Antoni Kocjan was a renowned
PolishPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
gliderA glider or sailplane is a type of glider aircraft used in the sport of gliding. Some gliders, known as motor gliders are used for gliding and soaring as well, but have engines which can, in some cases, be used for take-off or for extending a flight...
constructor and a contributor to the intelligence services of the Polish Home Army during World War II.
Antoni was the son of Michal Kocjan and Franciszka Zurawska, born in the village of Skalskie near
OlkuszOlkusz is a town in south Poland with 37,696 inhabitants . Situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship , previously in Katowice Voivodeship , it is the capital of Olkusz County...
. He finished the Gymnasium of
Casimir IIICasimir III the Great , last King of Poland from the Piast dynasty , was the son of King Władysław I the Elbow-high and Hedwig of Kalisz.-Biography:...
in
OlkuszOlkusz is a town in south Poland with 37,696 inhabitants . Situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship , previously in Katowice Voivodeship , it is the capital of Olkusz County...
in 1923 and served in the army during the
Polish-Soviet warThe Polish–Soviet War was an armed conflict between Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine and the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic—four states in post–World War I Europe...
. Consequently he studied at the
Warsaw University of TechnologyThe Warsaw University of Technology is one of the leading institutes of technology in Poland, and one of the largest in Central Europe. It employs 2,453 teaching faculty, with 357 professors . The student body numbers 36,156 , mostly full-time. There are 17 faculties covering almost all fields of...
in the department of electrical engineering and aviation and at the
Warsaw Agricultural UniversityThe Warsaw University of Life Sciences is the largest agricultural university in Poland. It was founded in 1816.-History:On 23 September 1816 the School of Agronomy was founded at Marymont and was accommodated in the palace of Marysa Sobieski. Branches were established at Bielany, Ruda, Wawrzyszew...
. He married Elizbieta Zanussi on 1939-11-30. During his studies he collaborated with the plane constructors of group
RWDRWD was a Polish aircraft construction bureau active between 1928 and 1939. It started as a team of three young designers, Stanisław Rogalski, Stanisław Wigura and Jerzy Drzewiecki, whose names formed the RWD acronym.-History:...
.
In 1929 he finished a pilot's course and in 1930 won the second award at the Young Pilot's Championship. Later he was part of crew in flights on the airplanes
RWD-2-See also:-References:* Glass, Andrzej: Polskie konstrukcje lotnicze 1893-1939 , WKiŁ, Warsaw 1977, p. 286-288 -External links:*...
and
RWD-7-See also:-References:*Andrzej Glass: "Polskie konstrukcje lotnicze 1893-1939" , WKiŁ, Warsaw 1977...
, which beat the world's height record. In 1931 he obtained an engineer's degree and began work at the Experimental Aviation Workshops in Warsaw. In the same year he constructed his first plane "Czajka", a trainer glider that was later put into serialized production in several designs.
Kocjan became the head constructor of the Glider Workshops on the
MokotówMokotów is a dzielnica of Warsaw, the capital of Poland. Mokotów is densely populated. It is a seat to many foreign embassies and companies...
Field in Warsaw in 1932. While there he designed the training glider "Wrona" and in 1933 the training-sport glider "Komar". These three successful gliders and their improved versions, "Czajka-bis", "Wrona-bis" and "Komar-bis", became mass produced in Poland and in lesser quantities under license abroad in
EstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
,
FinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
,
YugoslaviaYugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
,
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, and
PalestinePalestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
. In 1934 Kocjan designed a trainer glider "Sroka" that was also built in significant numbers. Subsequently he designed the aerobatic glider "Sokol" and in 1936, together with Szczepan Frzeszczyk, the aerobatic glider "Mewa". In 1937 he build his most known single-person aerobatic glider "Orlik". The version "Orlik 3" took second place in the competition of standard gliders for the anticipated
1940 Summer OlympicsThe anticipated 1940 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XII Olympiad and originally scheduled to be held from September 21 to October 6, 1940, in Tokyo, Japan, were cancelled due to the outbreak of World War II...
. The version "Orlik 2" in the years 1948-49 was piloted by the American
Paul MacCreadyPaul B. MacCready, Jr. was an American aeronautical engineer. He was the founder of AeroVironment and the designer of the human-powered aircraft that won the Kremer prize...
on which he set the world's height record for gliders of 9,600 meters. In 1937 Kocjan also designed the
motor gliderA motor glider is a fixed-wing aircraft that can be flown with or without engine power. The FAI Gliding Commission Sporting Code definition is: A fixed wing aerodyne equipped with a means of propulsion ,...
"Bąk" of which ten units were built. The production of "Komar" was also renewed after the war.
In the first days of World War II, Kocjan was wounded by bomb shrapnel. After the defeat of Poland in 1939, he became a soldier of the underground ZWZ which later transformed into the Home Army. On 1940-09-19, he was caught in a
street raidA roundup was a World War II practice in German-occupied Poland, whereby the German SS, Wehrmacht and Gestapo rounded up civilians on the streets of Polish cities...
and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. However, he was released after ten months.
He was characterized by a large degree of daring in planning of actions of the Polish resistance, particularly in connection to the underground production of weapons. He made a significant contribution to the identification of
PeenemündeThe Peenemünde Army Research Center was founded in 1937 as one of five military proving grounds under the Army Weapons Office ....
as the testing site of the German Wunderwaffen and worked out the technical nature of the
V-2 rocketThe V-2 rocket , technical name Aggregat-4 , was a ballistic missile that was developed at the beginning of the Second World War in Germany, specifically targeted at London and later Antwerp. The liquid-propellant rocket was the world's first long-range combat-ballistic missile and first known...
.
On 2 June 1944, he was arrested together with his wife and imprisoned in the
PawiakPawiak was a prison built in 1835 in Warsaw, Poland.During the January 1863 Uprising, it served as a transfer camp for Poles sentenced by Imperial Russia to deportation to Siberia....
prison. The
GestapoThe Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
murdered him on the 13th of August in a group of the last forty prisoners of Pawiak during the
Warsaw UprisingThe Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army , to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces...
.
See also
- Home Army and V1 and V2
Aside from the military operations, the Polish Armia Krajowa was also heavily involved in intelligence work, including work done with regard to the German "Wunderwaffe" - the V-1 flying bomb and the V-2 rocket...