„Of those who spoke about Gdańsk”

When Germans and Soviets overran Poland in September 1939, thousands of Polish soldiers, sailors, and airmen managed to escape to the Western Allies. Eventually in 1940 Polish Government-in-Exile signed an agreement with Britain to form Polish squadrons alongside the units of the Royal Air Force. Eventually a number of fighter, bomber, and utility units were formed. One of them was No. 318 “City of Gdańsk” Fighter-Reconnaissance Squadron.

The squadron was formed in March 1943 in Britain, and was earmarked to support the 2nd Corps of the Polish Army, which was being organized then in the Middle East, largely from the former deportees and Gulag prisoners evacuated from the Soviet Union. The squadron joined the 2nd Corps during the Italian Campaign, taking part in the battles of Monte Cassino, Ancona, Rimini and Bologna. After the war Polish forces in the West were demobilized, but a large number of the personnel could not returned to Poland, which was liberated from the Nazi occupation, but enslaved under Soviet Communist rule.

The exhibit features a large number of rarely displayed photographs and items from private and museum collections, including uniforms, documents, every-day objects, and the like. The exhibit is bilingual, Polish and English.