On Saturday, 2 May, we will be celebrating Polish Flag Day. To mark the occasion, the Polish Aviation Museum in Kraków will be displaying a special exhibit, a one-of-a-kind artefact on a global scale – an aviation flag from the Second World War, which is most likely one of the largest surviving flags of its kind.
On 2 May, the original Polish Air Force airfield flag from the Second World War, used in the UK, will be displayed in the Main Hangar. It measures an impressive 350 × 170 cm – whereas flags of this type are usually no more than 150 cm long. It is probably the only flag of this size to have survived to the present day.
The material and method of construction leave no doubt as to its authenticity. It consists of two strips of fabric sewn together: white and red, finished with a so-called swallowtail. The white strip features hand-painted symbols: an aviation chequerboard and the national emblem. Clear signs of long-term use and numerous patches are silent testimony to its genuine wartime service.
This is the second year in a row that we are displaying this unique item in the Main Hangar to mark Flag Day. As the flag is not on permanent display, 2 May is the ONLY day of the year when you can see it in person.
The Polish Air Force’s airfield flags in the United Kingdom accompanied Polish airmen at Allied airfields throughout the war. They marked the operational zones under which the Poles served in the fight for a free Europe. To this day, only a few such exhibits have survived, kept in museums in Poland and the United Kingdom.
The story of this flag’s return to Poland is as remarkable as the flag itself. During the 1995 conference of the Association of Polish Airmen in the West in London, Flight Lieutenant Józef Brudnicki and Lieutenant Colonel Szczepan Kurpisz stumbled upon the attic of the Pilots’ Club. As Lieutenant Colonel Kurpisz himself recalled, it was: “a junk room, a complete junk room”. It was there, amongst the forgotten items, that they found two aviation flags. They did not hesitate. Both were taken back to Poland in suitcases. The flag you will see on 2 May was donated to the Museum by Mrs Alina Brudnicka, wife of Flight Lieutenant Józef Brudnicki and a long-standing donor to our collection.
You can find the full interview with Lt Col (Pilot) Kurpisz about the story behind the discovery and smuggling of the flags to Poland HERE
