The Škoda works — the factory the parachutists helped target

From engineering works to wartime target

1859–1942

Škoda’s enterprise had grown for decades before the raid.

The works originated with the relocation of Waldstein’s engineering factory to Plzeň in 1859–1860. Emil Škoda took it over in 1869, and a large new industrial site developed around the turn of the century. The factory made civilian machinery and armaments; after the Czech lands were occupied, it also served German weapons production. For Allied aircraft, it was an important but distant and difficult target to locate.

Parachute teams prepare together

April 1942

Ground assistance was intended to help British crews find the works.

Czechoslovak parachutists helped prepare the CANONBURY raid. ANTHROPOID and OUT DISTANCE members met at Václav Král’s Plzeň apartment in April; SILVER A later also helped mark the target. The meeting and the night operation were separate events.

The plan used a BBC radio signal and two burning barns to point British bombers towards the factory. The source does not locate the barns precisely enough to turn them into additional map points.

Fires beneath the clouds

night of 25–26 April 1942

The signals were lit, but the bombers missed the works.

Six British bombers approached Plzeň. The parachutists lit the agreed fires, but according to Atentát only one crew saw them. Clouds obscured the target and bombs fell outside the Škoda works. Successful ground signalling did not translate into a successful attack on the factory.

The site’s later history

1945 and later

The industrial landscape continued to change.

The works suffered heavy damage in the bombing of April 1945. They continued as a state enterprise after the war, while the Plzeň grounds changed over subsequent decades and some historical buildings were demolished. Present-day operating boundaries cannot therefore be used as the exact 1942 perimeter without verification.