FRIENDS of the O.R.P. BLYSKAWICA SOCIETY President: Mr. Michael Aiken Co-Vice President: Mr. Geoff Banks Co-Vice President: Mr. Otton Hulacki OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE: Chairman: Mr. Geoff Banks Minutes Secretary: Mrs. Kay Banks Vice Chair: Dr. Chris Magier Membership Secretary: Mrs. Margaret Prior Treasurer: Mr. Peter Lloyd Liaison in Poland: Mr. John Coueslant Committee: Mrs. Janina Doroszkowska; Mr. Ken Sinnicks; Mrs. Diane Stretch; Mr. Ray Stretch; Mrs. Agnieszka Zacharzewska. All enquiries should be addressed to: the Secretary, Friends of the ORP Blyskawica Society c/o Cowes Combined Services Club, 85 High Street, Cowes, Isle of Wight, PO31 7AJ e-mail : [email protected] website : blyskawica-cowes.org.uk _________________________________________________________________________________ NEWSLETTER SUMMER 2013 Welcome to the latest Society newsletter, which includes two interesting biographies from Wanda Troman. At the Society’s Annual General Meeting in March the Officers and Committee were elected for the coming year (listed above). We are pleased to welcome formally two Polish members, Dr. Chris Magier, as Vice Chair, and Mrs. Agnieszka Zacharzewska (Aga). Both work on the Island at St. Mary’s Hospital and both are very keen to continue following the aims of the Society in commemorating the Ship and especially her actions in May 1942 in defending Cowes and East Cowes against enemy air attacks. Geoff Banks was elected Chair and Ken Sinnicks was thanked for his five years of hard work and dedication in that role. Kay Banks took over as Minutes Secretary from Margaret Prior, who will remain as Membership Secretary and newsletter/ website editor. Peter Lloyd was re-elected Treasurer. **************************************************************************************** 70th COMMEMORATIONS, MAY 5 2013 Commemorative plaque on the Bandstand, Cowes, where the wreaths are laid each year. As in many years past, the formal ceremony was held on the first Sunday in May at the Bandstand on Cowes Parade. The weather was clement as chairman Geoff Banks welcomed the local and Polish dignitaries and all who had come to remember the Blitz of May 4th/5th 1942 and the part played in the defence of Cowes/East Cowes by ORP Blyskawica. Among the many present were Mrs. Marian Sawicki of East Cowes, whose husband Ben (Boleslaw) was a Ship’s veteran; Mrs. Joan Matthew of Cowes, a survivor of the Blitz, and Mrs. Jan Clare whose father Stanislaw Pawinski was a gunner on the Blyskawica (Jan supplied an article for our last newsletter). We were pleased to see that Ship’s veteran Henryck Jach and Free French veteran Pierre L’Hours were able to attend once more. The traditional speeches were made by officers and committee members of the Society, the mayors of Cowes and East Cowes, and Captain Stanislaw Krol, Defence, Military, Naval and Air Attache, who represented Poland’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom. There followed a short service led by Canon Richard Emblin (his last before retiring) and Father Michael Purbick. Thanks must go to the Cowes British Legion band for providing the usual musical accompaniment and to all who helped to make the event both successful and enjoyable. ********************************************************************************************************** GEOFF IS BLYSKAWICA’S CONTEMPORARY Geoff Harwood of the Isle of Wight has contacted the Society to recall that he was born in April 1935, just before the Ship’s keel was laid down [in September that year]. He grew up in Tennyson Road, Cowes, which ran down to the river and the shipyards, so he would have had quite a noisy childhood! ********************************************************************************************************** BLYSKAWICA COMMEMORATED ON A POSTAGE STAMP Member Stefan Szawiel’s grandfather Jan Szawiel, who had been serving on the Ship as Seaman Mechanic since her commissioning in November 1937, was among the crew when she left Gdynia on 30th August 1939, arriving in Scotland two days later to join the British fleet. Born in Orenburg, Russia, in 1909, he was awarded the Cross of Valour (1943), Bronze Cross of Merit and Sea Medal (3 bars). In 1943 he married Island girl Ellen Hinks and they settled in Cowes after the War. Stefan spotted the stamp (pictured) and kindly purchased it for the Society. The image shows the “Warship Blyskawica” by M.Mokwa. The stamp was released in October 1968, during the Communist era, as one of a series commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Polish People’s Army. It will be kept in the Ship’s archives, which are accessible to the general public at the Heritage Centre, Clarence Road, East Cowes (tel: 01983 280310). ********************************************************************************************************** ADAM ROSIEK We have been contacted by Clive Rosiek, whose father Adam served on the Blyskawica for two and a half years, including during May 1942. On the night of the Raid Signalman Leading Seaman Rosiek was assigned to fire parties and helped with medical aid on shore. Clive has donated his father’s papers and other personal memorabilia to the Isle of Wight County Records Office, where they have created great interest. Members too might be interested in going along to have a look: the records office is at 26 Hillside, Newport (tel: 01983 823820). Opening times: Mon 9.30am-5pm; Tues CLOSED; Wed-Fri 9am-5pm (closed for lunch 12.30-1pm). ************************************************************************************************** A Girl from Cowes and her BLYSKAWICA man. By Wanda Troman Dum nos fata sinunt, oculos satiemus amore: nox tibi longa venit, nec reditura dies.(Propertius). (While the fates allow us let us fill our eyes with love, the night comes long for you, and the day will not return). One evening in May 1942 a young pretty and vivacious girl from Cowes, Peggy Snudden, went to a dance hall. The war was raging around Cowes and everywhere else in the world. But like many other young girls she enjoyed dancing, meeting people and talking to boys who were fighting in the forces against the deadly enemy - Hitler’s Germany Peggy Snudden was born on 12 August 1923 in East Cowes where she lived with her father, Ernest John, who worked as a lamplighter for Trinity House, her mother who was called Nora Eileen (neé Attrill), and a younger sister also called Nora. The girls used to play together with Marian Souter who later married one of the Blyskawica brave torpedo launchers, Boleslaw Sawicki. After Peggy left school, she worked in a grocer’s shop, known as Wrays, near to where she lived. In April and May 1942 the BLYSKAWICA defended Cowes and its shipyard JS White, against a ferocious German air raid. That day the BLYSKAWICA’s powerful guns repelled the attackers. After the battle the town authorities and the surrounding factories organized dances for the people to celebrate the memorable victory. One of the BLYSKAWICA crew men, celebrating the day of victory, was Jan Wszolek. There in the dance hall of Cowes Jan and Peggy met and fell in love and their wedding took place on 7 August 1943 in East Cowes. For his war service Petty Officer electrician, Jan Wszolek (1917-1982), was awarded the Sea Medal with 2 bars. He was born on 4 October 1917 in Zydalycze near Lwów, the son of a railway engineer, Franciszek, and his wife Maria. Jan had a younger sister. The family lived in Lwów, in the district of Zniesienie, in Starozniesienska Street. His school playground mate was Otton Hulacki of Szczepanowski Street, who today lives in Wootton on the Isle of Wight and acts as the one of co-vice-presidents of the Friends of the BLYSKAWICA Society. Otton remembers their young days spent playing with many friends near the famous Józef Baczewski vodka and liquer distillery, founded in 1782, and situated in Zólkiewska Street. The Germans bombed it in 1939 and when the Soviets got there a few weeks later, they stole the equipment and whatever else was left there. After the war the Baczewski family and their distant relatives reactivated the distillery in Vienna where it has enjoyed its classic revival ever since. Jan Wszolek joined the Polish Navy in 1936 in Gdynia and served on the French-built destroyer ORP WICHER. Whilst serving in Gdynia before the war whenever he came on leave to Lwów wearing his naval uniform, people would look at him admiring his smart appearance. On 25 August 1939 he joined BLYSKAWICA as Able Seaman electrician and left Gdynia for Leith on board that ship on 30 August 1939. Later during the war he became friends with other brave men serving on BLYSKAWICA, especially: Alfons Kruger, Franciszek Nowacki and Boleslaw Sawicki. Today Jan Wszolek’s descendants live in Chester. Jan’s dreams of going back to Lwów after the war with his young bride were shattered by the post-war political settlements. He was shocked and saddened by the handing over of his beloved city to the Soviet Union and the transfer of its Polish population to Western Poland mainly to the city of Wroclaw. He could not go back to a country where there would not be any political and social freedom, the country he and his mates so bravely and selflessly served during the war on board the BLYSKAWICA. Soon the tragic news of persecution and arrests based on false accusations of those who served in the armed forces in the West and in the Home Army in Poland, was beginning to filter through from the People’s Republic. The first arrests, sentences and executions occurred as early as 1945 and continued until 1953 when many distinguished officers and men were murdered. Those murdered by the people’s state judiciary were later in 1956 rehabilitated but it was no consolation for their families and friends. One of Jan Wszolek’s BLYSKAWICA friends was Chief Petty Officer Tadeusz Ficek, a native of Drohobycz in the district of Lwów, who after the war settled in Glasgow and became a well-known member of the local community there. His brother, Petty Officer Zdzislaw Ficek (1904-1952), who lived in Gdynia, was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in the People’s Navy. Arrested on false charges including the one of being politically of little value, the communist court in Gdynia sentenced him to death. He was allowed to hand his Virtuti Militari order to his son the day before his execution on 2 December 1952. An innocent man who bravely fought in Gdynia against the forces of Hitler, perished. (see The Encyclopaedia of Gdynia, published in 2006). Consequently after the war Jan Wszolek remained on the Isle of Wight with his wife Peggy, mother-in-law and their son, Brian, who was born in 1950. However, due to the scarcity of work opportunities, they moved to the mainland in the early fifties to Sutton, Surrey, where his second son Roy and daughter Anne were born. Jan Wszolek found employment as a heating engineer. After his mother-in-law’s death in 1956, Jan moved his family to South Godstone in Surrey. His youngest son, Paul was born there in June 1960. In 1965 the Wszolek family moved to Chester, Cheshire, and shortly afterwards Jan, still working as a heating engineer, began employment with the Cheshire County Council, for whom he worked until his death in June 1982. Jan and Peggy were quiet people who enjoyed each other’s company. They did not socialize much and Jan Wszolek rarely spoke about the war with his children, but he kept his wartime photographs which are now of great interest to all of us: Jan & Peggy on their wedding day, 7th August 1943 Bibliography: Sikorski Museum, London, MAR.A.V.12; Our Signals (Nasze Sygnaly), (The Polish Navy Association journal, London, 1977 & 1987), 136/24; 160/29; The Encyclopaedia of Gdynia, 2006; E-mail letter from Mr Paul Wszolek of 20 April 2012 to W. Troman; Telephone conversation with Mr O. Hulacki and e-mail conversation with Mrs M. Sawicki and her daughter Mrs Z. Young. ******************************************************************************************************* P.O EDWARD GATNER Signalman Petty Officer Edward Gatner (1914-2006), Cross of Valour (1944), Sea Medal 3 bars, joined the Polish Navy in Gdynia on 2 November 1933 and trained as a signalman. On 26 November 1937 as Able Seaman he was assigned to serve on BLYSKAWICA. On 30 August 1939 at 12.00 hours the Chief of the Polish Sea-going Fleet, Rear-Admiral Jozef Unrug, received an order from the Chief of the Polish Navy, Rear-Admiral Jerzy Swirski, acting on instruction from the Marshal of Poland, Edward Rydz-Smigly, to carry out operation “Pekin” which meant sending BURZA, BLYSKAWICA and GROM to Britain. At 14.15 the ships left Gdynia-Oksywie. Edward Gatner was on board BLYSKAWICA. On 31 August 1939 at 9.50 a.m., the Foreign Office said that because of the dispositions of the British Fleet, the Admiralty requested that the Polish destroyers should proceed in absolute secrecy to a more northerly base without entering the Firth of Forth. The destroyers would be met at a rendezvous already arranged. So Edward Gatner arrived in Leith on 1 September 1939 at 17.30. He served on BLYSKAWICA until 1941 in the 1st Destroyer Flotilla in the Nore Command, participated in the Norwegian campaign and served on convoy duties. In 1941 he briefly served on ORP Garland in the Mediterranean. In 1941 he returned to BLYSKAWICA staying until 31 May 1946. He married a Scottish girl in 1942 and lived in Glasgow where he died in 2006 aged 92. Bibliography: The Album of the Polish Navy, Rome, 1947, p. V & X; Wladyslaw Szczerkowski, ORP BLYSKAWICA, Gdynia, 1970, p. 27; S. Piaskowski, The Chronicles of the Polish Navy, New York, 1987, II, 44-45; National Archives in Kew, FO 371 23154, C12482, Ambassador Kennard to Foreign Office, 31 August 1939, f. 98; National Archives in Kew: ADM 199/807 and ADM 1/29366, information received from his son, Dr Eddie Gatner, who is a Society member. Wanda Troman*. *(I am sorry about the computer mistake which found its way to p. 48 of my book titled “ORP BLYSKAWICA of Cowes and Gdynia”. Edward Gatner did not die in Canada but in Glasgow). ******************************************************************************************************** OBITUARIES FELIKS KEIDROWSKI (Keindrix), who served on convoy duties in the Mediterranean Sea on ORP Blyskawica in 1942, passed away on 31st March 2013. His funeral service was held on 8th April 2013 at the All Saints Church in Alrewas in Staffordshire and it was organised by Dr Mark Stella-Sawicki with the help of Otton Hulacki. The service was attended by many people, including a delegation of sailors from a Polish warship and a Polish consul from London. When WWII war broke out Feliks Keidrowski was in Lódz, where he was working as a bricklayer. However, he quickly arrived in Warsaw, participated in the September campaign of 1939 against the Germans and later escaped to England via Rumania and Palestine. He was conscripted into the Polish Navy and posted to serve on ORP Blyskawica. In November 1942, whilst escorting with other allied warships a convoy carrying American and English troops and supplies to Algeria, ORP Blyskawica came under heavy enemy fire. The Germans assessed her as a cruiser and she became the main target of their attacks by about 30 to 40 Junkers 88. Three Polish sailors were killed and many were wounded. Among the latter was Feliks Keidrowski, who suffered a serious wound to his arm and a heavily damaged nose. Later in hospital he was told that he would never be able to work as a bricklayer. After the war he married a WREN called Joan, and went on to a Technical College to study building construction eventually becoming a manager of a building site. He built his own house and the firm for which he worked was able to build about 50 houses per year. Joan and Feliks lost their only child and since then their efforts concentrated on helping their families. However, they continued to actively work in their community. In 1988 he visited the Polish Naval Association centre in London to receive the medal of the September Campaign of 1939, which was bestowed on him by the Polish President in Exile, Ryszard Kaczorowski. Later Feliks helped with the construction of the Memorial to the Polish Armed Forces at the National Memorial Arboretum. **************** JANEEK NAPIERALA (Jan), Petty Officer Mechanic on the Blyskawica, was born in January 1917 near Poznan. He was awarded the Cross of Valour, the Bronze Cross of Merit and the Sea Medal (3 bars). He married Margaret, a Carisbrooke girl, and they emigrated to Canada in 1953, living at Thunder Bay, Ontario. One of Jan and Margaret’s sons, Peter, presented his father’s naval uniform to the Ship’s officers in Cowes during the 70th commemorations in May 2012. Jan died on 14th February 2013, leaving his wife, three sons, 8 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren. Society Vice-Chairman Geoff Banks wrote to Peter as follows: “We were saddened to hear of the death of your father Janeek Napierala on 14th February. On behalf of the ORP Blyskawica Society we wish to send our condolences to his family and to his many friends. The communities of Cowes and East Cowes, through the regular commemoration events held by our Society in remembrance of the 4th/5th May 1942 blitz, remain ever grateful for the bravery and dedication of your father and those of the ORP Blyskawica that night in the towns’ defence. Can I thank you for coming to our 70th commemoration event last year and presenting your father’s uniform to the officers from the ORP Blyskawica. This generous gesture was greatly appreciated and graciously acknowledged by the Blyskawica’s present captain, Jerzy Lubkowski, when the Society visited the Ship in November 2012. Jan’s contribution in the defence of freedom, as with many of his countrymen at that time, will be indelibly remembered by future generations and never more so than here on the Isle of Wight.” Member Angie Amies, whose husband David was Jan’s nephew, kindly sent a memorial donation to the Society on behalf of the family. **************** NORMAN BARTON, who had been a Society member for several years, passed away early this year. Norman was a Cowes lad who started working at JS Whites in 1943, aged 18. He recalled that the Blyskawica needed to return to her home port during the War for strengthening, as she was built for Baltic waters, not Atlantic storms: her men were aware of the hull flexing in heavy seas. Norman visited Gdynia in November 2007 when the World Ship Trust added Blyskawica to their international list of historic ships. He was thrilled to find a maker’s plate in the engine room, engraved “J.S. White & Co.1801” (1801 was the ship’s building number). Norman made a point of travelling from the mainland with his son David to attend the annual commemorations at Cowes: his last such visit was in May 2012.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 20:57:08 +0000
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