Ksawery Wyrożemski
Ksawery "Big Bill" Wyrożemski ("Tso-very Veera-zhem-ski") (23 July 1915 – 15 February 1967) was an exile
Wyrożemski later flew the North American Mustang Mk. IIIs when No.315 Squadron converted in March 1944.
He scored no kills but was awarded the
Escape to exile
Wyrożemski was a
Wyrożemski's serial number was RAF P-O779, with rank of F/Lt & Captain in Polish. He served with the 315th Polish Fighter Squadron in Great Britain from April 1942 until the end of WW II.
Last mission of WW II
On 25 April 1945 Wyrożemski participated in the longest (five hours, fifty minutes) and last mission flown in World War II by fighters of the Polish Air Force. He flew as part of some 240 Mustangs from RAF 11 Group and the USAAF VIII Fighter Command, escorting 225 Avro Lancaster bombers on a Ramrod mission to hit Nazi headquarters in the Bavarian Alps.
Some pilots landed in liberated territory on the European continent to refuel on the return leg of the mission while others calculated their loads sufficient to reach their bases in England. Wyrożemski fell one kilometer short of Andrews Airfield and dead-sticked his Mustang into a pasture where several horses slowed his fighter sufficiently such that he was not injured. The livestock were not so fortunate. Fellow squadron mate Tadeusz Pinkowski, recounted "Seeing him approaching the airfield and then going down, we climbed [into] (sic) a jeep and sped toward him. We found him O.K. Those two horses were O.K. not! Leaving the scene we even joked a little; somebody pointed to the horse liver lying around and asked: 'Say, Ksawery. Didn't you forget something?' We all had a good laugh and that helped to release the tension."[3]
Emigration to the United States
Wyrozemski and his wife Emilia Ann, known as "Lila", (a Warsaw native who had survived a German concentration camp after arrest for partisan involvement), emigrated to the United States from the United Kingdom with their three-year-old young son, Ksawery M. R. Wyrozemski in 1959 and settled in Fort Walton Beach, Florida,[4] home of Eglin Air Force Base and the Air Proving Ground Center. Wyrozemski was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency where he was ostensibly involved with the Lockheed U-2 program as a Lockheed "employee".
More likely, he was one of the contract pilots operating
Last assignments
"After 18 years as a contract officer in Agency air operations, Bill's eyesight weakened and he could no longer fly. There was a need for air ops officers on the ground in the
Recognition
On 28 May 2016, Wyrożemski was recognized with a star at the Langley headquarters of the CIA as an employee who lost his life while in the service of the agency.
References
- ^ "Holm, Richard L., "A Plane Crash, Rescue, and Recovery - A Close Call in Africa", Center for the Study of Intelligence, Historical Perspectives, Washington, D.C., Winter 1999-2000, footnote 2. [1]
- ^ Fort Walton Beach, Florida, "Mr. Wyrozemski Is Killed Overseas", Playground Daily News, Thursday, 16 February 1967, Volume 21, Number 8, page 2.
- ^ Ratuszynski, Wilhelm, interview with Tadeusz Pinkowski, at [2].
- ISBN 978-1-56098-807-6, page 83.
- ^ Leeker, Dr. Joe F., "Air America at the Bay of Pigs", Special Collections, University of Texas - Dallas, updated 4 March 2013, Footnote 84, page 12, E-mail dated 9 December 2009 kindly sent to the author by Franek Grabowski.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 September 2015. Retrieved 3 July 2015.
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: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ “Inspector General‟s Survey of the Cuban Operation”, dated October 1961, that is document no. 129914 published on the CIA‟s website at "䍉䄠䙏䥁⁓敡牣栠佰瑩潮". Archived from the original on 8 November 2009. Retrieved 26 October 2009., no. 7, pp. 38/9, that is pp. 46/7 on the website
- ^ "Holm, Richard L., "A Plane Crash, Rescue, and Recovery - A Close Call in Africa", Center for the Study of Intelligence, Historical Perspectives, Washington, D.C., Winter 1999-2000, footnote 2. [3]
- ^ Fort Walton Beach, Florida, "Mr. Wyrozemski Is Killed Overseas", Playground Daily News, Thursday, 16 February 1967, Volume 21, Number 8, page 2.