Jan Walentowicz in a Westland Whirlwind
On 1st October 1946 he was
demobbed from the Polish Air Force and enlisted into the No 9 Polish
Resettlement Corps at RAF Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. The following year he was posted to RAF
Scampton, Lincolnshire - the Bomber
Command Major Servicing Unit.
Not yet ready to give up the
active life, on 7th January 1948 he joined the RAF as a pilot and, on 13th July
of that year, he was posted to Bomber Command Communication Flight at RAF
Booker near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire.
On 17th August he was posted
to No 1 (P) Refresher Flying Unit on No 26 Course at RAF Finningley, Yorkshire
and on 20th October he was posted to the School of Air Traffic Control at RAF
Watchfield, Wiltshire as a staff pilot.
During 1950, he moved with the
School to RAF Shawbury, Shropshire where he later completed the No 3 Staff Pilot's Course and
was later posted to No 2 Officer Cadet Training Unit at RAF Kirton in Lindsey,
Lincolnshire and completed No K4 Course there.
On 17th June of that year he
was granted British Citizenship and this was recorded in the London Gazette at
the time.
On 6th July he was
promoted to Pilot Officer on a Short
Service Commission and was subsequently posted to the No2 Aircrew
Medical Rehabilitation Unit at RAF Collaton Cross, Devon. On 6th September he attended the Ground Combat Training Course
at RAF Melksham, Wiltshire.
On 22nd October he was posted to 62 Group Communication
Flight at RAF Colerne, Avon but shortly afterwards, on 19th November, he was
reposted to 63 Group Communication Flight at RAF Hawarden, Flintshire,
Wales. Over the period of 1952-1953 he
was detached, on occasions, to the Air Training Corps summer camps at RAF
Halton and RAF Cottesmore, finally returning to RAF Hawarden on 31st August
1953.
In June 1954, he found out
that his wish had been granted and that he was to give up fixed wings in favour
of rotary flying. He had had enough of
routine staff and communications flying and felt the need for a change. On 12th July 1954, he was detached to the Air
Ministry, London to attend a helicopter course at the Westland Aircraft Factory
at Yeovil, Somerset and, on completion of the course (50 flying hours) on 14th
November of that year, he was posted to 155 Squadron at Kuala Lumpur, Malaya
for three years.
The journey to Malaya was by
RAF Transport Command Hermes and took 34 hours flying time spread over four
days. There were seven refuelling stops
en route: Rome, Nicosia, Bahrain, Karachi, New Delhi, Calcutta and Bangkok
finally arriving at RAF Changi in Singapore.
A tour of duty in Malaya was
considered active service and he had to be armed at all times that he was away
from the base. Travel was only permitted
in escorted armed convoys and he had to be armed even when flying.
During the course of 1955 he
was detached, on 12th January, to 1907 Flight of 636 Squadron at Teiping to fly
Austers but 6 days later he was again detached to 1911 Flight of that Squadron
at Benta where he could be flying Austers, other light aircraft or helicopters
but was basically gaining experience of jungle flying and learning the
locations of the isolated forts, landing strips and jungle drop zones around
Malaya. This was normally a two week
secondment with an experienced army Air Observation Post pilot. Following this he went straight into
operational flying. It should be explained at this
point that this Squadron [636] did not have a conventional RAF Station base but
was split into several Flights across small landing grounds throughout Malaya.
Tight landings in very small clearings with
trees 250 ft-300ft high all around
On 24th June 1956, he attended
a Jungle Survival Course at RAF Changi, Singapore; the basis of that was that
he was taken by patrol boat to an uninhabited island off the coast of
Singapore. With nothing more than his
basic survival kit, he had to swim ashore and set up his own survival camp and
live off the land for four days before being picked up.
For the greater part of his
three year stint in Malaya, he spent his time ferrying stores and troops,
including 22 SAS, wherever they were needed.
They were also heavily involved with Casevac and with any emergency flights and searching the
jungle for hidden Chinese Terrorist bases and crop growing areas onto which
they could direct artillery or bombers.
Although he had gone through several years of seriously hard warfare in the European Theatre and he had been on the run after twice escaping from his captors, he had absolutely no experience of jungle warfare or survival so this was essential training in this new environment. He was suitably grateful to the men of 656 Squadron for their invaluable help in this respect.
One of the tasks he had to master was the ability to place a rather large helicopter on the ground in a very tightly restricted area. Simple enough you might think but when you are surrounded by dense jungle and trees that are between 250ft - 300ft tall, it is not quite so easy to achieve this objective - especially when you have to worry about hostile fire.
Although he had gone through several years of seriously hard warfare in the European Theatre and he had been on the run after twice escaping from his captors, he had absolutely no experience of jungle warfare or survival so this was essential training in this new environment. He was suitably grateful to the men of 656 Squadron for their invaluable help in this respect.
One of the tasks he had to master was the ability to place a rather large helicopter on the ground in a very tightly restricted area. Simple enough you might think but when you are surrounded by dense jungle and trees that are between 250ft - 300ft tall, it is not quite so easy to achieve this objective - especially when you have to worry about hostile fire.
The fixed wing pilots of 656
Squadron would often locate small food farms in the jungle and would direct the
helicopters of 155 Squadron to come in and destroy their jungle crops by
spraying them with a mixture of diesel and chemicals (a fore-runner of Agent
Orange) which defoliated the crops and denied the terrorists food. The armed convoys and harassment from the air
prevented them from growing food or hunting wild pigs and drove them deeper
into the jungle where food was not plentiful.
His first routine job was to ferry all the parts
of a tractor to Fort Langkap in Central Malaya.
This involved four twenty five minute flights each way - the return
flights involved carrying used cargo parachutes back to base.
Deploying 22 SAS Troopers in the jungle
Fort Chabai, Malaya. A short landing strip is just visible in the
left foreground
Jan
at Fort Brooke, Malaya
%2BJUNGLE%2BTAPIOCA%2BFARM%2BSPRAYED%2BAND%2BDEAD.jpg)
Destroyed CT (Chinese Terrorist) Tapioca
Farm in the Jungle
photographed approximately two weeks after defoliation
There were twelve Jungle Forts
scattered along the Peninsula; some in the lowlands and some in the deep
valleys of the central mountain range.
They were manned by the Malay Police or Federal troops and their staff had
to be rotated periodically. Some of
these forts could only be reached by helicopter. Even on the other side of the border, the
Thai Police had to be rotated by RAF helicopters. On such tours, Jan operated from permanent
Army camps and these provided a garrisoned area with a supply of aviation fuel,
food and temporary secure accommodation.
This may be the incident for which he was Mentioned in Despatches,
having located Captain Badger and Captain Jones in their crashed Auster on 3rd
December 1955 and flown them to safety at Bidor Airstrip
The military and the civil
Police authorities recognised and acknowledged their contribution towards
controlling the riots. On 30th August
1957 he was Mentioned in Despatches; it was recorded in the London Gazette that
this was for distinguished service in Malaya.
Programme from Exeter Air Display, 1960 in
which Jan flew a helicopter exhibition
Programme from Exeter Air Display
- 9th July 1960 - when he flew
the Demonstration Helicopter
In August 1960, he was posted
to RAF Shawbury for No 87 Joint Air Traffic Control Course after which he was
transferred, on 24th October, to RAF Linton on Ouse, Yorkshire. He returned to RAF Shawbury on 29th May 1962
for No 147 Radar Course.
On 31st January 1964 he was
posted to RAF Khormaksar, Aden where his main duties were in the field of air
traffic control. This was a complete new
experience for Jan and he must have felt somewhat inhibited by his lack of
flying but for the next two years he had a great deal of responsibility as part
of one of the shifts of Air Traffic Controllers controlling what was the
busiest RAF Station in the world and all movements of the twelve resident
military squadrons, twenty two civil airlines and many military emergency
landings and through traffic. He also
had to control a plethora of aircraft types - enough to rival any major modern
airport.
These included ground attack Hawker Hunters from 8, 43 and 208 squadrons; photo reconnaissance Hawker Hunters of 1417 Flight; Belvedere helicopters from 26 squadron; Avro Shackletons from 37 squadron; Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneers from 78 squadron; Blackburn Beverley heavy lift transports from 84 squadron; Armstrong Whitworth Argosies from 115 squadron; Vickers Valettas from 233 squadron; Handley Page Hastings and English Electric Canberras from the Middle East Communications Squadron and the SAR Flight of Bristol Sycamore helicopters.
RAF Khormaksar also doubled up
as Aden International Airport which had regular services from 22 civil airlines
including the resident Aden Airways; BOAC; Air India and Middle East Airlines. The RAF provided Air Traffic Control services
to all aircraft operators using the aerodrome which also included No 653 squadron
AAC (Beavers and Austers) and Royal Navy aircraft from carriers who happened to
be visiting or in transit.
RAF Khormaksar, Aden
After his two year stint
there, on 14th February 1966, he was sent to RAF Ternhill in Shropshire for the
No 20 Helicopter Refresher Course before being detached to RAF Valley on
Anglesey on 6th March 1966.
On 1st April 1967 he was
posted to RAF Leuchars, near St Andrews, Fife where he became Flight Commander
of C Flight of 202 Squadron. On 23rd
June of that year he attended the Royal Navy Survival Training School, Seafield
Park, Cosford, Wolverhampton for the Aircrew Underwater Escape from Helicopters
course.
In December 1966, RAF Leuchars
had a distinguished visitor and Jan was
the "air taxi driver" who took him back to Dundee on the first leg of
his journey home. Douglas Bader, the
Battle of Britain Ace was not unappreciative of the favour:
Thank you letter from Battle of Britain
Ace, Douglas Bader
For the last years of his
career he lived the life that we mere mortals only dream of! He may have been Commander of the Flight but
he certainly maintained an exciting and interesting life. Within the family, he joked about his
training exercises and, when he come home with a live cargo, his son remembers
that: " When he was on wet winching exercises in Scotland, the winch man
would occasionally come up with a lobster pot, of which the inhabitants would
be shared by the crew. I can remember seeing our kitchen sink filled with them
crawling around."
Whilst he was at RAF Leuchars,
he was called out to rescue an English Electric Lightning jet fighter pilot who
had been forced to eject in the North Sea and was facing a long, cold night in
a dinghy as darkness drew near.
However an Avro Shackleton had
located him and Jan and his crew managed to pull him out of the water before
nightfall. The pilot, Squadron Leader
Ron Blackburn, bought his rescuer a few drinks in the mess that night. It wasn't difficult - they were next door
neighbours!
Unfortunately the stricken man
had suffered a massive heart attack and died before the helicopter could get to
him. In spite of all their efforts and
flying with a damaged tail rotor caused by a bird strike, probably a seagull,
they were just too late to be of help.
This was a situation beyond the control of the crew but no less
distressing for that. They had to land
at Buchan, Aberdeenshire for replacement of the damaged tail rotor.
Birdstrike damage to the helicopter's tail
rotor
Tail damage to the SAR helicopter; grounded
at Buchan, Aberdeenshire for essential repairs
Jan Walentowicz story in the Newcastle
Journal on his final posting to RAF Acklington
On 1st May 1968 he was posted to the Search and Rescue base at RAF Acklington in Northumberland and attended the Fire Officer's course at RAF Catterick, North Yokshire on 24th November of that year. It was there that he became classified, as the local newspaper put it, as a mahogany bomber - desk bound.
After 32 years of unbroken
service, he decided to call it a day and retired from the Air Force. He moved to Billericay in Essex where he
started an Antiquarian Book Shop buying, selling and restoring old books and
following his self-taught skill of framing pictures.
Now aged almost 70 Jan and his
wife Winifred then had twenty happy years of retirement in the village of East
Hanningfield near Chelmsford, Essex. For
many years, they used to stay in Florida, USA during the winter months in the
charming resort of Dunedin. In 1998 he
was invited, together with Winifred, by the government to a ceremony in Poland
to honour the achievements of the Polish Air Force in Exile during the war.
A few years before he died Jan
met up with a man named Michael Forest who had been living locally and whom he
had not seen for a very long time. Last
time they met they were both escaping from France to Britain and the man's name
was then Michal Zalewski. They both
fought, in different ways, for their adopted country.
In 2010 they received a congratulatory card from the Her Majesty the Queen to celebrate sixty years of marriage. Jan remained reasonably healthy past his 90th year. He was active in the Royal Air Forces Association’s annual Wings Appeal almost until his death on 21st July 2011 at the age of 90. His funeral took place in Chelmsford, Essex and his ashes were buried in the Polish section of the cemetery in Newark, Nottinghamshire.
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