Post by UKarchaeology on Sept 29, 2015 13:59:19 GMT
Daughter and granddaughter of Polish pilot Kaziemierz Wünsche involved in digging up remains of Hurricane fighter near Beachy Head, Brighton.
Seventy-five years ago a young Polish pilot crashed into the hills near Beachy Head, Brighton, after his Hurricane fighter plane was shot down by a German Messerschmitt during the Battle of Britain. Now, the late pilot’s daughter and granddaughter have joined archeologists in uncovering the aircraft’s remains.
Kazimierz Wünsche, a member of RAF 303 Squadron – which became legendary for the courage and success of its Polish fliers – was scrambled from RAF Northolt late in the afternoon of 9 September 1940 to intercept a bombing raid by more than 80 German Junker planes.
Wünsche’s plane was hit and he baled out, surviving with burns and leg injuries and returning to active service the following year. The plane ploughed straight into farmland now owned by the National Trust.
“It was incredibly moving to see and touch part of his plane that hadn’t been seen in 75 years,” his granddaughter Joanna Gasiorowska told the Guardian. She joined in with the excavation with her mother, Grazyna Gasiorowska, who was taken back to Poland as a baby after the war. “I was more emotional than my mum, but then she’s a bit tougher than me.”
Joanna Gasiorowska, a sports journalist with al-Jazeera, was only a few months old when her grandfather died in 1980, but knows the family history of his part in the Battle of Britain. Wünsche’s squadron leader Ronald Kellett once recalled: “In the month of September, 303 Squadron was on top – no squadron from the Empire could equal the courage and skill of our pilots, no bombing could daunt our airmen.”
Gasiorowska wondered what had happened to her grandfather’s plane, and learned that the crash site had been located nearly 40 years ago by amateur archaeologists but that most of it still lay in the ground. With Andy Saunders, editor of Britain at War magazine, and Richard Osgood, chief archaeologist with the Ministry of Defence, a plan evolved to fully excavate the site and recover as much of the plane as possible.
It became a mission for the award-winning Operation Nightingale project, led by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation and the army, which has produced many valuable finds and helped rehabilitate injured veterans, leading several volunteers to retrain as professional archaeologists.
British and Polish veterans who fought in Afghanistan joined forces to hunt for the lost plane, which was overflown on the anniversary of the crash by an original Hurricane repainted in Polish colours, paid for by the Polish embassy.
Osgood said the excavation had provided more information about the crash and created a model for other sites, which have often been dug by enthusiastic but inexperienced amateurs.
The recovered parts including the well-preserved propellor hub will be displayed in the Polish museum at RAF Northolt, which tells the story of the young men and women who came to Britain after their country was occupied. By the end of the war almost 20,000 were serving in the RAF and in 16 squadrons of the Polish air force in Britain.
The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely in the skies, involved servicemen from several countries and was the most sustained air campaign of the second world war.
Wünsche returned to his homeland after the war and attempted to rejoin the Polish air force, but refused to join the Communist party. “Although he’s remembered as a hero both in Poland and the UK now, at the time of his return in 1947 he was viewed with suspicion and disdain by the Communist government,” his granddaughter said.
It took a year of vetting before he was allowing into the air force, and he served until 1952, though he was never fully accepted by his superiors. After he was discharged into the reserve he was repeatedly called in for questioning by police who suspected him of spying for the west. Later he became an air emergency pilot in the Polish air medical service founded by veterans.
The rest of Wünsche’s life was haunted by his wartime experiences, and he died in Poland of heart failure aged 61. His granddaughter thinks the stress of the years after the war must have contributed to his early death.
“His commanding officers kept trying to get rid of him,” she said. “In his personal reviews they would write things like ‘he is alien in class and ideology … his family background, his past and his attitude towards current reality put him among the politically uncertain.’ He died far too early, and that’s why I never got to know this incredible man who I am so proud of for his adversity and achievements in so many fields.”
(pics & source at: www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/29/battle-of-britain-pilot-kazimierz-wunsche-plane-excavation )
Seventy-five years ago a young Polish pilot crashed into the hills near Beachy Head, Brighton, after his Hurricane fighter plane was shot down by a German Messerschmitt during the Battle of Britain. Now, the late pilot’s daughter and granddaughter have joined archeologists in uncovering the aircraft’s remains.
Kazimierz Wünsche, a member of RAF 303 Squadron – which became legendary for the courage and success of its Polish fliers – was scrambled from RAF Northolt late in the afternoon of 9 September 1940 to intercept a bombing raid by more than 80 German Junker planes.
Wünsche’s plane was hit and he baled out, surviving with burns and leg injuries and returning to active service the following year. The plane ploughed straight into farmland now owned by the National Trust.
“It was incredibly moving to see and touch part of his plane that hadn’t been seen in 75 years,” his granddaughter Joanna Gasiorowska told the Guardian. She joined in with the excavation with her mother, Grazyna Gasiorowska, who was taken back to Poland as a baby after the war. “I was more emotional than my mum, but then she’s a bit tougher than me.”
Joanna Gasiorowska, a sports journalist with al-Jazeera, was only a few months old when her grandfather died in 1980, but knows the family history of his part in the Battle of Britain. Wünsche’s squadron leader Ronald Kellett once recalled: “In the month of September, 303 Squadron was on top – no squadron from the Empire could equal the courage and skill of our pilots, no bombing could daunt our airmen.”
Gasiorowska wondered what had happened to her grandfather’s plane, and learned that the crash site had been located nearly 40 years ago by amateur archaeologists but that most of it still lay in the ground. With Andy Saunders, editor of Britain at War magazine, and Richard Osgood, chief archaeologist with the Ministry of Defence, a plan evolved to fully excavate the site and recover as much of the plane as possible.
It became a mission for the award-winning Operation Nightingale project, led by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation and the army, which has produced many valuable finds and helped rehabilitate injured veterans, leading several volunteers to retrain as professional archaeologists.
British and Polish veterans who fought in Afghanistan joined forces to hunt for the lost plane, which was overflown on the anniversary of the crash by an original Hurricane repainted in Polish colours, paid for by the Polish embassy.
Osgood said the excavation had provided more information about the crash and created a model for other sites, which have often been dug by enthusiastic but inexperienced amateurs.
The recovered parts including the well-preserved propellor hub will be displayed in the Polish museum at RAF Northolt, which tells the story of the young men and women who came to Britain after their country was occupied. By the end of the war almost 20,000 were serving in the RAF and in 16 squadrons of the Polish air force in Britain.
The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely in the skies, involved servicemen from several countries and was the most sustained air campaign of the second world war.
Wünsche returned to his homeland after the war and attempted to rejoin the Polish air force, but refused to join the Communist party. “Although he’s remembered as a hero both in Poland and the UK now, at the time of his return in 1947 he was viewed with suspicion and disdain by the Communist government,” his granddaughter said.
It took a year of vetting before he was allowing into the air force, and he served until 1952, though he was never fully accepted by his superiors. After he was discharged into the reserve he was repeatedly called in for questioning by police who suspected him of spying for the west. Later he became an air emergency pilot in the Polish air medical service founded by veterans.
The rest of Wünsche’s life was haunted by his wartime experiences, and he died in Poland of heart failure aged 61. His granddaughter thinks the stress of the years after the war must have contributed to his early death.
“His commanding officers kept trying to get rid of him,” she said. “In his personal reviews they would write things like ‘he is alien in class and ideology … his family background, his past and his attitude towards current reality put him among the politically uncertain.’ He died far too early, and that’s why I never got to know this incredible man who I am so proud of for his adversity and achievements in so many fields.”
(pics & source at: www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/29/battle-of-britain-pilot-kazimierz-wunsche-plane-excavation )