A Special Duty (18 page)

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Bridging operation using a Dakota of 267 Squadron to take Polish political, military and intelligence personnel in and out of Poland to England, via Brindisi.

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Drohobych oil fields south of Lvov, formerly part of Poland, then annexed to Russia during German-Soviet pact, and latterly in German hands after Barbarossa.

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Comment made by Charlie Keen, recorded in 2003

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The town of Biłgoraj was an important center of the Polish resistance, surrounded by partisan-controlled forests. The town lost 50% of its population during the War.

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The Russians operated the Douglas C-47 ‘Skytrain’ (known in the UK as Dakotas) under the Lend-Lease agreement during World War II. It was the military version of the DC-3, with more powerful engines, large loading doors and utility seating along the walls. Used to carry troops and freight, it was renowned for being able to carry more than double its official payload, and was exceptionally rugged.

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Russian secret police.

I
t was still dark as the Dakota flew low over the ruined streets of Kiev, with its silent anti-aircraft guns still pointing skyward. The Soviet army had retaken the city five months earlier, but the retreating Germans had set about its methodical destruction as they left. Pavlov brought his Dakota down on to the desolate runway, and almost immediately, an ambulance arrived to collect the injured passengers and the pregnant woman to take them to hospital. As he left the plane, Tom picked up the jagged piece of metal that had almost killed him and put it in his pocket as a souvenir. Three black limousines rolled up next, and the crew were greeted on the tarmac by General Strokacz and his entourage of uniformed officers (and an interpreter). After a short speech, Strokacz shook their hands and gave them the news that Allied forces had just landed on the beaches of Normandy – Operation Overlord had begun. The mood was celebratory as Tom thanked Pavlov and his crew, and said goodbye to George, who had been extremely nervous throughout the flight having joined it without clearance from the Soviet authorities. He had come to plead for Russian supplies and backup for his Polish unit, and hoped that the company of the British airmen would afford him official status.

The four men were driven to the run-down Intourist Hotel in Kiev where they enjoyed a hot bath with scrubbing brushes, followed by breakfast of caviar, omelette, and vodka. They remained under close surveillance in the hotel for a week, only being allowed out once a day for fresh air, but they were treated well and given fresh clothes. They were finally able to climb out of the RAF battledress they had worn for the last seven weeks. A cinema screen was set up in the hotel and they watched ‘The Jungle Book’ in English; a simple pleasure that delighted them after weeks of struggling to understand conversations around them. Strokacz asked Tom what they had been doing in Poland, but didn’t press the subject when no response was forthcoming, and he went on to deflect questions from a local press correspondent, saying that it was no use asking questions because the men would not be able to answer. After a week in Kiev Tom and his crew were flown, by Pavlov, into Moscow, where Lieutenant General Montagu Burrows, head of the British Military Mission, had just been informed by his Soviet liaison counterpart, General Slavin,
1
that they were on their way.

Kunicki meanwhile had settled his account with the villagers of Huta Krzeszowska for the destruction of their corn crop and, since they had gallantly refused compensation, he gave instead medicines and access to his unit doctors along with the use of redundant materials, such as old harnesses and parachutes.
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The villagers may have felt that the sacrifice of their corn was a small price to pay for the protection of a well-equipped fighting unit such as that of Kunicki and his fellow Soviet commanders as Operation STURMWIND got underway. Fighting broke out within days of the airmen’s departure, and the odds against the 3,000-strong combined Polish and Soviet units were overwhelming. A German force of around 40,000 was closing in with a single objective: to clear the partisans from the forest. In spite of these odds, the Polish and Soviet units cooperated under the command of Soviet General Prokupiak, and fought a courageous campaign culminating, on the 14
^th
June, in a battle at Porytowe Hill. Here the partisans formed a defensive circle two kilometres in diameter and blocked all approach roads with mines and felled trees. When the onslaught began, it was with such terrifying force that, throughout the day and late into the night, there was hardly a second without gunfire. Trees ripped out of the ground by their roots sprang high into the air as the Germans attacked with tanks, aircraft, artillery and infantry.
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Smoke flares added to the choking smog on that hot June day, and the Kalmucks, a fearsome band of Mongol horsemen fighting with the Germans, struck fear into the staunchest partisan hearts as they rode across the cornfields on their small, black horses, screaming in a strange tongue.
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The partisans eventually ran out of water and, with hands and faces burning from the heat of their gun barrels, they were forced to cool them with their own urine. After the artillery and mortar barrage, the Germans made two breaks in the defensive circle, but the attacks were driven back, and overnight the partisans managed to break out of the encirclement and move forty kilometres east, to the village of Osuchy. STURMWIND I had failed. The partisans had broken out of the encirclement and regrouped ready to continue the fight, though losses were high and included that of Kunicki’s wireless operator, Ducia.

In Moscow, the imminent arrival of four British airmen caused a flurry of activity at the British Military Mission HQ, and General Burrows asked his Air Attaché, Commodore David Roberts, to contact the Air Ministry in Whitehall as a matter of urgency, to verify the identities of the four men. He urged Roberts to stress the importance of an immediate reply, adding: “I shall be interested to hear these fellows’ stories, and I think we can ‘make much’ of this case by insisting on getting them back as soon as possible.” Roberts duly sent the following message to the Air Ministry in Whitehall:

“Urgently request immediate confirmation if these names tally with those of any missing crews. Consider extremely important bona fides be verified earliest possible as Russians most – repeat – most suspicious any ruse on part of enemy to plant agents.”
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Relieved to be a step nearer home and unaware of the stir they were causing, Tom and the crew were driven to a dingy office in a back street and given a meal, before being taken to the British Mission HQ, where they were led down a long corridor and through double doors into a room with a huge table. There sat a number of people, including General Burrows and Commodore Roberts. They were formally handed over, with a letter from General Slavin, which read:

“I have the honour to hand over [these men] in accordance with instructions issued by the Supreme Command of the RED Army, to the BRITISH Military Mission to the USSR for disposal.”

The men were questioned for about an hour, with an interpreter translating their words for the benefit of the high-ranking Russian officers present. Two days later Tom went through a lengthy debrief with Brigadier George Hill, Head of the SOE Mission in Moscow, which focused mainly on the composition, equipment, and morale of the partisan groups he had spent time with and, in particular, relations between Polish and Soviet units. During the discussion, Tom mentioned that his crew’s identities had been checked and accepted by the Russians at the time they were handed over to Kunicki’s unit (the ‘Curly Brown’ signals), which surprised Hill because the first the British Mission had known of them was the message from Slavin the day before they landed in Moscow. That afternoon, Brigadier Hill passed this information on to General Burrows, who was outraged at the lack of cooperation from the Russians, and asked Roberts to check it with the Air Ministry, adding: “If it is true, they [the Russians] gave us unnecessary labour, and I can no longer feel that they trusted us 100% as I had hoped”
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. Roberts accordingly sent an enquiry to Whitehall:

“Please confirm Russians did not first get their Mission in London to verify bona fides with you as it seems from statement of aircrew, Russians were well satisfied their true identity before they reached Moscow.”
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The response to this message is not available, but clearly the Mission staff in Moscow were angry at having been misled over the issue of the airmen’s identities. General Burrows had only been in his post for three months, and was already finding that any contact with the Soviet general staff, however urgent, had to go through a liaison section that would not fix meetings in advance, acknowledge correspondence, or even inform the British Mission when they were out of Moscow. Relations were very strained. Burrows had initially thought that his weakened position was a consequence of the delayed Allied invasion of France, and hoped that his standing would improve once OVERLORD got underway, but it quickly became apparent that it made no difference, and relations continued in: “an atmosphere of unbounded suspicion”
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. This disquiet did not prevent him from writing, with diplomatic correctness, a gracious letter of thanks to General Slavin for promptly delivering the four aviators to the British Mission. He expressed his admiration for the Soviet partisan units, and in particular that of Mikolaj Kunicki, to whom he enclosed a letter of thanks.
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By this time, the 24
^th
June, the partisans were encircled for a second time in the village of Osuchy (STURMWIND II), and whereas Kunicki’s men managed to break out after bitter fighting, the Polish units, including those of Father John and Kmicic, did not. Cooperation between the Soviet and Polish commands had broken down during this tragic battle, and the Polish units found themselves trapped deep in the forest when German ground troops entered the woods. The result was a devastating defeat, and Nina later wrote that towards the end of the action, when nothing else was left, “Partisans were fighting with knives, fists and teeth”
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. Two brave participants in the STURMWIND campaign were Nina and her mother, who returned to their family home, on the Solski hunting estate, when it became the German Command Centre, in order to gather intelligence. Ingratiating themselves with the officers by cleaning, running errands, and gathering fresh fruit in the forest for their table, they gathered reports on troop movements, including maps and detailed tactical plans, and smuggled food and dressings to the wounded men and women who were hidden in caves, behind waterfalls, and in quarries. Nina recalled that some of the wounded were hidden, by their comrades, in trees – strapped to the branches. Sometimes those friends were killed in battle, leaving no one to bring them down before they died, and eventually their bones fell from the trees.
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Kunicki, having broken out of the encirclement, was surrounded for a third time near Lvov, where his unit spent eight days without water or bread, eating raw horsemeat to survive. Again he broke out and, after many battles and marches, his detachment reached the Carpathian Mountains, and went on to fight in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

In July, General Burrows’ letter of thanks to Kunicki reached him:

“As Chief of the British Military Mission in Moscow, I am writing to you to tell you that the Soviet general staff handed over to me the four British aviators who spent several weeks with you in your territory. They arrived safe and sound, and their well-being reflects the greatest credit on the care you and your partisans took of them. They are full of admiration of the skill with which you are damaging our common enemy, the Germans, and for your admirable organisation, which enabled you to pass them back through the German lines. On behalf of the British Navy, Army and Air Force, I would like to send to you, partisan leader Mikolaj Kunicki, and your brave partisans, my best thanks and my best wishes for your success and speedy reunion with the Red Army.
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Meanwhile efforts turned to repatriating the aircrew. The Air Ministry had requested that the crew should be returned to the UK at the earliest opportunity, and Admiral Archer
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asked the senior British naval officer to North Russia to arrange passage to UK for the four men. Tom and the crew were issued with new passports stamped with Russian visas, and on 26
^th
June embarked on the three-day train journey to Murmansk to join HMS Matchless, which together with destroyers HMS Meteor and Musketeer, was preparing to leave Scapa Flow on Operation DOG CHARLIE: the delivery of mail and supplies to Kola Inlet. HMS Matchless was a destroyer of the Home Fleet that plied the Arctic convoy route between Scapa Flow and the Kola Inlet in the far north of Russia. She had, just a few months earlier, been involved in the sinking of the German battleship Scharnhorst, which had been about to leave her Norwegian base to attack the convoys. The crew of HMS Matchless had pulled six German sailors out of the icy water on that occasion, and they were about to take four more servicemen to safety.
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Matchless arrived in Murmansk on the 3
^rd
July, and left the following day for Scapa Flow carrying the four RAF passengers and escorted for the first 70 miles by Russian fighter aircraft. Back at the British Mission in Moscow, Commodore Roberts, who had spoken with Tom at length of his experiences with the partisans, felt that Kunicki’s role in the rescue merited some acknowledgement, and he wrote to the British Ambassador to Moscow, Sir Archibald Clark-Kerr, to ask him about the possibility of recognising his courage and initiative with some kind of award, adding: “I personally would like to see you pin a Military Cross on him”. Sir Archibald agreed that Kunicki deserved recognition, and offered to write privately to Anthony Eden at the Foreign Office to see if something could be done for him. I don’t believe Kunicki received anything more than a letter of thanks, but it was undoubtedly his decisive action that got the airmen out of the forest before STURMWIND got underway, after which their chances of survival would have been slim.