He was born on 20th June 1920 at Lwow (now
Lviv, Ukraine) and after his formal education, he attended the school for
non-commissioned officers at Bydgoszcz.
His course was accelerated because of the imminence of war and he
qualified as an aircraft mechanic at Krosno in 1939. He was there during the September Campaign
and was evacuated from Luck to Romania.
He was one of the many who quietly slipped
out of the detention camp and travelled to France with the help of false papers
and cash provided by the Polish Embassy in Bucarest. Like so many others, he was not happy with
the fact that he was not used or given training. When France fell, he was again evacuated and
made the journey to England where he arrived on 26th July 1940 and rejoined the
Polish forces.
He was given immediate language training and
familiarisation with British aircraft; he completed several courses and was
then deployed to airfields with combat and auxiliary units. One of his postings was with 317 Fighter
Squadron where he was a corporal mechanic working on fighters. He then volunteered for flying duties and was
selected for pilot training. He started
the training in December 1942 and passed out as a pilot in April 1944 and was
posted to 577 Army Co-operation Squadron to gain experience of flying.
His duties there were mainly target towing,
probably in Airspeed Oxfords as he had trained on twin engined aircraft. The Squadron was based at RAF Castle Bromwich
in Warwickshire but he may have served almost anywhere as they had detachments
spread widely across the North, the Midlands and Wales.
He was later posted to No 6 (Coastal) Operational
Training Unit where he became a member (second pilot) of the crew of F/O Dabrowski and was
involved in ripping together a crew.
Together, they were posted to 304 Squadron on 15th December 1944 who
were then serving in Coastal Command and based at RAF Benbecula in the Outer
Hebrides.
As with so many of the long, dreary patrols
over the water there was very little action but, on the night of 21st/22nd
April 1945, his crew spotted the wake of a U-Boat; they were unable to attack, but saw it again
on two occasions during the patrol. On
the final sighting they dropped six depth charges, spaced 60ft apart and from a
height of 170ft. Nothing was seen but a
large oil slick appeared along the track of the wake and was still visible an
hour later indicating probable damage to the U-Boat.
During his career he was awarded the Cross of
Valour, the Polish Air Medal, the 1939-1945 Star, the War Medal, the Air Crew
Europe Star and the Defence Medal. After
the War ended, on 9th July 1945, he was posted to 17 ACHU (Air Crew Holding
Unit) at RAF Snaith near Goole on Humberside and then on to RAF Hucknall in
Nottinghamshire as an instructor.
He was then
transferred to the Polish Resettlement Corps where he remained until he
emigrated to Brazil in 1946.
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7 comments:
I was thrilledtoread the biography of the member of the crew which my father F/O Jerzy Majewski belonged to when the attack on U-boot took place on April 20/21 1945. The logbook page documenting it is available in the scan on http://www.polishairforce.pl/dyw304zdj.html
Hello Zbigniew,
I am so leased that you liked the story. I would like to expand the story on Jerzy Majewski - with your help! I cannot contact you on here so please email me direct on nevillebougourd@gmail.com
Jan died in 1973, in Ourinhos Brazil.
Thanks for all your hard work on this Blog/project. Paul Anderson(Awdziejew)
Jan Awdziejew viveu seus últimos anos na cidade de Ourinhos, Estado de São Paulo, Brasil. Trabalhou como mecânico de bombas de combustíveis e também na aviação, atividade que ele gostava muito. Aqui, ele teve muitos amigos e recebeu o apelido de Papai Bill.
Translation of previous comment: Jan Awdziejew lived his last years in the city of Ourinhos, State of São Paulo, Brazil. He worked as a fuel pump mechanic and also in aviation, an activity he liked very much. Here, he had many friends and was nicknamed Papa Bill.
Thanks Itamar. P.S.Anderson(Awdziejew)
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