Warsaw flights commemoration
MELROSE – People gathered at the James and Ethel Gray Park on 9 September to remember the airmen who died dropping supplies to Warsaw, Poland, at the end of the WWII.
The James and Ethel Gray Park became a place of commemoration on 9 September as community members gathered to remember the men who flew supply planes to beleaguered Warsaw, Poland, at the end of the WWII.
Families of South African men who gave their lives in 1944 to help the Polish, members of the Polish community, military organisations, dignitaries and members of the South African Air Force gathered at the Katyn Monument for the religious service.
Together they remembered the airmen, the Warsaw uprising which began in 1944 and the Katyn massacre of April 1940.
The Polish Consul, Dominika Mosek, laid the wreath for the Republic of Poland and was also the keynote speaker for the event. Embassies of Germany, France and Hungary also laid wreaths as did The South African Air Force, The Royal Air Force, The Military Associations of Gauteng, South African and Royal Air Force Associations and The War Veterans Federation.
About 220 people were present at the event, which has been conducted each year since the end of WWII.
Event organiser Jean Urry said, “This year was a very sad commemoration for us because our chairman Andrzej Romanowicz passed away in February this year and around the same time, the last surviving veteran of the flights in South Africa, Bryan Jones [retired minister of the Rosebank Union Church], passed away as well.
“Then in May, we lost Ilka Parapanova, the lady who has done our floral wreaths for the last 10 years.”
The service was conducted by Father Bogdan Wilkaniec, a Polish Catholic priest from Pretoria and Monsignor Roman Walczak, the first secretary of Apostolic Nunciature. During the service, there was a flypast by the South African Air Force, where a Harvard flew over the Katyn Monument.
Following the service, a reception was held at the Ditsong National Museum of Military History in Saxonwold where a light lunch was provided and people were entertained by Polish dancers.
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