STAR LETTER
I volunteer at our town’s museum where I hold the position of vice chair, and I would like to suggest that your readers consider local museums as a source for family history, as the following story demonstrates.
Birmingham-based, Polish-born vet Dr Bartosz ‘Bart’ Nietrzeba has, for several years, visited the grave of his great uncle Sergeant Piotr Olgierd Strycharek, a Polish pilot in the Royal Air Force who is buried at Nottage Cemetery in Porthcawl, Bridgend.
Following a recent internet search, he visited the volunteer-run Porthcawl Museum (porthcawlmuseum.com), where he made some emotional discoveries.
The museum dedicates a section of its exhibition space to the memory of the Allied airmen who were lost while stationed at RAF Stormy Down, Porthcawl, in the Second World War. Stormy Down served a very important role in the training of both air and ground crews. In total more than 10,000 aircrew passed through the school. In addition, it trained Commonwealth and Allied aircrew to fly with the RAF.
Taking centre stage in this exhibition is one of the propellers from Sergeant Strycharek’s aircraft, along with his photo and biography. This was a moving moment of discovery for Bart, who had no previous knowledge of the item’s existence.
Sergeant Strycharek was an instructor at 7 Air Gunnery School at RAF Stormy Down while serving in the Polish Air Force.
In September 1943 he was returning to base after a gunnery exercise over the sea off Porthcawl. The Avro Anson he was piloting collided with a Westland Lysander which had just taken off from Stormy Down.
Besides the two pilots and the Lysander tow operator, four air gunners in the Anson were also killed in the accident, one of whom is also buried in Nottage Cemetery.
During the course of the war a total of 52 airmen and a member of the Auxiliary Territorial Service – from Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Poland – were lost at Stormy Down, 11 of whom are buried at Nottage Cemetery. Since 2017 Porthcawl Museum, working with the Royal British Legion, holds a service of remembrance on the site over the Armistice weekend.
Piotr Strycharek was born in 1914 to Franciszek and Katarzyna, both farmers. In around 1931 he enrolled into the Polish Air Force Officer School in Dęblin. He reached the UK as part of General Anders’ so-called “Army of H
