World War II › Special Units › Invasion of Poland
Special Units · Invasion of Poland, 1939
The Pursuit Brigade
The Polish commander in chief’s fighter reserve met the first German raids on Warsaw on 1 September 1939 and fought over the capital for six days with fighters designed in the early 1930s.
- Polish military aviation
- Warsaw
- 1–17 September 1939
The fighter reserve
Polish military aviation in 1939 was a branch of the army, not an independent air force. On mobilization its six peacetime air regiments were broken up. Most of their escadrilles, the basic flying units of about ten aircraft, went to the field armies, and the rest were gathered into two brigades under the direct command of the commander in chief, Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły. The Pursuit Brigade (Brygada Pościgowa) was one of them. Its task was to defend Warsaw (Cynk; Zaloga).
The brigade was formed in May 1939 from the fighter units of the 1st Air Regiment in Warsaw and given to Col. Stefan Pawlikowski, a First World War veteran and former test pilot. It had two fighter squadrons (dywizjony). III/1, under Capt. Zdzisław Krasnodębski, comprised the 111th and 112th Escadrilles; IV/1, under Capt. Adam Kowalczyk, the 113th and 114th. On 31 August the 123rd Escadrille, with older P.7a fighters from the 2nd Air Regiment at Kraków, was added. In all the brigade had 54 fighters, three RWD-8 liaison aircraft, an anti-aircraft machine-gun company and a signals company. Its plan was to meet enemy bombers before they reached the capital, beyond the zone of Warsaw’s anti-aircraft guns, so that the guns and the fighters would not get in each other’s way (Polish Wikipedia, citing Pawlak; Zaloga).
Its aircraft were the problem. The gull-winged PZL P.11c had been one of the best fighters in the world when it entered service in 1934, and the 111th Escadrille in Warsaw had been the first unit to receive it. By 1939 it had a fixed undercarriage, an open cockpit, a top speed of about 375 to 390 km/h at altitude and, in most aircraft, only two rifle-caliber machine guns. The German Bf 109E was some 150 km/h faster, and the He 111 and Do 17 bombers were nearly as fast as the Polish fighters at the heights where they usually flew. A P.11 pilot often had a single chance: one diving attack from above, after which the bombers could simply outrun him (Cynk; Hooton; Chapter 4).
Warning was primitive. Observation posts around the city telephoned sightings to brigade headquarters, and the approaches to Warsaw were divided into sixteen surveillance sectors (Korzeniowski, after Pawlak). There was no radar.
Into the meadows
The Polish command expected the Luftwaffe to strike the main air bases in the first hours of war, and it did. By then the combat units were gone. From about 27 August the brigade’s fighters flew out to prepared field airfields, stretches of meadow near a village with fuel and ammunition, a few tents and a telephone line, the aircraft hidden under trees or nets at the edges. III/1 and the brigade staff went to Zielonka, northeast of Warsaw; IV/1 went to Poniatów, north of the city near Jabłonna (Polish Wikipedia, citing Pawlak and Zawilski).
When German bombs fell on Okęcie, Warsaw’s airport and the site of the PZL factories, on the morning of 1 September, they hit hangars, workshops, trainers and reserve machines. German announcements that the Polish air force had been destroyed on the ground began in the first days of the war and passed into many Western histories. The record does not support them. By the account of Michael Alfred Peszke and other historians, no front-line combat aircraft were destroyed on the ground in the first days of the war (Peszke; Chapter 4).
1 September: three raids
The first raid on Warsaw came from East Prussia that morning: twin-engine bombers escorted by Bf 110 heavy fighters. The brigade went up in full strength and met them near Nieporęt, north of the city, at about 7:00 (Polish Wikipedia, citing Zawilski). Several bombers jettisoned their loads short of the capital, and Polish accounts credit Lt. Aleksander Gabszewicz with the brigade’s first German aircraft shot down over Warsaw (Korzeniowski, after Pawlak).
A second raid came around noon and a third at about 16:30. By then the German escorts had learned to engage the Polish fighters before they reached the bombers, and the losses mounted. In one of the afternoon fights, by Polish accounts, Bf 110s caught a flight of the 123rd Escadrille’s P.7a fighters and killed its commander, Capt. Mieczysław Olszewski.
At the end of the day the brigade claimed 14 German aircraft destroyed, 5 probably destroyed and 10 damaged. It had lost 2 pilots killed, 5 missing and 8 wounded, with 10 fighters destroyed and 24 damaged and unfit to fly the next day (Pawlak, Brygada Pościgowa – Alarm!, as cited by Polish Wikipedia). Zaloga gives 16 German aircraft shot down for 10 Polish losses. By either count, a third of the brigade had been lost or put out of action in one day. On 2 September fog covered Warsaw for most of the day, only about 20 fighters were ready, and the ground crews repaired what they could.
Six days over the capital
On 3 September Bf 109s and Bf 110s swept over the brigade’s fields in the first large fighter-against-fighter battle of the campaign over Warsaw. With German fighters now hunting for its bases, the brigade moved on 4 September to new fields west of the city, III/1 to Zaborów and IV/1 to Radzików. Spare parts, fuel and even food ran short. Bombing and the German advance cut the telephone lines, and an improvised observation post was set up on the roof of the Prudential building, Warsaw’s tallest, to watch for raids. On 6 September German bombs destroyed the telephone exchange on which the warning network depended (Korzeniowski, after Pawlak).
The arithmetic of attrition caught up with the brigade within a week. Over 1–3 September it flew about 250 sorties; over 4–6 September, about 110. By the evening of 6 September it had been credited with 42 or 43 German aircraft and had lost 38 of its 54 fighters (Zaloga). That evening it was ordered to the Lublin region, and on 7 September it left Warsaw with about 18 serviceable fighters. The German army took Okęcie on 8 September. From then on the capital’s air defense rested on its anti-aircraft artillery, the story told in Chapter 6.
Claims are not kills, and every air force of the war overclaimed. Polish fighter pilots as a whole were officially credited with 126 German aircraft in September; the Luftwaffe’s own quartermaster recorded 285 aircraft lost to all causes in the campaign and 279 more damaged. Individual Polish claims cannot always be matched to German losses. Zaloga nonetheless calls the Pursuit Brigade the most successful Polish air unit of the campaign.
East, and across the border
From fields around Lublin and in Volhynia the survivors flew patrols, escorted reconnaissance aircraft and carried liaison officers and messages for a command that was losing touch with its armies. Polish accounts credit the brigade with three more German aircraft in this period and, after the Soviet invasion of 17 September, one Soviet aircraft (Korzeniowski, after Pawlak). By Hooton’s count the whole Polish air force was down to 54 operational aircraft by 14 September.
After 17 September the remaining aircraft were ordered to Romania, and on 17 and 18 September they flew south across the border, many of them over Kuty and Zaleszczyki, where the Polish government also crossed (Chapter 8). Romania interned the men and kept the machines. The men did not stay. Over 9,000 Polish air force personnel had reached the West by mid-1940, and many of the brigade’s pilots flew in the Battle of Britain with No. 303 Squadron, whose first Polish commander was Krasnodębski of III/1 (IPN; Chapter 9).
Pawlikowski escaped to France and Britain. Considered too senior for regular operations, he borrowed a spare Spitfire to fly with No. 315 (Polish) Squadron from Northolt. On 15 May 1943, on an escort for Mitchell bombers attacking the airfield at Caen, he was killed in Spitfire IX LZ990, aged 46. The squadron’s chronicle records anti-aircraft fire; other accounts credit Fw 190s of II./JG 2. He lies in the Polish war cemetery at Grainville-Langannerie in Normandy.
The insignia, rendered
Illustration Original insignia-style artwork made for the Lake Norman Brief. It is not the unit’s official emblem. The chapters record no emblem for the brigade itself. Its escadrilles painted their own badges, such as the 111th’s scythe-and-stars, on the fuselage beside the red-and-white checkerboard national marking.
Timeline
- The Pursuit Brigade is formed in Warsaw from the 1st Air Regiment’s fighter units.
- Its squadrons disperse to field airfields at Zielonka and Poniatów; the 123rd Escadrille joins on 31 August.
- The brigade meets the first raid on Warsaw near Nieporęt.
- Two more raids; the day ends with 14 claims for 10 fighters destroyed and 24 damaged.
- The first large fighter battle over Warsaw.
- The squadrons move to Zaborów and Radzików, west of the city.
- Bombs destroy the telephone exchange of the warning network; the brigade is ordered east.
- It leaves Warsaw for the Lublin region with about 18 serviceable fighters.
- After the Soviet invasion the surviving aircraft fly to Romania.
- Pawlikowski is killed near Caen flying with No. 315 Squadron.
People of the unit
Read the full story
- Chapter 4: The Air War: The Pursuit Brigade, the Bomber Brigade and the Kościuszko Squadron
- Chapter 6: The Bzura and the Siege of Warsaw
- Chapter 8: 17 September: The Soviet Invasion and the Last Battles
- Chapter 9: Occupation, Exile and Memory
- The Invasion of Poland collection and atlas
By the numbers
The Pursuit Brigade by the numbers
Six days of attrition
Fighters the brigade could put in the air (approximate counts)
Source: Pawlak, Brygada Pościgowa – Alarm! (1977), via Polish Wikipedia, “Brygada Pościgowa”; Zaloga, Poland 1939 (Osprey, 2002), pp. 34, 51–52.
The first day, 1 September 1939
Brigade claims against its own losses after three raids on Warsaw. Claims are not confirmed kills.
Source: Pawlak, Brygada Pościgowa – Alarm! (1977), via Polish Wikipedia, “Brygada Pościgowa”. Zaloga gives 16 German aircraft shot down for 10 Polish losses.
Sorties flown over Warsaw
Sorties by period, 1939 (approximate)
Source: Zaloga, Poland 1939 (Osprey, 2002).
In pictures
More photographs
In the art of World War II
Insignia, posters and art
Sources
- Jerzy B. Cynk, The Polish Air Force at War: The Official History, vol. 1 (Schiffer, 1998), and Polish Aircraft 1893–1939 (Putnam, 1971).
- Jerzy Pawlak, Brygada Pościgowa – Alarm! (MON, 1977); Apoloniusz Zawilski, Bitwy polskiego września (Znak, 2011), as cited by Polish Wikipedia, “Brygada Pościgowa.”
- Steven J. Zaloga, Poland 1939: The Birth of Blitzkrieg (Osprey, 2002), pp. 34, 51–52.
- E. R. Hooton, Luftwaffe at War, vols. 1–2 (2007); Michael Alfred Peszke in Military Affairs, as cited by Wikipedia.
- Piotr Korzeniowski, “Bitwy Września: Brygada Pościgowa w akcji” (2018, after Pawlak); Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Nie tylko Dywizjon 303 and “Stefan Pawlikowski.”
- Aircrew Remembered, “Pawlikowski, Stefan”; No. 315 Squadron 1943 chronicle; Polish Air Force Memorial Committee, “Key facts.”