MARIAN MICHAL SZCZODROWSKI

He was born on 30^th September 1916 at Krotoszyn, a Prussian  province of Posen, and was educated there.  He graduated in May 1937 and then joined the army, being enrolled in the Officer Cadet Artillery Reserve School at Wlodzimierz Wolynski. 

On 3^rd January 1938 he was assigned to the Officer Cadet Aviation School in Deblin, where he trained as a pilot on the PZL23 Karas bomber.  He graduated from this course in 81^st position on the XIII Promotion.  He was promoted to 2^nd Lieutenant on the first day of the war and was evacuated to Eastern Poland on the same day.

When the Russians invaded on 17^th September 1939, his group crossed into Romania where he was interned in the camp at Slatinie.  He escaped a few days later and made his way, via Bucarest, to Balcik, a port on the Black Sea where he boarded a ship (the St Nicolaus) for Beirut, Lebanon.  From there he, and a group of Polish Air Force officers, boarded another ship (Ville de Strasbourg)  and sailed for Marseilles.  He made it to Marseilles on 29^th October 1939 and reported to the barracks at Salon.

Deblin 1938  -  PWS-26 Advanced Trainer

 

He volunteered to come to Britain and then, in January 1940, took a boat from Cherbourg to Southampton and was posted to RAF Eastchurch in Kent.  His first tasks were to learn English and to familiarise himself with the Kings Regulations.  At the end of the spring of 1940, he finally moved, with the whole Polish contingent to RAF Blackpool.  This was because RAF Eastchurch was a front line fighter base for the Battle of Britain and not a safe place to train these desperately needed volunteers.

From there, he was assigned to 15 Elementary Flying Training School at Carlisle in Cumberland for a refresher course and to make himself familiar with the controls of British aircraft, which were radically different from those of Polish and French aircraft.  He was also sent to 1 Air Armament School at RAF Manby, Lincolnshire for practical flying experience on British aircraft.  Later, on 15^th July 1941, he was sent to 18 OTU, at RAF Bramcote in Warwickshire for operational training prior to combat flying.

In September of that year he transferred to 304 Squadron at RAF Lindholme, Lincolnshire  from where he saw his first combat.  On the night of 7^th October 1941 he flew on his first mission to bomb the docks at Boulogne, France, beginning a campaign of bombing the French coastal ports.  He followed this up with an attack on Cherbourg on 25^th October and another on Calais on 7^th December.

On 16^th December 1941 he was second pilot to Squadron Leader Jan Blazejewski and they took off in R1064, at 16.57 hours on a mission to Ostend, Belgium.  His aircraft was shot down by a German night fighter and was seen to crash into the sea about 30 kilometres from the Kent Coast.  At 19.05hrs, a distress signal was received at RAF Manston in Kent, but nothing could be done.  The whole crew perished and only four bodies were found; his was not one of them and he has no known grave.  He was posthumously awarded the Field Pilot’s Badge.  The other crew members were PO Jan Komlacz, Sgt Boguslaw Golabek, Sgt Kazimierz Suwalski and Sgt Hubert Rutkowski.

My thanks to Ryszard Kolodziejski for much information and photographs from his collection

304 SQUADRON INTEREST

When I started this blog, my stated intent was to educate the British public about the extent of the Polish involvement, commitment and heroism in the defence of this little island group of ours.  My basic intentions were motivated by my own ignorance on the subject, before I became interested in the activities of 304 Squadron.

 

More than five years later, I find that just over 65% of the people who have shown an interest are NOT British, or at least, not domiciled in Great Britain.  Even I realise that many of the British domiciled readers must be of, at least, partial Polish ethnic origin - I had no idea that my blog would generate interest in over 109 countries and territories in every continent except Antarctica - and there are very few people there anyway!

 

So, basically, I would like to thank all the people who have helped me over the last five years, or so.  You may not realise it, but you have also helped quite a few people to find out about their family members who served in the Squadron.  So - what else can I say, but Thanks! 

MORE PHOTOS FROM SLAGILLE

 

 

Pages of entries in the Church Records at Slagille, Denmark

added later by the parish priest

 

 

    Memorial Garden to those killed at Slagille on BB309

 

 

       Memorial stone to those killed on Halifax BB309

 

 

     The present Polish graves at Slagille

 

These are more pictures provided from his own collection and website, through the courtesy of Soren Flensted, to whom I am extremely grateful.

OPERATION NEON 3

Without wishing to detract from the incredible courage and resourcefulness shown by the men of many nationalities who flew in 138 Squadron, a considerable number of them were also former 304 Squadron aircrew.   For that reason, I feel justified in including this story as six of the seven man crew had previously served in the squadron and their individual stories have already been featured on this site.

Halifax Mk II BB309 (NF-T) left RAF Tempsford at approximately 18.29 hours on 17^th September 1943, its mission - Operation Neon 3 -  was to drop off two agents at Drop Zone Obraz 108 in Poland.

The agents were 2^nd Lieutenant Miroslaw Kryszczukajtis (Szarzy) and Bernard Augustyn Wiechula (Maruda); they were successfully delivered and BB309 was approximately  half way home when it was attacked by a German Ju88c night fighter.  This fighter was crewed  by Pilot Leutnant Richard Burdyna, Obergefreiter Leo Klotz and Obergefreiter Fritz Merten of 11/NJG 3; it was directed to them by the Radar Station Seehund  at Tybjerg, Denmark.

The Halifax was damaged by fire from the Ju88 and the pilot, F/Sgt Tadeusz Miecznik, attempted a forced landing in fields near Slagille.  He touched town at about 04.45am, but struck a house, and the impact, and the fierce fire that ensued, killed five of the crew and five civilians, including two children, on the ground.  For the crew of the Ju88, this was their first “kill” of the war; they were all aged between 20-22  and, fascinated by the results of their work, they circled at low level then crashed into trees and burst into flames.  There are different versions of how the Ju88 crashed: return fire from the Halifax; striking power cables; striking trees and the fact that it was a very dark night with no moon.  The latter was probably German propaganda and is obviously implausible because of the light given off by the fire alone.  The story, as told, was researched by Soren Flensted and the late Anders Bjornvad, both of whom are of impeccable credentials and spent many years researching the story “on the ground.” 

 

The Wreckage of Halifax BB309 (NF-T) and the farmhouse at Slagille, Denmark

 

In the space of just a few minutes, thirteen people were dead or mortally injured, one member of the Polish aircrew (Sgt Roman Puchala) escaped unhurt, one member of the crew (F/Sgt Tadeusz Miecznik) was badly injured and six people in the house escaped virtually unharmed.  The injured were all taken to the nearby Ringsted Hospital where all but F/Sgt Miecznik died later the same day; he later escaped, evaded and, apparently, “evaporated” as he seems to have disappeared from the record.  Any help with a photograph of him and/or news of what happened to him would be most welcome.

AFTERMATH

The German forces behaved in a way that was neither brutal nor inhuman but was thoughtless, to say the least, towards the non-German victims.  The Luftwaffe crew were taken to Copenhagen and buried with full military honours.  The dead Polish airmen were buried, with indecent haste, in shallow graves in the local churchyard at Slagille, as were the innocent civilians (albeit in normal graves).  One of the surviving crew members became a POW and the other escaped and was taken to neutral Sweden by the local resistance organisation, from where he is believed to have been returned to Scotland.

 

The Innocents: the civilians

In the early hours of that fateful morning, the crippled bomber hit the ground and skidded for several hundred metres before slamming into the farmhouse, on the Stockholtevejen road near Slagille, occupied by the family of a farm labourer, L. Christensen, who was killed, along with his wife, mother and two of their children.  This happened in the fire that followed the crash, when the remaining aviation fuel ignited.  Miraculously, the other five children and one grandchild escaped unscathed.  The civilian dead were respectfully buried in the churchyard at Slagille.

The Allied airmen

Flight Sergeant Eugeniusz Pawel Kasprzak was badly burned in the incident and was taken to the Hospital at Ringsted, where he died later that day.  Flight Lieutenant Wincenty Wasilewski, Flight Sergeant Julian Michalski, Sergeant Wladyslaw Patlewicz and Sergeant Wladyslaw Barzdo (the only member of this crew not to have served in 304 Squadron) were all killed at the scene.  These men were unceremoniously buried, in a shallow grave, at three o’clock in the morning on the day after the crash.



Sergeant Roman Puchala survived the crash and jumped from the aircraft before it hit the farm house; he immediately ran away across the fields, where he bumped into the wife of Niels Rasmussen, who was coming to investigate the crash.  She was born in Poland and was able to talk to him in his own language, before arranging for him to be fed and have a few hours sleep.  The Germans made a thorough search of the area and found him on the farm.  He was initially taken to Dulag Luft, a transit camp for airmen, near Frankfurt where he was initially interrogated before being sent on to Stalag Luft VI at Gross Tychy, near Tychowo in Poland.  His final move was to Stalag 357 at Fallingbostel, Lower Saxony; his POW number was 539.

His son informed me that he survived the war and died in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire in 1997, aged 80.

Flight Sergeant Tadeusz Miecznik was the pilot, and the only other survivor from the aircrew.  He was taken to hospital for treatment of his broken left leg and right arm.  With the help of the Danish Resistance, he was able to escape from the hospital at Ringsted, he was later taken to Sweden and ultimately evaded the Germans and made it back to Great Britain and is believed to have survived the war, but little else is known about him.

The Axis airmen:

The Luftwaffe night fighter, a Junkers Ju88C6 serial no 360167 from IV/NJG3 was piloted by Leutnant Richard Burdyna, born 19^th June 1923 at Muhlhausen and died at the scene of the crash.  His crew members were Obergefreiter Fritz Merten, radar operator, born 26^th July 1921 at Berlin-Lichtenberg and Obergefreiter Leo Klotz, born 15^th November 1921 at Lahbehn- Lauenburg.  They both survived the initial impact but died later the same day at Ringsted Hospital.

This was reportedly their first kill and they were circling the area, fascinated by the carnage below, when their aircraft struck trees or a high voltage power cable (reports vary) and crashed in flames in the nearby Bjernede Forest.  The official version was that it was a very dark night; this is clearly propaganda as the flames from the initial impact would have lit up the night sky.  They were taken to Copenhagen and buried in Vestre Cemetery.

The local heroes:

The parish priest, Svend Jacobsen from Slagille, was horrified when he heard from the grave digger that soldiers of the Wermacht had buried the dead airmen in a very shallow grave in the churchyard, without a Christian prayer or ceremony; this was done at 3 am on the morning after the crash.  He wrote to the Bishop asking that the Germans give him the names of the dead airmen so that the parish records could be kept in order.  He also arranged for the airmen to be given a decent burial in coffins and in a grave of the proper depth.  He conducted the ceremony which included a Latin prayer and a prayer in English.  The funerals were paid for by the Danish shipping magnate A.P. Moller, founder of the Maersk Line and the grave was strewn with fresh flowers and the funeral well attended by the local people. 

 

 

The first proper grave, paid for by AP Moller

 

 

On 2nd October 1943, Svend Jacobsen was allowed to visit the wounded pilot in Ringsted Hospital. It is known that they discussed the incident but Tadeusz Miecznic was careful with the truth and told him that they had been bombing German targets in Poland; he did not mention that they had dropped weapons, supplies and agents there.

When the Germans felt that Miecznic was ready to be moved to a Prisoner of War Camp, Dr  Lenler-Eriksen  contacted Marius Petersen, a local ironmonger, asking whether he would be able to  help Miecznik to escape, before he was to be transferred to German custody. Marius Petersen thought it might be possible. He contacted Jorgen Wiboltt ,who was then head of the Zonen Ringsted Fire Station, with a view to making the arrangements.  It was obvious that the airman had to get away from the town immediately after the escape and so Wiboltt went to Copenhagen to make arrangements to get him  to Sweden but without a result.  It seemed that no one was able to help. 

However, a little later Wiboltt was contacted by Kisling at Zonen Osterbro Fire Station, who promised to arrange transport to Sweden, if the airman was brought to Copenhagen. The  escape was planned for 7th November 1943 providing Miecznic was physically able to do it.  Just before 10 p.m. Wiboltt and  Petersen placed a ladder against the airman´s window and helped him out of the window and down the ladder into the grounds.  The airman was given a civilian coat, and he managed to walk unaided  to the Zonen Fire Station – a distance of something like 600 metres.  Wiboltt drove him to Copenhagen and passed him into Kisling’s care.

Shortly afterwards the Polish airman was delivered into the care of Police inspector Thormod Larsen, then a young police officer in Elsinore.  The prepared story was that Miecznic was to be transferred to the hospital at Hillerod for more treatment after which he was to be handed to the Police for transfer into German custody.

The resistance had about 14 suitable places from which they were able to move escapees and, on this occasion, they chose Espergarde code named FA  At that time the courier connection to Helsingborg was totally safe and fast.  When the boat came, the helmsman was Erling Kiaer and Miecznic was carried on to it by Thormod Larsen and accountant Ove Bruhn, who then worked at the Police Station in Elsinore.  The airman then made the short journey to Sweden and was soon repatriated to Britain – although the route is uncertain.

My thanks to Soren Flensted for a great  deal of information and permission to use photographs from his collection and his website www.flensted.eu.com.

BOGUSLAW PILNIAK (AKA BERNARD PILNIAK)

He was born on 20^th February 1912 at Kuznica near Lodz, Poland, the son  of Tomasz and Miroslawa.  His military service began on 19^th September 1934, when he enrolled as an Officer Cadet attached to No 4 Infantry Regiment (possibly at Lodz or Torun?).  Between 3rd January and 12^th September 1935, he attended the Air Force Officer Cadets course (Deblin?), on completion of which he was posted to No 1 Air Regiment at Warsaw.

 

 

Gliding - just before take off - Poland, 1936

 

On 1^st January 1937, after further training, he was promoted to 2^nd Lieutenant and posted to 2 Air Regiment at Krakow and, between 22^nd July and 31^st August 1938, he undertook further training and large scale combined army/air force manoeuvres.  This was clearly in anticipation of the future consequences of an attack by Hitler’s increasingly aggressive Third Reich.  It may not have been so obvious that Russia would join the attack in the way that she ultimately did, but there was no love lost between her and Poland.

At the outbreak of war, he was in Yemen as a member of a Mission to reorganise the Yemeni Air Force, but was released from his contract on 8^th September 1939 by the Yemeni King Yahya Muhammad Hamidaddin to allow him to return to Poland to rejoin his unit.

On the way from the Port of Aden via Suez and Cairo he received the news that Germany and Russia had occupied Poland and was advised, by the Polish Consulate in Cairo, that Polish forces were being assembled in France. 

He made his way to Athens, Greece and, at his own expense, he set sail for Marseilles in France and arrived there on 16^th October 1939, rejoining the Polish forces there.  He was assigned to the Polish rallying point at Le Bourget, the airport for Paris, on 26^th November 1939.

He was subsequently posted to the Polish Air Force in exile in Britain but, while he was awaiting transport, France capitulated and he escaped to North Africa.  From there he made his way  to Gibraltar from where he sailed to Glasgow, on a British vessel, arriving there in October 1940.  As with most Polish airmen, he was sent to Blackpool, to the Polish Depot there.

After a short period of training at No 1 School of Army Co-operation at Old Sarum, Wiltshire, he was posted to No 4 Ferry Pilot Pool at RAF Prestwick, Ayrshire near Glasgow.  From there he was posted to RAF Takoradi in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), West Africa, embarking on 18^th November 1940 and arriving there on 18^th December 1940 after a hazardous month at sea.  He was immediately posted to the Polish Air Force detachment of Ferry Pilots based there under the control of RAF Middle East Command.  His task was delivering aircraft that had been crated and sent there by sea before being re-assembled.  His delivery point  was probably RAF Heliopolis (Cairo) for onward shipment all around the Middle East  and the Mediterranean, under the aegis of Middle East Command.

On 23^rd July 1941 he was seriously hurt in a flying accident and was admitted to the British Military Hospital in Kaduna, Nigeria where he remained until his discharge on 1^st November 1941.  He had suffered a badly fractured leg and cuts and bruises. 

The circumstances of this accident to Delivery Flight 162 were that he was delivering a Martin Maryland bomber and was making his approach to land at the Kaduna staging point when an engine cut out and he crashed.  His crew members were Sgt EPP Eden, who was also badly injured and 755458 Sergeant Walter John Ronald Hammond, RAFVR, who was killed.  Sgt Hammond is buried in Kaduna Civil Cemetery.

Two weeks later, he was transferred to RAF Torquay, Devon and then on to the Polish Depot at Blackpool on 25^th January 1942 where he remained for about 8 months, presumably recuperating.  On 27^th September 1942 he was posted to No 16 Polish Secondary Flying Training School at RAF Newton, Nottinghamshire.  His next move was on 10^th December 1942 to No 6 Air Observer School, possibly at RAF Staverton (now Gloucestershire Airport), as a pilot and the Polish Liaison Officer to No 25 Training Group.

On 16^th August 1943, he transferred to the No 3 School of General Reconnaissance at Squires Gate, Blackpool and on 18^th October 1943 to the Polish Air Force Depot, also at Blackpool.  He stayed there until 30^th November 1943 when he was posted in to 304 Squadron at RAF Davidstow Moor, Cornwall during their time in Coastal Command.  Two weeks later, the Squadron completed its move to RAF Predannack, also in Cornwall, and two days after that he was sent on a short familiarisation course on Wellington Bombers.  He was a very experienced pilot but had not flown these aircraft before; the course was at 3 OTU at RAF Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales.  He was there from 15^th December 1943 to 1^st January 1944 and was one of the last to be trained by them as the Unit was disbanded three days after he completed his course.

 

Sq/Ldr Pilniak (3rd from right) and crew after returning from a mission in early 1944

During the course of his fighting career, he pursued the normal Polish course of action against the Luftwaffe and the Third Reich this is best described by a translation of the citation for his Virtuti Militari:

Captain Pilniak completed his tour of 43 combat operations as first pilot and co-pilot.  He showed courage, determination, cool headed initiative, outstanding professional knowledge and a very high level of skill as a pilot.  The captain has achieved many successes and has kept his crew and aircraft safely in the sky.  He set a fine example, as a pilot and co-pilot, to his crew.  He also demonstrated outstanding qualities whilst acting as Squadron Leader from 11^th November 1944 until 9^th March 1945.

On the night of 23^rd/24^th March 1944, whilst on patrol over the Bay of Biscay, his plane was shadowed by a night fighter for an hour and twenty minutes but he did not have the speed to outrun it.  He and his crew ignoring the threat of possibly being shot down, they continued their patrol with full dedication to the service, returning to the base after being airborne for 10 hours 15 minutes.

 

On 14^th July 1944 his crew were on patrol near the coast of France when they detected, and daringly attacked a U-boat with depth charges.  Outstanding co-operation with a British naval  escort group brought them to the scene of the action and they believed that the most likely result was the destruction of a U-boat.

On 21^st May 1944 his crew performed a very dangerous special patrol in the English Channel and remained on station until the end of the patrol, despite the strong anti-aircraft defences of the French coastal  batteries and the constant threat from night fighters.

On 27^th January 1945 his crew detected two German U-boats equipped with the latest Snorkel devices.  They were without bombs but immediately alerted a strike force of planes and British naval vessels.  Understanding their duty, the crew gave devoted service and risked their own lives and safety by remaining over the scene, to the limits of their petrol, keeping watch until the British Navy and Air Force arrived.

On 11^th October 1944, 29^th November 1944, 20^th December 1944, 26^th December 1944 and 29^th January 1945, despite the very severe atmospheric conditions, the crew remained on patrol until moment they received explicit instructions from Headquarters  requiring an immediate  return to base, fearing the loss of aircraft and crew in conditions so severe that they would be unable to guarantee to provide them with an airfield suitable for landing at the end of the routine patrol. 

On 18^th February 1945 the crew’s first official engine defect occurred but the crew placed their selves at risk by remaining on patrol.  Despite the very severe weather conditions, they only abandoned the patrol on a direct order from Coastal Command Headquarters, returning to base and landing with a damaged engine.

Their actions, values and efforts during the whole operational tour show that Captain Pilniak, being a model soldier, pilot and co-pilot, fully deserves the award of the Silver Cross of the Military Order of the Virtuti Militari 5^th Class.
 

 

RAF Chivenor, 25th April 1944 - General Izycki chats with a crew immediately before they take off on a mission.  S/Ldr Pilniak is second from right in the picture

It was a sad day, for 304 Squadron, when S/Ldr Boguslaw Pilniak left them to join the Polish Air Force Head Quarters in London on 10^th March 1945 and was posted to the Directorate of the Department of Air Officer Commander in Chief, in London, where he retained the rank of Acting Squadron Leader.   He was mentioned as having been involved with gathering material concerning the death of General Sikorski and this may have been collecting evidence for the Polish Government in Exile for their own investigation, or it may have been for archival purposes. 

 

 

1944 - Having just received the Cross of Valour and the Cross of Merit With Swords

 

During the course of his war, he was awarded the Silver Cross of the Military Order of Virtuti Militari – Class V, the Cross of Valour and bar, the Silver Cross of Merit with Swords, the Air Force Medal and three bars;  all of these being Polish Gallantry Medals.  He was also awarded the (British) Air Force Cross and the following British campaign medals: the 1939-1945 Star, the Africa Star, the Atlantic Star, the Defence Medal and the War Medal 1939-45.

 

1945 - At his desk in the Air Ministry, London

 

With the phased reduction of the Polish Forces under British operational command , he transferred to the Polish Resettlement Corps with effect from 16^th April 1947 and relinquished his commission on 19^th November 1948 and was honourably discharged into civilian life in Britain.

He brought the same enthusiasm to his civilian life after the war.  He took British Nationality and changed his name by Deed Poll, from Boguslaw Piliniak to Bernard Pilniak and he married Jeane Mary Bell and became the Managing Director of their own successful engineering company.  Even in retirement he could not settle and they ran a very successful Bed and Breakfast establishment in Lyme Regis, Dorset.  Sadly, he developed cancer and died in the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital on 21^st November 1979 at the relatively young age of 67.

I am grateful to Egbert and Jeane Hughes for access to their family archives and their private papers and photograph collection, without which this article would not have been possible.  Jeane was the wife of Squadron Leader Pilniak until his death in 1979; she married Egbert in 1995.

CREW OF WELLINGTON NB767 (QD-L)

As an end piece to my prievious entry, the crew list was as follows: W/O  Henryk Sawosko, Sgt Stanislaw Gajszyn, Sgt Tadeusz Liczbinski, Sgt Ignacy Pawlowski, Sgt Jozef Stendera, Sgt Franciszek Strauch and all survived with only minor injuries except Sgt Stendera who was almost scalped!  The Squadron ORB reports the incident as follows:

 

"Owing to haze in base area, Captain decided to land at St. Merryn, where the aircraft crashed on overshooting the runway and was totally wrecked. The entire crew escaped unhurt."

 

 

 



WELLINGTON MK XIV NB767 (QD-L)

Just as a tiny postscript to the Jozef Stendera story, I noticed a detail in red in his Flying Log which lead me to the thought that this was another unrecorded 304 Squadron loss.  It also lead me to some further information on another Polish airman, which proves my, long held, opinion that the tiniest bit of information can produce the most amazing results.

On reading Jozef Stendera’s entry in his Flight Log, I was interested – but not totally impressed – with this brief mention of a crash landing in Cornwall.  At that time, I was less than excited except for the fact that other researchers had dismissed the incident as trivial, but I knew that Jozef Stendera had been quite badly hurt – almost scalped.

Some further investigation has revealed that the aircraft was a total write-off and Jozef’s injury may have been trivial by wartime flying standards but could have been very much more serious had his pilot strictly followed the rules.

This refers to the routine Anti-submarine patrol of a Leigh Light equipped Wellington Mk XIV bomber out of RAF St Eval, in Cornwall, which lost hydraulic power and returned to base, just over eight hours into its patrol.  The pilot of the aircraft was forced to abort plans of returning to RAF St Eval due to low cloud and take the risky option of landing at RNAS St Merryn, a Fleet Air Arm base which had four short runways orientated so that aircraft could land and take off, no matter what the wind direction.  These runways were intended for fighters and bi-planes – not Vickers Wellington bombers – and were only 1,100 yards long!

 

In the early hours of the morning of 20^th March 1945, 304 Squadron Leigh Light Wellington Mk XIV, serial NB767 (QD-L) was in the difficult position of having unserviceable hydraulics and presumably ditched its bomb load into the sea before attempting to land.  The flight controller at RNAS St Merryn ordered Red Verey lights to be fired – warning the pilot not to attempt a landing.  However, after two failed attempts, which lead to overshoots, the pilot decided to ignore these orders and to land due to overheating of his engines.

In his situation of reduced control, due to virtually useless hydraulics, he landed and it quickly became apparent that there was insufficient landing space, so he retracted the undercarriage to bring the aircraft to a halt – writing it off in the process – but saving the lives of all six men aboard.

 



Accident investigators were unable to find any hydraulic leaks as the operating jacks were too badly damaged and the aircraft was a total write-off.  However, the difference in flying time to RAF St Eval was minimal and there is no reason to doubt the pilot’s motivation.

I was aware, from Jozef Stendera’s Flying Log, that the Pilot was P-794515  W/O Henryk Sawosko and, obviously, one of the Wireless Operator/Air Gunners was P-705623 Jozef Stendera.  From the Form 1180, I found an almost illegible hand written name for the co-pilot, which was easily identified as Stanislaw Gajszyn, from his easily legible Service Number  P-703997.

Remaining mysteries are Stanislaw Gajszyn’s rank – Squadron Leader on the crash card; but Warrant Officer everywhere else.  There is also the question of the rank and identity of the other three members of the crew.