Franciszek Jarecki was a pilot in the Polish Air Force

Polish Air Force

The Polish Air Force is the military Air Force wing of the Polish Armed Forces. Until July 2004 it was officially known as Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej...

, who became famous in early 1953 when he escaped Soviet-controlled Poland in a MiG-15 jet, which was one of the best planes owned by the Soviets at that time.

Jarecki was born in 1931 in Gdów

Gdów

Gdów is a village in Wieliczka County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Gdów. It lies approximately south-east of Wieliczka and south-east of the regional capital Kraków....

, a town near Kraków

Kraków

Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

. He was a graduate of a prestigious Polish Air Force Academy

Polish Air Force Academy

The Polish Air Force Academy is located in Deblin, eastern Poland. The Air Force Academy is an accredited university for the undergraduate education of officers for the Polish Air Force...

 in Dęblin

Deblin

Dęblin is a town, population 19,500 , at the confluence of Vistula and Wieprz rivers, in Lublin Voivodeship, Poland. Dęblin is the part of the agglomeration with adjacent towns of Ryki and Puławy, which altogether has over 100 000 inhabitants....

. Some time in the early 1950s he was moved to Słupsk in northern Poland, near the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

. There he flew MiG-15s as a few of them were operated by the Polish Air Force.

On the morning of March 5, 1953 (coincidentally, the day of Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

's death), Jarecki escaped Poland in the MiG-15 trainer. The decision was a very risky one, as the Polish People’s Army had previously shot those who tried to escape. For example, Edward Pytko, an instructor at Dęblin, tried to escape to Western Germany in 1952, but was stopped by Soviet aircraft over Eastern Germany and handed back to the Poles; Pytko was charged with high treason and executed.

Jarecki flew from Slupsk to the field airport at Rønne on the Danish Bornholm

Bornholm

Bornholm is a Danish island in the Baltic Sea located to the east of the rest of Denmark, the south of Sweden, and the north of Poland. The main industries on the island include fishing, arts and crafts like glass making and pottery using locally worked clay, and dairy farming. Tourism is...

 island. The whole trip took him only a few minutes. There, specialists from the United States, called by Danish authorities, thoroughly checked the plane. According to international regulations, they returned it by ship to Poland a few weeks later. Jarecki stayed in the West. From Denmark he moved to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, where General Władysław Anders gave him an order, and then to the USA, where he provided crucial information about modern Soviet aircraft and air tactics. Among those who shook his hand was President Dwight Eisenhower. Jarecki received a $50,000 prize for the person who was first to present a MiG-15 to the Americans and became a U.S. citizen.

A few months later, another Polish pilot, Zdzisław Jazwinski escaped with a MiG-15 to Bornholm. Three years later, four students of Deblin's school escaped in two Yak-18 planes, crossing Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 to land near Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. The leaflets used in Operation Moolah

Operation Moolah

Operation Moolah was a United States Air Force effort during the Korean War to obtain through defection a fully capable Soviet MiG-15 jet fighter. The MiG-15 was introduced by Communist forces on November 1, 1950 over the skies of Korea...

 during the Korean War carried a photo of Jarecki.

Jarecki lived in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

 until his death on October 24, 2010. He owned a factory in Fairview, Pennsylvania

Fairview, Pennsylvania

Fairview is a borough in Butler County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 220 at the 2000 census. It should not be confused with Fairview, Erie County, Pennsylvania which carries the ZIP code 16415.-Geography:...

, called Jarecki Valves. The uniform in which he escaped can be seen at the National Air and Space Museum

National Air and Space Museum

The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution holds the largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft in the world. It was established in 1976. Located in Washington, D.C., United States, it is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and...

 in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 In 2006, Polish TV Station TVN

TVN (Poland)

TVN is a major Polish commercial television network. The broadcaster was co-founded by Polish businessmen Mariusz Walter and Jan Wejchert. The network launched on October 3, 1997. TVN belongs to the TVN S.A...

 made a film, Jarecki, which is part of the “Great Escapes” series. The series shows stories about Poles who escaped the country between 1944–1989 and chose freedom in the West.

External links

• http://www.videofact.com/polska/ucieczki_oficerow_lwp2proba.html
• http://wielkieucieczki.onet.pl/1326400,filmy.html
• http://www.military-heat.com/46/black-ops-american-pilots-flying-russian-aircraft-cold-war/
• http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001~!239850!0

See also

• List of Cold War pilot defections
• List of Eastern Bloc defectors