupation.

He joined the Royal Air Force and in May 1943, became part of the RAF's No. 313 Czechoslovak Fighter Squadron. The following year, he moved to the Soviet Union to join the 1st Czechoslovak Fighter Squadron.

After the Communists took power in Czechoslovakia in 1948, Hlucka was arrested and sentenced to a one-year prison term in 1949. He was not allowed to return to the army until the 1960s.

Officers who fought in the West during in the war were expelled from the Czech army and many were arrested and imprisoned by the communist regime.

Hlucka later received many Czech, Slovak and British state and military decorations.