Czech war photographer Sitensky dies

He made a living photographing landscapes, portraits and sport and was persecuted during communist rule.

The Czech photographer Ladislav Sitensky, renowned for his World War II pictures of Czech and Slovak pilots in Britain, has died at the age of 90, his family said on Sunday.

Sitensky became the official photographer for the Czechoslovak air force in Britain in 1942 after fleeing the Nazi occupation of his homeland in 1939.

He joined the British Royal Air Force's 312 fighter squadron, which was manned by his countrymen, and his best known photographs give an eloquent account of the war without presenting it through dramatic images.

- I desperately wanted to be a fighter pilot, but General (Karel) Janousek thought I would be more useful as a photographer, making a complete record of the squadron - Sitensky said later.

After the war Sitensky turned down an offer to join the British Sunday Times newspaper as a photographer, returning home to Czechoslovakia instead.

He made a living photographing landscapes, portraits and sport and was persecuted during communist rule.

Sitensky produced more than half a million pictures and was decorated more than 10 times by Czechoslovakia, Britain and France.