De Havilland Tiger Moth T7230, owned by Jacek Mainka and based in Poland, has received Polish markings for the air show season. The markings are based on those worn by a Tiger Moth of No. 25 (Polish) Elementary Flying Training School late in the war. Apart from the white-red square insignia of the Polish Air Force, that machine also sported a prominent personal emblem in form of the Polish Air Force pilot's wings.
T7230 was flown for the first time with these markings applied on 24 May at Konstancin airfield (its permanent base in Poland) with owner Jacek Mainka as captain and veteran Jerzy Glowczewski as co-pilot.
Jerzy Glowczewski was born in 1922 in Warsaw. When WW2 broke out in 1939 he was a teenager. Leaving Poland in the wake of joint German-Soviet invasion, he found his way via Rumania to Palestine. He intended to join the Polish Forces in Exile but his young age prevented him from doing so. In 1941 he graduated from the Polish High School in Tel Aviv, and was then finally accepted into service with the Polish 'Carpathian' Brigade, famed for its defence of Tobruk during the German-Italian siege. In 1942 he volunteered to transfer to the air force. He then underwent a complete course of flying training in Britain and in 1944 he was posted to fly Spitfires in the Polish No. 308 Squadron "City of Cracow". On 1 January 1945 he shot down a Focke-Wulf 190 over his own unit's base at Ghent (Belgium). After the war he decided to return to Poland. He graduated from the Architecture Faculty of the Warsaw University of Technology, subsequently working on reconstruction of Warsaw from wartime destruction. He was then employed in various innovative architectural-urban development projects on several continents. During 1960s he managed to leave the communist-controlled Poland and emigrated to the USA, where he has lived to date.
His memoirs were published in 2007 in English by Xlibris under the title "The Accidental Immigrant".
(all photos © Wojtek Matusiak)