Aviation

On March 2, 1933, shortly after Franklin D. Roosevelt's inauguration, New York saw the premiere of "King Kong." Few would have guessed that the man who pilots the plane attacking the beast in the film's finale would return to uniform and play a role in two of the most challenging theaters of World War II: China and the Southwest Pacific.

Poles comprised only five percent of the RAF's forces in the Battle of Britain, but they were responsible for over ten percent of all German aircraft shot down. Their courage and effectiveness helped save Britain and changed the course of World War II.

In the collective imagination, "King Kong" is "Beauty and the Beast," the Empire State Building, and machine guns on the wings of a biplane. Few remember that the actor playing the pilot in the 1933 finale was actually an aviator who had nearly died in two wars.

In the summer of 1920, Merian C. Cooper—the future creator of "King Kong," then a pilot in the Kościuszko Squadron—joined the Polish War of Independence. The American pilot from the Old West fought for Poland, saving entire units and earning the Virtuti Militari—and a place in our history.

Casimir Pulaski is a hero of "two continents," often called the "knight of freedom." He is a towering figure in the pantheon of the histories of the nations of Poland and the United States. His death on the battlefield also gave rise to another hero of both nations.

While another installment of the Polish-Polish war is taking place in Poland's most important legislative institution — the Polish Sejm — and politicians' private grudges dominate the debate on Polish agency and security, the withdrawal of American troops from Polish territory is taking place quietly, without much fanfare.

Merian C. Cooper, known as the co-creator of the classic film "King Kong", also had a fascinating past as a pilot fighting for Polish independence. In 1919, driven by the desire to repay the "debt of honor" for Casimir Pulaski's help in the American War of Independence, Cooper organized the Kościuszko Squadron – a unit of American pilots supporting Poles in the war against the Bolsheviks. His extraordinary fate, from escaping Soviet captivity to later successes in Hollywood, make his biography worth knowing.

Edward Górecki, due to his path as a soldier of the Polish Armed Forces in the West and his achievements in social work, is still alive in the memory of his loved ones, but also in the memory of Polish emigrants in America, already in the next generation.

The F-35 program, although considered groundbreaking in terms of technology and combat capabilities, has been controversial from the very beginning. The main problems with the F-35 include its huge costs, prolonged delivery times and numerous technical problems.

On August 28, 2024, a ceremony took place in Fort Worth, Texas, which went down in history of the Polish Air Force. Poland officially received its first F-35A "Husarz" (Winged Cavalryman) fighter plane.

Over the past few days, the media has been buzzing about the potential transfer of Polish MiG-29 fighter aircraft, originally of Soviet production, to Ukraine, or rather, the failure thereof. Let's take a closer look at this mess.