History of the Polish Air Force

One of mankind?s greatest dreams was realized on December 3rd in 1903 when the Wright brothers conducted the first manned flight in history. The inventors feat proved that a machine that is heavier than air is able to fly, and with that a new era in innovation and development began. At that time, Poland as a country - didn't exist on the map of Europe. However, Polish engineers and aviation pioneers - people like Stefan DRZEWICKI and Czeslaw TALSKI - were well known throughout the world.

The first Polish flying units were formed during the first World War in France as part of the "Azure Army". On November 5th in 1918 flight officer Stefan BASTYR and lieutenant pilot Janusz BEAURAIN conducted their first combat flight on a plane with painted polish markings. After the War Poland regained independence and started rebuilding its armed forces -a very difficult and demanding task, for the fledgling nation was stripped from it's resources by its former occupants and exhausted by the war. Against the odds, the first Polish flying units were created by the end of 1918. On December 1st 1918, the Chief of the Polish Army General Staff issued an order that all polish military aircraft are to be painted with the red & white chessboard insignia as the symbol of the Polish Air Force. The first commander of the flying units was Lt. Col. Hipolit LOSSOWSKI.

It didn't take long for the Polish Air Force units to prove their potential on the battlefield - during the Polish-Soviet war in 1919-1920 they fought with unmatched bravery and repelled the attackers. They were aided by pilots from England, Belgium, Italy and The United States. Three of the seventeen American pilots - Capt. A. H. KELLY, pilot officer E. A. GRAVES and capt. T. V. CALLUM - lost their lived during the defense. One hundred and sixty four highest polish decorations - Virtuti Militari - as well as two hundred and forty five medals of Poland's Restoration were presented to the victorious airmen. After the war the Polish Air Force underwent a vast reorganization ? new units and organizational structures were formed. Between 1936-1937 the Polish Air Force possessed a total of forty eight squadrons, each consisting of ten aircraft.

This period of peace was a chance for the rapid development of the polish aviation industry branch. During the 1930s the Polish Air Force was equipped with polish produced airplanes. Polish pilots participated in various sport events: lieutenant Boleslaw ORLINSKI and flight mechanic Leonard KUBIAK conducted a flight from Warsaw to Tokio and back, in 1932 pilot Franciszek WIGURA and pilot Stanislaw ZWIRKO won the International Aviation Contest in Challenge, France and two years later this success was repeated by pilot Jerzy BAJAN and Gustaw POKRZYWKA. In May 1933 pilot Stanislaw SKARZYNSKI beat the world record in a single flight across the Atlantic Ocean - the journey all the way from Saint Louis, Senegal, to Maceio, Brazil took him twenty hours and thirty minutes.

The German Air Force, which had 1000 bombers and 1050 fighters in operational condition, met no effective opposition from the Polish Air Force, which consisted of less than 500 planes of all types, most of them obsolescent. Contrary to popular belief, the Polish Air Force was not destroyed on the ground the first day of fighting. In fact, the Luftwaffe was surprisingly ineffective in striking Polish air units. The record of Polish flyers who escaped and fought with the Royal Air Force was a distinguished one by any measure.

During World War II the outnumbered polish forces bravely fought against the Nazi aggressors. In the seventeen days of the offensive the polish pilots managed to down one hundred and thirty German bombers and fighters. The Polish forces lost three hundred and twenty five planes, over five hundred pilots and technicians were killed. After losing the uneven battle, over eleven thousand polish airmen fled toward the western allies through Romania and Hungary. Nearly two hundred and fifty escaped to Lithuania, over six hundred made it to Latvia and over a thousand remained in Poland along the eastern boarder - that was occupied by the Red Army. The majority of these soldiers were interned and murdered in prison camps.

On February 1940 the first Polish Air Force units were assembled in France as a completely separate branch of the armed forces. During the battle for France, the Polish pilots shot down over fifty German aircraft losing eleven six of their own. After France's surrender the Polish airmen were evacuated to Great Britain. The first units were organized between July and August 1940. Two fighter divisions - the 302nd and 303rd - and two bomber divisions - the 300th and 301st - bravely fought during the battle of Britain.

The Polish air units actively participated in almost every major operation during the second World War. A total of 764 enemy aircraft was shot down by the Polish pilots and more than 130 V-1 rockets were destroyed before they reached their target. However, 1981 Polish soldiers lost their lives - including 150 pilots.

After the War, the Polish Air Force was made up of seven regiments. In 1951 the first jet planes were introduced to the Polish Armed Forces: the Yak-23 and the MiG-15. In 1953 the IL-28 aircraft joined the bomber regiments. On October 14th 1954 the Air Forces and the Air Defence Forces were reorganized into the Polish Territory Air and Air Defence Forces. MiG-19, MiG-21, Su-7, MiG-23 and Su-22 aircraft were introduced in the 1960s and 1970s, whence the third generation fighters - the MiG-29s - came into service in the late 1980s.

To comply with NATO standards, The Polish Air and Air Defence Forces were reorganized on June 1st 2004 into the Polish Air Force.

1920-1939 - The Curzon Line

It was still impossible in the autumn of 1921 to make any final or definite statement with regard to the boundaries of Poland; as regards Lithuania the situation remained unsettled, and it was only in Oct. that a decision favorable to Poland in respect to Upper Silesia resulted from the award of the League of Nations.

Working on the principle of national rights it was attempted at the Peace Conference to make the boundaries of Poland conform to ethnographic divisions. A commission was appointed, under M. Cambon, which was to deal with the Polish question and submit drafted proposals to the Supreme Council. The first report of the commission concerned the western boundaries, the proposals being as follows: The larger part of Posen and Upper Silesia should be transferred to Poland, leaving Germany the western, predominantly German-speaking districts of both territories." According to the German census of 1910 the Poles formed about 65% of the population in the two areas ceded to Poland. In addition Poland was to be given the central and eastern zones of the province of West Prussia, including both banks of the lower Vistula and Danzig, though the latter was distinctly German. The settlement in the case of the district of Allenstein, that is to say the southern zone of East Prussia, was to be referred to a plebiscite.

These proposals were not accepted without modification, as it was urged by Mr. Lloyd George that they were terms to which the Germans would never agree. In the first place a modification was made with regard to the territory around Marienwerder on the East bank of the Vistula. Instead of being transferred to Poland outright this territory was to be subjected to a plebiscite. More important, however, was the change introduced in the matter of Danzig. It was decided that Danzig and the small adjacent district were to form a free city under the protection of the League of Nations. Poland received the right of freely using all the waterways, docks and wharfs and was to have the control and administration of the Vistula river. Later a third modification was made with regard to Upper Silesia, when it was decided that in thisterritory too there should be a plebiscite. The results of the plebiscite in the Marienwerder and Allenstein districts were in favor of Germany, a result which was largely due to the number of Germans who were imported into the territory. The plebiscite in Upper Silesia was likewise in favour of Germany as a whole, though in many districts there was an immense Polish majority.

The southern boundary of Poland was that of Galicta. In the N.E. the boundary between Poland and Lithuania was still unsettled in 1921 and the Poles were still in possession of Vilna, the capital of Lithuania.

With regard to the eastern boundary between Poland and Russia nothing definite could be settled at the Peace Conference as there was no recognized Russian Government with which to carry on negotiations. In order to facilitate the work of the Warsaw Government in organizing local administration in the part of Russian Poland which was certain to be ceded by Russia, a provisional eastern boundary was proposed which would include all the territory which might be regarded as having "an indisputably Polish ethnic majority." All the territories to the West of this line were to belong unconditionally to Poland, while the territories to the East were to be settled by future negotiations with Russia.

Roughly speaking this provisional boundary corresponded to the old boundary of the Governments of the Vistula. This provisional boundary since became known as the "Curzon Line." When the Poles appealed, in the summer of 1920, for help against the Bolsheviks an attempt was made by the British Government to secure peace. Lord Curzon, acting on behalf of the Government, proposed the acceptance of this line as the basis of the peace terms. The Poles being unwilling to sacrifice lands which were inhabited by an incontestably Polish population would not agree to this settlement and were later, at the Treaty of Riga on Oct. 12 1920, able to conclude peace with the Bolsheviks on more advantageous terms.

Key to the Pronunciation of Polish Names. A is always pronounced as a in father. C is always pronounced as ts, hence Slowacki is Slo-vat-ski, Potocki is Po-tot-ski, Waclaw is Vat-slav. E is always pronounced as e in bet or met. G is always pronounced as g in go, hence Gerson is Guerson. H is never silent. I is always pronounced as ee in bee, hence Izbica is Eez-bee-tsa. J is always pronounced as y in yes, hence Jagiello is Ya-guel-lo, Jadwiga is Yad-vee-ga, Jaworski is Ya-vor-ski. O is always pronounced as o in order or orchard. U is always pronounced as oo in root, hence Ujejski is Oo-yeayski, Uchanski is Oo-han-ski. W is always pronounced as v, hence Warna is Varna, Wilno is Vilno. Y is always pronounced as i as in din. Certain combinations of consonants have definite sound values, like the combination of sh and ch in English. Cz in Polish is equivalent to the English ch in church, much, such, etc., hence Czeslaw is Che-slav, Mickiewicz is Meets-kieveech. Ch is practically h, hence Chelm is pronounced like Helm, Chodkiewicz is Hod-kie-veech. Sz is equivalent to the English sh in mush or rush, hence Szawle reads as Shav-le, Warszawa (Warsaw) is pronounced Var-shah-vah. Rz is equivalent to z in azure, hence Przemysl is Pzhe-misl. An apostrophe over a consonant softens the sound, hence n is pronounced as n in canon, s is pronounced almost like sh, and c is almost equivalent to ch. An apostrophe over an 6 turns the pronunciation of the letter into double o in English. In Polish words the accent always falls on the penult, i. e., on the syllable preceding the last, hence Lokie'-tek, Kosciusz'-ko, Pilsud'-ski. "http://books.google.com/books?id=jt4rAAAAYAAJ">The political history of Poland By Edward Henry Lewinski Corwin

The Jewish Question in Poland

During the 13th Century many parts of Poland began to be colonized by Germans, who did much for Poland by establishing industries and developing municipal institutions. Large numbers of Jews, persecuted in western Europe, took refuge about this time in Poland. In the 14th Century extensive privileges were conferred on the Jews at a time when the nations of western Europe were visiting on them the rigor of persecution.

One of the most important questions to be considered by the new Polish State in 1920 was that of the Jews. Numerically they formed roughly one-seventh of the population. In Warsaw a third of the population were Jews: in many provincial towns four out of every five inhabitants were Jews and in some nine out of ten, and of these the vast majority were Sephardic Eastern Jews who in language, religion and customs differed from the population. Their language was Yiddish, a Middle-High German dialect; for the purposes of writing, Hebrew characters were used. Their dress was peculiar to themselves and their habits and standards of conduct were neither European nor modern.

The Western Jews [Ashkenazi] were of thetype which was generally found in western Europe, speaking the language and conforming to the habits of Western civilization. The Eastern Jew was essentially a business or commercial man, but rarely a producer. He was usually a middleman or intermediary. In many areas the majority of the shops were owned by Jews, but they are a type apart, hated and despised by the rest of the population, devoted to their religion.

The Jews had been settled in Poland; between 800 and 1,000 years so that they can hardly be considered "strangers" in the land, in fact the Slavs cannot be considered very much more native than they. It was not, however, until the later part of the 19th Century that the quarrel between the Jews and the Poles began. The Tsarist Government moved the Jews out of Russia but gave them exceptional advantages ia Poland. These Litvaks (as they were called) openly professed themselves the partisans of Russia and founded the Jewish press which set to work openly to fight against Polish autonomy. The Poles attacked the Jews before the Great War by means of a national boycctt, the only means by which one subject group could attack another. During and after the Great War, the hostility to the Jews was increased by the fact that in the German occupation of Poland during the War the Jew was the willing tool of the invader, and by the seeming close connexion between the Jews and Bolshevism. The hostility to the Jew was marked in 1918 and 1919 by excesses in which hundreds of Jews were in fact killed, but which were said to have been exaggerated by the Jewish press.

From November, 1918, to April, 1919, one might almost say that the Jews were outlawed, if there had been much law. But there was not much law for anyone, and for the Jews only very much less than for anyone else. These excesses were assaults and batteries. They would range from rough horse-play, especially on railroads and stations, to blows and sometimes very severe beatings. Sometimes, of course, the most violent assaults, as throwing a Jew out of a moving train, would lead to death. In out of the way places there must have been some murders, and in some cases outrages on women and murders. For this first period it is difficult to judge; though rare, there were certainly some crimes of the sort. Overcrowded trains and soldiers on leave traveling were the most ordinary occasions, but the same sort of thing took place extensively in the streets on very slight pretexts. Beard cutting was an almost universal sport and still goes on largely, though this is often treatc1 as mere rough fun. But the long beard worn by the Orthodox Jew, though ridiculous to others, has a semi-religious meaning to him and is worn in accordance with Talmudic precepts, and his religious convictions are entitled to respect as much as those of anyone else.

The assaults were accompanied by a great deal of pilfering, robbery and petty blackmail from frightening an elderly Jew at a railway station into emptying his pockets, to entering Jewish shops and pillaging them, the main motive. In the military zone all these evils existed in a far worse form. In big towns, mostly Jewish, the Polish troops were more careful. Even there, in capitals like Lcmberg, pillaging and blackmailing went on incessantly. But in out of the way places, chiefly under the pretext of enforced labor, they very often reduced the Jews to a state of slavery. In the case of civilians, soldiers, and gendarmerie it was the habit of the Poles to insult Jews of every kind, including perfectly innocent Jewish ladies, in public places. This fashion was that of the Polish ladies and gentlemen as it was of the common people.

A number of recommendations for the future treatment of the Jews in Poland were made by Sir Stuart Samuel in his report on his mission to Poland (Cmd. 674, 1920). That the Polish Government be urged to carry out the clauses of the Minority Treaty of June 28 1919, in a spirit of sympathy with its Jewish subjects. That a genuine and not a "masked' equality be accorded to the Jewish population of Poland. That all outrages against the person and propety of the subject, irrespective of race or religion, should be promptly punished and the names of the delinquents published. That the Jews in E. Galicia be restored to their official positions in the same manner as non-Jews have been. That no restrictions should be placed upon the number of Jews admitted to the universities. That a decree be published declaring boycotts illegal, and ordering all publications advocating boycott to be suspended. That all prisoners in internment camps be brought to immediate trial, and that humane treatment be assured to all interned prisoners. That facilities be afforded for the introduction of new industries into Poland with a view to converting a larger proportion of the Jewish population into producers.

Samuel recommended that the British Government should assist Jews wishing to migrate from Poland by providing facilities to proceed to countries inch as Palestine, Canada, S. Africa, Algeria and S. America, or any other country desiring to receive them. That banks be established possessing the confidence of the Jewish public, so that money might be deposited therein instead of being carried on the person or concealed in dwellings. Finally, that the desirability of a secretary who understands and speaks Yiddish being added to the staff of H.M. Legation at Warsaw be considered.

Capt. Peter Wright, in his very interesting report stated (Cmd. 674. 1920, pp. 17-36), as reported in the 1922 Encyclopedia Britannica (vol. XXXII, p. 123) that "the great majority of the poor Jews are of the Eastern type and extreme orthodoxy (Chassidin). They form an immense mass of squalid and helpless poverty." Capt. Wright's only recommendation is that "the richer Jews should Rally the condition of the poor Jews who either trade as small middlemen, as hawkers or touts, or labour as unskilled, or almost unskilled, and the sweating dens as sweaters or sweated when they emigrate. They are driven into all sorts of illicit and fraudulent practices and in England, in the East End of London, too large a proportion of convictions for such offence can be laid to their account. Tbey are unfit for the modern economic world for want of education - : for Western society because of their habits and want of cleanliness. They are devoted to their strange old religion but as they grow rich their piety," as the Chief Rabbi told Capt. Wright, "is destroyed ir wealth ana they take too little interest in their poorer brethren. No one who knows Poland can be surprised at the Polish attitude or the desire of the Poles to be rid of this corrupting influence."

The Jewish Question in Hungary

It was almost impossible to distinguish between the Hungarian Jew and the Hungarian gentile. They mingled indiscriminately, they both gloried in the traditional freedom and patriotism of the Magyar, for in Hungary the Jew had never been persecuted. When driven from western Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Jews found refuge, security and, to a greater extent than before known, freedom, in the Alfold towns and villages. In the eleventh century King Koloman issued several decrees allowing them to acquire land and regulating their commercial relations with the Christian inhabitants, and in the thirteenth they not only occupied important positions in the administration, but two of them obtained the title of Count. Bela II. (1251) gave them many valuable privileges ; among others that of having their own courts of justice and of exercising exclusive control over their schools. He also decreed that when a Jew is the defendent in a civil or criminal action, the testimony of a Christian against him shall not be received unless it is confirmed by a Jewish witness.

These privileges had been continued to the Jews, notwithstanding the prejudice with which they had always been regarded by the lower classes In Hungary. Mattheus Corvinus appointed a Christianized Jew as Ban of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia; and Ferdinand VI. permitted the Hungarian Jews to hold a council at Nagy-Ma, which was visited by great numbers of Jews from various parts of Europe and Asia.

Anti-Semitism appeared in Hungary early in the 19th Century as a result of fear of economic competition. In 1840 a partial emancipation of the Jews allowed them to live anywhere except certain depressed mining cities. The Hungarian Jews had long ago given up the dream of a new Jerusalem ; not one of them attended the Jewish meeting assembled in New York in 1824, for the purpose of establishing au independent Jewish state. In 1847 the great majority of the Jewish population of Hungary were active supporters of Kossuth, who, they hoped, would give them the same rights as those enjoyed by the Christians.

By the mid-19th Century the number of Jews in Hungary was three hundred and thirty thousand, and they claimed to be placed in all respects on an equal footing with the Christians. This claim was favorably received in the Hungarian Diet, where steps were taken to give it effect. The Jewish Emancipation Act of 1868 gave Jews equality before the law and effectively eliminated all bars to their participation in the economy; nevertheless, informal barriers kept Jews from careers in politics and public life. And in an 1882 "blood libel" trial, residents of Tiszaeszlar accused the local Jewish community of killing a 14-year-old Christian peasant girl in order to use her blood for a religious ceremony.

In the early 20th Century the Hungarian Jew still clung tenaciously to the belief of his fathers, but unlike the Russian, he regarded Judaism as a religion, not as the mark of a distinct nationality. In all but creed he was a Magyar.

Hungarian Jewry was called upon, since 1914, to deal with more refugees than any country in the war-stricken area. People driven from every part of Europe have made Hungary their haven of refuge. Until 1919 the conditions were such that the Hungarian people were in a position to give these unfortunates food and succor. The conditions since then had become materially altered, and by 1920 it was no longer possible for the Jews of Hungary to support their own, let alone give aid to the thousands of refugees. There were at that time e, about 700,000 Jews in the new Hungary to which must be added about 400,000 in territory which was formerly Hungarian. Many thousands of these men, women and children, the aged and the ill, were on the verge of starvation.

A militantly anticommunist authoritarian government composed of military officers entered Budapest on the heels of the Romanians. A "white terror" ensued that led to the imprisonment, torture, and execution without trial of communists, socialists, Jews, leftist intellectuals, sympathizers with the Karolyi and Kun regimes, and others who threatened the traditional Hungarian political order that the officers sought to reestablish. Estimates placed the number of executions at approximately 5,000. In addition, about 75,000 people were jailed. In particular, the Hungarian right wing and the Romanian forces targeted Jews for retribution. Ultimately, the white terror forced nearly 100,000 people to leave the country, most of them socialists, intellectuals, and middle-class Jews.

Hungary was the first country in Europe to adopt an anti-Jewish law after World War I, a short-lived measure that restricted the admission of Jews to institutions of higher learning. The Hungarian Home Office issued a decree according to which all foreigners "belonging to the Jewish race" who immigrated to Hungary since 1914 must leave the country. Exception was made only if the Jew was a member of a foreign mission, or came on business only for a very short period. Those Jews who had entered Hungary since 1914 were to be collected in different internment camps and then exiled to their country where from they emigrated to Hungary. Most of them were Poles, who came as refugees after the Russian offensive in 1914. Jews who were "busying themselves with profiteering" were to be the first to go.

Although the interwar years witnessed considerable cultural and economic progress in the country, the social structure changed little. A great chasm remained between the gentry, both social and intellectual, and the rural "people." Jews held a place of prominence in the country's economic, social, and political life. They constituted the bulk of the middle class. During the first four decades of the twentieth century, Jews made up more than one-fifth of the population of Budapest. They were well assimilated, worked in a variety of professions, and were of various political persuasions.

After 1938 Hitler used promises of additional territories, economic pressure, and threats of military intervention to pressure the Hungarians into supporting his policies, including those related to Europe's Jews, which encouraged Hungary's anti-Semites. The percentage of Jews in business, finance, and the professions far exceeded the percentage of Jews in the overall population. The 1930 census showed that Jews made up only 5.1 percent of the population but provided 54.5 percent of its physicians, 31.7 percent of its journalists, and 49.2 percent of its lawyers. Jews controlled an estimated 19.5 percent to 33 percent of the national income, four of the five leading banks, and 80 percent of Hungary's industry. After the depression struck, anti-Semites made the Jews scapegoats for Hungary's economic plight.

Hungary's Jews suffered the first blows of this renewed anti-Semitism during the government of Kalman Daranyi, who fashioned a coalition of conservatives and reactionaries. After President Horthy publicly dashed hopes of land reform, discontented rightwingers took to the streets denouncing the government and baiting the Jews. Daranyi's government attempted to appease the anti-Semites and the Nazis by proposing and passing the first socalled Jewish Law, which set quotas limiting Jews to 20 percent of the positions in certain businesses and professions. The law failed to satisfy Hungary's anti-Semitic radicals, however, and when Daranyi tried to appease them again, Horthy unseated him in 1938. The regent then appointed the ill-starred Bela Imredy, who drafted a second, harsher Jewish Law before political opponents forced his resignation in February 1939 by presenting documents showing that Imredy's own grandfather was a Jew.

Hungary allied with Nazi Germany early in the war. From 1939 on, Germany allowed Hungary to share in some of her booty. To Hitler, the Hungarians, who were removing troops from the Russian front and not willing to deal harshly with the Jews, seemed more like a neutral than Germany's ally. Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Kallay refused to deport Jews to Poland when requested to do so. In April 1943 he summoned Horthy to his presence and severely criticized him, explaining Hungary's obligations to Germans and the need to eliminate the Jews.

Szekely Nep, a virulently anti-Semitic and anti-American newspaper in Nazi-allied Hungary, was responsible for the publication of some 200 racist articles which helped create a climate in Hungary in which the Nazi persecution of Jews became acceptable. Szekely Nep portrayed Jews as "alien elements with diabolical skills" and as being "traitorous, unscrupulous, cheating. . . throughout. . . Hungarian history," and advocated the "de-jewification of Hungarian life" since "a final solution may be achieved only by deporting Jewish elements."

On March 19, 1944, Adolf Eichmann and a group of SS officers arrived in Budapest to take charge of Jewish matters and ten days later anti-Jewish legislation was enacted, calling for the expropriation of Jewish property. Eichmann then set in motion machinery to round up and deport the Hungarian Jews to extermination camps. Between May 14 and July 18, 1944, over 430,00 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 48 trains. Most of them were gassed.

When the persecution and deportation of Hungarian Jews became widely known in 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board to take action to rescue Jews from Nazi extermination. The Board's representative in Sweden, Ivor Olsen, identified Wallenberg as a person who could lead this effort in Hungary with funding and assistance from the U.S. Department of State. Wallenberg agreed to go to Budapest to undertake this task.

More Jews would have perished had not it been for the efforts of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who arrived in Hungary on July 9, 1944 with the mission of saving as many Jews as possible. By various means, including issuing special Swedish passports and bribing guards and officials, as well as setting up a program for feeding the Jews of Budapest, it is estimated that his actions saved between 30,000 and 100,000 from extermination. In September 1944 he was forced to go into hiding to avoid the Gestapo.

Carl Lutz was the Swiss Vice-Consul in Budapest from 1942 until the end of World War II in 1945. Together with diplomats of neutral countries, such as the Swedish Raoul Wallenberg, the Apostolic Nuncio Angelo Rotta, the Italian Giorgio Perlasca, and others, Lutz worked relentlessly in his office set up in the U.S. Legation building for many months to prevent the planned death of innocent people. He created safe houses by declaring them annexes of the Swiss legation and eventually extended diplomatic immunity to 72 buildings in Budapest, saving as a result of it more than 62,000 Hungarian Jews.

Learning in July of the actions against the Jews, Horthy ordered the deportations to stop. Prime Minister Lakatos asked the Germans to removed Eichmann's men and the Hungarians lifted some of the restrictions on the remaining Jews.

With the Germans suffering military setbacks, Sztojay resigned on August 30, 1944, and Horthy replaced him with Geza Lakatos. In October 1944 Russian forces entered Hungary and it appeared to the Germans that Horthy was about to ask for an armistice. The SS under Vessenmayer then kidnaped Horthy's son and held him under threats of dire consequences if Horthy to did not comply with the Nazi's wishes. Horthy, was therefore forced to appoint Arrow Cross Chief Szalasi as Prime Minister. Some 35,000 Jews were rounded up to be sent to Auschwitz, but since that camp was being liquidated, the Jews were used as slave laborers. The remaining 160,00 Jews in Budapest suffered at the hands of the Arrow Cross, with about 20,000 perishing during the winter because of cold, hunger, disease, and Russian bombardment.

Szalasi could not gather support to stop the oncoming Russian Army, which by November 1944, controlled two-thirds of Hungary and were on the verge of taking Budapest. A siege for Budapest lasted until February 1945 and it was not until April 4, 1945, that the Germans departed Hungary.

In January 1945, the Soviet Army liberated the city of Budapest and Nazi troops withdrew to the West. Wallenberg was directed by the Soviet commander in Hungary to come to the eastern Hungarian city of Debrecen, where his headquarters was located. The day he left Budapest, Soviet leaders issued a secret order for Wallenberg's arrest. He was taken to Moscow's infamous Lubyanka Prison, and he was never seen outside prison after that time. In 1956, Soviet officials requested a report on the fate of Wallenberg. The report said he had died of a heart attack in 1947. It also indicated that he had been arrested for spying for Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, additional intelligence information was made public, but no satisfactory explanation of his fate has been forthcoming.

In all, it is estimated that 450,000 of Hungary's estimated 650,000 pre-Final Solution Jewish population were exterminated. By 1989 the country's 150,000 Jews formed the third largest Jewish community on the European continent, being smaller than the Jewish communities in the Soviet Union and France. They maintained a high school, library, museum, kosher butcher shops, an orphanage, a home for the elderly, a rabbinical seminary, a factory producing matzo, and about thirty synagogues. Several publications, including newspapers, served the Jewish population. By the year 2010 the Jewish population was estimated to be between 80,000 and 100,000. Anti-Semitic incidents, including vandalism, continue.

The Jewish Question in Germany

Anti-Semitism in Germany did not die with political emancipation. For Germany, though modern in many respects, remained feudal in spirit. The soldier was still the highest ideal of manhood in Germany. The German still believed that dueling promoted valor just as the Roman thought that periodic combats with wild beasts in the arena made men brave. Every university student considered it his duty to vindicate his honor with his sword in his hand. And since wherever there is darkness there is Jew-hatred, the German Jew had to win his rights as a man by sheer force of will.

For more than a quarter of a century before the outbreak of the Great War the progressive forces were arrayed on one side championing the cause of the Jew, and the retrogressive on the other side constantly attaching. With German thoroughness these powers of darkness perfected a complete system of Jew-hatred, classified and indexed, which they spread over the whole world. They evolved a theory that the Jew was a Semite and therefore was different from Aryans. Their chief characteristics were said to be graspiness, underhandedness, meanness, emitting a peculiarly noxious odor, to be met with among no other people. They also perfected a social boycott against Jews.

In civil and political life the Junkers constantly demanded the freeing of Germany from Jewish influence. To cite a few cases; at Munster the court decreed that no Jew be employed as an expert in cases where another Jew was involved. Russian Jews who happened to come into the country were arrested quite frequently. Some of the Junker deputies demanded that all Jews who had adopted non-Jewish names be forced to resume their Hebrew names. General von Kleist stated in the Kreuz-Zeitung that the reason Jews were not promoted in the German army was the fact that Germany was essentially a Christian country and Judaism was the sworn enemy of Christianity. (A fine Medieval argument.) Above all else, the General pointed out, the Jews preached progressive principles which in the long run was bound to destroy the Prussian military state and substitute for it a democracy.

But just at the outbreak of the Great War, anti-Semitism was practically dead. Germany began making up for past offenses. She placed Jewish synagogue officials on the same footing occupied by similar officials of other churches. When the armies were mustered anti-Jewish newspapers began publishing statements from their readers that they were now completely cured of Jew-hatred. The Staatsburger Zeitung, formerly an inveterate antiSemitic organ, declared that it would forever cease its attacks on Jews. And to make sure that it would keep its word the government suppressed it for the duration of the war. Der Hammer, another publication of this type was also suppressed. A few other anti-Jewish publications had to mend their ways or be suppressed. The uninitiated could have suspected that the Kaiser himself, the leader of the Junkers and the militarists, had suddenly become a friend of the Jews. Anyway, anti-Semitism in Germany had become a dead issuet. Germany had apparenly discovered the truth of Bismarck's statement, himself not a friend of the Jews, that Jew-hatred was the wrong antidote against liberalism.

Nevertheless, the Jews suffered a great deal during the war. Many cities were partly destroyed and plundered. In Greisburg, Niedenburg, Marggrabowa, Goldap, Angerburg, Gerdaucn, Friedland, Eydtkuhnen, ets., Jews suffered especial cruelties. Jewish women in the conquered territories were separated from their children and sent to Germany to work, many of them enduring such miseries that they committed suicide. The German soldiery was unusually hard on the Jewish population in Poland and Ukrainia. But most of their suffering thus far was practically the same a; that suffered by non-Jews.

But as failure began looming on the military horizon, the newspapers began reporting active preparations of the anti-Semitic forces to launch an attack. The Deutschvolkesche Blaetter, soon came out with a clarion call to all patriotic citizens to unite in an open war on Jews. Immediately after the call it came out with a story that a certain child which had been found dead, had been murdered by Jews for ritual purposes. Reactionary members of the Reichstag demanded the adoption of stringent measures "against the Jewish race, which agitates for strikes and raises the price of food." A bill to disfranchise all the Jew? in Germany had gained such momentum that it held the house for two davs. Professor Erich Turv issued a pamphlet entitled "The Gold Princes" in which he proves to the satisfaction of all anti-Semites, that the Jewish bankers were primarily responsible for the war. Handbills appeared in Berlin declaring that the Allied peace offers were the machinations of a quadruple composed of Baron Sonnino, Roosevelt, England, and the Jews, all set upon Germany's enslavement.

And all the sacrifices that German Jewry had made for their country were effaced in a moment. The hundred thousand Jews, of a total of six hundred thousand, who had participated in the war found themselves objects of greater hate than ever before. The universities became more hostile than before. The medical institutions, the professional organizations, the government employment agencies, all set out upon a path of militant anti-Semitism. For instance, the Marburg medical faculty of the university voted by a large majority to exclude Jews from the hospitals lest they become the ruling race of Germany and masters of the Red government." A party was organized ("The Christian Peoples' Party") for the purpose of procuring the enactment of measures to "safeguard Germany from Jewish despotism and to prevent Jews who only seek financial advantages, from destroying the country."

And when the armistice was signed and Germany had the proof brought home to her that he who lived by the sword must also perish by the sword, she poured out her wrath on the Jews. The storm broke with such violence that a month after the signing of the armistice the Jews in Berlin had to organize selfdefense corps. For the soldiers and the students everywhere openly incited pogroms, boycotts, expulsions, and extermination. Had it not been for the strong progressive forces we should have had such pogroms in Germany as we have had in Poland, Galicia, and Ukrainia. And thus had the Jews lost in four years of war what took them a thousand years to gain.

Poland welcomed the prospect of leading the block of states that U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld labeled New Europe. Differences in the Trans-Atlantic alliance over Iraq were a divisive force in the EU, but the Poles provided several thousand troops as asign of solidarity with America. While the number of troops was not all that large, the political cover that Poland's support provided the administration of George W. Bush was significant.

Polish-Bolshevik Cavalry Operations

The Conditions in the Polish-Bolshevik campaigns - the great distances, lack of roads, insufficiency of railroads, and slight density of troops - presented few points of resemblance with the warfare of the Western Front during the Great War. They resemble the World War in the enormous length of front, but differ from it in the density of the line. They differ from wars of the past in that the weapons used were those developed by the World War and also in the fact that even in the theaters of principal operations the troops were deployed on a wide front. Cavalry played an important role. Twice, at least, it played a decisive one. It had a great, perhaps decisive, influence on the entire campaign.

The terrain and climate are admirably suited to cavalry operations. East of the Bug, on the whole front of over a thousand kilometers, there are only two macadamized roads. Both of these roads run perpendicularly to the front-one through Rovno to Kiev, the other from Brest-Litovsk to Bobrusk. The other roads are unsurfaced and vary according to the nature of the soil. In places they run through deep sand that is unpassable at all seasons for motor vehicles. In other places, in dry weather, the roads are usually practicable; but the many streams, some very wide, with marshy banks, are serious obstacles for motor vehicles. The bridges are of wood, too light for heavy trucks. Most of them had been burned many times during the past six years and replaced by temporary bridges or not at all. Several times during the operations slight rains immobilized all motor transport for days.

The country is generally flat or slightly rolling, except in the extreme south. There were many forests. In the south, before the war, the country was well cultivated. By 1920 there were everywhere large waste stretches. The population east of the Bug was sparse, except in the southern sector. The peasantry lived usually in villages. The buildings were of logs, with thatched roofs. There were few isolated farms. In the center of the towns there are brick buildings with thick walls, clustered about a solidly built church. These towns formed strong points and were continually used as such. The railway facilities are poor. These were rendered worse by the destruction of many large bridges which required months to rebuild, the inadequacy of railway material, and the use of different gauges.

The population varies greatly in character. Everywhere east of the Bug, clear to the Dnieper, the town population is partly Polish. Poles are scattered in patches among the country population. The great landowners are mostly Polish. They had left the country during the first Bolshevik occupation, 1918-1919. Their administrators, head farmers, house servants, and other dependents, who were generally Poles, had, however, remained. In the southeast the majority of the peasantry was Ukrainian, and the state of civilization was about that of the French peasantry before the Revolution. They were, however, much more warlike and willing to fight. In the north the peasantry was White Russian, with an admixture of many Poles, and in the extreme north some Lithuanians. The White Russian peasantry was very apathetic. In all towns a great part of the population was Jewish.

The Poles, wherever found or of whatever social condition, are intensely patriotic. Their devotion could be relied upon, and their knowledge of local conditions was of great value to the Polish armies. The attitude of the peasantry, except the Poles, may in general be characterized by saying that they were tired of war and were unfriendly to whichever army was in occupation. The Jews were at first very unfriendly to the Poles, and many of the younger ones were Bolsheviks. After the experience of a few weeks of Bolshevik occupation they became much more amicable to the Poles.

During the preliminary peace negotiations with the Bolsheviks the Polish High Command prepared a big stroke, to be launched in the event these negotiations failed. With the breaking off of these negotiations the preparations were rapidly completed. Heretofore the operations against the Bolsheviks had been conducted on a comparatively small scale, and consisted of a series of local actions' which resulted in pushing the Bolshevik lines eastward. This time, profiting by the political situation in the Ukraine, a large-scale operation was planned with the intention of dealing a crushing blow. It was not merely planned to push back the Bolsheviks, but to cut off and eliminate as a fighting force a large part of their southern army, by placing forces in their rear and across their main lines of retreat. The advance was made at the end of April and was completely successful. By the end of May the country south of the Pripet was cleared of Bolshevik forces and Kiev was captured. During this operation, which can be considered as the first phase of the 1920 campaign, the cavalry played a decisive part.

The Polish morale was now high. Every man felt that he could beat half a dozen Bolsheviks. Polish losses had been insignificant. Then came Budenny. With daring and dash this astonishing leader threw his cavalry divisions against the Polish line, felt for its weak points, found them, and broke through. The Polish cavalry, greatly outnumbered, was neutralized, and the whole Polish force, almost without a fight, was thrown into confusion. It retreated, panicstricken, from position to position, out of each of which in turn Budenny, by rapid movements, outflanked them. This second phase ended with the Poles in full rout westward and Rovno evacuated to the enemy.

By these reverses the Polish High Command was impressed with the immediate necessity for additional cavalry units, and by the end of July there had been hurriedly got together a cavalry corps of two small divisions and a brigade. This force took the field against Budenny in the hope of capturing him and his whole force. They failed to accomplish this; but Budenny was beaten, the morale of the Poles was greatly improved, and the terror which the mere name of Budenny inspired disappeared. The field of active operations now shifted to the north, and a large part of the cavalry corps was transferred to the new front. Budenny did not follow, but advanced on Lemberg instead. Though there was little to oppose him, he advanced but slowly. About August 20 he was within 25 miles of the city, with his patrols well to the northwest and southwest of it. He received orders to proceed northward and attack the northern flank of the Polish armies, which were moving northeastward into the Bolshevik rear. Though several times repeated, the order was not obeyed for several days, Budenny insisting upon continuing toward Lemberg. Apparently the prospect of looting the city appealed to him more strongly than the importance of saving the main Bolshevik armies from defeat. Finally Budenny moved, but too late. In a series of actions near Zamosc, in early September, he displayed much energy, but was completely defeated and since ceased to be a factor on the Polish front.

Katyn

One of the main challenges facing leaders of the Solidarity movement was what to teach people: Solidarity represented a spiritual as well as a linguistic revolution. Solidarity leaders considered the original political program, not one of institutional change, but rather an educational program. According to Lech Walesa, the goal was to build a "Noah's Ark" of popularly accepted terms free from the straightjacket of official sloganeering. It represented a mixed bag of demands and articulations, or half-articulations: sovereignty, democracy (understood as personal relations in the work place and worker's self-management), independent trade unions, the Katyn massacre (a code word for admitting that Poland was under Soviet domination).

Walesa's anti-Sovietism in 1990 was clearly a useful tool in the presidential campaign. It was tactical, verbal and superficial. Walesa made four demands during the talks with Soviet Ambassador Brovikov: the withdrawal of the Soviet forces; disclosure of the truth about Katyn; the right for displaced persons to visit the old lands, and; compensation for the victims of repatriation. Of all of these, only the first demand was related to actual national interests. The rest had to do with history, propaganda and a list of sentiments.

Polish army officers were called up in 1939, due to German aggression against Poland. Those who were in eastern Poland which had been occupied but the Soviet Union since September 17th 1939, were captured by the Red Army and committed to the NKVD. On 28 September, the USSR and Nazi Germany, allied since August, partitioned and then dissolved the Polish state. They then began implementing parallel policies of suppressing all resistance and destroying the Polish elite in their respective areas. They were imprisoned in several camps.

During April-May 1940, the Polish prisoners were moved from their internment camps and taken to three execution sites. The place most identified with the Soviet atrocity is Katyn Forest, located 12 miles west of Smolensk, Russia. They were murdered (nearly 25.000 persons) in April and May 1940. The prisoners from the camp in Kozelsk (over 4.400 persons) were shot in Katyn forest near Smolensk.

Stalin liquidated 14,500 Polish officers and 11,000 others in territory newly "liberated" under the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, reflected perfidy at its finest: mass summary execution of potential enemies by Politburo decree using German weapons. Those who died at Katyn included an admiral, two generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 258 majors, 654 captains, 17 naval captains, 3,420 NCOs, seven chaplains, three landowners, a prince, 43 officials, 85 privates, and 131 refugees. Also among the dead were 20 university professors; 300 physicians; several hundred lawyers, engineers, and teachers; and more than 100 writers and journalists as well as about 200 pilots. 7 It was their social status that landed them in front of NKVD execution squads. Most of the victims were reservists who had been mobilized when Germany invaded. In all, the NKVD eliminated almost half the Polish officer corps -- part of Stalin's long-range effort to prevent the resurgence of an independent Poland.

When Nazi occupation forces in April 1943 announced the discovery of several mass graves, propaganda minister Josef Goebbels hoped that international revulsion over the Soviet atrocity would drive a wedge into the Big Three coalition and buy Germany a breathing space, if not a victory, in its war against Russia. But Stalin blamed the massacre on the Wehrmacht after discovery of the graves, and it was politically exploited, and officially denied, by successive Soviet leaders until 1990.

In 1944, President Roosevelt assigned Capt. George Earle, his special emissary to the Balkans, to compile information on Katyn. Earle did so, using contacts in Bulgaria and Romania. He concluded that the Soviet Union was guilty. FDR rejected Earle's conclusion, saying that he was convinced of Nazi Germany's responsibility.

After Russian President Vladimir Putin's setback in the 2004 Ukraine election, Polish-Russian relations becameeven more fractious as Moscow refused to denounce the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact or the Katyn Forest massacre of Polish officers during World War II as Polish President Kwasniewski demanded. On 07 April 2010, a ceremony was held in Katyn in the Smolensk region to mark the 70th anniversary of the massacre of Polish officers. Vladimir Putin and Donald Tusk participated in the ceremony. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin joined his Polish counterpart in the first joint commemoration marking the anniversary of the murder of thousands of Polish officers by the Soviet Union at the beginning of World War II. The decision by Putin to become the first Russian leader to commemorate the anniversary of the Katyn massacre is perhaps an indication that Russia has begun to take a more nuanced view of the Soviet role in World War II, which had previously been denied by Russian leaders.

Air Force Equipment - Introduction

The F-16 Block 52+ is the newest addition to the Polish Air Force?s potential. A total of forty eight F-16s has been purchased for the Polish Armed Forces - thirty six F-16C and twelve F-16D. These aircraft have been organized into three tactical air squadrons based in Poznan-Krzesiny and Lask. The Polish F-16s nicknamed JASTRZAB (HAWK) are one of the most advanced versions of this aircraft. The main features of the F-16 are: a Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229 turbojet engine, glass cockpit, active digital control, multi-role radar, GPS, onboard electronic warfare equipment, passive missile warning, terrain-referenced navigation, external and conformal fuel tanks as well as a Helmet Mounted Display System (HMDS).

During 1989-1990 Poland acquired its first twelve MiG-29s. These aircraft still remain in service at the 1st Tactical Air Squadron in Minsk Mazowiecki. In 1996 The Polish Air and Air Defence Forces traded its eleven PZL W-3 helicopters for ten Czech MiG-29s. In addition, twenty three MiG-29 were purchased from the German Luftwaffe in 2004. Because of the poor condition of these aircraft, only fourteen of them were directed to service. However, these airplanes had been modernized to NATO ICAO-I and ICAO-II standards and possess the capability to carry external fuel tanks. These MiG-29s are stationed at the 41st Tactical Air Squadron in Malbork.

The Su-22 is a Russian fighter-bomber aircraft used extensively by the former Warsaw Pact Nations, in the Middle East, Libia, Vietnam, Peru and Angola. It features a single Lyulka AL-21 F-3 jet engine and variable wing geometry (+28° / +68°). The main air intake is positioned at the aircraft?s nose. The Su-22 is a medium range fighter-bomber, designed to provide air support for ground troops as well as to counteract air threats. Forty eight Su-22M4 remain in service in the Polish Air Forces. They are located at the 7th, 8th and 40th Tactical Air Squadrons.

The CASA C-295M is a typical military transport high-wing airplane with a loading ramp at the back. It can carry a maximum payload of 9250kg or ? after installing seats ? seventy eight soldiers.The Polish Armed Forces have ordered ten CASA C-295M aircraft in total ? eight of which have been delivered to the 13th Air Transport Squadron in Cracow-Balice. The Polish CASA C-295M are equipped with the latest GPS stations, chaff launchers, and missile proximity warning modules.

The An-26 is a transport airplane developed at the Oleg Antonov Design Bureau, USSR. The prototype - a spin-off from the An-24 passenger plane project - conducted its first test-flight in 1969. The An-26 is a popular transport plane used by the Air Forces of: Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Benin, Bulgaria, China, Czech Republic, Ethiopia, Guinea, Iraq, Croatia, Laos, Libya, Congo, Cuba, Mozambique, Germany, Peru, Poland, Madagascar, Romania, Somalia, Syria, Tanzania, Hungary, Zambia and Russia.The An-26 is capable o carrying approximately forty passengers or a payload of 5500 kg. The Polish Air Force currently uses five An-26 transport aircraft.

The first M-28 prototype was designed by PZL Mielec on the basis of the soviet An-28. The prototype was fitted with two PT-6A engines and modernized BENDIX KING avionics. The test-flight was conducted in 1993. A brief tour around both American continents resulted in multiple orders for acquisition of the M-28 - which was later exported under the name Skytruck. The aircraft was equipped with central fuelling and emergency fuel jettison systems, a modernized ramp door, a side door with retractable stairs and a strengthened front undercarriage.Several aircraft are currently in service with the Navy Aviation Brigade and the Border Guard. Three M-28 are used at the 36th Special Air Transport Regiment in Warsaw.

The An-2 is the most ancient aircraft still in service in the Polish Air Force. Its prototype - codenamed Sch-1 - made its first flight in 1947. After positively passing field tests it was scheduled for mass production in 1948 under the codename An-2. The aircraft was capable of carrying a payload of 1320 kg. However, after fitting the machine with a more powerful 1000HP engine it could lift even 1500 kg. Over twenty versions of the An-2 have been developed. Depending on their role, they were fitted with different equipment and parts ? i.e. floats for maritime operations. The first An-2 aircraft appeared in Poland in 1951 and began their service with the transport-communication units.

The Yak-40 prototype made its maiden flight in October 1966. The first regular passenger flights were initiated in 1968. The constructor?s idea was that the aircraft would be able to carry 20 passengers on a distance of 600 km but already during development the airplane was fitted with 24 seats. The passengers cabin could be converted into twenty seven - and thirty two seat versions. The luxury variants of the Yak-40 were able to take sixteen or twenty people or six VIPs. Both the civilian and the military versions of the Yak-40 came into service in Poland in 1973. Currently four aircraft are used by the 36th Special Air Transport regiment in Warsaw - as part the VIP transport fleet.

The Tu-154 is a medium range airliner developed at the Tupolew Design Bureau in the USSR. They have been used by various countries, including: the former USSR, Bulgaria, Cuba, Romania, Hungary, China, North Korea and Syria. The prototype made its test-flight in 1968 and the first airplanes came into service in 1972. The Polish Air Force possessed two Tu-154M Lux aircraft. They were in service at the 36th Special Air Transport Regiment in Warsaw as part of the VIP transport fleet. Each plane can carry up to 180 passengers and a crew consisting of four.

PZL-130 Orlik

A two seat primary and advanced military trainer with turboprop engine, the PZL-130 Orlik (eaglet) may be also used as a light ground-attack A/c (6 hard points) as well as for patrolling and sports flights. It conforms with FAR 23. The need for training jet pilots requires creating exact in-flight conditions. On one hand these would be the jet flight characteristics, on the other hand the training aircraft should be an easier construction to fly and also equally important, cheaper. The PZL - 130 Orlik was the first Polish aeroplane to be prop-driven but with the flight characteristics of a jet. It is a light, single engine, low wing, two seater trainer in an all-metal construction. The modular cockpit panel design enabled pilots to change the panel to the required combat aircraft configuration.

The program of the new Polish training aircraft for the Air Force had its root during the 1970s and 1980s at the PZL Warsaw-Okecie Construction Bureau under the guidance of Mr. Andrzej Frydrychewicz. Firstly, it was thought that that aircraft would be based on a piston engine, later the plans were changed and resulted with fitting the plane with a turboprop engine. The initial project was completed in 1981 - the aircraft was codenamed PZL-130 Orlik. The second prototype - for flying tests - was fitted with a M-14Pm piston engine. During the winter of 1984 and 1985, two prototypes with the numbers 003 and 004 made their first flights. Later the 004 model was transported to Canada, where it was fitted with a PT6A-25A turbofan engine. Additionally, new hydraulics, new oxygen support, onboard cockpit systems and BENDIX KING navigation modules were installed. Each wing was fitted with a mounting pylon for external fuel tanks. The modernized aircraft was codenamed PZL-130 Turbo Orlik (PZL-130T).

The Polish Air Force uses the PZL-130TC-1 Orlik as the first platform for pilot's training. This aircraft was developed from the abovementioned PZL-130T. It?s fitted with a Czech produced Walter 601T engine with a 5-blade propeller, ejection seat, flight log computer, satellite navigation module, transponder and radiomarker receiver. In addition, all the onboard systems have been installed in a manner similar to the systems used on the TS-11 Iskra.

Maximum altitude: 10000m. Maximum velocity: 560 km/h. Maximum range: 1100 km. Maintenance costs per hour: 4,768 PLN. Dimensions: Span - 9,0 m Length - 9,0 m Wing area - 13,0 m2 Weights: Max. take off weight - 2700 kg Aerobatics weight - 2150 Empty weight - 1825 kg Max. underwing load - 600 kg Performance: Cruise speed (H=6000 m) - 450 km/h Stalling speed - 131 km/h Max. rate of climb - 13,3 m/s Max. range - 1062 km Max. range with additional tanks - 2000 km Take-off run / Landing run (aerobatics version) - 355/390 m TS-11 Iskra

The TS-11 Iskra [Spark] is the Polish Air Force?s pilot's secondary platform for their training program. The aircraft was developed in the late 60?s under the supervision of engineer Tadeusz Soltyk - a lector at the Aviation Institute ? to meet the demands of the Polish Air Force for a new, jet-based flight trainer. The first prototype - designed for ground tests - was built in 1959. The second prototype was fitted with an imported Viper 8 jet engine and made its first test flight in January 1960. After passing factory tests and inspections the model was scheduled for serial production.

The first aircraft to leave the PZL Mielec manufacturing plant in 1968 was fitted with a Polish SO-01 jet engine. Nearly every air regiment or air squadron possessed a quantity of TS-11 Iskra aircraft at their home base. Overall, fifty four TS-11 Iskra aircraft remained in service in the Polish Air Force.

Maximum altitude: 11500 m. Maximum velocity: 740 km. Maximum range: 1250 km. Maintenance costs per hour: 4,438 PLN.