Home
Pilot
Escape
303 Squadron 1
303 Squadron 2
A New Home
and Finally
Links
Contents
| |
A New Home...
| 1945 was an odd time for the
Poles in England. In 1940, they had been seen as the plucky survivors,
willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with the only European country as yet
undefeated. Their pilots had been lionized, with the exploits of 303
Squadron in particular being used in huge propaganda offensives against the
Germans. |
| Arkady Fiedler's book,
Squadron 303, first published in 1942, was inordinately successful and is
now recognised as an important propaganda piece from the war. Copies of
the book, with flyleaf signatures of some of its pilots are much prized.
I'm grateful to Andrew Goff for letting me have a copy of the flyleaf
signatures in his copy of the book. |
Squadron
303, with flyleaf signatures including Miroslaw Wojciechowski |
| By now, especially with Stalin's friends in the ascendancy in
England, the "fascist" Poles started to have a difficult time.
At war's end, the British government was faced with an increasingly
difficult dilemma. Despite Churchill's war time promise of a home for all
Poles who had served the Allied cause, trades unions and socialist members
of Parliament (anxious apparently about absorbing so many foreigners who
would take the jobs of returning Englishmen) actively campaigned for their
immediate repatriation. Public
hostility was, in some places, quite intense. Mirek was ordered by his
Station Commander to remove the Poland flashes from his uniform, as this
was considered provocative. He refused. He was spat at in the street and told to
"go home". Britain and the USA now recognised the Soviet led
Government in Poland. |
To the eternal shame of Britain, Poles were excluded
from the Victory Parade in 1946; Clement Atlee and other supporters of his
Labour government were concerned about upsetting their allies in the
Soviet Union. 303 Squadron were invited, but refused to join the parade,
as no other Polish forces were allowed to join. Brazil, who declared war
on Germany in March 1945, was well represented.
That
is not to say that there were no voices raised in the Poles' defence.
Public subscription led to the dedication of the Polish Air Force Memorial
in 1948.
|
Polish Air Force
Memorial, Northolt |
|
For
Mirek, there were pressing reasons to stay in England. Firstly, he met,
fell in love with and meant to marry an English woman. Panda, as he
nicknamed her, was a WAAF serving on the same station near Nottingham in
1946. They were finally to marry in 1949. |
| There was another reason; in
September 1945, an English pilot serving with Mirek had just visited his
sister in hospital in Edinburgh. He returned with the news that a woman
with exactly the same name as Mirek was in the bed next to his sister.
"Except, she insisted that her name ended 'ska'", he said. Later that
same day, Mirek found himself talking on the telephone to his sister for the first time in
six years. She had been sent by the Red Cross to recuperate in Scotland.
Despite having a withered left arm and no teeth (as a result of
malnutrition), she recovered well and moved down to Brighton to begin the
long battle to bring her children to England. |
Janka
and Mirek reunited, 1945 |
| Meanwhile, since the British
government no longer recognised the Polish Armed Forces stationed in
England as legitimate (so much for the Polish contribution to the Battle
of Britain, Monte Cassino, the assault on Arnhem) Mirek was moved from the
now disbanded Polish Air Force to the Polish Resettlement Corps. Only after Stalin's refusal to hold free elections in Poland
did the British government feel obliged, in early 1947, to pass the Polish
Resettlement Act, which offered a haven to all Poles in England. The PRC
was wound up and, by now a Warrant Officer, he re-engaged as a Master
Pilot in the RAF in November 1948. |
|
Mirek,
with PR Spitfire, 1951 |
Between 1945 and 1949 there
were more postings to flight training and BAT (Blind Approach) schools, where Mirek became
one of the most experienced Flight Instructors in the RAF. On 1st
January 1950, two weeks before the birth of his daughter, he was posted to
2 Squadron in Germany. Initially flying Spitfires, the squadron soon
converted to the Gloster Meteors. |
| Current research undertaken
by Wojtek Matusiak on 2 Squadron's photo reconnaissance role in Berlin
suggests that the high altitude Spitfires, which at that time were well
out of reach of Soviet air defences, were engaged in covert surveillance
over East Germany and even Poland. There were other Poles on the squadron
at the time and it would be fascinating to know whether they were engaged
in "spy plane" flights over their homeland. |
|
PR
Spitfire PS915, flown out of Berlin by Mirek in 1951. Now restored and in
flying condition at the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, Coningsby,
Lincolnshire |
A
view of the cockpit of PR Spitfire PM627, flown by Mirek out of Berlin in
1951 |
| Indeed, the Polish and Czech pilots on the squadron were continually reminded
that flying close to the East German border was dangerous. In the event
they and their aircraft went down in the East, neither would be
repatriated. After conversion to Meteors (with a nominal flight time of 30
minutes), pilots competed for
the squadron endurance record. Rather too many times, flight controllers
thought they had 'lost' aircraft, only to see a Pole or Czech land after 50
or more minutes
airtime. |
Gloster
Meteors |
|
One of Mirek's Photo Recon
pictures of Cologne in 1951. The total devastation
around the Cathedral is still obvious. |
|
Mirek
and his daughter Krystyna, Gutesloh 1952 |
Relaxing in the mess
Mirek was back in his element,
flying fast single seat aircraft. Still, there were other aircraft to fly
and there is reference in his service record of a posting 147 Squadron,
which was bringing Sabres over from Canada. |
| Over a period of some six
weeks, according to his wife, he flew aircraft across the Atlantic, being
stuck in Canada on several occasions by bad weather. However, their is no
record in his Flying Log Book of Sabre conversion or any flights. There is
an entry for a dual flight, followed immediately by a solo in a Vampire at
around this time. Whether he was engaged in secret work or not may never
be known. |
North
American Sabre F-87 |
|
