JE SUIS CHARLIE

 

 

 

WITH SUPPORT AND SYMPATHY FROM ENGLAND





EUGENIUSZ SIEDLECKI

He was born on 14^th April 1919 at Zaborol in the Luck district (now in Ukraine).  From 1935 to 1938 he trained in Bydgoszcz he trained as a radio operator/air gunner and then joined the 1^st Air Regiment in Warsaw and went on to serve in the 213 and 217 Bomber Squadrons and fought in the opening campaign of the war until he was evacuated to Czerniowice aerodrome in Romania with the rest of his crew and their aircraft.  He was interned but soon managed to escape from the camp.

He made his way to France via Jugoslavia and Greece, arriving there on 23^rd October 1939.  He was posted to a reconnaissance squadron and his crew was eventually ordered to Oran in Algeria.  The aircraft had to make an emergency landing in Spain where he was detained for a month before being handed over to the Vichy French authorities.  This was the same aircraft on which Bernard Poloniecki  made his first attempt to get out of France.  He was demobilised and spent some time in the American Hospital hospital  in Marseilles whilst his escape was arranged.  He escaped from Marseilles in January 1941 and fled to Oran where he was interned for a month before being sent to another Polish detention camp in Algeria.  He attempted to escape but was caught and sent to a punishment camp in the Sahara Desert where he stayed until he was liberated by Allied forces.  He left Algeria at the end of November 1942 and arrived at the Polish Depot at Blackpool on 6^th December 1942.

He was posted to RAF Halton where he began training as a wireless operator/air gunner and he moved on to 6OTU on 30^th May 1944.  He was then transferred into 304 Squadron on 8^th August 1944 at the Coastal Command base at RAF Chivenor in Devon, where he flew 29 missions .  During his career he was decorated with the Cross of Valour three times and the Air Medal and was promoted to Warrant Officer on 31st August 1945.

In England he met and married his wife of 67 years and they emigrated to the USA in 1948.  They settled in Woodstock, Illinois and raised a family of seven children.  The family moved to Grayslake in 1963 and he spent the rest of his life working a five acre smallholding and made a living growing and selling vegetables and flowers.

Subsequently an obituary has been  published revealing that he had died in Grayslake, Illinois, USA on 18th December 2010 and was interred there in the Avon Centre Cemetery.

MIECZYSLAW PRONASZKO

 

He was born on 22^nd October 1902 in Warsaw and in 1918, he joined the 2^nd Light Cavalry Regiment.  He fought in the Polish-Bolshevik war.  In July 1924 he was sent to the Officer Cadet School in Warsaw then moved to the 83^rd Infantry Regiment until 1926 when he opted to join the Air Force and went to the flying school in Grudziadz, graduating two years later as an observer with the rank of Pilot Officer and posted to the 1^st Air Wing in Warsaw and later the 6^th Air Wing in Lvov.  By November 1938 he was in command of No 64 Bomber Flight.

He was still there on the outbreak of war and flew mostly anti-personnel missions against the invading German army.  He escaped to Romania and made his way to France and subsequently England.

At first he was posted to 300 Squadron as commander of B Flight.  He moved on to 304 Squadron on 10^th August 1942 and remained an operational pilot.  On Christmas Eve 1942, returning to RAF Dale from an anti-submarine patrol, fog made it impossible for him to land he could not make radio contact with RAF Chivenor to divert there.  After 11 hours 56 minutes flying time, the aircraft, HF898, ran out of fuel and the crew all baled out safely near Cannock in Staffordshire.

On 29^th January 1943 he took command of the squadron and remained there until 18^th November of that year when he moved on to the Polish Air Force Inspectorate.  His next move was to the American 9^th Air Force (December 1944 until April 1945).  He then moved to the Polish Air Force Headquarters.

During his service he was awarded the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari 5^th Class, the Cross of Valour (four times) and the British Distinguished Flying Cross.

On 2^nd April 1947 he was demobilised and emigrated to Montreal, Canada where he died on 12^th September 1968; he is buried in the Veterans Cemetery at Pointe-Claire.

WITOLD JACEK PIOTROWSKI

He was born on 25^th November 1906 at Chelmno Lubelskie.  In 1925 he joined the Infantry Cadet Officers School, later moving to the Air Force Officers School at Grudziadz.  In 1928 he qualified as a pilot observer and was then posted to No 4 Air Wing at Torun; by November 1937 he was the Commander of 42 Flight.  On the Russian invasion of Poland he made his way to France via Romania, Jugoslavia and Italy and served at the Polish Depot in Lyon-Bron.  On the capitulation of France he came to England.

By July 194o he had been assigned to 301 Squadron and, almost exactly a year later, he took command of the squadron but remained an operational pilot.  On completion of his 30 mission tour of duty he moved to RAF Bramcote as an instructor.

On 15^th February 1943 he changed tack and became Commander of 309 Fighter Squadron – again he remained an operational pilot.  In October 1943 he was sent, as an Air Force liaison officer, to Brigadier General Maczek’s 1st Armoured Division.  He then took over command of 304 Squadron from September 1945 until its disbandment in December 1946.

Later he graduated from the Air Academy and went to the Polish Air Force HQ until his demobilisation.  In 1948 he emigrated to Canada where he worked on the land and later in industry.  He died in Hamilton, Ontario on 3^rd December 1973.

He was awarded the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari, the Cross of Valour (four times), the Silver Cross of Merit with Swords and the British Distinguished Flying Cross.

STANISLAW POZIOMEK

He was a navigator, born on 22^nd March 1900 at Potoczek.  He trained and worked as a teacher.  From 1928 to 1931 he attended the Infantry Officer Cadet School at Ostrow Mazowiecka after which he was posted to the 36^th Infantry Regiment in Warsaw.  In December 1933 he attended a two year Observer training course at the Air Officers training school in Deblin, following which he was seconded to the 5^th Air Wing at Lida.

In 1938/39 he was at the Air Academy and was then transferred as permanent Air Force staff.  Like so many others, on the outbreak of war he made his way to England via Romania and France; once here he underwent further training and was posted to 305 Squadron.  In June 1941 he took command of A Flight and in October of that year he transferred to 304 Squadron, becoming Squadron Commander only a few weeks later on 14^th November 1941.  He remained there until 27^th July 1942.  During this time the squadron suffered very heavy losses and a shortage of replacements enforced its transfer  to Coastal Command.

He was transferred to the Polish Air Force Inspectorate but he became involved in a conspiracy against Air Vice Marshall Stanislaw Ujejski and as a result was sent to the internment camp at Rothesay on the Isle of Bute, Scotland.  The exact nature of this conspiracy is not clear.  He was released after the death of General Sikorski in July 1943.  He returned to the Polish Inspectorate, clearly back in favour, and was promoted to Wing Commander.  His new role was Deputy Chief of Staff to the Inspector General of the Polish Air Force.

On a visit to 304 Squadron, to attend the farewell party of the departing Commander (W/Cdr Czeslaw Korbut), he flew on HF188 on an anti-submarine mission over the Bay of Biscay on the night of 10th/11^th April 1944.  He was flying as the guest of Squadron Leader Stanczuk. This aircraft was shot down by German night fighters and the entire crew were lost.  His body was washed ashore in Spain and he was buried in the British Cemetery at Bilbao; his was the only body recovered.

During his career he was awarded the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari on 21^st November 1941, ironically presented to him by AVM Ujejski, and the Cross of Valour (four times).  On 5^th September 1942 he won the British Distinguished Flying Cross, the citation for which read:

“On all his operational missions, this officer has displayed a high standard of navigational efficiency, great keenness and bravery. He has carried out attacks on many important targets both in Germany and German occupied territory and his determination is such that he has always made several runs over the target to ensure accuracy of bombing. On one occasion Squadron Leader Poziomek skilfully flew his aircraft back to this country although it had been hit in seven places by splinters from anti-aircraft shells. Throughout, this officer has displayed fine leadership and has contributed largely to the high standard of morale in his flight.”

 

STANISLAW JOZEF ZUREK

He was born on 3^rd May 1911 in Krakow and in the summer of 1934 he undertook a military aviation course at Luck (now in the Ukraine and known as Lutsk).  In the year between September 1934 and September 1935 he attended the air force Officer Cadet School at Deblin and then returned to his job in Geodetics (earth sciences) but he continued in service as a reserve pilot – something similar to the British Territorial Army or the American National Guard.

On the outbreak of war he made his way, via Romania, to France and joined the Polish Air Force at Lyon-Bron and when France capitulated, he came to England where he was assigned to the Polish Depot at RAF Blackpool.  He went on to 6 Air Observers Navigation School then joined 18OTU and finally he was posted into 304 Squadron on 10^th August 1942 where he stayed until 12^th April 1943 when he was transferred to 6OTU as an instructor.  This date is quoted in “Commanders of the Polish Air Force Squadrons in the West” by Jozef Zielinski and Tadeusz Krzystek; however in “304 Squadron” Mariusz Konarski lists him as being in service, as a Flight Lieutenant, on 8^th July 1943.

On 2nd September 1942, he was flying as co-pilot to Marian Kucharski when they attacked a large surfaced U-boat with 6 depth charges and 2 anti submarine bombs.  They also strafed the decks of the submarine and saw a number of men fall or dive into the water.  This was the Italian submarine Reginaldo Giuliani and was severely damaged.  Fuel shortage, forced them to leave the scene, but intelligence proved that it had been forced to limp into an apparently neutral Spanish port of Santander for repairs which lasted two months.  The damage was severe and was assessed by British Intelligence as "Probably damaged" but, in fact, the vessel was never again used for hostile action and became a transport vessel for precious cargoes such as mercury to their Japanese allies.

He spent a year with 6 (Coastal) OTU as Officer in Charge of the Polish Flight but returned on 1^st December 1944 when he was appointed Commander of B Flight and from 3^rd January 1945 he became the Squadron Commander until 1^st September of that year when he was succeeded by Wing  Commander Witold Piotrowski.

He was not just a desk officer but flew operationally with his men; he unsuccessfully attacked a U–Boat on the night of January 12^th/13th 1945.  He was the pilot of Wellington HF303 E when they noticed a veil of smoke just above the surface; he descended and turned to attack but all that remained was a wake about 150 yards long and three or four yards wide.  He dropped two depth charges from 200ft and the crew noticed that the sea was boiling over an area about 20 yards across and two black objects were floating; one was triangular and the other appeared to be like a plank of wood but they both disappeared after a minute.  Photographs were taken, markers were dropped and a search was carried out but there were no further signs of wreckage or a damaged submarine.

He then moved on to the Polish Air Force HQ.  In June 1946 he returned to Coastal Command and on 20^th February 1947 he became the Polish Liaison Officer to Coastal Command.  He retired from the Air Force and settled in England.  He died on 11^th July 1979 in Runcorn, Cheshire (now Merseyside).

He was awarded the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari and the British Distinguished Flying Cross and Order of the British Empire.

Footnote: the Squadron classified this as a Grade B sighting of a schnorkel but the Admiralty concluded that there was no evidence of damage to a U-boat and classified it as inconclusive.  They also suggested that the black objects were inexplicable unless they were Torpex residue from the depth charges.

BERNARD MIECZYSLAW POLONIECKI

 

He was born on 19th May 1906 in Lwow (now Lviv, Ukraine) the son of a book seller and, after his education was completed, he went on to do his National Service in the Horse Artillery section of the Army.

His dream was always to fly but he was short sighted and that was a major barrier in the peace time Air Force.  Not totally put off, he took lessons as a glider pilot but had a serious accident in which he broke his arm badly and totally wrecked the glider.  In hope, he waited until the arm was healed then went to the Air Force base to have a medical for a civil pilot's licence.

He passed and then took lessons at the aero club in Lwow at Sknilow airfield which was shared with the military.  He trained on an elderly French Henriot bi-plane; in his memoirs he recalled that it was lubricated with castor oil which was foul smelling when hot and liberally sprayed the fuselage and front cockpit when the engine was running.

Once qualified as a pilot, he was able to transfer from the Army Reserves to the Air Force Reserves.  This was timely as he qualified and gained his wings in 1938 and the impending war with Germany created a bigger demand for qualified pilots.

As political tensions grew, he was called up from the Reserve and his flying was brought up to military standards in the weeks before Germany invaded.  The aircraft he trained on was a de Havilland bi-plane and they were soon moved to a rough airfield near the Soviet border to keep their aircraft away from the bombing of the main airfields.

Once Russia joined the conflict, they were ordered to fly to Romania.  With neither maps nor compass, he navigated by the sun and a railway line and landed at Czerniowice where he was refuelled and directed to Focsani.  He was disarmed and interned but a small bribe helped him to simply walk out of the camp and he took a train to Bucarest where the Embassy supplied him with a fake Jugoslavian passport, travel documents and money.

He took a train through Jugoslavia and Northern Italy to France where he waited in Paris to be equipped and called to duty.  When France capitulated he hitched a lift on a Polish bomber bound for North Africa but it crash landed in Spain and they were not interned but handed over to the Vichy authorities.

After a spell back in Marseilles, his group tried to get to Portugal but they were caught by a Spanish border patrol but they escaped and returned to Marseilles where they were sheltered in the American Hospital until the underground arranged for them to stow away on a ship bound for Oran in Algeria.  This failed because the Vichy authorities handed them over to the Germans and they were imprisoned.

He escaped and made his way to Casablanca in Morocco where he was again imprisoned.  The local resistance arranged a mass escape and they waited in the dunes to be picked up by a ship from Gibraltar.  Unfortunately they were caught by the local Police and taken to a POW camp at Mascara.  He persuaded a French doctor to give him a certificate saying that he was unfit for military service and was subsequently released.  He then returned to Oran and made contact with Polish agents who arranged for him to be picked up by a fishing boat with a Polish Navy crew.

He spent Christmas 1941 in Gibraltar and was then picked up by a converted liner escorted by two naval vessels and transported to Glasgow..  He was sent straight to the Blackpool Depot where he was interrogated and screened to make sure he was not a fifth columnist and then given a medical and taught rudimentary English.

In May 1942 he was posted to 25 EFTS (Elementary Flying Training School) at RAF Hucknall in Nottinghamshire where he learned the basics of flying British aircraft on de Havilland Tiger Moths.  In July 1942 he moved on to 16 Service Flying Training School at RAF Newton in Nottinghamshire where he repeated the training but on twin engined Airspeed Oxfords.

In December 1942 he was posted to No 6 Advanced Operations School at RAF Staverton near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.  His duties there were to assist the newly trained navigators from the British Commonwealth Air Training Schools in Canada.  They had learned in vast open spaces with few geographical landmarks.  This naturally left them ill equipped to deal with the cluttered and much more crowded ground space in Europe.  They were well trained but had to learn to speed up in order to keep up with the landscape features.

In February 1944 he was posted to 304 Squadron at RAF Predannack in Cornwall, just in time for their move to RAF Chivenor in Devon in March 1944. He then moved with them to RAF Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides (September 1944), RAF St Eval in Cornwall (March 1945), RAF North Weald in Essex (June 1945) and RAF Chedburgh in Suffolk (November 1945).  For the latter period, the Squadron had transferred to Transport Command where they carried essential supplies to France, Italy and Greece, returning with mail and released Prisoners of War.  On 3rd June 1944 he was promoted to Flight Lieutenant. In October 1944 he was sent on detached duty to RAF Chivenor to help train three new crews.  He was awarded the Cross of Valour and bar.

In total he flew 39 missions and several transport flights during his time with the Squadron and was given a "green ink" endorsement in his flying log for his prompt and effective action in saving his aircraft and crew when the port engine caught fire moments after take off.  This was one of the last flights he made and took place in February 1946 from Bordeaux, France.  He made a perfect single engine landing and, other than fire damage, the aircraft was undamaged and the crew unhurt.

Commendation leading to his "Green Ink" endorsement

Other milestones in his life were his marriage to Barbara J.W. Hammersley in December 1944 at Marylebone, London.  On 25th March 1949 he was granted British Citizenship and this was published in the London Gazette on 20th May of that year.  At the time he was living in South West London and was described as an assistant manager with a travel goods manufacturer.  He died on 21st December 2006 having reached the splendid age of 100.  He was buried at Brompton Cemetery in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

In writing this story, I was very lucky to have had the chance to read his own story, which extends to 61 pages and gives an atmospheric feel of what those days were really like.  "Fly For Your Life" is well written, informative and anecdotal and is highly recommended.  It can be viewed, in English, online at the website of the Krakow Aviation Museum www.muzeumlotnictwa.pl