The Free Czechoslovak Army made their home in Leamington during the Second World War following the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany. Located in the Jephson Gardens is this monument to the brave Czech soldiers who were trained by the British for a Special Ops to try and assassinate Heidrich, the head of the German Security Service. The team spent many weeks in Prague lodging with members of the Czechoslovak Underground while they worked out how they might kill him. On the morning of 27 May 1942, his chauffeur-driven Mercedes staff car was hijacked by the team on a sharp bend in a road in Prague. Josef Gabcik levelled his sten gun at Heydrich from close range but the gun failed to fire and Jan Kubis who was the back-up man instinctively lobbed one of his two impact grenades into the car. After a wild-west type shoot out, Kubis and Gabick managed to escape from the scene on foot and by bicycle and went into hiding in Prague in safe houses. Heydrich was seriously injured by fragments of the exploding impact grenade and although he was speedily taken to a nearby hospital, he died of septicaemia on 4 June. The men who had taken part in the successful assassination were at length sheltered in the crypt of the church of St Cyril & Methodius in central Prague along with colleagues who had been parachuted into the region on previous covert missions. Unfortunately, their location was betrayed to the Gestapo by a fellow Czechoslovak soldier and at dawn on 18 June 1942. The church was besieged by seven hundred Waffen SS troops The paratroopers defended themselves until all of their ammunition had been used save for the last few bullets with which they each committed suicide by shooting themselves in the temple rather then being captured by the SS troops. There have been a couple of films made of this operation.... Anthropoid, and Operation Daybreak
