Idzikowski Ludwik

Ludwik Idzikowski (1891–1929) — major pilot of the Polish Army, Knight of the Virtuti Militari Order. After passing his matura in 1912 in Russia he began studies at the mining faculty in Liège. During World War I he was mobilised into the Russian army, where in 1916 he graduated from the pilots’ school in Sevastopol and served as a pilot on the Eastern front. After the revolution he returned to Warsaw and in 1918 joined the Polish Army as a second lieutenant. He participated in the Polish-Ukrainian War, defending Lwów as a pilot, and then in the Polish-Bolshevik War, flying in the 7th Fighter Squadron and the 6th Reconnaissance Squadron. After the war he held positions as an instructor and squadron commander, and as deputy chief of piloting at the Higher Pilots’ School in Grudziądz. In the interwar period he was associated with the 2nd Aviation Regiment in Kraków, and subsequently served among others in the 1st Aviation Regiment in Warsaw. In 1926 he was assigned to the Polish Military Mission in Paris, where he tested aircraft purchased by Poland. It was then that he became involved in preparations for a transatlantic flight. In 1929, during a second transatlantic attempt, after an engine failure, he attempted an emergency landing on the island of Graciosa, where he was killed in an aviation disaster. His body was brought back to Poland and buried at the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw.