10/31/2023. Remarks by Johan Visschedijk: "This aircraft was built for the Baťa Shoe company in Czechoslovakia. Registered on April 10, 1937 to Lockheed as NC17380, the American export certificate E-2609 was transferred to Ján Antonín Baťa, owner of the Baťa company at that time, on April 22, 1937, and on May 13, 1937 it was registered in Czechoslovakia as OK-CTB. (By the letter t with a caron, the name Baťa is pronounced as Batja.)

Germany annexed Austria in March 1938, and parts of Czechoslovakia (referred to as Sudetenland) in October 1938. In early 1939, at the onset of WW II, members of the Baťa family, and 120 workers and their families, moved to Canada. Tomáš Jan Baťa, nephew of Baťa owner Ján Antonín Baťa, developed the Baťa Shoe Company of Canada, and founded the factory town of Batawa, Ontario.

In mid-March 1939 Ján Antonín Baťa, still in the unoccupied part of Czechoslovakia, became aware of the upcoming annexation of the remaining parts of the country. He and some other persons flew to Poland aboard the Electra OK-CTB, two days later the annexation was in progress. Later the aircraft was flown to the UK via France, shipped to the USA in May 1939, and subsequently it was sold to the Canadian Department of National Defence. Registered CF-BTB on September 11, 1940, it was flown to Canada where it was transferred to the RCAF, serialed 7656. It was struck off charge on May 2, 1946.

Via the War Assets Corporation (WAC) the aircraft sold within two months, registered NC79236 on July 2, 1946 (the 'C' was dropped in 1948) and reregistered N241M in September 1963. After the WAC sold the aircraft, it changed hands nineteen times till March 2009, was leased to two different parties, and had four accidents. The last of the nineteen owners was MD J.R. Almand & Associates of Grand Prairie, Texas, which owned it for over 35 years, from October 3, 1974 to March 2009. The N241M was flown in RCAF markings, including the original serial "7656".

The next owner was a Czech individual who purchased it in March 2009 for preservation in Praque, Czech Republic. In December 2010 it was flown to Newton City-County Airport, Newton City, Kansas, where Wichita Air Services Inc. (Warbird Division) started a restoration that lasted over four years. On January 26, 2012, N241M was registered to Aircraft Guaranty Corp Trustee of Onalaska, Texas.

N241M at Aviodrome Museum, Lelystad Airport, Lelystad, the Netherlands (Nico Braas Collection)

With the registration N241M in small characters below the tail plane, and finished in the meticulous Baťa livery of nearly eighty years earlier, including the permitted original registration "OK-CTB" in large characters on the fuselage and wings, the aircraft first flew after the restoration on March 12, 2015. The next April it was flown to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, for work on its electrical system.

On May 20, the aircraft started an eight-day trip from Hamilton to Tocná Airport, Prague, where it arrived on May 27, 2015. En route it made stops in Canada (La Grande Rivière and Kuujjuaq, Quebec; Iqaluit, Nunavut), Greenland (Nuuk, Narsarsuaq, and Kulusuk), Iceland (Reykjavik), Scotland (Wick), England (Duxford), the Netherlands (Lelystad), and Germany (Siegerland Airport).

N241M at Tocná Airport, Prague, Czech Republic (Stan Dudek Collection)

Contributor Stan Dudek from Prague had a major role in finding and restoring this aircraft. During a research within the American Aviation Historical Society into the history of American aircraft in the former Czechoslovakia, he found this former Baťa Shoe Company aircraft in Texas. Correspondence with the Texan owner yielded a lot of information, which Dudek published in Czech aviation magazines.

This was the impetus for a group of people, led by a Prague millionaire, to return this aircraft to the Czech Republic. Dudek was the source for the original markings to be applied, however, all red areas still need to be outlined by a thin dark blue line. Dudek also plotted the Baťa logo for the nose of the aircraft."