Halifax near Goldsborough, Whitby.
Halifax W7776 which crash-landed at Goldsborough (Photo Mr J Rutland).
This Halifax and its crew were part of the SOE / SIS effort, this work involved the dropping of agents and supplies into
occupied countries and helping their various resistance networks. 138 Sqdn was reformed near the start of the War with a large number of
Polish airmen along with airmen of other nationalities.
On the 1st of October 1942 three Halifax's left Tempsford for such duries, W7774, W1229 and W7776. All of them had Polish Resistance
fighters on board and they were all to be dropped off in Poland. This aircraft, W7776, had taken off at 18.00hrs and
was briefed to locate Drop Zone RAK 206, which was 1km to the south of Siedlce, Poland. An operation known as Operation Chisel. The
aircraft also carried some bombs and incediaries to top up its maximum allowed weight. All appears to have gone well outbound.
The crew took a slightly longer time than planned to find this drop zone, it was located and the agents and equipment
dropped. The bombs were released over railway targets in the area, the Halifax then made for home. During its return flight
the aircraft must have strayed of course slightly and by the time they reached the Yorkshire Coast it was about out of fuel.
Locating an airfield was not possible because as fuel was so low so a force-landing would have to be made.
The aircraft was so low on fuel that the engines stopped as the pilot began to carry out the forced-landing
in a field over looking the North Sea near Goldsborough, to the north of Whitby. The time was now 07.30hrs
on the 2nd of October, they had been in the air for almost thirteen and a half hours.
The landing was not 100% successful, the aircraft ended up in two peices but the airmen were all safe with no injuries reported.
The aircraft was damaged beyond repair. Two of the crew would be awarded DFC's after this incident, they appear not to have
been awarded, as far as I can tell, prior to this trip, given that both holders were killed less than a month later I make the
assumption that both received their Awards as a result of this trip for bringing the aircraft back to England. This is still being researched however.
As per Polish Air Force custom, the navigator of the aircraft was actually the commander/captain of it and not the pilot as RAF aircrew follow.
This Halifax B.II.Srs 1(Special) was built to contract B73328/40 by Handley Page at Radlett and delivered to RAF MU in July 1942.
After acceptance it was issued to 138 Sqdn believed to be in late September 1942 although the Unit did not officially start
operating Mk.II Halifaxes until October 1942. It was written off in the above incident with Cat E2/FB damage on the 2nd October 1942.
Pilot - F/Sgt Stanslaw Klosowski PAF, ok. He was regular pilot of Król's while at 1586 SDF in Poland. He was killed by a car in either the 1950s or 1960s.
Pilot - W/O Franciszek Zaremba PAF, ok. Killed 30 Oct 1942, aged 28.
Nav - F/O Mariusz Wodzicki PAF, ok. Later awarded the DFC. Killed 30 Oct 1942, aged 27.
W Op / Air Gunner - F/O Franciszek Pantkowski PAF, ok. Later awarded the DFC. Killed 30 Oct 1942, aged 24.
BA? - F/S Zdzislaw Nowinski PAF, ok. He survived the War, moved to Detriot USA and became a well known poet and painter and possibly died in 1981.
F Eng - Sgt Czeslaw Kozlowski PAF, ok. Killed 30 Oct 1942, aged 33.
Air Gunner - F/S Tadeusz Madejski PAF, ok. Killed 30 Oct 1942, aged 24.
The Polish Resistance fighters on this flight, but not on board by the time it came to crash-land in Yorkshire were.
Lt Eugeniusz Kaszynski "Nurt". Born 22 September 1909, died 24 March 1976 possibly in London.
Lt Artur Linowski "Karp".
Lt Adam Trybus "Gaj".
Lt Waldemar Szwiec "Robot" aka "Jakub".
Some of the crew who force landed at Goldsborough, names unknown except 2nd from right - F/O Pantkowski PAF.
F/O Franciszek Pantkowski PAF.
I have yet to locate the exact location of the crash although the description of it puts it in one of these fields.
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Prior to the Goldsborough incident; on 8th of November 1941 Stanislaw Krol was by now serving with 138 Sqdn RAF, he was
on board Halifax L9612 when it was forced to land at
Tomelilla, near Ystad, Sweden. The Halifax was on a Special Operation to Poland to a dropping area at Ugór, 20 km from
Skierniewice. Over the dropping area they lowered the landing gear and set the flaps down to reduce speed, however
after doing that the landing
gear could not be retracted. Given the aircraft performance would be effected by flying with the undercarriage down,
they realised that the aircarft would run out of fuel attempting to fly back home to the UK and therefore decided to
land in Sweden. On landing, the crew destroyed the aircraft before the Swedish authorities arrived. Initially interned,
the Poles were later returned to the UK in January 1942. The crew on this flight were: Nav: F/O Krol, 1st pilot: F/O
Jasinski, 2nd pilot: Sgt Sobkowiak, F Eng: Sgt Soltysiak, W/Op: Sgt Wasilewski, Rear Gunner: Sgt Mol, Dispatcher: Sgt
Chodyra (Source: Ken Merrick 'Flights of the Forgotten'.) Also on board on this flight was W/Cdr Roman Rudkowski. This loss
was the first MkII Halifax lost on an operational sortie. The aircraft was gutted by fire.
On the 29th of October 1942, Klosowski, Krol and Wasilewski and crew were tasked to attack Gestapo HQ at Warsaw. Flying
Halifax W7774 NF-T, they took off from Tempsford at 17.54hrs on the 29th of October. The trip was coded Operation Pliers.
All went well outbound.
The crew made three attempts but would not drop their bombs, it was elected not to drop their bomb load over the HQ
was they feared that they may hit
their innocent Countrymen if any of the bombs went astray. Homebound they dropped the bomb load on the airfield at Okecie.
On their return they were attacked by two Me110s off the Danish coast. The crew finally ditched at 06.40hrs and were picked
up off the Norfolk Coast by the Sheringham lifeboat "Foresters Centenary". Following this, Wasilewski was awarded
an immediate bar to his DFM, which apparently was approved before the DFM itself, recommended only
a short time before, had come through! Again, this trip was another mammoth trip of 13 1/2 hours in the air again.
Also on this trip were other members of the Goldsborough incident crew. Flying in Halifax W7773 NF-S were Sgt Kozlowski, F/Sgt T Madejski,
P/O Pantkowski, F/O M Wodzicki and W/O Zaremba. They were also undertaking Operation Pliers, to dropzone Kw407 at Rogow, Lublin, Poland. They
were to drop arms and despatch three Polish Army personnel, Lt Stanislaw Hencel, Lt Wieslaw Szapowicz and 2nd Lt Jerzy Bichniewicz. They failed to return.
In 1943 the International Red Cross Comittee reported that this aircraft had been shot down over Southern Norway killing all the crew and the
Army passengers. They were all initially buried at Egersund Cemetery, Norway but since then their remains were interred in a communal
grave at Vestre Gravlund (Western Cemetery), Norway in a grave with 24 Polish citizens. So less than a month after their landing at
Goldsborough, many of the crew had been killed.
The following website gives some information and photographs..... http://home.no.net/kjellsor/helleren.html
In mid-November 1942 Klosowski was posted to Malta but he returned to the Squadron in 1943 and survived two landing
accidents whilst instructing fellow Polish pilots, one on 19th June 1943 when his Halifax had a bad landing.
Later, on the 9th of November 1943 Krol and Kloswoski were again on the
same aircraft, Krol in charge but Klosowski at the
controls. They dropped three agents into Poland including the only Polish women to be dropped into her homeland, Elzbieta
Zawacka, again they were attacked after the drop by a Nightfighter, this time they made it home although damaged. It is
believed both airmen survived the War. Elzbieta Zawacka had an extremely distinguished career during the Second World War
as a military instructor of women,
she fought in the defence of Lwów, and in the Polish underground. As the courier "Zelma " or "Zo" as she was famous
throughout Europe for her journeys and bravery and was later arrested by the Communist Security Forces in 1951. She also
set up the "POMERELIAN ARCHIVE AND MUSEUM OF THE HOME ARMY
AND POLISH WOMEN WAR SERVICE" record. I can't read Polish but I've managed to find this photo of her on a Polish Website.
Elzbieta Zawacka - not on the Goldsborough landing drop but a later one by the some of the same crew members.
Krol and Klosowski both survived the War.
This information now appears on 
Details regarding the Goldborough incident vary somewhat; the unit being a secret one probably doesn't help with finding the facts!
Other sources give the aircraft's code as NF-U, NF-L rather than NF-B. Other
sources quote a slightly different crew to that shown above. More than one source quote a F/O Stanislaw Krol PAF as being the
skipper/nav on this flight, Klosowski was a regular pilot of Krol's, along with Boleslaw Korpowski PAF. Krol was once an OC of 1586 SDF,
he passed away in 1980s. Another source quotes six agents being on the flight. I currently believe the details given at the top of this
page with regard who was on the aircraft to be correct.
Klosowski and Krol undertook a number of similar missions to the one described above, some almost certainly had member of the "Goldsborough" crew flying with them,.
My thanks to Marek, whos relation, Franciszek Pantkowski, was on board this Halifax force landing at Goldsborough,
it is him I have to thank for supplying the full crew list for this flight as well as other information.