When the Germans launched their first blitzkrieg into Poland on September 1, 1939, they were met by a spirited but hopelessly disorganized defense that nevertheless took a sizable toll on the invaders before being overwhelmed. Afterward, thousands of Poles established an armed force in exile to fight on in France, Britain and the Soviet Union. Among them was Stanislaw Skalski, already the highest-scoring exponent of the PZL P-11c fighter, who would go on to even greater things in the Royal Air Force (RAF). In an interview with Aviation History senior editor Jon Guttman, Brig. Gen. Skalski described an aerial odyssey that took him to several fronts in the European theater--and a postwar career in the air force of a liberated Communist Poland that was anything but smooth.
Aviation History: Could you tell us something of your background prior to World War II?
Skalski: I was born in Kodyma, north of the Russian city of Odessa, on November 27, 1915. After the 1917 Russian Revolution broke out, my father sent my mother with me to Zbaraz, near Lwow, in 1918. He, too, eventually made his way to Poland and got an office position in Dubno in 1923. I lived there until 1933.
AH: What led you to seek a career in aviation?
Skalski: Since 1927, when I first saw an airplane in southern Poland, I thought I would like to learn to fly. After being a student for two years in political school, I started training on gliders in 1934, and in April 1935 I passed the course in powered aircraft. When I decided to become a military pilot, I had to try again, but I passed all the flying courses before I got into cadet school in January 1936.
AH: What was your training like?
Skalski: I and my class trained at Deblin from 1936 to October 15, 1938, when we graduated as officers. I began with the RWD-8 primary trainer. It was very easy to fly--a piece of cake. Then I switched to the PWS-14 and PWS-26, two-seat aerobatic biplanes that could be seen in aero clubs everywhere in Poland. Later on, we went through tests to determine our different personal characteristics--doctors would watch us to see who was more aggressive at sports such as boxing. Out of my class of 40, eight to 10 of us were selected for fighters, while the others became bomber or observation pilots.
AH: What was your first unit assignment?
Skalski: Before promotion, a graduating cadet could ask the authorities for an assignment. I asked my senior officer for the best fighter squadron. He said the best was the 4th Air Regiment of the III Fighter Division [the III/4 Dywyzjon, or Dyon, comprised of the 141st and 142nd eskadri, or squadrons] at Torun, which had distinguished itself for two years in competition among squadrons. So, although the 6th Regiment was closest to my family in eastern Poland, I asked for the 4th. Looking back on 50 years, I was lucky I chose it. I built up my future there. Within the regiment, I was assigned to the 142nd Eskadra, which was comprised of nine airplanes, with three in reserve.
AH: What were the PZL P-7 and P-11c fighters like to fly?
Skalski: I only flew the P-7 in advanced fighter training. Only one squadron at Krakow and one at Wilno still had P-7s at that time. When I joined the 142nd, we already had the P-11c. The PZL fighter was a very pleasant airplane. The P-11c had become obsolescent by 1939, but a more modern PZL fighter, the P.50 Jastrzab ("hawk") was being developed, which would have been built in 1941. After the North African campaign in 1943, I went to Cairo and met Brig. Gen. Ludomil Rajski, who later flew three missions from Italy over Warsaw in Consolidated Liberators during the Warsaw Uprising of August-September 1944. He told me that when the Germans occupied Poland, they found the Jastrzab's airframe and evaluated it. Their Focke Wulf Fw-190 was suspiciously similar to the P.50 in structure, with a bigger engine.
AH: What was the Polish air force's state of readiness when World War II broke out?
Skalski: When I got to the 142nd, the commanding officer (CO), Flight Captain Miroslaw Lesniewski, gave me the job of intelligence officer. I got all our intelligence regarding German units that were likely to fly against us, but I was forbidden to write anything. I gave the pilots all details from my head. On a few occasions, I shot at Dornier Do-215s that were flying clandestine photographic missions over northern Poland from March to May 1939. I flew as high as 7,000 meters trying to intercept them, but the closest I got to one of them was about 300 meters. They were as fast as our fighters--faster even. We knew the Germans had better aircraft, but we thought we could cope with it. We thought the French could help.
AH: What did you do on the first day of the war?
Skalski: In the afternoon of September 1, 1939, a Henschel Hs-126 [of Army Reconnaissance Group 21] crossed the border. That was reported to my division, and I took off with another pilot. Meanwhile, however, two pilots of the 141st Eskadra, 1st Lt. Marian Pisarek and Corporal Benedykt Mielczynski, had taken off on their second mission of the day to intercept a reported Do-17 formation at 3:21 p.m., when they spotted the Hs-126 and attacked it. After a few bursts, its engine stopped, and the plane came down in a field near Torun and flipped over on its back. I then found the plane and decided to see what maps or information it might have. I landed nearby and noticed plenty of blood in the Henschel's enclosed cockpit. The pilot, Friedrich Wimmer, was slightly wounded in the leg; his navigator, whose name was von Heymann, had nine bullets in his back and shoulder. I did what I could for them and stayed with them until 11 a.m., when an ambulance came.
AH: What became of the Germans?
Skalski: The prisoners were transferred to Warsaw. After the Soviet Union invaded Poland on September 17, they became prisoners of the Russians but were released at the end of October. When they were interrogated by the highest Luftwaffe authorities, Wimmer told them of my generosity. The Germans, who later learned that I had gone to Britain to fight on, said if I should became their prisoner I would be honored very highly. The observer, von Heymann, died in 1988. Three years later, the British air attaché and Luftwaffe archives helped me to contact Colonel Wimmer. I went to Bonn to meet him in March 1990, and the German ace Adolf Galland also came over at that time. In 1993, Polish television went with me to make a film with Wimmer. Reporters asked why I did it--why I landed and helped the people we had shot down, exposing my fighter and myself to enemy air attack. I was young, stupid and lucky. That is always my answer!
AH: When did you return to your airfield?
Skalski: I came back late in the afternoon, and I had to land on the road close to a forest--Torun aerodrome had been bombed already. I then gave Lt. Gen. W. Bortnowski, commander of the Pomeranian army, the maps from the Hs-126, which gave all the dispositions and attack plans of German divisions in Pomerania. He kissed me and said this was all the information his army needed.
AH: When did you score your first official victory?
Skalski: The next day, September 2, we went up to intercept Do-17s attacking Torun. Nine were circling--I made head-on attacks at the formation and got a Do-17 armed with cannons. Minutes later, I got a second Do-17.
AH: So you started your scoring with a double victory. But I seem to remember that Do-17s were not armed with cannons--Messerschmitt Me-110s were, and German records indicate that the I Gruppe of Zerstörergeschwader 1 lost an Me-110C-1 at that time. That being the case, you would also be the first pilot to shoot down one of those new twin-engine fighters.
Skalski: That is probably so, because we were completely unfamiliar with the Me-110--it had only made its combat debut the previous day. It was also on September 2 that Captain Florian Laskowski, CO of the III/4 Dyon, was killed by groundfire, after only 15 minutes in the air, following a stupid order from our regimental command to attack a panzer division with the P-11c's four 7.7mm machine guns. Captain Tadeusz Rolski took over the regiment.
AH: Do you have any comments on the two Hs-126s you downed on September 3?
Skalski: One, which Lieutenant Karol Pniak, 2nd Lt. Pavel Zenker, Corporal Zygmunt Klein and I attacked in the morning, crashed in a forest near the Vistula River. The other I got in a head-on attack during an afternoon flight. We shot at each other. When I turned again, the observer bailed out. The plane crashed near Koronowo. Our infantry was there as the observer ran toward the forest, and I flew in front of him--not to shoot him, but to try to get him to stop. Finally he stopped and put his hands up as I circled him.
AH: Did you have encounters with single-engine fighters?
Skalski: On September 4, I shot down a Junkers Ju-87B near Inowroclow and then survived a fantastic fight with three Messerschmitt Me-109s. They also attacked Flying Officer Stach Zielinski, who went down in a spin from 200 meters--he pulled up close to the ground. After September 7, we were transferred to defend Warsaw and the Lublin area. Captain Lesniewski, Lieutenant Pniak and I damaged a Do-17 on September 9, but I don't think we got him, and we had to get out because of enemy fighters.
AH: What did you do when Poland was overrun?
Skalski: From Lublin, the squadron moved to Brest-Litovsk. We got contradictory orders to go to different areas. While on patrol on September 13, I encountered a Do-215 but couldn't get him--he flew west. At that time, I was 38 kilometers from Dubno, so I took time to say goodbye to my family. Later on, we went to Brzezany, which had a fantastic airfield on top of a 500-meter-high hill. On September 16, we got orders to go to Romania to pick up Hawker Hurricanes and Morane-Saulnier MS.406s being shipped in from Britain and France. Some pilots went to Romania by air with the rest of the airplanes. My commander ordered all the ground crews to go in trucks on the evening of the 16th, driving all night to the frontier town of Smiatyn. I lost my way in the dark and ended up at Horodenka before somebody told me. I went around and got back at about 8 on the morning of September 17. As our convoy resumed its trek, I saw three tanks to our left, coming toward us. They stopped, and I saw they were Russians. Since I spoke Russian, my commander asked me to ask their CO, a captain, if they were with us or against us. I said "Good morning," and had the impression that I spoke better Russian than he did--he must have been Ukrainian. When I asked his intentions, he said, "We are going to fight the Germans." We shook hands, I gave him a box of cigarettes, and after paralleling our route a bit longer, the Russian tanks turned back for the forest. When we got to the frontier, soldiers and civilians were trying to get out. The frontier was closed, so we waited until 3 p.m. Some Me-109s flew over us but didn't shoot. Romanians took our weapons and later ordered us to go to refugee camps. Six of us went to Bucharest and stayed in a hotel. The next day we went to Costanza, on the Black Sea.
AH: A number of exiled Polish airmen fought in the French air arm. Why didn't you?
Skalski: Some 700 of us went by boat to Beirut, Lebanon. From there, we left for Marseilles. Our party was billeted at Salon, north of Marseilles. Then I found myself in a party that was to be sent to Britain and trained to fly bombers. The RAF was organizing four Polish bomber squadrons, and the British were taking only young chaps. I didn't want to go, but a friend told me, "Stanley, better go where they tell you." So I left Cherbourg on January 27, 1940. As the British became concerned with German attacks in May 1940, their thoughts changed. By June, a lot of pilots, including myself, had been trained in Hurricanes and had been transferred into RAF squadrons. Two all-Polish squadrons, 302 and 303, had just been organized.
AH: How much extra training did you need in order to become a qualified RAF fighter pilot?
Skalski: We started at Eastchurch on the Thames Estuary. We used to go to school like boys to learn English. From Eastchurch we went to Blackpool, then to different schools. I went to No. 6 OTU [operational training unit] at Sutton Bridge for just two weeks or so of Hurricane training. After training, we were posted to different RAF squadrons. I tried to get into an RAF squadron with my friend Karol Pniak, but he was sent to No. 32 Squadron while I was sent to No. 302, a Polish unit that was still being organized. They were going to make me an instructor, but I told the CO, "Thanks, but I want to be in the south with No. 11 Group, where there is fighting." For a week I waited in Blackpool, then I was sent to No. 501 (County of Gloucester) Squadron on August 27. All squadrons were short of pilots, and I was immediately flying sector reconnaissance.
AH: How did the Hurricane compare with the old PZL P-11c?
Skalski: It was a big difference. The Hurricane was one or two generations ahead of the P-11c. Besides speed, they were in different technical classes--the Hurricane's armament of eight .30-caliber guns was fantastic. In my first combat with Heinkel He-111s north of Herne Bay on August 30, I remember seeing my guns just cut off the right wing from the fuselage.
AH: On August 31 you downed your first Me-109 over Hornchurch. How would you compare the Hurricane Mk.I with the Me-109E?
Skalski: We'd been told what was different between the two types and what to do in a dogfight. The Hurricane was more maneuverable and better between 5,000 and 10,000 feet. The Me-109E was better at higher altitudes, up to 20,000 feet. Whenever I got into a dogfight I tried to get as low as I could. There, I had my advantage, which shows the difference between the two airplanes. The Me-109 was faster, but on August 31 I outmaneuvered one of them and shot it down.
AH: What was your impression of your CO, Squadron Leader Henry A.V. Hogan?
Skalski: Harry Hogan was a very good leader. I flew a lot as his No. 2. I used to switch off the radio, since I could not understand English and it just made me sick. I just flew close to Hogan's wings. He had to keep a close formation as he'd lead us against the 109s--we'd have to shoot our way through them and get to the bombers. It was really a piece of cake to shoot the bombers.
AH: What about tactics against German fighters?
Skalski: The British had no idea of tactics at first. Their squadrons used 12-plane formations, broken up into three-plane elements in line astern and in close formation--about 100 feet distance--stepped in height. You couldn't see anything. I began flying farther away, and Hogan remarked, "Are you scared of flying close?" I replied, "I want to see what's going on." I reminded him of the case of one British squadron in which the Germans shot down six planes and the leader didn't know what was happening. Hogan agreed: "Stanley is right--don't fly so close." Later, the British copied the Germans, with formations of four aircraft at different heights. The Germans' squadron leaders flew in line astern at the same level, with 200 meters distance on each side, depending on the sun. That way, they could watch and defend each other. Their double-paired "finger four" formation was more flexible.
Next: Shot Down
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