Zbigniew Marian Szostak was born in Warsaw on 11 November 1915. He was a graduate of the Tadeusz Reytana high school in Warsaw. He dreamed of flying from a young age. In Warsaw, he watched the flights of planes at the nearby Oketie airport and built models of different types of aircraft. In 1938 he graduated at the top of his class from the Aviation Reserve School near Radom. This gave him priority in admission to PLL LOT as a communications pilot. He flew PWS-24 Lockheed L-10 aircraft. He was appointed to the Air Force Reserve Officers Corps. In September 1939, he evacuated to England in a Lockheed L-14 aircraft.

 

He joined the Polish Air Force in the UK, receiving RAF 76684 service number. He was posted to the 300 Squadron, where he conducted his first round of combat flights on Vickers Wellington aircraft.

 

After a rest, he made a second round of flights while fighting in the 301st Bombing Squadron. He later joined the special purpose 1586 Squadron 1586, dropping weapons and supplies over occupied European countries.

 

He flew all types of bombers and demonstrated outstanding courage and extraordinary piloting precision. He landed at fighter airports and took off from them using a spiral path in the initial phase of the launch. He flew 115 combat flights.

 

 

MORNING OF 14 AUGUST 1944

 

A grounded Liberator B-24 awaited at Brindisi airport in Italy. Behind the steering of the machine sits Captain Zbigniew Szostak from the 1586 Polish Special Destiny Squadron of the Polish Air Force in the UK. The pilot had over 100 flights with weapons and supplies over occupied European countries. Seven times he flew over the Warsaw uprising – flying 10 hours covering 1,500 kilometers, the crew dropped supplies for the insurgents on Warsaw's Krasi Poskie Square.

 

Zbigniew’s mother, Ludwika "The Fly", was a soldier of the Home Army. Her combat assignment was to patrol the area of the Stanislaw Kostki parish church. She heard on the radio that on 14 August allied aviation had announced a drop of aid for Warsaw. On this day she watched the skies. She knew that packages and containers her son’s aircraft had thrown were falling from above.

 

 

THE LAST FLIGHT

 

The Liberator aircraft headed south to return to base in Italy. When it flew over Bochnia near Krakow, it was attacked by Luftwaffe fighters. A series of bullets go into the fuel tanks and the aircraft starts to burn.

 

Zbigniew Szostak ordered the crew to jump out with parachutes, but because of the too low flight altitude most of the parachutes didn't open. The plane crashed in the meadows and potato fields of Nieszkowice near Bochnia. People found crushed bodies that they carried to the village. They removed the crew's documents and ID marks from their uniforms. It turns out that all they were all very young Poles.

 

Early on 15 August, field gendarmerie and German airmen came to Nieszkowice. They issued an order to the villagers to bury the bodies in the field. They examined debris from the aircraft. Some parts from the plane had been taken earlier by the villagers.

 

The date and time of the funeral was confidential, so as not to cause a gathering of more people and unnecessary action from the Germans. But since the early hours of the morning, residents from the Bochnia area came to the cemetery in Pogwizdów to pay homage to the heroic airmen and to pray for their souls.

 

The Liberator aircraft crew wasm as follows:

• 1st Pilot: Zbigniew Shostak

• 2nd Pilot: Joseph Bielicki

• Navigator: Stanislaw Daniel

• Radio telegraphist:  Joseph Witek

• Bombardier: Tadeusz Dubowski

• Ship’s mechanic: Vincent Rutkowski

• Shooter: Stanislaw Malczyk

 

In December 1946, General I. Zachycki, commander of the Polish Air Force in the West, handed over to the parents of Zbigniew Shostak their son's medals.

 

In Polish aviation in the West, none of the pilots managed to achieve such a large number of long-distance combat flights in the toughest conditions.

 

After the war, the bodies of the airmen were exhumed and laid to rest at the military cemetery in Rakowice in Krakow. The aircraft parts were used in the reconstruction of the Liberator B-24 J aircraft located in the Warsaw Uprising Museum.

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Zbigniew's ORDERS and BADGES:

• Gold Virtuti Militari Cross

• Silver Virtuti Militari Cross

• Cross of Valour x 4

• Air Force medal x 3

• Distinguished Flying Cross

• Field Pilot Badge

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Source: P-tv.nl Facebook post in Polish

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Copyright: Szostek family

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