Jan was born on 28th January 1912 in Czestochowa to Wincenty Mondschein, a music publisher, and his wife Helena, née Siwczynska, who lived in Warsaw. He grew up in the pleasant suburb of Warsaw called Praga-Północ, situated across the River Vistula from the centre of the city, and therefore not destroyed during the 1944 uprising or the German attempt to destroy the city as they retreated.
He was born into a reasonably well to do family and received a good education. After graduating from high school, he completed his National Service in the army in a mounted reconnaissance unit, and then studied at Warsaw University, from which he graduated in law in 1935, and went to work as a trainee lawyer at the Salt Monopoly.
His future seemed assured in June 1939 after he had completed his Masters degree in Law in June 1939. War was imminent and he was mobilised as a reserve officer with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. From 1st September he became an active participant in the fighting to defend Poland against the surprise attack from Germany. During this time he performed reconnaissance and other duties with the 32nd Infantry Regiment. Because of a shortage of horses, he commanded a platoon of cyclists to carry out these duties.
In his case the enemy were coming from East Prussia in the North. The Poles made a fighting retreat towards Warsaw and made a stand at the fortress at Modlin, north of Warsaw, under the command of General Wiktor Thommée. The soldiers here fought ferociously from 13th to 29th September and their anti-aircraft battery was credited with shooting down more Luftwaffe aircraft than any other battery throughout the entire September Campaign.
After lasting longer than almost everyone else, this force of 24,000 men finally surrendered to the Germans and Jan was made a prisoner of war. Two days earlier he had been awarded the Krzyz Walecznych (Cross of Valour) for his part in the Defence of Modlin.
The capitulation agreed by the Modlin commander, General Thommée, with the Germans was on the condition that the Polish troops would leave the fortress with their ceremonial weapons, and, after processing, would be released home. On 17th October 1939, Jan was released from the POW Camp in Dzialdowie and allowed to return to Warsaw. This camp, formerly a Polish Army barracks, later became a torture camp where between 10,000 - 13,000 of its 30,000 population were murdered.
From 17th October to 21st November 1939 he lived in Warsaw but immediately went underground whilst he planned his next move. On this latter date he travelled to Krakow where he stayed for only three days before moving on to Krynicy and two days later he crossed the border into the Slovak Republic (client state of Nazi Germany) and headed for Orlov.
In Orlov he was arrested and taken to Prestov where he was sentenced to a "day arrest" for illegally crossing the border. Five days later he was released and directed to the Hungarian border where he crossed into Hungary at Koszyce. He was taken to a camp which he refers to as Danos but I believe was the former Officer's rest camp at Esztergom where he was treated reasonably well by the sympathetic Hungarians. He stayed there from 2nd December 1939 until 13th March 1940.
On that day he left for Budapest in search of the Polish diplomats there who would provide him with false ID, money and travel documents to get him to the west. This was a very well organised business both in Hungary and Romania which acquired large volumes of genuine ID blanks complete with all necessary signatures and rubber stamps obtained from sympathetic officials and sometimes with small bribes.
In Jan's case he travelled on passport number 42095/15/1888 dated 7th or 4th February 1940 and issued in the name of Roman Waniewicz. His journey took him across Hungary, Jugoslavia and Northern Italy by train to France. Although Mussolini's government were sympathetic to the Germans, these people were allowed to cross Italy but they were not allowed to stop except to buy fuel and food.
He arrived at the French border on the morning of 16th March and enrolled with the Polish forces at the Officer's station in Paris. He was posted to Clermont-Ferrand which he liked very much but it was not long before he was in action.
In May 1940 the German panzers entered France. The Polish units were sent North to help in the defence, but the French army soon disintegrated. The Poles were not about to surrender and Jan's group commandeered a train and travelled South in it.
He is most likely to have been sent on to the Polish base at Lyon-Bron where he would have stayed until the capitulation of France. He was evacuated from the port of Biarritz or the area around there, most probably from St Jean de Luz just a few miles away. It was not an easy evacuation as they were harassed by U-Boats and bombed and strafed by the Luftwaffe and many of the escort vessels were forced to act as submarine hunters and anti-aircraft gun platforms. This was not an easy evacuation, taking place just a few days after Dunkirk and with heavy loss of life on the beaches and at sea. Nevertheless almost as many men were rescued from the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts as were rescued from Dunkirk.
As a soldier, he was taken to Glasgow where he joined what remained of the Polish Army. When the British Army started training paratroops on 21st June 1940, Jan was one of the early volunteers and completed the rigorous and dangerous training at RAF Ringway near Manchester (now Manchester International Airport). Some of the training techniques had to be abandoned because they caused an unacceptable level of injuries to the trainees. This school was founded on Churchill's direct instruction and became known as the Central Landing School. It was intended primarily to create a corps of parachutists but also functioned as an experimental centre and a technical centre for airborne troops.
Jan was becoming very restless waiting to get into active service and it was probably when his brother Jerzy was made a Prisoner of War that impelled him to apply for a transfer from the Army to the Polish Air Force. This would probably not have been approved if Jerzy had not been a pre-war officer and well known to the Polish top brass.
He was accepted and passed as suitable for air crew and then underwent the long period of training which finally ended at No 6 (Polish) Operational Training Unit at RAF Thornaby on Tees, North Yorkshire and he was transferred to 304 Squadron on 2nd January 1944 when they were based at RAF Predannack, Cornwall. He actually arrived at the squadron two days earlier than the official transfer date.
During his time with 304 Squadron he flew 44 hostile sorties and served also at RAF Chivenor near Barnstaple in Devon and RAF Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland.
The following selection of photographs were probably taken during his service with 304 Squadron
In March 1945, while the War was coming to a close, he was selected for an advanced Staff Navigator course at RAF Shawbury near Shrewsbury, Shropshire. The War ended during his time there and on qualifying, he was posted to 301 Squadron which had been moved to Transport Command at RAF Chedburgh, Suffolk. The duties there included navigating routes for unarmed and converted Handley Page Halifax bombers mainly to Italy and Greece.
Instead of carrying bombs these aircraft carried routine supplies to our forces, including mail, but also cargoes of around one ton in weight of British printed Greek and Italian currency to replace the, now worthless, German occupation currency. On the return journey they also flew released Prisoners of War home to England.
He was among the many Polish servicemen unwilling to return to Poland under Stalin's puppet Communist regime. That was a sensible decision when you consider the number of returning troops who were arrested, imprisoned, tortured and even executed. Those who were not subjected to this harsh treatment were denied decent jobs and men who had been lawyers, doctors and other professional men struggled to finId employment above the level of road sweepers.
So, on his demobilisation, he was enrolled in the Polish Resettlement Corps where he was assured an income at his existing level of pay and a place to live for a period of up to two years. He was also given help to improve his English and learn a new skill.
The Polish legal system, based in Roman law, was quite different from Anglo-Saxon common law, so his Polish qualification as a lawyer was of no value in England. In 1947 he was offered and accepted a permanent commission in the RAF, and posted to RAF Cranwell (Technical Training) in an administrative role.
His postings thereafter were RAF Luqa in Malta, RAF St. Athan, near Barry, Wales, RAF Stanmore, Middlesex, RAF Benson, Oxfordshire, RAF Swinderby, Lincolnshire, RAF Hullavington, Chippenham, Wiltshire at the last of which he was Station Commander. One of his last jobs was overseeing the closure of RAF Yatesbury, Wiltshire.
He retired in 1966 with the acting rank of Wing Commander.
In February 1955 he was invested with the MBE in the New Year's Honours List and the following year he changed his name to Monsell by deed poll.
After retirement he worked as a civil servant in the Ministry of Defence (Navy) in Bath, Somerset until his death in October 1968 at the early age of 56.
While training as a navigator in 1943 he met an English girl named Sylvia Todd, then a VAD nurse at the RAF hospital at RAF Kirkham, where he was recovering from a case of diptheria/tonsillitis. They were married in June 1944 just 11 days after D-Day
All leave was cancelled but his Squadron Commander discreetly granted him an unofficial 48 hour pass to travel from RAF Chivenor to Penn Church in Buckinghamshire near his future bride's home. This was just long enough for the wedding and to bring his new wife back to RAF Chivenor. The squadron presented them with a silver bowl as a wedding gift. They had three children together.
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