304 SQUADRON POLISH AIR FORCE IN EXILE

[archivist]

He was born on 1st May 1900 in Dabrowa Gornicza, a coal mining town near Katowice in Silesia. His father was a miner and also had his own metal working shop. At that time the area was occupied by Austro-Hungary but they were less repressive than the Prussians and Russians who occupied the rest of Poland.

Towards the end of the First World War, when he was 17, he applied to join the army; he completed the course and graduated. In the 1920s he transferred to the Air Force and trained as a pilot, achieving the rank of second lieutenant. He was flying SPADs, designed by Louis Bechereau and built in France. His first posting was to the airbase at Torun where, in his early days, his flying skill enabled him to recover from a corkscrew dive that was fatal in many cases. During the early part of his career, in the Polish Russian war, he won the Cross of Valour; his many decorations are clearly visible in the photograph.

In the mid-1930s he was chosen to be Poland’s entry in an international competition held in Barcelona, Spain. It was an early medevac competition and involved flying a complex rescue mission. He and his trained crew won the competition for Poland as described in his son’s words:

“A bad storm flared up on the day it was scheduled. Some pilots refused to fly, some failed to complete the course, others lost points. Zygmunt took off, piloted the full assignment, and won the competition for Poland.”

By his mid-30s he had reached the rank of Major and in 1938 he was posted to the Senior Air Force Academy in Warsaw and a year later to Posnan – close to Germany.

After the first seventeen days in September Squadron Leader Wojciech) Zygmunt Janicki, made one escape to France and then another to England and took his wife, child and car with him!

Squadron Leader Zygmunt Janicki, who made one escape to France and then another to England and took his wife and child and his car with him. This was an unique adventure and typifies the courage and resilience of the Poles

In a convoy of up to four vehicles and a party of possibly twenty Air Force Officers, he crossed the border into Romania and made his way to Bucarest; they travelled as civilians and when he got his passport from the Polish Embassy, he was described as an upholsterer.
On 28th October 1939, events forced him to leave Bucarest and he crossed into Hungary, arriving in Budapest two days later. On 4th November 1939 he received a single use transit visa to cross Italy and enter France. He left immediately and entered Jugoslavia at Kotariba and four days later entered Italy at Ponte.

After a six day drive they reached France and made their way to Paris where Janicki joined up with the fledgling Polish armed forces in exile. He flew Morane-Saulnier fighters from Lyon-Bron Polish Depot . With many other Polish airmen, he expected to make a stand and take the war to Germany. But very soon, the French capitulated and he had nowhere to go but England. Fortunately his wife and son had joined him by this time – with no help from the French authorities.

The family drove south to Perpignan and were victims of French hostility on the way. Even the French military became hostile to the Poles and some of the French wanted to intern the Pole to Perpignan and were victims of French hostility. They planned to drive through Spain and cross to Morocco but they found a ship leaving from Port Vendre for Oran in Algeria. Whilst trying to embark they met more French hostility and he had to hold the crowd off at gunpoint.

From Oran they took a train to Casablanca in Morocco, sleeping in the car on its flatbed truck. Soon after arriving in Casablanca, they found an old, laid up Polish ship – the Wilia – and Polish sailors and engineers set about patching it up.

With cadets from the other training ship, the sailing vessel Iskra, and experienced Polish sailors who were trying to escape to Britain, they sailed to Gibraltar where they joined a convoy to England in early July 1940.

After a day or so at sea, the Wilia was barely making headway and was left behind but the Poles plodded on at half speed and under constant repair and they took two weeks for the short journey. They wandered into a minefield and were halted by an RAF flying boat until a tug arrived to guide them through it. They docked in Liverpool on 18th July 1940.

Typical of the man, he wasted no time in joining the Polish Air Force and was soon assigned to 304 Squadron in Coastal Command. He spent his time on very long flights over the sea hunting submarines, protecting Allied shipping and harassing Axis shipping.

He was killed when Wellington HE576 crashed just after take off from RAF Davidstow Moor for an anti submarine patrol over the Bay of Biscay on 29th July 1943. The aircraft crashed at Tresmarrow Farm, Davidstow and he is buried at Newark upon Trent Cemetery. A sad end to an illustrious career

[archivist]

Last post was Wojciech (Zygmunt) Janicki

[archivist]

FILOCHOWSKI Sgt Tadeusz P-705504
He was born on 14th February 1922 in Ostroleka, 100 kms north of Warsaw , the seventh child of the family. He was brought up on the family farm at Susk Stary. He was educated locally right up to the outbreak of WWII in 1939. Then the farm and the family found themselves first under the Nazi German occupation force from the west and then under Soviet Russian forces of occupation from the east.

In June 1941 the family was deported to Siberia . They were put on a train in cattle wagons without food. The journey lasted for two weeks until they reached Topchikha, not far from the city of Novosibirsk . There, KGB officials told them they were second class citizens and they were not to mix socially with local Russians. They were not prisoners but they worked "under direction" on a huge collective farm on a starvation diet - right through the winter of 1941 when temperatures reached -30 degrees centigrade.

In mid 1942 he managed to slip away without any travel permits to try to join the Polish Free Army at Tashkent in the very south of the Soviet Union, today's Uzbekistan . Several times as he moved from train to train he just, almost miraculously, avoided arrest - which would certainly have meant a concentration camp in the Gulags; he lost his wallet and more importantly his identity papers. But he had that real sense that God was with him and that he was being protected. On and off trains for a week, with only fruit he could scavenge to eat, he crossed present day Kazakhstan until he finally reached the city of Tashkent in Uzbekistan.

This was to be the new start for his war. He was issued with new identity papers but because of a clerical error he found himself, like our Queen, with two birthdays – his official birthday 15th February as stated on his identity document and his real birthday 14th February

He joined up in Tashkent and he signed on for pilot training. He was sent to a transit training camp but conditions became awful as his group waited on the Caspian Sea coast for a crossing to Persia (now Iran ). No shelter, horrendous sun beating down and they were sold badly polluted drinking water which brought on serious dysentery from which he thought he would die - and a number of his comrades did die there. When he reached Palhavi in Persia he was almost unconscious; but an army buddy carried him the four kilometres to the camp hospital.

Later and still somewhat weak he travelled over the hills from Persia into Iraq where he found the Arabs friendly and welcoming. Next a train down to the port of Basra where he was seriously ill again with jaundice. Then a boat down the Gulf to Pakistan. For two months he was in Karachi before being put on a boat to Bombay in India . Finally he was put on a vessel to England via Durban in South Africa . It was the `Empress of Canada' passenger liner turned into a troop ship. It carried this Polish army and air force contingent as well as Greek refugees. However travelling up the coast of West Africa it was torpedoed by the Italian submarine, Leonardo da Vinci, and on 13 March 1943, Dad was shipwrecked. Defective lifeboats led to 400 deaths but Dad found himself on board an over-full lifeboat and he watched as the Empress of Canada went down like the Titanic before his eyes. For four days the ocean current took them 200 miles through shark-infested waters until they were sighted, picked up and taken to Freetown, Sierra Leone - and eventually on to Liverpool.

He, like the proverbial cat, had nine lives and he'd probably gone through at least five before reaching Britain at the age of 21. There followed billeting at the Polish Depot in Blackpool where he learned English; then Cranwell for radio telegraphy training.

He first flew on old Wellington bombers where yet again he had a narrow escape over the Solway Firth in Scotland when the plane nearly hit a mountain on a night training exercise. For the rest of the war he was with 304 (Polish) Squadron, part of Coastal Command, based first at RAF Benebecula in the Outer Hebrides off the West coast of Scotland and then at RAF St Eval in Cornwall, two very remote outposts with few amenities and Arctic weather in winter. He served as an air gunner and radio operator.

He and his wife Jean married in 1947 and after his demobilisation he was offered a training course as a Painter and Decorator. He soon set up in business on his own, with a handcart and with Len his apprentice, trading as `Ted Fieldon'. He went on to become a painting and decorating contractor employing over 20 men at one stage. In 1963, together with his cousin Joseph, he bought Preston's bakery in Normanton High Street. With his insistence on investment in modern ovens and baking equipment it became a successful enterprise.

His first 12 years in Britain were really years in exile from Poland ; but when it became clear that the Communist regime was there to stay he applied for British citizenship and, like his sons, enjoyed dual - British and Polish – nationality. Yet, as early as 1959, with great courage he travelled overland to visit his family in Poland . Following warnings from the Foreign Office neither he nor his wife were really sure he would be able to get back safely. But he did; and in the early 1960s he twice took the whole family to Poland in a Ford Thames dormobile. He eventually saved up to have a house built in Warsaw and from the mid 1970s till the end of the 1990s he spent almost every summer hollidaying inhis former homeland of Poland.

He had many health crises over the years with angina, an aneurism, terrible stomach ulcers, and bouts of pneumonia and it's a remarkable feat to have reached 87 years. Some would put it down to the golf which he loved and played several times a week till almost the very end. Bronchial pneumonia exacerbated by emphysema and long term lung damage finally overcame him and he died on 16th October 2009 at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield, Yorkshire.

[archivist]

KLEWICZ F/O Tadeusz Jozef P-1226
He was born on 26 November 1904 in the village ofGętomie (now Morzeszczyn). He attended the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry and became an agricultural engineer. In July 1925, he joined the 4th Air Regiment and attended the Reserve Air Officer School at Poznan and another mechanical aviation school in Bydgosszcz. From there he returned to his unit in Torun. In October 1927 he transferred to the reserves and served part time.

At the beginning of the war he went, via Hungary, to Jugoslavia with the intention of joining the Polish forces exiled in France. He was certainly in service at the Polish Depot at Lyon-Bron in March 1940.

On the fall of France, he travelled south and took ship to Oran in Algeria and then moved on to Casablanca in Morocco, finally arriving in Gibraltar where he embarked for Britain.

In England he trained as an air gunner and joined 18OTU in August 1941. and in August 1941, is directed to 18 OTU (unit completion crews). He transferred to 304 Squadron and on the night of 30th November 1941 he was on a mission to Hamburg when Wellington X3164 was shot down over the North Sea; he escaped and was picked up by a British ship after a few hours in the water.

On 10th January 1942 he took off on DV423 on a mission to Wilhelmshaven – a major naval, shipbuilding and industrial city in Germany. The aircraft was hit by flak over the target and broke up in mid-air. The Red Cross notified his base that his body had washed up in the estuary of the River Weser the next day. He was buried in the Sage War Cemetery at Oldenberg, Germany. In Luftwaffe records it was claimed by Oberleutnant Rudolph Schoenert of 5/NJG2 10 kilometres north of Nordeney at 23.15hrs at an altitude of 5,000 metres (about 16,500feet).

[archivist]

WINKIEL Sgt Leon P-792294

He was an air gunner, born on 17th November 1921 and after finishing school, he applied for a place in aviation school. He passed the entry examination in August 1938 and because of the political tension and the imminence of war, the training schedule was accelerated.

There is no detail of his route but, on the outbreak of war, the whole training school was hurriedly moved out of the country and he arrived at Istres, France on 31st October 1939. His first posting was to the Polish Depot at Lyon-Bron.

As with so many evacuated Polish airmen, he found himself in poor conditions with unheated barracks, lack of uniforms and clean bedding and a disinterested French Government. Morale was low and the Polish forces in the ability of the French to take the war to the Germans.

After the fall of France, he went to England, arriving there in June 1940. He spent the next year in training at gunnery school (Eventon) and from June to October 1941 he worked as ground crew for 302 Squadron but he was itching to fight and applied to join a combat unit. His wish was granted and he joined 304 Squadron in April 1943 and flew five operational missions with them.

In March 1944 he transferred to 300 Squadron. On the night of 22nd May 1944 he left RAF Faldingworth as part of a 375 bomber raid on Dortmund on Avro Lancaster LM487 (BH-J) and his was to be one of eighteen Lancasters lost on that mission.

Various reports cite flak as the cause of bringing the aircraft down but the pilot, who was the only survivor of the eight man crew, gave a different account. The aircraft was caught in a searchlight cone and was attacked by a night fighter. The right aileron was hit and he lost control; the aircraft exploded in mid-air and crashed near Krefeld. They most probably became one of the thirty kills of Hauptman Heinz-Horst Hissbach of 5/NJG2.

Leon Winkiel is buried in the British Military Cemetery, Reichswald Forest, Germany.

[archivist]

RECOGNITION FOR A POLISH WAR HERO - 70 YEARS ON

This is a report from the Bradford Telegraph and Argus - a major regional newspaper in England:

A plaque has been made in honour of an airman who fought in the longest air
battle in the Second World War, and whose remains were only located 23 years
after he died, following a campaign in the Telegraph & Argus.
It was presented at Bradford Polish Club yesterday to Teresa Warszylewicz, who
remembered Antoni Ulicki as a lodger in her parents' home in Bradford in the
1960s and 70s, by its designer Jim Hartley of Bradley, nearSkipton.

Mrs Warszylewicz, of Bradford, is hoping to have the plaque placed at Scholemoor
cemetery near the Garden of Remembrance where Mr Ulicki's ashes were scattered
after his death, aged 71, in July, 1986.
She said: "It's wonderful to at last acknowledge Toni. He was one of the brave
men and women who helped win our freedom in the Second World War and he deserves
remembering like this. I'm so grateful to Mr Hartley, his friend Peter Whitaker
and the Telegraph & Argus for helping me find where his ashes were scattered.
"Now we have to find an appropriate place at Scholemoor where the plaque can be
placed. I lost track of Toni when he left my parents' home and I've often
thought about him over the years."
Mr Hartley, who with Mr Whitaker, of Cross Hills, Skipton, instigated the
installation of a monument next to the Leeds-Liverpool canal at Bradley in 2007
to seven Polish airmen who died when their Wellington bomber crashed nearby in
1943, said he was approached by Mrs Warszylewicz to see if they could help.
"Peter investigated and found that Antoni had been awarded the Virtuti Militari,
Poland's highest decoration for courage and the Distinguished Flying Cross,"
said Mr Hartley.
"I was fascinated by his story and felt he should be recognised.
"Like his fellow Poles who died at Bradley, he fought for the freedom of his own
country and for the UK."
The plaque is 1ft square and contains the Polish airforce eagle, the name of his
squadron, 304, and details about his date of birth and death.
The rear gunner and his fellow crew were honoured after surviving one of the
longest air battles in their Wellington bomber of the war. They were over the
Bay of Biscay, off the French and Spanish Atlantic coasts, searching for German
submarines when they were attacked and spent almost an hour fighting off three
German Ju88s. The crew limped back to England on February 9, 1943, with the
bomber riddled with bullets. Mr Ulicki was the 167th Pole to win the DFC — only
about 180 were awarded – and was wounded and the co-pilot and front turret
gunner were both badly injured.

[archivist]

To Loyola

I would really love to give your father a proper entry in the tribute. Please contact me on my personal e-mail address or via this forum

[archivist]

Can anyone put me in touch with Loyola? A man who won the VM deserves remembrance and she is the only one with the information

[archivist]

SGT JAN KALFAS

He was a Polish American and was born in Cleveland, Ohio on 23rd December 1916. When he was about six years old his family returned to Bielsko-Biala in Poland. Because of his father’s ill health he was forced to drop out of school early and take work. In 1935 he enrolled on a course as a glider pilot in Goleszow in southern Poland; he graduated with honours and so his love of aviation was born. The following year he undertook more glider training and then volunteered for the Second Air Regiment in Krakow and did his mechanical training with 121 fighter squadron before becoming a reservist.

In August 1939 he was called to arms and returned to his old squadron. On 18th September 1939, the day after the Russian invasion, he was part of a mass exodus of 121 and 122 squadrons that crossed the Border into Romania. In spite of the Polish mutual aid agreement with Romania, they were all disarmed, interned and sent to a camp at Turnu Severin (now Drobeta-Turnu Severin).

He escaped from this camp and made his way to the Polish Depot at Lyon-Bron, France via Greece. He did not stay there long and left France three months before the capitulation. It seems likely that he was one of those selected for service with the Polish Air Force in England as he arrived at RAF Eastchurch in Kent. Due to the fact that this was very close to France (minutes in flying time) it soon reverted to a fighter base and its function as a reception unit was moved to Blackpool in Lancashire which was at extreme range for German bombers.

He was sent to RAF Turnhill at Market Drayton in Shropshire (home of No 24 Maintenance Unit) where he trained as an engineer and was then assigned to 304 Squadron. It is not clear whether he was ground crew or a flight engineer but the latter seems most likely as he was also given flight training and experience whilst at RAF Turnhill.

His next move was to train as a pilot after which he moved on to 300 Squadron, making his first operational flight in April 1943.

In September 1943 he was flying on a large scale bombing mission to Dortmund when he had to take extreme evasive action to avoid a collision with an Avro Lancaster bomber. The two aircraft made minimal contact but the engines on the Wellington stalled and it plunged several thousand feet before he managed to restart the engines and bring it under control.

Undeterred by this, he flew on and dropped his bombs on Dortmund before turning for home. On the return leg he was targeted by anti-aircraft gunfire and his Wellington took many hits; he took evasive action by diving to low altitude and risking contact with barrage balloons. However, his nerve held and he succeeded in bringing his badly damaged aircraft home. He flew a full tour of 30 operations with 300 Squadron, several times returning with serious damage and once with an onboard fire. On completion of his tour, in January 1944, he was posted to a Flying Training School as an instructor.

He also undertook further conversion training and in November 1944 he was posted to 1586 Special Operations Flight at Brindisi in Italy. He flew 11 missions to Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia and Poland then returned to England in March 1945 with 301 Squadron. He trained as a transport pilot and ferried supplies to Greece, Italy and Norway.
In June 1947 he returned to Poland where he had a difficult time until June 1948 when he became a pilot instructor in a civil aviation school at Ligocie, near Katowice, until August 1951 when he left the aviation industry. In 1956 he returned to graduate from high school in Opole.

Between July 1957 and May 1977 he flew over four thousand medical flights, many in adverse weather conditions, from his base with the Medical Aviation Team in Katowice.

He was awarded the Order of Virtuti Militari 5th Class, the Cross of Valour (three times), the Gold Cross of Merit, the Air Medal (four times), the British Distinguished Flying Medal and several other foreign decorations.

He died on 2nd October 1983 in Bielsko-Biala and is buried there.

[archivist]

I have not been able to post photographs on this site but I have been placing them on my own site. Many more will be posted over the next few weeks, so if you would like to see them and put faces to these stories, you can find them here:
304squadron.blogspot.com

[archivist]

The first item on page 13 of this thread is an amazing story. Later today I will be posting a much fuller version of the escape. I will also post a link to a site where you can download the book or purchase a hard copy. This is not an advertisement; I didn't write the book and I have no financial interest in it. The author of the book gave me the information I used but the book chronicles the story of the family and their life in America after Zygmunt was killed and the war was over. I bought the book out of interest and it only cost me the equivalent of about $10 plus postage.

[archivist]

The first seventeen days in September 1939 were a tragedy for Poland and formed the nucleus of an Exodus of massive proportions. Well over eighty per cent of the Polish Air Force escaped to fight again; many with the help of organised groups and others independently. This is the story of one man, Squadron Leader Zygmunt Janicki, who made one escape to France and then another to England and took his wife and child and his car with him. This was an unique adventure and typifies the courage and resilience of the Poles both as fighting units in exile and as the Home Army (Armia Krajowa). They never gave up.

An unprovoked attack by the Germans left Poland reeling; the stab in the back assault by Russia, sealed its fate and the armed forces began their escape.

Zygmunt Janicki was a renowned airman in pre-war Poland, but he too realised that the only course he could take was to get to France and begin the fight back. He went willingly, but made a tremendous effort to get his wife Zofia (Zosia) and his son Piotr to join him.

As a senior Air Force Officer he was able to afford a car – a real luxury in pre-war Poland. He bought a Polski Fiat Junak 508 and this was to be the vehicle he used in his escape. In a convoy of up to four vehicles and a party of possibly twenty Air Force Officers, he crossed the border into Romania and made his way to Bucarest; they travelled as civilians and when he got his passport from the Polish Embassy, he was described as an upholsterer. This was a time that was fraught with anxiety and the ever present risk of being interned by the Romanians to appease the Germans. But he was going nowhere without visas and had to sit and wait.

Clearly, he was prepared for all eventualities, having made requests for visas to England, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Jugoslavia, Bulgaria and France. On 28th October 1939, events forced him to leave Bucarest and he crossed into Hungary, arriving in Budapest two days later. He had to wait there until November 4th before he received a transit visa for Jugoslavia and four days later a one time use transit visa to cross Italy and enter France. He left immediately and crossed into Jugoslavia at Kotariba. It took four days for the group to cross Jugoslavia and they entered Italy at Ponte on 12th November.

Benito Mussolini’s Italy was an ally of Germany and must have been hostile to Poles who had so recently been fighting the Germans. The six days it took to drive through the country must have been a tense time; a time to keep their activities low profile. Finally, on 18th November, they crossed into France at Menton in the Alpes Maritime Department.

His first step would be to contact the Polish Government in exile in Paris, from where he was sent to the Base Aerienne Polonaise, otherwise known as the Polish Depot, at Lyon-Bron. The food and living conditions there were notoriously bad, but he coped and by January 1941, he was flying combat missions in Morane-Saulnier fighters of the French Armee de l’Air. He would be in French Air Force Uniform with a Pologne shoulder flash to identify his nationality.

In April 1941, with no help from the French authorities, all his efforts paid off and Zofia and Wojciech Piotr joined him in France. But it was a short lived triumph as the French capitulated in June and Italy joined the war on the German side and the Polish contingent were back to square one with nowhere to go but England.

After this, the French ordered the evacuation of the air base and the family drove south for three or four days. Even the French military became hostile to the Poles and some of the French wanted to intern the Poles on behalf of the Germans. They drove to Perpignan on the Mediterranean coast, close to the Spanish border. The plan was to drive through Spain and cross to Morocco and he even got the visas, but Zygmunt located a ship leaving the nearby Porte Vendre for Oran in Algeria. Whilst he was arranging for the car to be taken on board he was attacked by a hostile French crowd and had to draw his gun to keep them at bay.

It took them two days to sail to Oran and, on arrival, they immediately took a train to Casablanca in Morocco to avoid conflict with their former allies there. The journey lasted two or three nights and they travelled in the car on a flatbed trailer as it offered more comfort than the cramped conditions in the packed train compartments. Zofia and Wojciech Piotr slept in the car and Zygmunt slept outside on the flatbed.

Soon after arriving in Casablanca, they heard of an old Polish vessel which was laid up in Rabat. It was in dire need of repairs and some of the Polish sailors and engineers set about making it seaworthy for the journey to England.

The O.R.P Wilia was originally built in Germany, as a freighter, by Flensburger Schiffbau Gesellschaft at their Flensburg shipyard. She was laid down in 1905 and was 108 metres in length and 14.8 metres wide; she displaced 8400 tonnes and was powered by an 1850 horse power steam engine which could produce 10 knots forward speed. She required a crew of 52 men. She went through a variety of names and owners before being sold to the Polish Navy and renamed Wilia (or Wilja) on 8th August 1925 at Le Havre, France.

She was variously used as a troop carrier, a transporter of war materials and a training ship for naval cadets and officer trainees. Until the outbreak of war, she was unarmed but then had armaments mounted. These consisted of two 75 millimetre guns, two 47 millimetre guns and two heavy machine guns. No match for the Scharnhorst, but enough to defend themselves against aircraft and smaller patrol boats.

After training exercises in the Mediterranean and repeated mechanical breakdowns, she was laid up in Rabat, Morocco with a skeleton crew of three for maintenance purposes. With cadets from the other training ship, the sailing vessel Iskra, and experienced Polish sailors who were trying to escape to Britain, they put to sea and sailed to Gibraltar. Once there, they settled down to wait until they could join a convoy to England. They did not have to wait long, and sailed with the very next convoy in early July 1940.

After a day or so at sea, the Wilia fell prey to yet more mechanical problems and the vessel had to slow down for further repairs. It was barely making headway. The convoy and its destroyer escorts had no choice but to leave them behind. The German U-boat menace was too great to put the whole convoy at risk for one old tramp steamer, albeit crammed with military refugees.

The Poles had not come this far to turn around and limp into Lisbon in Portugal and meekly surrender to internment. Portugal was a neutral country and England’s oldest ally, but the Government of the day was undeniably pro-German. They unanimously decided to press on for England and maintained a speed of five knots, very little more than a brisk walking pace and only half its designed capability. The sailors and engineers on board performed miracles and perpetually patched up the stricken vessel to keep it under way.

They must have had a guardian Angel as the Atlantic weather remained calm and they never knowingly encountered a U-boat. In his account of the journey, Zygmunt’s son commented that they wouldn’t waste a torpedo on the Wilia but he was wrong because the human cargo was intrinsically of immense value to the war effort. Besides which, there were many newly commissioned U-boat Captains who were desperate for a first kill – and there is no doubt that they had no qualms about attacking defenceless vessels and passenger ships. It took them two weeks to make the relatively short journey to Liverpool.

When they entered St George’s Channel (the approach to the Irish Sea) they were spotted by a British Short Sunderland flying boat which first identified them and then advised them to stop immediately as they had entered a minefield intended for German naval shipping. They had a long, anxious wait for a British tug to see them safely through the minefield. They finally docked in Liverpool on 18th July 1940. They had escaped and were free but the real danger had just begun as they were about to go into active combat.

As a footnote, the Wilia was turned over to the Polish mercantile marine and served faithfully until 6th June 1944 – D Day, when it was taken out of service and two days later it was sunk, with other old vessels, off the French coast, near Arromanches. They were to form a breakwater to protect Mulberry, a huge concrete harbour that was floated across the English Channel then sunk and filled with concrete to act as a landing point for men and munitions after the Normandy landings. Years later the old vessel was refloated and cut up for scrap.

On 12th August 1942, the Polish 304 Squadron Wellington bomber HX384 (NZ-L) crashed into the sea off the coast of Wales. On 21st September 1991, divers from the Llantrisant Sub-aqua Club found it and recovered artefacts from it. A machine gun and a propeller were restored and are now in the Military Museum in Warsaw. They were handed over on board the sailing vessel Iskra – the same one that originally accompanied the Wilia – when it docked in Newcastle upon Tyne (my home town!) during the Tall Ships Race, on 15th July 1993.

A remarkable end to a remarkable story.

[archivist]

KORPOWSKI F/O Boleslaw P-0982

He was born on 28th December 1910 near Wielun and was educated at Sosnowiec. In 1931 he was at the Infantry Officer school at Zambrow and later Torun. His fancy was for flying and, in 1932, he joined the Aviation Cadet School at Deblin; he graduated as a Second Lieutenant in August 1934 and was attached to 22 Squadron. He undertook pilot training at Deblin; the date is uncertain but probably 1934/35.

In 1936 he was suspended for six months and after this he was only allowed to fly as an observer. The reason for this is unknown but he appears to have been a bit of a rebel and he appears to have taken the controls of aircraft on occasions. It is thought that he struck, and killed, someone on the ground when coming in to land. This led to almost a year under an enquiry, during which time he appears to have been held in a military fortress. Following this disciplinary action, he was returned to 22 Squadron and transferred to an administrative role. Shortly afterwards he transferred to the reserves and became a civilian journalist in Krakow in May 1939.

He was mobilised immediately before the outbreak of war and subsequently escaped by air to Daugavpils in Latvia where he and his aircraft were interned. With about sixty others, he made an unsuccessful escape attempt from the camp at Liepaja in October 1939 before escaping by air from Riga to Stockholm in Sweden. He went on to London and then Paris and became an officer in the Polish section of L’Armee de l’Air in France.

On the capitulation of France he escaped across the Pyrenees through Spain to Gibraltar and there by sea to Liverpool, where he arrived on 5th August 1940 and joined the Polish Air Force in exile. Mysteriously, he ended up in an internment camp at Rothesay on the Isle of Bute (also known as the Isle of Snakes) – perhaps for some misdemeanour left over from pre-war Poland. He was there from August 1940 until June 1941.

After this he attended flying training schools at RAF Hucknall and RAF Newton ant then moved on to 18OTU, 305 Squadron and 138 (Special Duties) Squadron by March 1942. He flew with them until July 1944, clocking up nearly 580 hours flying time and took part in many dangerous missions, most notably Wildhorn I, and then the multiple operation Director 22, Reporter and Surgeon during which he was shot down, evaded capture and made it back to England. The story of this mission is told in greater detail elsewhere in this narrative.

After July 1944 he served with another OTU, 304 and 301 Squadrons and stayed on after the war flying in Transport Squadrons of the RAF until his demobilisation on 17th March 1947. After the war he emigrated to Australia and was very active in Polish affairs and journalism until his death in Sydney on 24th June 1943.

During his military career he fought with distinction and was awarded the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari, the Cross of Valour four times, the Silver Cross of Merit with Swords, the Army Cross and the British Distinguished Flying Cross.

He was always a controversial character and created a stir in Australia when he accused the authorities of discriminating against him and rejecting his application to the RAAF because his parents were not naturalised British Subjects. A transcript of the article in the Sydney Morning Herald of 13th November 1950 follows:

Minister’s Advice To Airman
MELBOURNE- Sunday
The Minister for Air, Mr T W White, said tonight that he would be interested to hear personally from former RAF Squadron Leader Boleslaw Korpowski. A Pole, Korpowski, claimed in “The Sunday Herald” that the RAAF rejected him because his mother and father were not naturalised British subjects.

Mr White said “I know what a really good job Polish pilots did in the war. I have not heard of this particular case before.” Mr White suggested that Korpowski should also talk to Wing Commander J Waddy in Sydney. Wing Commander Waddy is a member of the Air Force Association and is also on the Air Board. Korpowski is president of the Polish Branch of the Air Force Association.

Mr White said there were many reasons why a pilot might be rejected for further service. He might no longer have the necessary medical requirements, and he might be too old. Because he did not know these things, and did not know what branch of the service Korpowski had asked to join, he could say little on the case at present.

LEGAL PROBLEMS

An Air Force public relations officer said he knew of Korpowski’s war record. He was mentioned frequently in the published history of the Polish squadrons. “I did not know he wanted to join the RAAF though,” he said. The Minister for Immigration, Mr H Holt, said the Government was considering how it could overcome legal difficulties preventing migrants joining the Services. Mr Holt said that Poles made up 29 per cent of Australian migrants from non-British sources. Since the end of the war more than 50,000 had come here.

[archivist]

BOLESLAW KORPOWSKI'S FURTHER EXPLOITS

Boleslaw was a rebel with a cause; he was frequently in trouble with his superiors but he was a man with an incredible fighting spirit and unsurpassed courage. He undertook not one, but many, secret flights and clocked up nearly 580 hours flying Special Duties missions over enemy territory, even landing there on occasions.

Within about a month of joining 138 Squadron he took off, on 12th April 1943, from RAF Tempsford on the multiple operation Director 22, Reporter and Surgeon on Board Handley Page Halifax BB340 (NF-D). His mission was to deliver a British and a French agent into occupied France. On the outward journey they were hit by flak and he was forced to crash land at Douvres-la-Delivrande in Calvados, 12 kilometres north west of Caen.

In spite of the circumstances only one of the ten people on board was killed (by the flak that brought them down), four were captured and made Prisoners of War and Korpowski and two others evaded the Germans and made it back to England. He was assisted by the French Resistance and crossed the Pyrenees into Spain and on to Gibraltar from where he was flown back to England. This photograph (courtesy of Wojciech Zmyslony) shows the Germans inspecting the wreckage of Halifax BB340.

As for the two agents, they were quickly captured and Claude Jumeaux died in captivity but Lee Graham survived the war.

Almost exactly a year later, on 15th April 1943 he was the co-pilot on an SOE mission, Wildhorn I from Campo Casale airfield at Brindisi, Italy. This operation had been in the planning stage since 1942 but the Halifax was the only aircraft that had the range to reach Poland but it needed concrete runways of 1200 – 1400 yards length, which were not readily available to hostile aircraft visiting Poland!

Once bases were established in Southern Italy, the mission was possible because it could be achieved by shorter range aircraft which were capable of landing on grass runways. It was decided to use a Douglas Dakota FD919, borrowed from 267 Squadron. And so the mission flew over Lake Scutari (Albania/Montenegro) and the Tatra Mountains of Hungary where they climbed to avoid anti-aircraft fire.

On arrival at their destination, the village of Belzyce Matczyn close to Lublin, they switched on their lights and saw that they were coming in to land too fast and too close to a large barn for comfort; they pulled up sharply and made it with 25 yards to spare on the second attempt. They had landed in pitch darkness, on a beetroot field and had to keep the engines at full throttle to stop the Dakota from sinking in the soft ground.

With no time to waste, they discharged their SOE passengers: Capt Lopianowski (Code name Sarna) and Lt Kostuch (Code name Bryla) and their amazing cargo of US Dollars and fake ID books as well as despatches for the Armia Krajowa.

With equal haste, they picked up their return passengers and were back in the air within 15 minutes. This was a very special group who were to join the Polish Government in exile in
London. They were: General Stanislaw Tatar (aka Tabor or Turski) who was Deputy Chief of Staff of the Armia Krajowa; Lt Col Ryszard Dorotycz-Malewicz (Head of AK Courier Operations); Lt Andrzej Pomian (of the AK Department of Information and Propaganda); Zygmunt Berezowski (Nationalist Party Member) and Stanislaw Oltarzewski (a Government Delegation Member).

They had achieved the impossible in flying 800 miles into enemy territory in an unarmed aircraft, landing in the dead of night on a sodden beetroot field and making their escape. The mission was a complete success and the crew were rewarded by being to return to England with their passengers; a well earned spell of leave.

As a footnote to this, by the end of their time in 138 Squadron, the pilot (F/Lt EJ Harrod) and Boleslaw Korpowski were both recipients of the Virtuti Militari and the British Distinguished Flying Cross. It seems unlikely that either of them would be too concerned that British Civil Servants in Whitehall were upset because their passengers had travelled under false names on the aircraft manifest!

[archivist]

BUDZYNSKI F/Lt Jerzy Dominik P-1824

He was born on 4th August 1918. He transferred in from 300 Squadron and during his service with them he survived the crash of Wellington R1705 (BH-U). This was on a bombing mission from RAF Hemswell to Mannheim on the night of 7th November 1941. The exact cause and location of the crash is unknown but was probably in France as he was assisted by the famous PAT Line through Spain and made a successful evasion back to England.

Keith Janes, of the Conscript Heroes website thinks that mention of Pyrenees to Barcelona on his route “would suggest he crossed the eastern or central Pyrenees and was probably taken direct to the British Consulate in Barcelona rather then being arrested by the Spanish and spending time in any of the Spanish prisons or camps. It suggests he had a guide who knew what he was doing !

From there he would almost certainly have been taken under diplomatic protection to the British Embassy in Madrid and then probably on to Gibraltar - a few men were taken to Lisbon but the vast majority to Gibraltar. From there he would have been taken either by sea or air back to England.” The Eastern Pyrenees seem likely as one of the crew members of the other planes, lost in the same vicinity, is buried at Nice.

The following is also from Keith Janes: “Budzynski was taken across from Banyuls to Figueras and on to Barcelona (arriving 14 Dec 41) with P/O Groyecki (667) Sgt Wilson (673) Sgt Dyer (692) L/Cpl Kincaid (679) by one guide (origin unknown) and two men described as smugglers - not sure what the difference was between guides and smugglers ...

They were in Madrid a few days before Christmas, reached Gibraltar by 5 January and stayed there until boarding a boat for Gourock on 4 March 1942.” The numbers in brackets are the second half of their MI9 evasion report numbers.

He survived the war and died on 30th March 2004 at Croyde, Devon; he was cremated at Braunton, Devon.