The Men Who Flew to Warsaw’s Aid in 1944

One of my latest tasks as a volunteer at the Warsaw Uprising Museum was to conduct interviews for the Oral History Archive. I’ve had some experience with the theoretical part of oral histories through workshops run by the Palo Alto Historical Association (PAHA), and I’d also observed several through the Museum, but I’d never conducted any myself. The 70th anniversary commemoration of the start of the Warsaw Uprising brought hundreds of participants and witnesses to those historic events to Warsaw, from North and South America, and all parts of Europe. Some of them hadn’t been back to Warsaw since those tragic days in August and September, 1944. Two men who I was honored to interview were John Toft and James Leith, the captain and rear gunner from the crew of a Handley Page Halifax that flew as part of the Warsaw Airlift to resupply the Polish Home Army during the Uprising. Both Mr. Toft and Leith were young men in their early 20s when they entered the Royal Air Force (RAF) and began training for bombing missions over Germany and other targets in Europe and beyond. Mr. Leith recounted his first mission which was the bombing of Stuttgart in 1943. His plane was hit by anti-aircraft flak, miles before reaching the target, disabling one of its four engines. The pilot decided to carry out the mission and drop their payload of bombs, which they did successfully. Once in range of British airfields, the plane began its descent, apparently spared of any major damage beyond losing one engine. Suddenly, as the plane was nearly landing, another plane appeared beneath them, causing the pilot to make an evasive maneuver which apparently led to him losing control of the plane. Leith awoke on the floor of the plane with water lapping at his face, the plane had fallen into the English channel and broken in half. Leith quickly retrieved an inflatable “dinghy” from the wing of the plane and was able to gather all of the crew members together and safely abandon the sinking aircraft. Leith and Toft were informed of the Warsaw mission in early August, 1944, shortly after being transferred to Brindisi, Italy, the location of a major airbase used by the Allies once they had occupied southern Italy. The briefing on conditions in Warsaw were not detailed. The airmen were told that the Polish underground was engaged in heavy fighting against the Germans and that planes would be sent in to drop supply canisters attached to parachutes. The airmen weren’t briefed about the contents of the canisters, though they knew that weapons, ammunition and medical supplies were the primary contents. Besides anti-aircraft fire in and around Warsaw, the most dangerous part of the mission was the long duration of the flight. Unknown to the pilots at the time, Stalin had forbidden the western Allies from landing planes on Soviet airfields east of Warsaw, following resupply missions to the Home Army. The airmen would have to make a treacherous, 10 1/2 hour flight to Warsaw and back, mostly over enemy-occupied territory. An additional danger was the present of “night fighter” zones, patrolled by Luftwaffe squadrons on the hunt for Allied planes. John Toft remembered seeing Warsaw from many miles away, as by the time of his mission (mid-August 1944) large parts of the city were engulfed in flame. His instructions were to navigate along the Vistula river and turn west after the second bridge (Poniatowski bridge). Their drop zone (then known as Napoleon Square) was to be illuminated by Home Army soldiers holding flashlights, but the smoke of the burning buildings was so dense that they had to rely on timing their drop. As they learned later, the women soldiers who were holding the flashlights, were easy targets for German snipers. Whenever one fell, another quickly recovered the flashlight and took her place. John Toft remembered that: “the anti-aircraft fire was louder than the four Rolls Royce engines.” As the tail gunner, Leith’s perspective was different. He didn’t see the danger that they were approaching, but saw the view of what they’d been through on the way out. As an interesting contrast to Toft’s recollections, Leith wasn’t sure if all of the heavy muzzle flashes he saw were anti-aircraft batteries directed at them, or the Poles and the Germans “knocking the hell out of one another”. Although they did not encounter night fighters on the Warsaw mission, they had a brief brush with a Messerschmitt that fired at them on a subsequent mission. After the war, a friend of Leith’s checked the German flight logs from that night and sent him a photo of the pilot who was trying to take them down. The resupply of Warsaw by air was ultimately an impossible task. Several dozen planes were lost in the first few weeks of the Uprising, prompting the RAF to curtail flights to Warsaw. The savage, street-to-street and even room-to-room combat in the capital, made dropping supplies into precise coordinates, into the hands of the Home Army, a daunting task. Despite the ultimate failure of the Uprising, the English, South African and American crews, flying their Liberators and Halifaxes over Warsaw, were tremendous symbols of hope for the beleaguered Poles on the ground. Every time a plane was shot down was an occasion for mourning. Both Toft and Leith were immensely proud that they had the opportunity to help the fighting Poles. They wish they could have done more, but the conditions of war decided Warsaw’s fate. Both airmen were in Warsaw for the first time on the ground and they were amazed by how the city has rebuilt itself and the kindness and generosity of the people they met, even total strangers. The airmen were received as honored guests by the President of Poland, Bronisław Komorowski, during a ceremony held at the Warsaw Uprising Museum. As I was exiting the Museum after my interview with Mr. Toft, a guide informed an incoming group of schoolchildren that a great hero, who flew to help Warsaw during the Uprising was about to pass through. They gave him a round of applause that left him visibly moved. Seventy years later, Warsaw and Poland remember the sacrifices of those who flew to her aid, in her most desperate hour.