Scottow – Scottow Cemetery (Tadeusz Szymanski)

The grave of this Polish airman who served in the City of Warsaw Squadron (No. 316 Polish Fighter Squadron) is located at Scottow Cemetery, and there’s an excellent biography of this man, Tadeusz Szymanski (1917-1992), at http://aircrewremembered.com/szymanski-tadeusz.html. His record as an aircraft pilot is exceptional, with more details at http://polishsquadronsremembered.com/316/44/Mustangs1944.html.

Tadeusz married his wife Betty (nee Kay) in 1942, and she is now buried next to her husband.

The wonderful Imperial War Museum have a photo (© IWM FRE 14842) of Tadeusz, this was taken on 12 July 1944 and he was checking the wing of his P-51 Mustang.

A photo from the same day (© IWM FRE 14843) of Tadeusz carrying the damaged wing tip from his aircraft.

The Air Crew Remembered web-site linked above mentions:

“We knew that he had been a pilot and was rumoured to have invented the technique of flying along side V1 rockets and ‘flipping them over’ with a wing tip so that they crashed into the North Sea, rather than landing in England. However if you asked him he would just shrug it off with a smile.”

So, this is perhaps why his wing tip was damaged in these photos. By all accounts, this was a heroic individual.