Letter to a member of parliament concerning Polish airman's wish to remain in Great Britain

Letter to a member of parliament concerning Polish airman's wish to remain in Great Britain

Provides some service history of Polish airman Sergeant Soltysiak who wished to settle in Great Britain and mentions marriage to an English girl and seeking help by looking into the matter.

Two page typewritten lettter

This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.

E[Author]HMGov[Date]-01

The House of Commons,
Westminster,
[underlined] LONDON. [/underlined]

Dear Sir,

Sometime ago, while I was serving with the R.A.F. in Burma, I raised some queries with you regarding the conditions of service there, your reply was an obvious indication that you were good enough to go into the matter most thoroughly, for which I was grateful.

I wondered if I could prevail upon your [missing word] once again, tackle what to my mind is a case [missing word] merits your attention.

The matter is regarding the establishment of [missing word] Polish N.C.O. in civilian life in this country, the facts are in regard to 781032 Sgt. Soltysiak (R.A.F.) and are these-;

This Polish airman, in company with many others of his kind, braved a hazardous journey across several countries to fight our cause in the dark days of 1939-40, he flew aircraft on bombing missions until grounded for medical reasons.

During 1942 he married an English girl and [missing word] 1945 applied for British nationality (after going [missing words] considerable trouble and expense, and although no [missing word] were made he has not yet received any satisfactory conclusion to this application).

This year he joined the P.R.C. scheme, understanding that he would be in his camp until such time as he either found a job or was sent for trade training.

Contd.

[page break]

[missing words] airman was [missing words] appointment with a local build [missing words] the capacity of Bricklayers Labourer, YOU will imagine his surprise Sir, when his prospective employers received a letter from the King’s Lynn Exchange, suggesting that the position could be filled with British labour.

In addition the airman himself received a letter from his own labour exchange saying ‘Quote’ “I regret to inform you that the local office are not prepared to approve this vacancy, so no further action can be taken on this matter with regard to your relegation.”

As an ex-airman and an Englishman (of which I used to be proud) I can only say I am filled with disgust [missing words] that we should break our word to these men [missing words] call [missing words]

At the same time I understand that lots of things are done in the ‘good name’ of the British Government’, for which they are not really responsible.

In conclusion I can only say that I hope you will agree with my point of view and perhaps spend a little of your valuable time to go into this matter to ensure that justice is done in this and EVERY case of its kind.

Trusting for a reply at your convenience,

Yours truly,

[signature]