OKh/In versus Bletchley

I am surprised at the general level of ignorance shown by most as to the part played in the Second World War by the Polish in all sorts of ways. Their airmen who fly in the RAF were a fierce dedicated bunch determined to avenge their country. Perhaps because I went to school with children of some of those who fled Poland a few years before or because I read a great deal in the past, much of the more recent ‘news stories’ sound very stale, albeit with a few snide snipes added. I had always understood that a number of Eastern Block countries had built their security organisations from ‘hand-me-downs’ from earlier times. We used our knowledge to listen in to the communications networks that had been tapped, one interception facility was built by the Americans using UK hardware to confuse investigators when it was inevitably traced and found.

Interestingly, when I was studying the performance of ‘rest homes’, the Poles appeared to run some of the very best available in the UK, but you had to have good connections with Polish war time service to be admitted.

I served with two sons of Polish WWII servicemen, one the son of a Battle of Britain fighter pilot, the other who escaped Poland and joined the British Army, fought in the Eighth Army through the Western Desert and Italy. He married a Scottish lass and made his life in Scotland.

The spinal op I had in 2005, which saved me from becoming a quadriplegic, was carried out by a Spinal Neurologist named Jelinek. Seriously – he went in through the right side of my neck to carry out the procedure. His granddad was another B-o-B fighter pilot. We owe these people so much, and many of them were sent back to Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc, by the craven British government at the behest of Soviet Russia.

Two tales of the lads I served with, one serious, one quite amusing:

When I served in NI, 2 mates were Jim, who was from Lisburn, and Stanislaus. Most weekends I was able to escort Jim to his family home in an unmarked unit car and I had a great time, treated like one of the family. One weekend I had to be out on the streets, so Stan escorted Jim. He was treated with disrespect by the family because he was, of course, Catholic. Jim left his own family home early with him and I never went again to that house. Daft thing was, Jim was married to an English Catholic!

The other lad was with me at an AAC aircraft workshop and his family name began with Z. Naturally, there was no one else with a name like that. One evening we were having a mess Meeting, chaired by a particularly thick CSM. He was calling out names of attendees, being asked by all the Williams’, Smiths and Jones’ “Which one, Sir?”. He had to append the last 3 Regimental numbers, to cope with this.

He got to Johnny Z******y, who said “Which one Sir?” CSM, without the trace of a smile, gave his Reg. No.

Cue the whole Mess falling about, one puzzled CSM wondering what the joke was.