Open Writing

The beginning of August 1945 saw the catastrophic American atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in the surrender of the Japanese a few days later. I was in Cairo at the time and celebrated the occasion with cousin Valerie (who as a WAAF officer had been sent out to Cairo) at the Open-Air club where we swam and relaxed.

Although there was little enough ferrying, the RAF was not ready to send me home. The experience of North Africa resulted in me acting as Operations Officer, first of all in Cairo, then Tobruk (El Adem) and finally at Castel Benito, south of Tripoli.

A couple of months earlier I had been involved in something not linked with our war effort. It was evident that there were quite a number of Jewish refugees from Europe who were escaping and being helped through Italy by the Jewish Brigade and that assistance would be needed to get them out from Italian ports en route for Palestine.

A highly experienced man was felt by the unofficial Jewish authorities in Palestine to be an ideal person to organise this. However, he was a wanted man by the British. How to get him to Italy?

At that time we did not yet know how bad the Holocaust had been, but Fred, another pilot, and I both felt that after the horrific slaughter by the Nazis of nearly all the Jews in Europe it was up to us to try and help some of the remnants to escape to a new future. Indeed, it could be regarded as part of the war effort.

The British position was a difficult one, being in charge of Palestine with its mixed population of Jew and Arab. The view of the other Arab nations was also important to Britain because of its position in the Middle East.

There was an old Wellington NOMF248 in Palestine that had to be taken to Morocco. Fred was an experienced flyer of twin-engine aircraft, and I agreed to be his second pilot. The navigator and flight engineer were NCOs who were not aware of what was going on.

The sensible method of getting the man aboard was that he should travel by train to Cairo and that we should make an emergency stop at Heliopolis airfield, where my colleague would go and pick him up. He would join us as a Polish warrant officer.

We therefore landed at Heliopolis airfield on May 29, 1945, for checking of some instruments “that did not appear to be operating properly”. Whilst they were being checked, my colleague went into Cairo and came back with a very pale-faced man dressed as a Polish Air Force warrant officer. We were all bronzed, and this pale face rather frightened me. He frightened me even more when he saluted me since RAF aircrew were very informal, and there was no saluting.

He was introduced under the name of Schimski who wanted a lift to Tunis. The giving of lifts was part of the routine of that time. To keep him out of the public eye we decided to land at Mersa Matruh, which was a little-used airfield half way to El Adm. There we spent the night, with the two of us sleeping either side of our friend Schimski.

Since they did not have separate officer and NCO messes at this under-used airfield, we breakfasted together and then took off for Tunis. Without any untoward incident we arrived there after a refuelling stop at Castel Benito. We landed and I took Schimski to the apartment of an elderly lady who had been asked to look after him. Fred and the rest of the crew took the plane on to Morocco.

My job was to ensure that Schimiski was comfortable and did not come to any harm until Fred returned from Morocco. After a couple of days we were both getting a little bored, and I suggested to him (unwisely as it turned out) that perhaps we could go out in the evening and enjoy a meal in a restaurant. That we did.

After a little while two Polish pilots whom I knew came into the restaurant, spotted a Polish hat hanging by the entrance and looked around for their colleague. To my dismay they found us and came and sat with us. They immediately started chatting in Polish in spite of my request that they be civil and courteous and speak in a language that we could all understand - English. What worried me was that Schimski’s total lack of knowledge of flying and the Polish Air Force would surely let him down. So many Polish aircrew knew one another anyway.

The three were obviously talking about something of interest and importance. When the two Polish airmen finally departed, Schimski told me that he had concocted a story that he was a member of the Polish Secret Service and was out from UK investigating me, about whom intelligence had some considerable doubts. Apparently the story was swallowed hook , line and sinker.

In due time Fred returned from Morocco and escorted Schimski to Bari, where I understand he did an important job. This whole story I kept confidential until now. When I revealed it to a Jewish historian recently, a Hagganah medal was the result.