Tadeusz Żabicki

Tadeusz Piotr Żabicki was born on 16 May 1920, at Kolonia Wilanów, in the Jędrzejów county of the Kielce (now Świętokrzyskie) province, son of Stanisław and Małgorzata née Szymańska. After completing seven years of primary school at Jędrzejów and two years at the Coeducational Junior High School of the Jędrzejów District Department (Koedukacyjne Gimnazjum Wydziału Powiatowego Sejmiku Jędrzejowskiego), he volunteered to join the armed forces, probably hoping, like many young boys of his age, to become a pilot. Having passed the medical tests, he joined the pilot group of the Polish Air Force NCO School for Minors (Szkoła Podoficerów Lotnictwa dla Małoletnich) at Świecie on 19 August 1938. In June of the following year, he was transferred with the entire group to Krosno, where he completed a glider course and commenced an elementary flying training course at Moderówka nearby. The outbreak of war on 1 September 1939, interrupted Żabicki’s intensive training. After the Russians entered Poland on 17 September, he was evacuated to Romania, along with the entire group of young pupil pilots and their instructors. On 5 November, he set off from there by sea to France, reaching the destination on 20 November 1939. His route led from the port of Balcic (now Balchik, Bulgaria) to Malta (on the SS ‘Patris’), and from there to Marseille (on the SS ‘Franconia’).

The day after his arrival, Żabicki reported to the Polish Air Force camp in Lyon-Bron, where, like other evacuated Polish airmen, he awaited a posting to continue his flying training. However, this did not happen quickly. On 5 March 1940 Żabicki was posted to an assembly centre at Le Bourget near Paris, and two weeks later went to Britain, with the 17th group of aviators who were to form the first two Polish bomber squadrons planned to be formed on British soil. On 16 March 1940, he took the oath at the Polish Air Force Centre at Eastchurch, where he was registered as a member of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAF VR), and awarded the service number 781302. After the centre moved from Eastchurch to Blackpool at the end of May, Żabicki trained at the Ground Training Centre there. In the summer of 1940 he was transferred, along with other Poles, from the RAF VR to the re-formed exiled Polish Air Force. At the time he was posted to RAF Bramcote, where he was then posted No. 18 Operational Training Unit (18 OTU) at the end of the year. It was apparently determined there that Żabicki required additional flying training, so he was sent to a flying training school instead of an operational squadron. From 5 April to 10 May 1941, he trained at No. 15 Elementary Flying Training School at Carlisle. On 24 May, he was posted to No. 3 Service Flying Training School at South Cerney, where he trained as a twin-engine pilot.

After completing the course, Żabicki received his long-awaited pilot’s wings and was promoted to the RAF rank of Sergeant on 6 August 1941. A little over two weeks later, he was posted back to No. 18 OTU. This time, however, he completed his final operational training there, following which, on 8 October 1941, he and the entire crew reported at RAF Hemswell, the base of No. 300 ‘Ziemia Mazowiecka’ Squadron under W/Cdr Stanisław Cwynar. Żabicki’s crew included observer F/O Józef Gryglewicz, radio operator Sgt Bolesław Cewiński and air gunners Sgts Tadeusz Garczyński and Marian Roman.

After a short period of training within the unit, Żabicki started his tour of operational sorties on 15 November 1941, the Boulogne docks being the target. The operation did not end successfully for the fresh, inexperienced crew. On the way back to the base, they lost their bearings and were forced to make a forced landing, slightly damaging their Wellington, at Martlesham Heath, an RAF fighter airfield they came across by chance. As a ‘fresher’ crew in the squadron, they were initially sent to closer and less defended targets on the coast of France: Cherbourg, Calais and Brest. P/O Stanisław Boczkowski, who had joined No. 300 Squadron six months earlier and had already completed 20 operations, was their skipper at the time. The experience they gained under his command soon allowed them to join the crews that took part in raids against the most heavily defended cities of the Third Reich. By the end of 1941, Żabicki and his crew had bombed Cologne (23 December) and Düsseldorf (27 December). In January 1942, he flew to Münster and Hanover (he failed to reach that city due to a gyrocompass failure, which forced him to return to base, bombing Ostend on the way). Meanwhile, he bombed the port of Brest twice, where the German battleships ‘Scharnhorst’ and ‘Gneisenau’ moored, providing one of the main targets for RAF raids at that time. The following month, he attacked Wilhelmshaven, Kiel and Emden. Bremen had been the assigned target for the latter operation but a drop in oil pressure forced Żabicki’s crew to turn back early, dropping their bombs on Emden on the way. It was during that period that Tadeusz Żabicki took over as the first pilot and crew captain.

When, in March 1942, the newly appointed AOC Bomber Command RAF, AM Arthur Harris, commenced a new phase of the bombing offensive against the Third Reich, sending ever increasing bomber armadas against German industrial centres, this marked the beginning of a period of intense operational effort for Żabicki and his’ crew. Undoubtedly, the experience gained in earlier operations helped him complete his missions successfully, and return safely from raids on heavily defended German cities, often obscured by industrial haze. All four of his sorties in March Essen, the heart of the Ruhr and the site of the Krupp Works, which produced steel for German tanks and U-boats.

In April 1942, Żabicki flew seven sorties, bombing Cologne, Hamburg (twice), Essen (twice), Dortmund and Rostock. He flew four sorties in one week (as many as in the entire previous month). During an operation to Dortmund on the night of 14/15 April, despite an oxygen system failure, which made high altitude flying very difficult, he successfully dropped his bombs on the target and reached the base safely. Between 25 April and 1 May, he completed a blind approach course at RAF Mildehnall. After the previous busy month, Żabicki flew only one sortie in May, when on the night of 30/31 May he set off for Cologne, thus participating in the largest allied raid on Germany to date, codenamed ‘Millenium’, which involved 1,047 bombers.

June 1942 turned out to be the month of the greatest combat effort in Tadeusz Żabicki’s career. During no less than 11 operations he flew, he was over Essen (three times), Emden (four times) and Bremen (twice). He also took part in two operations that were new for No. 300 Squadron - laying mines in approaches to ports and communication routes off the Frisian Islands. At the end of the month (28 June), he flew a daytime sortie in search of crews missing over the North Sea during the raid on Bremen the night before. Unfortunately, without success. His last sortie flown with No. 300 Squadron was the bombing of Bremen on the night of 2/3 July 1942. The unusually large number of sorties he had flown, 38, is worth noting. It should be stressed that none of his operations were abortive: even in those three cases where aircraft failures justified terminating the sorties and returning to base, Żabicki used opportunities to drop his bombs on secondary targets.

Two weeks later, in mid-July 1942, Żabicki was transferred to No. 18 OTU at Bramcote as an instructor pilot. He trained young pilots, future skippers, passing on his operational experience. On 2 August 1942 he was slightly wounded in an accident when landing in Westland Lysander (T1525) at Ansty (the other crew member, P/O Józef Szybka, was unhurt). At the end of that year, he volunteered to fly a second tour of operations. As a very experienced and highly valued pilot, his request was accepted and on 21 January 1943 he was posted to No. 138 (Special Duties) Squadron, based at RAF Tempsford. The main role of the unit, which flew four-engine Halifax bombers, was to drop supplies and agents for underground resistance organisations in German-occupied Europe.

Żabicki flew his first operation, with a crew captained by Sgt Karol Twardawa, on the night of 13/14 February 1943. However, the operation to drop agents in the territory of the former Czechoslovakia proved unsuccessful due to bad weather and the inability to precisely locate the agent drop zone. That month, Żabicki dropped agents in Germany and twice in Poland (reception posts: ‘Lilia’ near Mińsk Mazowiecki and ‘Okoń’ on the Pilica River). After less than two weeks, he flew to France with supplies and agents, and later to Poland three times between 13 and 20 March (reception posts: ‘Kot’ on the Pilica, ‘Żaba’ near Łowicz and ‘Osa’ near Siedlce - the latter operation was unsuccessful due to failure to locate the drop zone). Three days later he flew with agents to France again, and the following night to Poland (‘Smok’ reception post near Siedlce). After a short rest, in April he flew four drops over France, and just one in May, to the Netherlands. In June, Żabicki, now as the first pilot/skipper, flew seven drop operations, mostly to France and Belgium. Only one of these, on the night of 15/16 June, was unsuccessful.

Tadeusz Żabicki’s luck ran out after he had completed 58 operations. During his 59th sortie, on the night of 23/24 June 1943, to drop agents in the Netherlands, his Halifax II NF-J (BB379) was badly damaged by flak and a German night fighter. The bomber eventually crashed at 5:15a.m. at Oostzaan near Amsterdam, killing F/Sgt Tadeusz Żabicki, co-pilot F/Sgt Walenty Siciński, navigator F/O Wacław Kalkus and radio-operator F/Sgt Kazimierz Kidziak. Flight engineer Sgt Stanisław Roehr, air gunner F/Sgt Józef Rek and despatcher Sgt Edward Kasperowicz baled out and were taken prisoner.

Sergeant Tadeusz Żabicki rests at the New Eastern (De Nieuwe Ooster) Cemetery in Amsterdam.

His Polish decorations included the silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari Order (Krzyż Srebrny Orderu Wojennego Virtuti Militari; No. 9462), Cross of Valour (Krzyż Walecznych) and three bars, Air Medal (Medal Lotniczy) and bar, and the Operational Pilot’s Wings (Polowy Znak Pilota; No. 973).

Grzegorz Korcz
(translation by Wojtek Matusiak)