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Mieczysław Pawlikowski was born on January 9, 1920. He led a life that would make up an excellent adventure movie - from being an exiled airman to top character actor. This Podcast is a tribute to him and a thank you for those who remember Polish Airmen around the globe.
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Mieczysław Pawlikowski was born on January 9, 1920. He led a life that would make up an excellent adventure movie - from being an exiled airman to top character actor. This Podcast is a tribute to him and a thank you for those who remember Polish Airmen around the globe.
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Mieczysław Pawlikowski was an airman and actor who was born in Ukraine in 1920. He was interested in aviation and attended a gliding course in 1937. When war broke out, he left Poland and joined the Polish Air Force in France. He became a member of the Aviation Theatre Front and performed in various Polish squadrons and army units. He later joined the Observer's Advanced Flying Unit and was trained as a bombardier. Pawlikowski flew numerous combat missions over Germany with the 305th Bomb Squadron. He later joined the 300th Bomb Squadron and participated in mine-laying operations and bombing missions. In May 1943, he was transferred to the Polish C-Section of 138 Squadron Special Duties RIF, where he performed special flights and airdrops of weapons and supplies. Pawlikowski gained combat experience and completed multiple successful operations before the end of July. Mieczysław Pawlikowski, an airman and actor. Mieczysław Pawlikowski was born on January 9th 1920 in Zhytomyr, now Ukraine. His parents were Józef, a clerk by profession, and Słowiana near Równowska. After the end of the Polish-Bolshevik war, under the Peace of Riga, this city found itself within the borders of the Soviet Union and the Pawlikowski family moved to Łódź in Wolynia. Mieczysław spent his entire childhood and youth there, first attending a primary school and then the state gymnasium of Tadeusz Kościuszko. As a student he was interested in aviation and in the summer of 1937 he attended a category A gliding course. In 1939 he passed his final exams after which he was to start studying at the State Institute of Theatre Arts. These plans were interrupted by the outbreak of war. Pawlikowski did not take part in the September 39 campaign as a soldier. Accompanied by two friends he left the country in the late autumn of 1939 and made his way through Slovakia to Hungary. Then he left Budapest by train for France. On November 22nd 1939 he was drafted into the Polish army in France. Due to the completed gliding course he was sent to the Air Force, to the base in Lyon, renamed in December 1939 to the Aviation Training Center. Soon he applied for a trip to the Polish Air Force formed in Great Britain and from March 13th 1940 he stayed at the Polish Aviation Center at the RAF East Church base. After the reorganization and relocation of the CLP from summer of 1940 he was assigned to the Blackpool Air Force base. On the isles he became a member of the Aviation Theatre Front, composed of soldiers of the Polish Air Force and organized by Lieutenant Observer Leopold Skwierzyński, a pre-war actor in theatres in Warsaw, Toruń, Bydgoszcz and Łódź and also a reserve officer. The first performance staged by the leading group was Zemsta, Revenge by Aleksander Fredro, a romantic comedy which premiered on the 1st of July 1941 in Blackpool. Pawlikowski played the role of Wacław, the main male character in the play. For several months he traveled around England and Scotland performing for Polish squadrons and army units. He visited, for example, the 304 Bomber Squadron, Ziemia Śląska-Silesian Land and 305 Bomber Squadron, Ziemia Wielkopolska-Greater Poland Land at the RAF Lindholm base. 309 Squadron, Ground Cooperation Unit, Ziemia Czerwieńska in Dunino. 303 Fighter Squadron of Tadeusz Kościuszko in Spik. 300 Bomber Squadron, Mazowiecka Land and the 301st Bomber Squadron of Ziemia Pomorska-Chemsło. 317 Fighter Squadron of Vilnius in Eksyta. The 302 Fighter Squadron, Poznański in Wormwell, as well as subunits of the 1st Corps. In total he apprehended in 42 performances. After the end of Zemsta, the Lotnicza Słówka Teatralna, so the aviation theatre front, prepared Wielka Ryba, The Great Fish by Michał Bołucki, which premiered on November 24th 1941 in Hemlow. Pawlikowski played the character of Henlik and with the performance he visited, for example, the Elementary Flying School, 16th Polish Service Flying Training School in Newton, Elementary Flying School, 25th Polish Elementary Flying Training School in Hacknell, 306 Fighter Squadron in Church Stanton, Air Force Inspectorate in London and again 304 and 305 Squadrons in Lindholm. And the units of the 1st Polish Book Corps in Scotland and the Polish Navy in Plymouth. On 13th April 1942, Pawlikowski began theoretical training in the Air Crew Training Centre in Hacknell. On June 3rd of that year, he was assigned to the Observer's Advanced Flying Unit 10 in Dumfries, Scotland, where he was trained in the bombardier speciality. He flew Anson, Battle and Botha aircraft. He graduated on August 25th, after which he was transferred to Blackpool Air Force Base. On September 10th 1942, he became a corporal to the Polish Combat Training Unit, the 18th Operational Training Unit in Bramcote, where Wellington crews were assembled and subjected to operational training. He joined the crew there of latent pilot Jan Krzakik, 2nd Lieutenant Observer Kazimierz Jankowski, Corporal Radio Operator Roman Kozik and Senior Private Rifleman Józef Sawicki. During the exercises, Pawlikowski and his colleagues were trained in, among others, in various bombing techniques, tactics of avoiding fighter attacks and perfected navigation techniques during flight in various weather conditions. After completing the course at 18th OTU on February 27th 1943, this crew was assigned to the 305th Bomb Squadron Ziemia Wielkopolska, Greater Poland Land. Meanwhile, RAF Bomber Command began a new phase of its bombing offensive. In order to destroy the German economic potential, a series of massive raids on the largest industrial centres located in the Ruhr area was launched. At the beginning of March 1943, for the next five months, the night sky over German cities in this region became an arena of air combat on an unprecedented scale. Mieczysław Pawlikowski made his first combat flight on the night of March 12th to 13th over Essen. The city is the seat of the Krupp munitions plant. Due to the strong anti-aircraft defences and very active batteries of searchlights, as well as due to the constantly lingering layer of industrial smog, it was considered by the crews as one of the most difficult and dangerous targets in all of Germany. Also for Pawlikowski and his crew, this operation turned out to be a great challenge. On the return voyage, their Wellington IV SM-BZ 1273 ran into heavy anti-aircraft artillery crossfire, which damaged the starboard engine, disabled the rear gun turret and the bomb bay door. Fortunately, thanks to the pilot's skill, the battered bomber managed to get to the base and land safely. This task turned out to be not only the first but also the last performed by Mieczysław Pawlikowski and 305 Squadron. In connection to the planned conversion of the unit to light two Mosquito bombers, this crew, along with three others, were transferred on April 1st to the 300th Bomb Squadron Ziemia Mazowiecka, stationed at the same airfield in Hemswil. The reassignment of the crews and reinforcements of 305 Squadron of Polish Air Force was partly also the result of the heavy losses of the Polish squadrons, which could not be balanced by new recruits. Less than a week later, Pawlikowski took part in the action again. This time, before noon on April 6th, he made a nearly four-hour search flight for the crews that had been ditched the previous night in the North Sea while returning from the bombing of Kiel. The so-called dinghy search. Two days later, on the night of April 8th to 9th, he flew over Duisburg. The operation was not very successful due to the dense cover of clouds over the target, which prevented effective bombing. The next task, on the night of April 14th to 15th, turned out to be unlucky. In his Wellington, the fuel system failed shortly after take-off, which forced the pilot to return with a load of bombs to the base. On the other hand, the next night, in the new plane, the crew laid mines in the area of the entrance of the port of Saint-Nazaire in France without any problems. For the third night in a row, Pawlikowski also did not rest. This time, his crew, like 12 others from 300 Squadron, successfully bombed Mannheim. On April 22nd, it mined the area near the port of Lorient. Very bad weather conditions prevailed over target, which made it practically impossible for the crews to identify the designated mine drop site, and forced the pilot to return with the entire load to Hemswil. On the night of April 26th to 27th, Pawlikowski's crew bombarded Duisburg. The following night, her target was again the coastal waters of Lorient, where mines were successfully dropped despite active anti-aircraft defences. The crew began May by mine-laying the approaches to the port of Brest in France, and three days later, on May 4th to 5th, she took part in a large 596 Allied bombing operation of Dortmund. On May 24th, 1943, Pawlikowski and his colleagues were transferred to the Polish C-Section of 138 Squadron Special Duties RIF. For the next three weeks, they got acquainted with a completely different specificity of special flights performed on four-engine Halifaxes. For Pawlikowski himself, it was also associated with a change of functions in the crew. During the flights, neither bombs nor mines were dropped, but packages with weapons, ammunitions, and other equipment. He dealt with the so-called dispatch, and from then on, this task belonged to Pawlikowski. A volunteer from the American-Polish community, Corporal Sawicki, soon resigned and joined the U.S. Air Force. In his place, new airmen arrived, Flight Engineer Sgt. Władysław Kierczyńko and the Gunner Senior Sgt. Wiktor Koszyński. The first pilot in the crew was an experienced pilot, Sgt. Jan Bakanacz, under whose supervision Pawlikowski and colleagues quickly began to gain combat experience. During this period, due to the short nights, airdrops to Poland were not flown, so the operations performed concerned regions in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and even Denmark and Norway. Pawlikowski made his first special flight on the night of June 13th to 14th over France. At that time, he was still in the crew of Sgt. Konrad Żukowski. This task was completed without any problems. The next flights were carried out by the full-time crew. By the end of the month, he had a total of four flights all to France, of which one was unsuccessful. The next month turned out to be very busy. Between the night of 12th to 13th and the night of 29th to 30th July, Pawlikowski took part in as many as seven operations, dropping weapons, medicines, and agents to occupied France and Denmark. Six of them were performed aboard the permanently assigned Halifax 2 NF-J, nicknamed Janka, JD-312. After the next two flights in August, Senior Sgt. Jan Bakanac left the crew, and its new commander was the former co-pilot Leutnant Jan Trefik. Soon, a new co-pilot, 2nd Leutnant Jan Wróblewski also joined the crew. On the night of August 16th to 17th, 1943, Pawlikowski took off on his 26th combat flight, the task of which was to drop containers for underground organizations in southern France. During the flight, his Halifax, the aforementioned Janka, was accurately fired upon from warships. The engines and the hydraulic system were damaged. Unaware of this, the pilots opened the bomb bay during the cargo drop and released the hatches, which then could not be closed. Their engine cooling system was also damaged, so engines could not take up for the extra drag. The plane began to lose speed and altitude, so the pilot made a forced landing with the landing gear retracted in complete darkness, a few kilometers from the drop off point near the village of Aux, in the department of Rennes, about 180 kilometers as the crow flies from the Franco-Spanish border. None of the crew members were injured during the touchdown. The pilots destroyed the flight instruments and then set the plane on fire. A few moments later, members of the resistance appeared nearby and led the seven airmen to safety. The crew was divided into three groups. Pawlikowski, together with the navigator, Sergeant Kazimierz Żankowski, hid in a homestead of a nearby village. After 10 days, a transport was organized towards the Pyrenees. Initially, the Poles walked on foot and then rode a truck carrying supplies for the Wehrmacht. Then, for some time, Pawlikowski and his friends hid in a manor in the province and finally, at the turn of September and October, set off on foot through the Pyrenees towards Spain. After 13 days of strenuous hiking, the guide led the Poles to Andorra, where they rested for four days, then crossed the Spanish border and on October 7th reached a farm located about 30 kilometers northeast of Barcelona. There, Pawlikowski stayed for several days due to the problems with his feet, severely frostbitten, which he contracted during the march. After recovering with a group of other refugees, he left with a guide for Barcelona, where he was taken care of by the British consulate. On October 21st, he left by a car for Madrid and three days later by rail to Gibraltar. On the night of October 27th to 28th, he returned to Great Britain by plane. All other members of his crew also managed to escape from captivity. This is one of the extremely rare cases, not only in the Polish Air Force, but in the entire history of the Royal Air Force and the Allies, where the entire crew of the bomber, after landing on the occupied continent, escaped captivity and returned to the British Isles. After returning to the Isles, Pawlikowski did not fly any more combat missions and with the note temporarily unfit for service in the air and on the ground, he was sent to Blackpool Air Force Base. Regardless of the formal assignment, he returned to the Lotnicza Czołówka Teatralna. At the turn of 1943 to 1944, he managed the team for a few months as the successor of Leopold Skwierzyński, who at the time was finishing a course for the Cichociemni, the unseen and unheard, the Polish SOE equivalent, after which Skwierzyński was transferred to occupied Poland. In London, Pawlikowski, however, also passed an acting exam before the commission of the Association of Polish Stage Artists. He returned to flying on February 2, 1945, when he was assigned to the combat training unit of the 10th Operational Training Unit in the Amingdon, where Polish crews were trained from the end of 1944, after the liquidation of the Polish squadrons in the 18th Operational Training Unit at Finningley, moved from Bramcote. He became an instructor for student bombardiers. His service there lasted only three months. At his own request, on May 1, 1945, he received a year's leave from the Polish Air Force. At that time, he was ranked Polish Sergeant and a British Warrant Officer. For combat flights, he was twice awarded the Cross of Valour and the Field Bombardier's Badge No. 16. After the war, Pawlikowski returned to Poland and made a name for himself, first as a speaker for the Polish Radio, later as an actor for Poland's National Theatre. However, Pawlikowski became best known for his role of Zagłoba in movies Potok and Pan Wołodyjowski and the TV series Przygody Pana Michała, a character designed by a Nobel Prize winner, Henryk Sienkiewicz, who got his prize for Krowady, and a character based on the Shakespearean character of Sir John Falstaff. This is just the story of one of numerous characters of the Polish Air Force. This was recorded especially in gratitude for the 121st Squadron of the Air Cadets, who keep looking after the graves of Polish airmen in Bramkot. Thank you very much.
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