Who was Witold Urbanowicz?
Witold Urbanowicz (1908 to 1996) was a Polish fighter ace who commanded No. 303 (Polish) Squadron in the Battle of Britain from early September to 20 October 1940, during the hardest weeks of the battle. Bajan's list, the official record of Polish fighter pilots' victories, credits him with 17 confirmed victories and one probable, second only to Stanisław Skalski. In late 1943 he also flew combat missions against the Japanese with American fighter units in China, and after the war he settled in the United States.1
Witold Urbanowicz fought at opposite ends of the world: in the skies above London and against the Japanese over China. In the Battle of Britain he led the most famous Polish unit of the war, No. 303 Squadron, through its fiercest weeks. Before that war began he had already shot down a Soviet aircraft over Poland's eastern border, and after it ended he could not go home.2
From Olszanka to Dęblin
Urbanowicz was born on 30 March 1908 in Olszanka, in northeastern Poland. He trained at the teachers' seminary in Suwałki, then left in 1925 for the cadet corps, first at Modlin and later at Chełmno. In 1930 he entered the air force officer cadet school at Dęblin, and on 15 August 1932 he was commissioned as an observer and posted to a night bomber squadron of the 1st Air Regiment in Warsaw.3
He soon retrained as a pilot and joined the fighter squadrons of the Warsaw air regiment, the 113th and 114th, then the 111th, where in April 1936 he became deputy squadron commander. In 1934 he had completed an advanced flying course at the air gunnery and bombing school at Grudziądz.4
Cobra
In August 1936 the 111th Squadron was moved to Sarny in Polesie to patrol the border and protect the fortifications being built there from Soviet reconnaissance flights. On one patrol, flying a PZL P.11a, Urbanowicz shot down a Soviet reconnaissance aircraft that had crossed into Polish airspace. The victory was kept secret. "The Soviet aircraft opened fire on us," he later recalled. "We attacked. I fired short bursts. Suddenly the Soviet aircraft began to smoke." After that, he said, the Russians stopped photographing the fortifications.5
He was officially reprimanded and unofficially congratulated by his superior, and as a show of punishment he was posted to Dęblin as an instructor, where the cadets nicknamed him "Cobra." When the war came in 1939 he was teaching at the advanced flying school at Ułęż, near Dęblin.6
September 1939 and escape
In September 1939 Urbanowicz flew with a scratch detachment of instructors defending Dęblin, without result. On 7 September he was ordered toward the Romanian border with a group of about fifty cadets, who were to wait in Romania for new aircraft. He crossed the border on the night of 17 to 18 September, but the aircraft never came, and he went back into Poland to keep fighting. Captured by Soviet troops, he escaped with two cadets and crossed into Romania again.7 › The Greatest Escapes in Military History
From Romania he made his way through the Balkans to France and decided to go on to England, like thousands of Polish airmen determined to keep fighting. He reached Britain on 27 January 1940 and was commissioned in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.8
Learning the RAF way
The Polish pilots had to learn English and British procedures before the RAF would let them fly in combat. Urbanowicz went through the camp at Eastchurch and the Polish depot at Blackpool, was tested and graded at Old Sarum in July 1940, and converted to Hawker Hurricanes at No. 6 Operational Training Unit at Sutton Bridge. On 4 August he joined No. 145 Squadron at Westhampnett, and with it he probably destroyed a Messerschmitt Bf 109 on 11 August and a Junkers Ju 88 the next day.9
Commanding No. 303
On 21 August 1940 he joined No. 303 Squadron at Northolt as a flight commander. The squadron bore the name of Tadeusz Kościuszko. When its Polish commander, Squadron Leader Zdzisław Krasnodębski, was shot down and badly burned on 6 September, Urbanowicz took command; Polskie Radio dates the change to 7 September.10 › The Battle of Britain, 1940
He led the squadron through the most intense weeks of the battle. He handed over command on 20 October 1940, the month he was promoted to captain in the Polish air force.11
The great days of September
His own record in those weeks shows how hard No. 303 was fighting. According to the Battle of Britain London Monument's account of his claims, he destroyed a Bf 109 on 6 September, a Dornier Do 17 on the 7th, two Do 17s on 15 September, a Heinkel He 111 on the 26th, a Do 17, a Bf 109 and two Ju 88s on the 27th, and three Bf 109s and a Do 17 on the 30th.12
He was awarded the British Distinguished Flying Cross, gazetted on 27 October 1940, the Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari, and the Cross of Valor four times.13
America and China
In 1941 and 1942 Urbanowicz was in Canada and the United States with the Polish Air Mission, recruiting Americans of Polish descent for the Polish Air Force and lecturing on tactics at American air bases. He returned to Britain for an instructors' course, taught at the Polish flying school at Newton, and in November 1942 became assistant air attaché at the Polish embassy in Washington.14
Desk work did not suit him. In the spring of 1943 he met General Claire Chennault, who invited him to China, where the US Fourteenth Air Force was fighting the Japanese. From 23 October to 15 December 1943 he flew with American fighter units, first in P-40s from Kunming and then with the 75th Fighter Squadron in eastern China, and on 11 December 1943 he shot down two Japanese aircraft.15
He was back in Britain in January 1944, was promoted to lieutenant colonel in March, and in August he returned to Washington as the Polish air attaché, a post he held until July 1945.16
Exile
The war ended with Poland under communist rule. Urbanowicz asked to be released from active service in October 1945 and was demobilized in 1947. He stayed in the United States, working first as a statistician for American Overseas Airlines and for the YMCA in New York. When he visited Poland for them, he was repeatedly detained by the communist security police, the UB, though he managed to avoid prison and leave the country. Most accounts date the visit to 1947; the Battle of Britain London Monument gives 1946 and says he was arrested as a suspected spy.17
He settled permanently in the United States, where he worked in the aviation industry and wrote his memoirs. Several of them, partly censored, were published in Poland in the 1960s, including books about the fighter war over Britain and about China and the Flying Tigers. In 1964 he was promoted to colonel.18
Memory
After the fall of communism Urbanowicz visited Poland several times, in 1991 and again in 1995, when he was promoted to the rank of general. He died in New York on 17 August 1996. He remains the second-highest-scoring Polish fighter pilot of World War II on Bajan's list, after Stanisław Skalski, and the commander remembered for leading No. 303 through its decisive weeks.19
Read the full story of the Battle of Britain, the Poles who fought for others in For Your Freedom and Ours, explore the World War II, or see what else happened on 15 September, the climax of the battle.
Notes
A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.
- dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”; Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”; Polskie Radio, “Thirty years since death of Polish WWII fighter ace, Battle of Britain hero”. ↩
- dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”; Polskie Radio, “Thirty years since death of Polish WWII fighter ace, Battle of Britain hero”. ↩
- dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”; Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”. ↩
- dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”; Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”. ↩
- dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”; Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”; Polskie Radio, “Thirty years since death of Polish WWII fighter ace, Battle of Britain hero”. ↩
- Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”; dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”. ↩
- Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”; dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”; Polskie Radio, “Thirty years since death of Polish WWII fighter ace, Battle of Britain hero”. ↩
- Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”; dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”. ↩
- Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”; dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”. ↩
- Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”; Polskie Radio, “Thirty years since death of Polish WWII fighter ace, Battle of Britain hero”; dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”. ↩
- dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”; Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”. ↩
- Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”. ↩
- Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”; dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”. ↩
- Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”; dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”. ↩
- Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”; dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”. ↩
- dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”; Polskie Radio, “Thirty years since death of Polish WWII fighter ace, Battle of Britain hero”. ↩
- dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”; Polskie Radio, “Thirty years since death of Polish WWII fighter ace, Battle of Britain hero”; Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”. ↩
- dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”; Polskie Radio, “Thirty years since death of Polish WWII fighter ace, Battle of Britain hero”. ↩
- Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”; dzieje.pl, “Witold Urbanowicz”; Polishairforce.pl, “Lista Bajana”; Polskie Radio, “Thirty years since death of Polish WWII fighter ace, Battle of Britain hero”. ↩
Sources
- dzieje.pl (Muzeum Historii Polski / PAP), “Witold Urbanowicz”
- Battle of Britain London Monument, “S/Ldr. W Urbanowicz”
- Polskie Radio (English Section), “Thirty years since death of Polish WWII fighter ace, Battle of Britain hero”
- Polishairforce.pl, “Lista Bajana” (in Polish)
