Obituaries

Mjr Kazimierz Szrajer

Known to his friends as 'Paddy', Kazimierz J. Szrajer, a long-time resident of the Barry's Bay area and World War II pilot, recently died at 92 years of age and The Valley Gazette would like to honour his passing.
As a young boy in Poland, Szrajer embraced everything about flying and flew toy gliders around in the air.
At the age of 16, however, Szrajer's parents forced him to stop flying the tiny airplanes, as his brother, who was a professional navigator, was killed in a flying accident.
In September of 1939, Hitler invaded Poland and Szrajer's life was altered forever.
Along with many other countrymen, he came to England at the beginning of the war to fight for his country.
While waiting to join a flying school, he worked as an instrument mechanic with the 303 Squadron, on such renowned aircrafts as Spitfires and Hurricanes.
According to local resident Zigmund Bloskie of Wilno, Szrajer was a true hero who deserved to have his life story presented.
"I think his story needs to be told," Bloskie noted.
Not having personally known Szrajer, Bloskie has been collecting information about the local airman for some time.
"It's an inspiring story and really all that was printed about him was a small obituary a few weeks ago, and I don't think that's enough," Bloskie noted.
Having had a retrospective book written about him, entitled A Question of Honor by authors Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud, Szrajer definitely had a long, decorated and brave life.
The book focuses on Szrajer's squadron, called Squadron 303, and his life before becoming a bomber pilot.
Szrajer was a Polish pilot who flew and fought in the Battle of Britain and many other operations in Britain in World War II.
Becoming a media sensation after the Battle of Britain, Szrajer and his fellow Polish airmen were denied access to the victory parade, as the new Labour government had to appease Stalin after he had taken over Poland.
Oddly enough, only Winston Churchill and a few other world leaders displayed a serious disagreement at the government's actions during the parade.
One of the most significant and heroic moments of Szrajer's life, however, came during a mission that took him behind enemy lines to retrieve top secret parts from a V-2 rocket.
The V-2 rocket was, in fact, the weapon that Hitler was convinced would help him win the war for Nazi Germany.
It is documented that on October 3, 1942, the first V-2 was launched from Peenemünde; a small town off the coast of Baltic Sea.
Breaking the sound barrier, the rocket reached an altitude of 60 miles, and was the first recorded launch of a ballistic missile and the first rocket to reach the fringes of space.
Developed by Germany, the creation program of the rocket was as influential to the German gross national product as the Manhattan atom bomb project was to the United States of America.
Having flown several secret missions in his lifetime, Szrajer was experienced in dropping fellow soldiers and supplies behind enemy lines.
This V-2 rocket mission, however, was given the codename "Third Bridge" and was more daring than anything the pilot had experienced to date.
On the evening of July 25, 1944, Szrajer was the co-pilot of a Dakota transport aircraft that was en route to a small landing strip in occupied Poland that was close to the rocket parts.
With four passengers aboard the airplane, the Dakota landed on the airstrip during its second attempt and two of the soldiers, Jerzy Chmielewski and Jozef Retinger, quickly acquired a bag of parts and were back on the plane within minutes.
The Dakota had taken off from Southern Italy and Szrajer, who was co-piloting, only had five minutes of training in the operation of the aircraft that occurred just before takeoff.
With all of the passengers in tow, Szrajer and his head pilot had the Dakota engines fired up, but the plane sputtered, as it had rained a few days before on the airfield, and was suddenly stuck in the mud.
Having to decrease the load of the plane, Szrajer ordered all soldiers and their baggage off of the aircraft.
Working with the other airmen, Szrajer dug some trenches behind the wheels of the plane and filled them with straw to try and create some traction, but it still would not move.
On the heels of daylight, the members of the Dakota were working against the clock.
Under orders to burn the aircraft if they couldn't get it back into the air, Szrajer and his crew were delayed an hour
by this mishap, and made one last attempt at freeing the plane by putting boards underneath the wheels.
The Dakota finally jarred itself free, and careened through the muddy terrain and lifted itself off the ground.

Here is a first-hand account in K. Szrajer words:

"...These events took place in July 1944 toward the end of my operational tour on Halifaxes. I was with the 1586 Flight stationed at Brindisi, Italy. I was called by our squadron leader who informed me that I was assigned to the British crew of a Dakota for an assignment to Poland. We were to land there for a pickup. He advised me to be physically and morally prepared for this flight. I felt deeply honoured and for a next few days I was excited, impatiently waiting for my assignment.

Finally, in a morning of July 25th, I was informed that the flight would take place that night. The plane was to land at Brindisi to pick me up. I suddenly realized that I never flew that type of aircraft, and started be a little apprehensive. My commander assured me that I'll do just fine and that the British pilot would brief me about plane's systems and a take-off procedure. That exactly what happened. I took F/Lt Culliford, a New Zealander, about five minutes to introduce me to Dakota. After referring me to instruments, fuel and undercarriage system, he made a fully qualified co-pilot. Our plane had two extra tanks installed in the fuselage, what extended its range significantly and allowed us to stay airborne for at least 13 hours. Our crew consisted of: F/Lt S.C. Culliford (pilot), F/O K. Szrajer (co-pilot and translator), F/O J.P. Williams (navigator) and F/Sgt J. Appleby (wireless operator). It was to be my twentieth flight to the occupied Poland.
By pure luck, this mission was almost scrapped by the last minute, when unexpectedly, a day before the operation, the Germans set up an outpost with two FW190s fighters on the very strip designated for Dakota to land. Fortunately, they left the same day and Resistance was able to prepare everything on time.
We took off from Brindisi at 7:30 p.m. escorted by a Polish Liberator. It was mostly for our psychical comfort, since both planes were easy target for German fighters. On board we had some equipment and four passengers. Not only the common sense but also strict regulations prohibited us from knowing who they were. After the war I learned from different sources that our passengers were: Kazimierz Bilski, Jan Nowak, Leszek Starzynski and Boguslaw Wolniak. During crossing of the Yugoslavian coast nightfall came. Until that moment I had a radio contact with our escort, which took its own course. Ours led through Yugoslavia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Over Hungary we saw AA in action, but far from us and apparently stimulated by somebody else. Our orientation point for landing was the outlet of the River Dunajec to the River Vistula. We reached it according to plan, right on time. Down there they waited for us, and after signals exchange, the lights appeared on four corners of the landing strip. Pilot made two attempts before putting down the plane. Right after we stopped I opened the door to established contact with the receiving party. I was welcomed by Wlodzimierz Gedymin who commanded on the ground. Our passengers left, the equipment was unloaded and took five new passengers. They were: T. Arciszewski, J. Retinger, J. Chmielewski, T. Chciuk and C. Micinski. Jerzy Chmielewski was in possession of the V-2 parts and written report on them. He was responsible for the watch on Blizna.
After only several minutes on the ground we got ready to take off. It turned out that the field was oozy. Our Dakota was stuck in the mud. I immediately realized my situation: I was on a Polish soil and I could join the Polish Resistance and in few days meet my family and friends. The Polish officer was asking me a lot of questions about certain people, Polish units, etc. while there was no time to waste. We franticly tried to free the aircraft, all in vain. We were running out of time and we discussed burning the plane. Finally, after an hour and five minutes on a ground, we succeeded and took off for home.

We still had a big problem on our hands. In our desperation to budge the aircraft we severed their hydraulic hoses to eliminate the possibility of the wheels' locked breaks. This prevented us from lifting up the undercarriage. Flying with the wheels down created a drag what threatened with running out of fuel before reaching our base. We filled the hydraulic tank with whatever fluid we could get: water, thermos tea, whatever. By the time we passed the Tatra Mountains we had the wheels up. Then I went to see to our passengers and instruct them about parachute harness in case of need. Back in the cockpit I took over the controls. It was a beautiful, starry and calm night and we all calmed down, calculating that after three hours of flight we'll back home and relatively safe. I reflected on the group of people we left in behind us, who already for five years fought with the hated occupant, and who put a lot of effort into the "Third Bridge". Our successful flight back to Allied territory with the parts of V-2 was their triumph..."

R.I.P sir.

Fl/lt William Louis Buchanan "Bill/Johnnie" WALKER (24.08.1913-21.10.2012) passed away aged 99. During the Battle of Britain he flew Hurricanes with 616. Sqn "South Yorkshire".

Wilhelm Brasse, Polish Auschwitz prisoner and photographer of other inmates, dies at 95.

The images are haunting: naked and emaciated children at Auschwitz standing shoulder-to-shoulder, adult prisoners in striped garb posing for police-style mug shots.
One of several photographers to capture such images, Wilhelm Brasse, has died at the age of 95. A Polish photographer who was arrested and sent to Auschwitz early in World War II, he was put to work documenting his fellow prisoners, an emotionally devastating task that tormented him long after his liberation.
Jaroslaw Mensfelt, a spokesman at the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum, said that Brasse died on Tuesday in Zywiec, a town in southern Poland.
Brasse, who was born in 1917 and was not Jewish, was sent to Auschwitz at 22 as a political prisoner for trying to sneak out of German-occupied Poland in the spring of 1940. Because he had worked before the war in a photography studio in Katowice, in southern Poland, he was put to work in the camp's photography and identification department.
The job helped to save his life, enabling him to get better treatment and food than many others. Because he worked with the SS, the elite Nazi force, he was also kept cleaner "so as not to offend the SS men," he recalled in an Associated Press interview in 2006.
After the war, he had nightmares for years of the Nazi victims he was forced to photograph. Among them were emaciated Jewish girls who were about to undergo cruel medical experiments under the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele.
"I didn't return to my profession, because those Jewish kids, and the naked Jewish girls, constantly flashed before my eyes," he said. "Even more so because I knew that later, after taking their pictures, they would just go to the gas."
In the AP interview, Brasse said believed he took about 40,000 to 50,000 of the identity photographs that the Nazis used to register their prisoners — part of the Nazi obsession with documenting their work. These pictures are among some of the notorious images associated with the camp.
Brasse was not alone in documenting prisoners. Mensfelt said there were other photographers as well and that an estimated 200,000 such pictures were probably taken. Most were destroyed.Now it's difficult to say which of the surviving photos were Brasses's because they generally did not carry the photographer's name. Some he remembered and was able to identify later.
At the war's end, with the Soviet army about to liberate Auschwitz, the Germans ordered the photos destroyed. Brasse and others refused the order and managed to save about 40,000 of them.
Though Brasse early on in his captivity was the only professional photographer in the SS documentation office, eventually some other prisoners took over taking ID photos. Brasse was given new assignments, including taking the pictures of prisoner tattoos and pictures for Mengele.
Mengele ordered pictures of various prisoners he planned to perform his experiments on, including Jewish twins, dwarfs, stunted people and people with noma, a disease common in the malnourished that can result in the loss of flesh.
"I had to take close-ups. He said sometimes you will be able to see the whole bone of the jaw, and that I have to do close-ups of it. I did the close-ups, in harsh light, and you could see to the bone," Brasse said. "Later, my boss called me in, and Dr. Mengele expressed his happiness with the pictures I'd taken, that I'd taken them just as he had needed them to be done."
Brasse said he never had the right to refuse what Mengele or the other Germans demanded.
"It was an order, and prisoners didn't have the right to disagree. I couldn't say 'I won't do that,'" he recalled in 2006. "I only listened to what I had to do and because I didn't harm anyone by what I was doing, I tried to address them politely."

source: FOX NEWS

Flight Lieutenant William Walker
Flight Lieutenant William Walker, who has died aged 99, was shot down in his Spitfire during the Battle of Britain and wounded. Late in his life, having become the oldest surviving pilot of the Battle, he wrote poetry in memory of his fellow aircrew.
During the late morning of August 26 1940, Walker and his squadron colleagues of No 616 (South Yorkshire) Auxiliary Squadron were scrambled from Kenley to intercept a raid of 40 enemy bombers approaching Dover. Too low to attack the raiders, the squadron turned north to gain height but were ambushed by a large formation of Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters.
Within minutes, three Spitfires had been shot down. As Walker attacked a Bf 109 his Spitfire was hit from behind and he was wounded in the leg. The controls were shot away and Walker was forced to bail out at 20,000ft. He landed in the English Channel very close to a sandbank, which he was able to reach. Shortly afterwards, suffering from hypothermia, he was picked up by a fishing boat.
A large crowd cheered as he was landed at Ramsgate, but the badly damaged hospital there was unable to deal with his wound. He was taken instead to an RAF hospital where a .303 bullet was removed from his ankle, a souvenir he kept for the rest of his life.
The son of a brewer, William Louis Buchanan Walker was born in Hampstead on August 24 1913. After leaving Brighton College, where he was a contemporary of the actor Sir Michael Hordern, he joined his father in the brewery trade.
Walker joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve at Oxford in September 1938 to train as a pilot. Called up on the outbreak of war, he completed his training before joining No 616, based near Beverley in East Yorkshire, where the squadron's task was to guard the industrial cities of the north.
The month of August saw an increased tempo of fighting as the Battle of Britain intensified. On the 15th, the Luftwaffe launched a major attack from Norway and Denmark against the north of England. No 616 was scrambled and intercepted a large force of bombers approaching the Yorkshire coast.
Walker, who had only recently joined, flew on the wing of his section leader as they attacked the force. By the end of the engagement, six enemy bombers had been shot down. Four days later, No 616 moved to Kenley, where Walker was immediately in action.
He returned to flying after six months' treatment, joining an aircraft ferry unit before transferring to No 116 Squadron on anti-aircraft co-operation duties. He was released from the RAF in September 1945 and received the Air Efficiency Award.
Post-war, he returned to the brewing trade and rose to become chairman of Ind Coope, a role previously held by his father. He never lost his liking for a pint.
In later life, Walker was a strong supporter of the Battle of Britain Memorial Trust. Fit and well into old age, he was ever-present at the annual service of remembrance held at the memorial at Capel-le-Ferne overlooking the English Channel in Kent, which always concluded with him stepping forward and reciting, in a strong voice, one of his poems.
Best known is Our Wall, written to celebrate the stone inscription of the names of 2,937 members of The Few. During the 70th anniversary commemorations in July 2010, the Patron of the Trust, Prince Michael of Kent, unveiled a copy of the poem, carved and sited alongside the wall it describes. To great acclaim, Walker then read the poem, which describes the "many brave unwritten tales/That were simply told in vapour trails".
His poems were published in 2011 with the proceeds donated to the Battle of Britain Memorial Trust.
William Walker married Claudine Walker, one of the Mawby triplets, in August 1941. They separated later in life and she died in September 2012. They had seven children, including Tim Walker, Mandrake columnist at the Telegraph. Two children predeceased them.
Flt Lt William Walker, born August 24 1913, died October 21 2012

source: The Telegraph

George Smith, one of the Navajo code talkers who helped the U.S. military outfox the Japanese during World War II by sending messages in their obscure language, has died, the president of the Navajo Nation said.

"This news has saddened me," Ben Shelly, the Navajo president, said in a post Wednesday on his Facebook page. "Our Navajo code talkers have been real life heroes to generations of Navajo people."

Smith died Tuesday, Shelly said, and the Navajo Nation's flag is flying at half-staff until Sunday night to commemorate his life.

See CNN's complete coverage of Veterans in Focus

Several hundred Navajo tribe members served as code talkers for the United States during World War II, using a military communications code based on the Navajo language. They sent messages back and forth from the front lines of fighting, relaying crucial information during pivotal battles like Iwo Jima.

Military authorities chose Navajo as a code language because it was almost impossible for a non-Navajo to learn and had no written form. It was the only code the Japanese never managed to crack.

The Navajo code talkers participated in every assault the U.S. Marines carried out in the Pacific between 1942 and 1945.

The code talkers themselves were forbidden from telling anyone about the code -- not their fellow Marines, not their families -- until it was declassified in 1968.

Now in their 80s and 90s, only a handful of code talkers remain.

"They have brought pride to our Navajo people in so many ways," Shelly said. "The nation's prayers and thoughts are with the family at this time as they mourn the passing of a great family man who served his country and protected his people."

Shelly's Facebook post didn't mention Smith's age or the cause and location of his death. A statement about the death on the official Navajo Nation website was not accessible late Thursday.