Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A rare Second World War D.F.M. group of three awarded to Sergeant M. Zajac, Polish Air Force, attached Royal Air Force, who completed a tour of operations in Wellingtons of No. 305 (Polish) Squadron prior to being posted missing while undertaking an Atlantic crossing in a Mosquito

Distinguished Flying Medal, G.VI.R. (P. 781195 Sgt. M. Zajac); Poland, Virtute Militari, Silver Cross, the reverse of the lower limb officially numbered ‘9568’; Poland, Cross of Valour, with three Bars, good very fine (3) £2500-3000

One of just 66 Distinguished Flying Medals awarded to Polish airmen in the 1939-45 War, one of them with a Bar.

D.F.M. London Gazette - honorary awards of the D.F.M to Polish and other Allied aircrew were not gazetted.

Marian Zajac was born in Jaworznie in May 1920, possibly a relation of the future Inspector of Poland’s Anti-Aircraft Defences, General Jozef Zajac, who delivered a damning report on his country’s state of operational readiness in 1938, the same year that Marian entered the Polish Air Force as an Ensign at the Officers’ Aviation School at Deblinie.

Having no doubt seen action of sorts, and certainly experienced adventure in the interim, he arrived in England in March 1940 and joined No. 305 (Land of Wielkopolska) Squadron in November 1940, shortly after its formation. And it was for completing an operational tour of 30 sorties in the Squadron’s Wellingtons that he was subsequently awarded the D.F.M., most of them as a Wireless Operator, but latterly as a Navigator. He was also awarded the Virtute Militari, Silver Cross and the Cross of Valour with 3 Bars.

In January 1943, and having been commissioned, Zajac was rested as an instructor at an O.T.U., prior to taking up an appointment in No. 45 Group (Transport Command) in Canada at the end of the same year. And it was in this latter capacity, after undertaking a number of long-distance flights, that he was reported missing in a Mosquito during a cross-Atlantic flight on 16 April 1945, the exact cause of the loss of his aircraft never having been ascertained. His pilot, Flight Lieutenant W. Wielondek, also perished; sold with photocopied research, including information from the Sikorski Museum.

According to official records Zajac was awarded Virtuti Militari No. ‘9636’. VM No. ‘9568’ was apparently awarded to ‘Mieczyslaw Klisiewicz’.