MARIAN STANISLAW PLONCZYNSKI

He was a pilot, born on 2nd February 1900 in Warsaw. From 1918, he served in the Polish Army but wanted to transfer to the Air Force. In 1921 he succeeded and went to the flying school at Bydgoszcz where he qualified as a pilot in spite of crashing a Caudron GIII trainer biplane. In 1922 he was posted to the school at Grudziadz and remained there until 1923 when he joined a fighter squadron attached to 7 Air Regiment in Warsaw, later becoming an instructor until his demobilisation at the end of 1924
Soon after that he went to work for Aerolloyd and Aerolot the forerunners of Lufthansa and LOT Polish airlines respectively. He then went on to work for LOT on its formation in 1929. He was also successfully involved in sport flying.

On the outbreak of war, he flew a Junkers Ju52 airliner to Romania and made his way to France via Jugoslavia and Greece where he joined L’Armee de l’Air as an instructor and worked to create Polish fighting units. After the fall of France he made his way to England and eventually joined 304 Squadron. After completing a tour of duty he went on to become an instructor and by November 1941 he was serving in Ferry Command delivering aircraft from Canada to Europe, Africa and Asia. In this capacity he made 38 unarmed flights across the Atlantic

He survived the war and was demobilised in 1947. He returned to Poland and resumed working for LOT until his retirement in 1964. He died on 8th March 1974 in Warsaw in a road accident involving a tram.

As a footnote, the Junkers airliner was handed over to Imperial Airways (allegedly sold to them) and went into service under the British registration G-AGAE.