COMMENTS AND CONTACT

I am very pleased to receive comments on this blog and I will publish them providing they are not abusive or otherwise offensive.  Please feel free to leave your comments but please also contact me directly if you have any information, corrections or photographs that will add interest to it.

Please address any initial contacts to NEVandDOREEN@aol.com

VLADIMIR ROMAN SKULSKI

He was born on 15th April 1921 at Stryj. In September 1940 he moved to Trochaniv where he took up the post of school teacher, which he held until 15th April 1941, his twentieth birthday, when he was conscripted into the Red Army and sent to Russia.

This involved a two week train journey in primitive and unhygienic conditions until he reached the city of Voroshylovsk (now Stavropol) where he was issued with his uniform and a rifle but no ammunition. He was also trained to drive a T33 tank and to load and fire its gun; this must have been difficult as there was no petrol and no ammunition available.

About three months after the Germans turned on their Russian allies, in the late summer of 1941, he was sent to the city of Novorossyisk where he trained on mortars and spent a lot of time working as a lumberjack and living in a leper village. Here he records many hours watching the German bombers pounding the city by night, with no opposition from Russian fighters.

In November 1941 his group set off to march to Stalingrad (now Volgograd), marching only at night and through severe blizzards. After sixteen nights they were put on a train and sent to Rostov-on-Don, backtracking more than half of their march, to meet the German advance. Here they had to dig huge anti-tank trenches as a barrier to the German panzers; they worked twelve hours a day, digging first through the frozen snow and then sixty centimetres of permafrost before reaching soft earth.

At the end of March 1942, he was sent to Stanica Krymskaya, just North of the Black Sea, where he and his team were put to work building a road and an airfield. One of his jobs involved standing waist deep in a river digging out gravel for the concrete. At the beginning of June of that year his group were de-militarised and became a civilian work group – paid but virtually slave workers, with low pay and increased working hours.

On 19th July 1942 he and three friends made a bid for freedom in the hope of joining the newly forming Polish Army in Exile under General Anders> He was wearing his ‘new’ uniform which had a bullet hole through the left breast , with a dark stain around it. The Russians were so short of uniforms that they were stripping dead soldiers.

Furtively they made their way, via back lanes and woodland, to the railway station and mingled with Russian soldiers before taking a train to Krasnodar. From there they got a train immediately to Groznyy, capital of the Chechen-Ingush Soviet Republic; they were heading for Makhachkala which was a port on the Caspian Sea and the capital of Dagestan Soviet Republic. Fron there they caught another train to Baku in Azerbaijan. Here they approached the authorities for help to join the Polish Army, but were arrested by the NKVD (forerunners of the KGB) and were about to be deported back to Russia (?) when they escaped and tagged on to a group of wounded Russian soldiers, eventually boarding a vessel named \Dagestan bound for Krasnovodsk (now Turkmenbashi) in Turkmenistan.

In Krasnovodsk they met a Polish Officer who directed them to the Polish Military office there and were then astounded at the attitude of the man in charge, Colonel Bering, who threw them out, called them nothing more than a bunch of deserters and threatened to have them arrested by the NKVD. However, a sympathetic Polish Officer gave them food and cigarettes and suggested they go to Guzar in Uzbekistan to join General Anders’ army.

After three uncomfortable days on a train through the Kara Kum Desert, they arrived at Bukhara in Uzbekistan and narrowly escaped being arrested by border guards. After a very short time they took a train for the three hour journey to Guzar. As the train was pulling in to the station, Roman was caught by a Policeman but managed to escape through a toilet window and lost himself in the crowds on the station platform. With considerable difficulty, the four men were accepted into the Polish Army on 29th July 1942 and they were fed, given clean uniforms and a shower with real soap. He wryly remarked that they were given toilet paper and that was the first he had had in his fifteen months in the Soviet Union.

Through all their adventures, Roman had to take the lead because he was the only one who was fluent in Russian.

On 4th August 1942 he was assigned to a tank battalion and nine days later the Poles left Guzar and returned to Krasnovodsk where, on 19th August 1942 they boarded the Russian vessel Kaganovych bound for Pahlevi in Persia (now Enzeli in Iran). Whilst there he became the victim of a series of nasty illnesses; firstly it was malaria and then a bout of dysentery followed by yellow jaundice and then a serious eye infection which virtually blinded him – this was caused by a sea water parasite picked up whilst bathing. Soon after leaving hospital he volunteered to go to England to join the Polish Air Force in Exile.

After several aptitude tests and spending some time in Iraq, he left for England on 4th February 1943 and boarded the ship Islami at Basra bound for Bombay (now Mumbai) in India. A week after arriving there he boarded the ship Mariposa which travelled to England via Cape Town, South Africa. He finally arrived at the Polish Depot at Blackpool on 30th March 1943 and was transferred to the Elementary Flying Training School at RAF Hucknall where he also began to learn English. He then moved to Brighton, Sussex for further training and in May 1943 he began training as a pilot.

Due to serious and persistent bouts of air sickness he gave up the pilot’s course and went to Canada to train as a navigator. The air sickness was too much and he was grounded and returned to England as ground crew with 304 Squadron.

After the war he married an English girl in Brighton on 22nd June 1946 and moved to London and then Portsmouth. In the spring of 1949 he was discharged from the Polish Resettlement Corps and emigrated to Canada. He trained at McGill University and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1955, later he moved to British Columbia. He raised a family of four children in Canada and made several holiday trips back to England.

He died in West Vancouver on 30th March 2008.

STANISLAW ANDRZEJ JOZEF BOCZKOWSKI

I am delighted to announce that I have had contact from the son of this airman.  His father is alive and well and living in Canada and they would like to trace their Polish roots.  What they already know is as follows:

Stanislaw's father was Aleksander (1890-1966) and mother Irena Zurakowska (1899-1994). Aleksander had two sisters - Waclawa and Zofia as well as two brothers - Wladyslaw (married Helena Lewicka) and Stanislaw (married Walentyna Miller).  The family came from Wolyn (Krzemieniec, Oleszkowce, Zaslaw, etc), their "home" was lost to the Soviet Union, massacres, knowledge of massacres including Katyn and generally post war crushing poverty.

This site is currently receiving 800-900 hits per month and about a quarter of them are from Poland so if any of you can help with information on this family, please post it here and I will gladly pass it on.

ZYGMUNT JAN SOLECKI

He was born in Kolomyja on 6th May 1921 and trained as a fitter and turner before his military service which he began in 1937 at Bydgoszcz. He qualified as a wireless operator at Krosno in 1939 but because of the outbreak of war he was evacuated to Romania, crossing at Kuty. He left Romania in December 1939 and made his way via Syria and Lebanon to France where he arrived on 18th January 1940. On the capitulation of France he escaped to England where he arrived on 27th June 1940 and was sent to the Polish Depot at Blackpool. He underwent further wireless and gunnery training and then operational training with 18OTU.

He was posted in to 304 Squadron on 26th April 1942 at RAF Lindholme where he served until 1st August 1943 and completed his tour of duty before moving to 6OTU as an instructor. On 19th July 1944 he began training with 1651 Heavy Conversion Unit where he trained on four engine heavy bombers before moving on to 1586 (Special Duties) Flight at Brindisi in Italy until the end of the war. After this he moved on to various ferry units and, later, 206, 242 and 242 Transport Squadrons and later he was involved in the Berlin Airlift. Finally he joined 40 Transport Squadron in March 1948 and stayed with them until his demobilisation in October 1948.

He was awarded the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari and the Cross of Valour three times in his career. This was achieved during 52 operational missions with 304 Squadron and 22 particularly dangerous Special Duties trips with 1586 Flight (301 Squadron).

He settled in Britain and worked in a prominent position in a shipbreakers yard until he retired in 1986. He died in Neath, West Glamorgan, Wales on 28th February 2005 and was cremated there.

STANISLAW JAKUB SKARZYNSKI

This is a new and updated version of an old posting. It contains more details, particularly of his early life fighting in the Bolshevik War. Inevitably there is duplication but it gives a more accurate picture of the man.

He was born 1 May 1899, near Warta Sieradz and in 1918 he was already a volunteer in the military and was involved in disarming the surrendered German forces. He fought in the 29th Kaniowskich Rifles during the Bolshevik War and was wounded in the back in December 1919. On 16th August 1920 he received shrapnel wounds in the knee, by shrapnel from a grenade in the Battle of Radzymin, and, due to severe infection, he was told he would never be fit to fight again. He was awarded the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari for his actions in this battle.

However, he remained in the army and, in June 1925, he went to the flying school in Bydgoszcz. During his first flight, his aircraft burst into flames but he managed to land safely; he graduated as a pilot in 1925 and was posted to an Air Regiment based in Warsaw. On 1st January 1927 he was promoted to Captain. Prior to the outbreak of war, he progressed through various squadrons and rose through the ranks to commander of an air regiment.

Between the wars he made his name as an aviation pioneer with major flights across Africa and across the Atlantic and became the only Pole ever to win the Bleriot medal (in 1936) for setting an international distance record of 3582 kilometres for a Class II tourist plane. On 1st January 1934 he was promoted to major and, in 1938 to lieutenant colonel at which point he became deputy commander of the 4th Air Regiment in Torun. In August 1939 he was sent to Romania as the Deputy Air Attache.

When war broke out, he played a major part in organising the transit of Polish airmen to France before escaping himself. In France he helped to organise the elements of the Polish Air Force in exile. In late June 1940 he arrived, via France, in England and in 1941, he took command of the Polish Flying Training School at RAF Hucknall, later moving to RAF Newton in the same capacity.

At his own request, in December 1941, he went to RAF Bramcote to train on Wellington bombers and, in April 1942, he assumed command of RAF Lindholme which was the home base for 304 and 305 Polish Squadrons. Although not directly attached to either Squadron, he was still a fighter at heart and began to fly bombing missions as second pilot. On 25th June 1942 he was on a 305 Squadron mission to Bremen when one engine failed and they were forced to ditch in the North Sea about 40 miles off Great Yarmouth.

He was the last to leave the aircraft and the rest of the crew managed to get into a dinghy and heard his cries for help for about half an hour but were unable to save him. He had taken refuge on a piece of wreckage but was swamped by a wave and washed away. The rest of the crew were picked up by a Royal Navy vessel after about eight hours in the water but Skarzynski drowned and his body was washed ashore on Terschelling Island in the Friesian Islands off the coast of the Netherlands. He was buried in West Terschelling cemetery. He was posthumously promoted to Group Captain. In 1983 a plaque was fixed to his gravestone; it reads ZAWSZE RAZEM JULIA which means “Forever together, Julia” and marks the fact that his wife’s ashes were buried in his grave.

During the course of his career he was awarded the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari, the Cross of Independence, the Officer Cross of the Order of Poland, the Cross of Valour (four times), the Gold Cross of Merit and the Silver Cross of Merit. He also won the Cross of the Romanian Crown, the Hungarian Cross of Merit, the Brazilian Southern Cross and the French Legion d’Honeur. He was posthumously promoted to full colonel and awarded the Order of Polonia Restituta II Class.

He was used as the model for Edward Wittigowi’s design for the monument to airmen in Warsaw.

Photo courtesy of www.polishairforce

MARIAN STANISLAW PLONCZYNSKI

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 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. After completing a tour of duty 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

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.

HENRYK FRANCZAK

This is a completely re-written version of a posting which appeared here in October 2010. It includes the answer to the mystery of why he was not recorded in the crash of R1072, how he escaped from Poland and a lot more personal information supplied from his own family records by his niece.

He was a pilot, born on 31st March 1918 at Zagorzycach near Krakow.

In 1936 he qualified as a glider pilot at Ustianowa and in 1939 he was assigned to the Air Reserve Officers School at Sadkow near Radom and later the Air Observers School in Deblin.

It was here, at 5am on 1st September 1939, that he had his introduction to war as the bombs began to fall. He spent the first hours of the war helping an ambulance driver to rescue the victims and bring the injured to hospital.

Afterwards, the cadets were ordered to get out of Poland any way they could and he set off for Romania on foot. He was a newly commissioned officer and so he stripped all insignia from his uniform and disposed of anything, including his ceremonial sword, that might identify him as an officer. Eventually he acquired old clothes from a group of peasants and was able to get rid of his uniform altogether.

He was half way to Romania when the Russians came and then he changed direction and headed for Wilno (now Vilnius). At one point the group he was travelling with were hiding in woodland but they were surrounded and captured by the Russians. All the men of military age were loaded into cattle cars on a train and were taken away but they had no idea where they were going. When they reached Bialystok, they had to change trains and he and one other bolted and jumped onto a train that was heading in the opposite direction. When the conductor came, Henryk gave him a few scraps of paper which he knowingly punched and moved on. Fortunately the train was heading for Wilno and so they made it to Henryk’s parents home in that city.

In the course of time, he met up with his brothers Stasiek and Jozef and they remained in Wilno for a couple of months, leading a more or less normal life under the Russians and in spite of a curfew. After investigation they found that Polish airmen were being evacuated from Kaunas in Lithuania so they went there, in December 1939, and easily acquired false papers. All three of them obtained evacuation papers to go to Sweden. The escape plan was to take a train to Latvia and then fly to Sweden. On the day they were due to go, the commander refused to allow three brothers to travel on the same aircraft and Jozef was forced to wait for the next plane. German threats to shoot down neutral Swedish planes carrying Polish airmen ensured that there was no next plane. The two brothers spent Christmas Eve in Stockholm and were then flown to London and on to France where they joined the Polish Air Force at Lyon-Bron.

After the fall of France he escaped to England and joined the Polish forces at the Blackpool Depot, where he trained as a radio operator. On 20th August 1941 he was promoted to Flying Officer and posted to 304 Squadron. On 24th April 1942 he made his first combat mission to bomb the docks at Rostock. He flew 47 missions over Germany and Occupied Europe and was promoted to Flight Lieutenant.

According to the list of Tadeusz Krzystek, he was on board R1072 when it crashed on 11th July 1942 but he is not listed as being on that aircraft in other sources and is not mentioned on the Squadron ORB. For a long time that was a mystery but the answer was provided by his niece. He was a passenger on that aircraft and was just hitching a lift. Apparently a door had been left open and he sensed that something was wrong; it didn’t feel or sound right so he jumped out before take off.

After leaving the plane he said it was taking too long to get up; the left wing dipped and hit a tree and there was an explosion and a fire. He assisted with the rescue and attended the funeral of one of the dead. He was not officially recorded as having been on board.

Henryk, second from left, with other Polish Airmen

In the summer of 1943 he finally achieved his ambition and was sent for pilot training; he qualified in October 1944. During his war service he was awarded the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari as well as the Cross of Valour three times and the British DFC.

After the war he settled in Britain and remained with the RAF as an instructor until December 1948 when he was recruited, on a three year contract, into the Pakistan Air Force. During 1948/49 he fought in the first Kashmir War. He was in a transport squadron based at Peshawar, flying Douglas Dakotas. After his contract expired he worked as a pilot for Orient Airways (now known as Pakistan International Airlines).

In 1952 he married a Glasgow born, naturalised American woman and, the following year, he moved to America where he worked as a salesman for Encyclopaedia Britannica, an insurance salesman and a bus driver. In front of his house in America he always flew the Polish and American flags.

On 28th November 1992 celebrations were held, by the Polish Embassy in San Francisco, for the bicentenery of the inception of the Order of Virtuti Militari. He was one of four Cavaliers of the Order to be awarded honorary citizenship of the State of California.

He had three brothers; Stasiek was killed on Liberator EW278 of 1586 Flight (Squadron Code GR-U) which was supplying Warsaw during the uprising when it was shot down by a night fighter over Senta in Jugoslavia on the night of 11th September 1944. Edek who was an Officer in the Armia Krajowa and was executed by firing squad by the Russians in 1944 and Jozef (Lutek) who was captured by the Russians and spent two years in Siberia before he finally got to England and fought with the Royal Air Force until the end of the war.

He died in North Scituate, Providence, Rhode Island, USA on 1st July 2006 and, in accordance with his wishes, his ashes were buried in the Military Cemetery at Warsaw on 12th September 2006. He was accorded full military honours, including a gun salute, in both countries.

Photographs courtesy of Henryk's niece, Helena