Bohdan KleczyƄski papers, 1939-2009

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Summary

Creators:
KleczyƄski, Bohdan, 1902-1944
Abstract:
Diary, letters, military and personal identification documents, printed matter, and photographs, relating to an alleged assassination attempt on General Wladyslaw Sikorski, prime minister of the Polish government-in-exile, in 1942, and to Polish air operations during World War II. Includes posthumous collected material.
Extent:
1 manuscript box, 1 oversize box (0.8 Linear Feet)
Language:
In Polish and English
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Bohdan KleczyƄski papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Background

Scope and content:

Diary, letters, military and personal identification documents, printed matter, and photographs, relating to an alleged assassination attempt on General Wladyslaw Sikorski, prime minister of the Polish government-in-exile, in 1942, and to Polish air operations during World War II. Includes posthumous collected material.

The Kleczynski diary, which covers the period September 1940 through March 1943 and is handwritten, is in the form of long, melancholic letters to his beloved wife, Helena, who remained in German-occupied Poland and thus was unable to read the diary until long after her husband's death. The photo album details life in the 305 bomber squadron, with several photographs from the French episode of the Polish pilot's saga.

Biographical / historical:

Wing commander, Polish air force.

Despite wounds suffered in September 1939, Kleczynski made his way to the Polish forces in Allied France. A few months later, he and his comrades witnessed the collapse of France; evading advancing Germans they boarded a British coal ship in the southwest of France, arriving in Liverpool a week later. In England, Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Kleczynski was given command of the Polish 305 bomber squadron, named after Marshal Jozef Pilsudski. Wounded again during a raid over Cologne, Kleczynski was appointed air attaché in the Polish embassy in Washington. After a few months in the United States, Kleczynski returned to Britain. Hurting both physically and emotionally, Kleczynski, no longer able to fly, spent the final months of his life lecturing in the Polish Air Force Academy in Scotland. He died in March 1944, at the age of forty-one.

Acquisition information:
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library Archives in 2009. An increment was added in 2011.
Physical location:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.

Terms of access:

For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Bohdan KleczyƄski papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Location of this collection:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6003, US
Contact:
(650) 723-3563
hooverarchives@stanford.edu
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