Flight Officer Jerzy Mondshein, RAF 304 (Polish) Bomber Squadron

Jerzy Mondshein

Jerzy played a critical role in the escape for the group of 12, led by Willy. Speaking flawless German, he was the man selected to buy the 12 train tickets needed to get the group clear of the region where the prison camp was located and where the most intensive search would likely begin.  Although the ticket seller expressed surprise at his request for 12 tickets, Jerzy’s nerve held and the group successfully boarded the train heading towards the Czechoslovakian border. Jerzy was born in 1909 in Warsaw. He was the oldest member of the group and married with a family. He served as an observer and one night in November, 1941, when his plane was returning from an air raid, it ran out of fuel and landed in a field near a Luftwaffe fighter base in Belgium. The entire crew were captured as POWs, but not before they had destroying their identity papers and setting their aircraft on fire.