Konstanty Okolow-Zubkowski was born on 30 September 1919 at the Aleksandrowka labour camp  in Siberia, the son of Polish parents who had been exiled by the Russian authorities. His father, an accountant, was exiled in 1905 after a student revolt in Vilnius. He later met and married Julia, who carried the same surname. The family was allowed to return to Poland in 1923 after the “Peace of Riga”. They settled in Nesvizh, Minsk province, which is now in Belarus.

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Konstanty was not an especially diligent student but passed his matriculation exams aged 18. He declared that he wanted to be a naval officer and, against the low expectations of friends and the resistance of his parents, applied to the Polish navy cadet school on the Vistula River. In the spring of 1938, he was invited with 206 other candidates to be assessed for one of the 70 available places. He was successful and, long afterwards, remembered the pride of his family.

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On September 1, 1939, the day that Germany invaded Poland, Konstanty was the captain on board the three-masted training schooner ORP Iskra on its way to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands from Casablanca on the coast of Morocco. Unable to contact naval HQ, the captain chose to return to Casablanca. It later emerged that a U-boat had been waiting off the Canaries with orders to sink the ship.

 

The Iskra then made its way to Devonport via France. By the end of 1939 Konstanty was assigned as a midshipman to the destroyer ORP Burza, one of three Polish ships that had escaped from Gdynia at the outbreak of war. The Burza supported the Allied campaign in Norway in 1940 and on May 4 came alongside HMS Resolution to take off the survivors of a Polish ship that had been sunk with the loss of 59 lives. Konstanty then saw action off Dunkirk. While firing on tanks closing in on Allied soldiers on the beaches, his ship was attacked by dive-bombers and the underside of her bow was blown off, forcing her to return to Britain stern first.

 

Arriving in Great Britain, Konstanty went on to serve on ORP Burza at Narvik and Dunkirk; the HMS King George V during the hunt for the Bismarck, and then three years on ORP Garland in several theatres of war including the Battle of the Atlantic, the Arctic convoys, and the Mediterranean.

 

After the war, Konstanty was sent to train young naval officers on how to use torpedoes and mines. He joined the Polish Resettlement Corps and was assigned to the camp in Oakhampton in Devon. He took charge of preparing naval officers for civilian life. Then, he was transferred to ORP Bałtyk – a camp on land but arranged as a battleship.

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He was married twice, once briefly, to Natalia Zukowska after a wartime romance. They divorced in 1948 and she died several years ago in Canada. He met his second wife, Antonina Dembinska at Daquise, a Polish restaurant in South Kensington, London, where she was earning money waitressing. She was the daughter of a distinguished cavalry officer, General Stefan Jacek Dembinski. The restaurant is still in business. Antonia was studying medicine when they met. After, they were married she interrupted her medical studies and took care of their children. Antonia also helped Konstanty to manage their small business, a delicatessen shop in Kilburn in London.

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The couple had two children: Monika, who is a technology director in Cambridge, and Marek, who is a freelance retail systems consultant in London. Antonina died in 2004.

After the war, Konstanty spent 10 years in the British merchant navy being continuously away from home. One day his daughter asked his wife ‘when will that gentleman be going?’ and he realized that he was only seen by his daughter as a visitor who from time to time would bring her toys.

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Soon after this incident, Konstanty started working for a firm exporting and importing wine. He was based in the company’s branch in London and stayed in this company until his retirement.

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Konstanty also became the Chairman of the Polish Naval Association. He and his wife moved out of London to live in Cambridge in 2002.

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He was an active member of the UK Polish Ex-Combatants’ Naval Association and was elected president in 1982 when the organisation still had more than 1,000 members. It later merged with organizations representing army and air force veterans and Okolow-Zubkowski became president of the combined association. He represented all British-based Polish veterans at many commemorative events, including the 50th anniversary of D-Day.

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After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the inauguration of Lech Walesa as president of Poland, Konstanty, representing the Polish navy, escorted the symbols of office of the Republic of Poland when they were returned to his native land in 1991.

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In recognition of his services, Konstanty was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-commander in the Polish navy. He continued, however, to hold the Royal Navy in great affection. He was, after all, the last pre-war Polish naval officer to have served with “the senior service” during the Second World War.

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Lieutenant-Commander Konstanty Okolow-Zubkowski, naval officer, passed away on 10 November 2018 at the age of 99 years.

 

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Copyright: Okolow-Zubkowski family

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