Jerzy Bogdan Cynk (11 May 1925 – 18 November 2016) was a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

- British historian, journalist and writer, author of numerous English and Polish language publications on aviation of Poland. During World War II he was a soldier of the Szare Szeregi and the

Home Army The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) esta ...

. Arrested by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

in 1943, he was imprisoned in the infamous

Pawiak Pawiak () was a prison built in 1835 in Warsaw, Congress Poland. During the January 1863 Uprising, it served as a transfer camp for Poles sentenced by Imperial Russia to deportation to Siberia. During the World War II German occupation of ...

prison and then sent to

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

. Transferred to

Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners ...

he was liberated by American forces on 3 May 1945. In September of that year he joined the

Polish II Corps The Polish II Corps ( pl, Drugi Korpus Wojska Polskiego), 1943–1947, was a major tactical and operational unit of the Polish Armed Forces in the West during World War II. It was commanded by Lieutenant General Władysław Anders and fought wit ...

and briefly served in counter-intelligence in Northern Italy. In 1947 he moved to

Bodney Bodney is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Hilborough, in the Breckland district, in the county of Norfolk, England. In 1931 the parish had a population of 70. History Bodney is an Anglo-Saxon name meaning 'Beoda's island ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and then settled in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. Working for various BOC branches, he devoted most of his spare time to studies on Polish aviation history, notably the history of Polish armed forces during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Since 1953 he started publishing articles in '' Flight'' and numerous other journals, including ''L'Fanatique de l'Aviation'', ''Aerospace Historian'', ''Air Power'', ''Skrzydła'' and ''Air Progress''. He also authored Poland-related chapters of '' Jane's All the World's Aircraft'' (1953/54 and 1963/64 editions). After 1956 his articles started to be published also in Poland, notably in ''

Skrzydlata Polska ''Skrzydlata Polska'' is a Polish aeronautics magazine, published since 1930. It is the oldest journal on the subject of aviation in Poland.Andrzej Oset, Geneza Skrzydlatej Polski, "Skrzydlata Polska", nr 9 (1997), s. 58-61, The magazine is impor ...

''. He also collaborated regularly with the Polish Section of BBC and the Radio Free Europe. Apart from being a co-author of several aviation encyclopaedias (including ''Combat Aircraft of the World'' and ''The Lore of Flight''), he authored and published numerous books on Polish civil and military aviation, as well as Polish aeroplanes.

References

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Jerzy Bogdan Cynk
accessed 2011-10-25 {{DEFAULTSORT:Cynk, Jerzy 1925 births 2016 deaths Polish male writers Polish resistance members of World War II British writers Polish historians British military historians