Burchard Flakowski

[Chris Goss]

Chris: Be careful about jumping to conclusions! There is no rank given so he could be Army and I have no obvious mention of him in the Luftwaffe Losses fiche. Perhaps Remi might like to search his database? By the way, if they were missing, some times they were still recorded in the rank list!

[ChrisM]

Sorry, Franek, but I thought that was correct - "son of flak". Can you put me right please?

Thanks for your response, Chris............I think there is little doubt that the pilot bringing into Fornebu a Ju-52 and a plane load of equipment and ground crew is the Flakowski who later acted as a bomber pilot in the Battle of Britain and the night bombing on England. The man interviewed in connection with the latter is stated by Flannery to have been previously honoured for his exploits on that occasion. And if he were in fact bringing in I/ZG76 personnel and equipment would it be a mere coincidence that he later appears in II/KG76?

What I don’t know, and perhaps you can advise me, is how unusual it would be for a pilot of a wholly different Geschwader to be involved in something like this; whether a bomber pilot would ever have been co-opted into a role of this type; and/or whether it would have been unusual for a Ju-52 pilot to have transferred to medium bomber duties – and in a responsible role - at this early stage of the war.

There is a dramatic description of the Oslo incident in a Spanish forum (not surprisingly written in Spanish, but I imagine based on an original German or English source) mentioning Flakowski and a number of other Luftwaffe personnel. (…..El capitán Flakowski, profesor de vuelo instrumental del I Grupo de la 76 Escuadra de Caza Pesada……..) I’m clearly wrong in assuming that the ground crew was of I/KG76. I/ZG76 is as you state much more likely, in that there seem to be Me-110s already on the airfield and the arrival of mechanics appears to have been a source of rejoicing. (On reflection, ‘Caza Pesada" means literally I think ‘heavy hunting or chasing").

But it still doesn’t explain to me how or why someone who might belong to one Geschwader is involved in a transport operation on behalf of another and only two or three months later is commanding some sort of bomber group over England. All I am confident about is that it is the same man in each case.

Please tell me if I am talking rubbish (as will no doubt Franek) or asking stupid questions – I probably am!

Chris

[Franek Grabowski]

Originally Posted by ChrisM

Sorry, Franek, but I thought that was correct - "son of flak". Can you put me right please?

Ski suffix means more less equal to von, see my name, Grabowski - from Grabów. It is used in the context of son, but then the christian name was used, just like in the name Peterson. Example could be Jakubowski or Piotrowski. Another lenghty issue are Jewish names, but this has nothing to the case.
Flakowski would mean a man from Flaków, but as I find no such place in Poland, I believe this was previously Flak, which means gut (no though guy meaning) and is a peasant's name, so I assume someone changed it to sound more noble. This often happened in 19th century.

[RT]

Very interesting, many germans hv the final "ski", is this "ski" rein polish, or some dialectal form for example Silesian or....

rémi

[ChrisM]

Thanks very much for that, Franek. I now have an idea of the true origins of the name. As far as I can tell, it seems a fairly unusual one, or at least in Luftwaffe circles.

What I was doing in my summary of Flakowski’s life was to repeat a "joke" which might have originated from the man himself or was the creation of the American interviewer, Harry Flannery. Flannery says: "My man…..was Captain Burchard Flakowski. The name was an unusual one for a bomber pilot since flak in German means "anti-aircraft" and the ski on the end of a name means "son of". Thus the name of my interviewer was, appropriately enough, translatable as: Burchard, son of Anti-Aircraft."

Perhaps "nearly translatable" would have been a better way of expressing it!

Chris

[RT]

Hello Chris,

Good choice he is listed, Falkowski Brughardt hptm MIA it was the pilot, during a mission over Staritza for an unknown reason, IIST.KG76 JU88A-4 F1+AC, looks like the plane of the kdr, 8.jan 1942

Rémi

[ChrisM]

Very many thanks, Chris Goss, FrankieS and Remi, for all your help on this.

Over the next week or so I’ll pull together what I now know about Burchard Flakowski and post it within this thread, for the record and in his memory.

Chris

[steve sheridan]

Hi Remi,
Following on from this tread, and given your loss information on Falkowski,
do you have the W.Nr of this a/c and other crew details?
Many thanks,
Steve.

[Chris Goss]

Ju 88 A-4, Wk Nr 2609. Lt Dankmar Meyer, Uffz Hans Mewes & Ofw Friuedrich Wegner also missing

[steve sheridan]

Fantastic Chris, many thanks.

Steve.