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 with 1st Aviation Regiment 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.
His name does not appear on the list of active pilots in the Squadron
ORB and it appears that he was there in a training capacity - perhaps due to
his age. After this 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.
During the course of his military career he was awarded the Order of
Polonia Restituta, the Cross of Merit with Swords, the Greek Gold Cross of the
Order of the Phoenix and British campaign medals.
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.
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