[Larry]

Thanks all - Yes Jo was Polish Pilot identified above.

By chance my late father served with Jo Kmiejic on serveral occasions but finally on on 207 Sqn equipped with DH Devons, at RAF Northolt, until Jo's retirement in 1981.

Jo Kmiejic had a very ‘interesting’ career that started in WW2, as a teenager in Poland, and said he was arrested by German soldiers and locked in a shed, from which he escaped and fled to the Russian sector, hoping to be liberated. However, the Russians at the time (of the German - Soviet Pact) were not keen on such refugees and he was locked up in a prisoner of war type camp even though he wasn’t a POW. They were so badly treated that in revenge he and others killed and ate the Commandant’s Alsatian dog, which they buried first to avoid detection, and dug up several days later, to cook and eat!

Eventually the Russians relented about imprisoning such people and he was released in I think Persia (Iran), having been made to walk most of the way. I have an idea that when he reached the Allies, he convinced them he was a trainee pilot (or should be one) and so was sent to the UK for further training, at which he excelled. He flew Spitfires (and possibly Mustangs) in action with 303 Sqn as a W/O in WW2.

It is known that Jo flew the RAFM Wellington MF628 used as a photo aircraft for the film the Dam Busters in 1954, taking turns with other pilots, so it is possible he flew some of the film Lancasters too.

When he retired from the RAF in 1981, the ‘Top Brass’ were quite amazed that a wartime pilot was still serving, so Jo was allowed to fly, briefly, one of the BBMF Spitfires, as a parting ‘gesture of good will’.

Sadly, he died in Spain in 1993, in an accident while connecting Electricity to his home.