Wings of the Great War

This exhibition comprises the most valuable part of the collection — unique, mostly incomplete aircraft that ended up in Poland somewhat by chance. They were evacuated by the Germans from the Deutsche Luftfahrtsammlung museum in Berlin, known as the Göring Collection, which had been bombed during World War II. The aircraft were transported to Czarnków in the Greater Poland region, where they were abandoned as German forces retreated before the Red Army towards the end of the war.

The aircraft remained in Poland. Severely damaged, they were transferred to the Krakow museum after its establishment, and in the 1990s they were restored in the museum workshops and put on display. Apart from the British fighter Sopwith F.1 Camel, all of them are the only surviving examples of their types in the world. Several types are connected with the beginnings of Polish aviation, as aircraft of these types, captured from the occupying powers, constituted its first equipment and were used in combat against the Ukrainians and the Bolsheviks shortly after Poland regained independence.

The concept behind this exhibition is to present the aircraft in their natural surroundings. The first aircraft visible upon entering the hangar are Allied machines, incorporated into the German collection as war trophies. On the left stands an aircraft moored on water. This is the Grigorovich M-15, a biplane reconnaissance flying boat of wooden construction, designed by Dmitry Grigorovich at the Shcherbakov and Shchetinin works in Petrograd in 1917. It was used by Russian naval aviation for patrol flights over the sea and was therefore designed exclusively for water take-offs and landings.  In the adjacent display case, a Thornton-Pickard Mk. III camera gun is exhibited, shaped to resemble the British Lewis machine gun. It was used for aerial gunnery training. Instead of firing bullets, it photographed the target against the background of the gunsight ring, making it possible to determine whether the target would have been hit. Such camera guns were also used by Polish aviation during the interwar period.

The next room is dedicated to the Luftstreitkräfte, the air force of the German Empire. On the left, in a field workshop, stands the training aircraft LVG B.II undergoing maintenance — engine and wing replacement and re-covering of the fuselage fabric. Opposite the LVG B.II stands the Aviatik C.III, a two-seat reconnaissance-bomber biplane with a wooden fuselage covered in plywood and fabric, and wooden fabric-covered wings. It was designed by the Automobil und Aviatik AG company in Mühlhausen (Mulhouse) in Alsace and produced between 1916 and 1917. It was not a particularly successful design, and for this reason the Aviatik factory, after producing about 80 of these machines, switched to licence production of the DFW C.V. Such an aircraft is displayed in the smaller room behind the Aviatik. This is also a two-seat reconnaissance-bomber biplane, designed at the Deutsche Flugzeugwerke (DFW) factory in Leipzig in 1916. It was armed with two 7.92 mm machine guns and carried 100 kg of bombs. Approximately 3,250 examples were built in total. They were used for reconnaissance, bombing, and artillery cooperation. The DFW C.V was also one of the first aircraft types in the military aviation of independent Poland, with 63 examples in service. These aircraft took part in the wars against the Ukrainians and Bolshevik Russia.

On the right stands the Halberstadt Cl.II. It was built at the Halberstädter Flugzeugwerke factory in 1917 as a multi-role combat aircraft for ground attack, fighter, and reconnaissance missions. Approximately 700 were produced. Fifteen aircraft of this type entered service with the air force of reborn Poland and were used in the war against Bolshevik Russia. The exhibited Halberstadt Cl.II fuselage, serial number 15459/17, was the personal aircraft of General Ernst von Hoeppner — one of the commanders of German aviation during World War I. Behind the aircraft stand figures of the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen — the top fighter ace of World War I with 80 aerial victories — and General von Hoeppner, who congratulates him on his victories during an inspection of the airfield where his squadron was stationed. On both sides of the Halberstadt are paintings dedicated to Richthofen — his portrait, a scene from his home in Swidnica (formerly Schweidnitz) where he sits surrounded by trophies, i.e. pieces of fabric from the aircraft he shot down bearing their serial numbers, and a depiction of his combat against British aircraft. This painting illustrates the origin of the nickname Red Baron — from his custom of flying an aircraft painted red to be more visible in the air.

Opposite the Halberstadt stands the LFG Roland D.VIb, a fighter designed towards the end of World War I by the Luftfahrzeuggesellschaft (LFG) company in Berlin, which used the trade name Roland. Its distinctive feature was the so-called Klinkerrumpf — an oval-section fuselage covered with strips of plywood, resembling a boat hull, with very carefully refined aerodynamics. A total of 359 examples were produced. The Roland D.VIb had good flying characteristics, but its greatest drawback was a weak engine that did not provide satisfactory performance, which meant it achieved no success in combat. The museum example, serial number 2225/18, took part in the German fighter competition at Adlershof near Berlin, held from 1 June to 15 July 1918. It performed poorly there compared to other types. Only Lieutenant Hermann Göring, who flew it, gave it a positive evaluation.

Behind the Austro-Hungarian field cinema is a room where a display case presents uniforms of officers from Austro-Hungarian observation balloon units of the Krakow Fortress, which used the Rakowice common as their launch field. From there, visitors proceed to a room dedicated to German bombing raids on London. Anti-aircraft searchlights illuminate a Zeppelin Staaken R.VI heavy bomber against the night sky over London. Beside it stands an engine nacelle with two Mercedes D.IVa engines of 260 HP each, from such an aircraft with serial number 36/16, manufactured at the Albatros Flugzeug Werke in 1917. As part of squadron Rfa 501, it carried out bombing raids on Great Britain and, returning from a bombing mission on the night of 7/8 March 1918, crashed in Belgium.

Beyond the grave of a downed French pilot and the canteen at a British field airfield in France, there is a room in which the sole exhibit is the German aircraft Albatros C.I. This was the first Class C aircraft — the German designation for an armed two-seat biplane intended for reconnaissance and bombing. For the first time, it featured Franz Schneider’s patent — a machine gun mounted on a revolving ring in the rear cockpit, enabling defence of the aircraft’s rear hemisphere. It was developed based on the Albatros B.II design. After regaining independence, Polish aviation had 49 of these aircraft, left behind by the Germans and overhauled in Polish workshops. They were used in combat during the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1919–1920, and later until 1922 served in flying schools.  The museum example, number 197/15, served in 1917–1918 with the Officers’ Training Detachment for Aerial Radio Operators at Mokotow airfield in German-occupied Warsaw. On the wall, the figure of Lieutenant Stefan Stec can be seen — the man credited with creating the red-and-white checkerboard, the identification marking of Polish military aviation. The painting behind the Albatros C.I depicts his first victorious combat against a Ukrainian fighter over Lwow in April 1919. Nearby is a depiction of the takeover of Krakow’s Rakowice airfield, on whose grounds the Museum is located, by Poles from the Austrians on 31 October 1918, and the painting of the first Polish markings, known as the Krakow markings, on the aircraft captured there.