Franciszek Jarecki
Franciszek Jarecki was a pilot in the Polish Air Force, who became famous in early 1953 when he escaped Soviet-controlled Poland in a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 jet, one of the best Soviet planes at that time.
Early life
Jarecki was born in 1931 in Gdów, a town near Kraków. His family soon moved to Stanisławów, where his father died in 1939, and in 1945 was deported by the Soviets to Bytom, Upper Silesia. He was a graduate of a prestigious Polish Air Force Academy in Dęblin. Some time in the early 1950s, he was moved to Słupsk in northern Poland, near the Baltic Sea. There he flew MiG-15s as a few of them were operated by the Polish Air Force.Defection
On the morning of March 5, 1953, Jarecki escaped Poland in a MiG-15. The decision was a very risky one, as the People's Army of Poland had previously shot those who tried to escape. For example, Edward Pytko, an instructor at Dęblin, tried to escape to West Germany in 1952, but was stopped by Soviet aircraft over East Germany and handed back to the Poles; Pytko was charged with high treason and executed.Jarecki flew from Słupsk to the field airport at Rønne on the Danish island of Bornholm. 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 remained in the West. From Denmark, he moved to London, where General Władysław Anders awarded him the Cross of Merit, and then to the United States, where he provided crucial information about modern Soviet aircraft and air tactics. Among those who shook his hand was President Dwight D. 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 Jażwinski, escaped with a MiG-15 to Bornholm. Three years later, four students of Dęblin's school escaped in two Yakovlev Yak-18 planes, crossing Czechoslovakia to land near Vienna in neutral Austria. The leaflets used in Operation Moolah during the Korean War carried a photo of Jarecki.