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Mikołaj Surmanowicz

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Mikołaj Surmanowicz (born October 23, 1915 in Odessa, died February 26, 1975 in Kalisz) - Officer of the Polish Armed Forces of World War II, prisoner of many well-known POW camps [1],[2], pilot, a pioneer and enthusiast of glider aircraft [3].

During his time at the prominent Oflag IV-C in Colditz, Surmanowicz initiated daring escapes which became the significant part of many publications, films, games and television series. Post-war he returned to his passion and built a model of an aviation machine [4] powered solely by human muscle power.

Curriculum Vitae

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Early years

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Mikolaj Surmanowicz was born in Odessa as the son of Wawrzyniec Surmanowicz and Maria Gryszyn. He graduated from high school in Kalisz and studied at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Warsaw University of Technology. He was well known glider modeler and instructor pilot before the war [5]. In 1936, he constructed and demonstrated a muscle-powered glider-ornithopter in Kalisz[6]. [[F

Military service and imprisonment

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Original picture  made by Mikołaj Surmanowicz right after the war.
Escape from Colditz. Mikołaj Surmanowicz. Escape from Colditz. Mikołaj Surmanowicz.

Mikołaj Surmanowicz was drafted into the Cadet School, appointed platoon commander and in June 1937 assigned to the 25th platoon as deputy platoon commander; on September 16, 1939, he was mobilized and appointed as a battery commander. He took part in the battles for Brody, Krasne, Zwierzyniec, and was taken prisoner on October 3, 1939. He escaped from POW camps five times: for the first time from Stalag XIII A, from the camp in Laufen oflag VII C[7], from the fort in Silberberg Oflag VIII B, from Colditz, and from the hard prison in Waldheim. The war activities of Mikołaj Surmanowicz and his spectacular escapes from POW camps went down in the history of the POW resistance movement [8] ,[9],[10]. Attempts by a Polish officer to free himself and other prisoners from the most famous special POW camp of World War II, S-lager IV C Colditz, were closely documented, and their descriptions were archived in the library of the British Museum in London, the Museum in Colditz[11] and in other collections on world[12]. The international special camp Colditz IV C was intended for the POW aristocracy - especially important officers of the Allied troops and officers who were famous for escaping from other camps. Due to its location on a steep rock, surrounded by dense barbed wire, the castle made escape impossible, so there was a general belief that there was no way to escape from this place. The public annoucment by Surmanowicz during a sonderapel with the words: a Polish officer will even escape from custody if he wants to, obviously caused general disbelief, but above all the fury of the camp authorities. Some questions remained unanswered and the Germans never found the evidence or the answers:How did Surmanowicz get out of his cell?, How did he pick the lock on Chmiel’s door and the one at the entrance of the cell corridor to the courtyard?, How did Surmanowicz get out of his cell?, how Surmanowicz got to the attic of a German building? and have become a permanent part of the history of Colditz[13],[14]. [15] . Unfortunately, the escape initially ended in failure, but it inspired other prisoners to make several dozen more successful and unsuccessful attempts to escape from captivity.

Major Patric Reid, a prominent British prisoner and co-organizer of many escapes and a close friend of the "Polish tiger" Mikołaj, described the sensational escapes of the "Colditz camp inmates" in several publishing series, bestsellers.[16] Constant attempts to regain freedom, the unyielding, respect-inspiring attitude of the Polish officer, convinced the German authorities that this extremely dangerous prisoner would escape from any captivity, so by the judgment of the German military court of the 174th division in Leipzig, Surmanowicz was sentenced to several years of hard imprisonment in Waldheim for the "assassination" of a representative of the Nazi government. After a year and a half stay, Surmanowicz also escaped from this prison, was captured again, shackled in an underground dungeon in Waldheim until December 1944, and in 1945 he was released from captivity.

Life's passion

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After the end of the war, Mikołaj Surmanowicz, as an engineer, returned to his passion - aviation, and with enormous time and financial expenditure, he built an aerial apparatus entirely on his own, enabling it to be lifted off the ground solely using the power of human muscles [17]. Unfortunately, only the first tests of the muscle aircraft took place in 1975 [3], which confirmed the inventive concept and the success of the structure, as well as the need to use lighter, more expensive materials.http://www.samolotypolskie.pl/samoloty/2816/126/Surmanowicz-miesniolot--wiroplat2 The war interrupted his passion for life, and the premature death of Mikołaj Surmanowicz as a result of irreversible damage to his health during captivity in POW camps ended the construction of the muscle aircraft. The muscle plane was donated by the family in 2008 to the Aviation Museum [18],[19] in Krakow.

Private life

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After six years of separation due to captivity, Mikołaj Surmanowicz married Teodozja Olsińska. From this marriage, they had two children: Grażyna[20] and Janusz; four grandchildren: Anna[20] , Grażyna’s daughter, and Corrado, Barbara, and Ewa, Janusz’s children; and one great-grandchild, Feliks, Anna’s son. He had close family ties with his sister Olga and brother Józef. He was extremely appreciated and liked for his open attitude to the world and people, courage, honesty and sense of humor. He maintained close relations with his colleagues from Colditz. Despite numerous offers to develop his passion and fascination for aviation abroad, he remained in Poland. He died of a heart attack at the age of 59 in February 1975. He is buried at the Miłostów cemetery in Poznań

References

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  1. ^ Brzeski, Rafał (1984). Wojna nie kończy się za drutami. Warszawa: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza. pp. 49–53. ISBN 83-03-00543-X.
  2. ^ Brzeski, Rafał (1979-10-07). "Wielkie ucieczki. Wyjątkowo niebezpieczny". Kulisy. 40. Warszawa: 6–7.
  3. ^ a b Juszczak, Henryk (2019). Kaliskie Skrzydła. Kalisz: Agencja Promocji Miasta. pp. 123–128. ISBN 978-83-946172-5-7.
  4. ^ "Samoloty w Lotnictwie Polskim".
  5. ^ "Rotorcraft".
  6. ^ "Samoloty w Lotnictwie Polskim".
  7. ^ Surmanowicz, Mikołaj (1968). "Ucieczka przez Alpy". Wrocławski Tygodnik Katolicki. 15.
  8. ^ "Centralna Biblioteka Wojskowa" (PDF).
  9. ^ "Centralna Biblioteka Wojskowa" (PDF).
  10. ^ "Rocznik".
  11. ^ "Schloss Colditz".
  12. ^ "Australian War Memorial".
  13. ^ "Moja Opowieść".
  14. ^ "Okruchy Historii".
  15. ^ Surmanowicz, Mikołaj (1967). "Ucieczka z Colditz". Wrocławski Tygodnik Katolicki.
  16. ^ Reid, Patric (January 1, 2001). The Colditz story. Orion Pub Co. ISBN 9780304358120.
  17. ^ Wojciechowski, Janusz (1979). Mięśnioloty. Wydawnictwo Komunikacji i Łączności. pp. 23–24. ISBN 83-206-0029-4.
  18. ^ "SkySpotting.net".
  19. ^ "Zabytki Techniki".
  20. ^ a b "Baza Wiedzy UAM".
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