Władysław Sikorski's death controversy
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Władysław Sikorski's death controversy revolves around the death of the commander-in-chief of the
Polish Army The Land Forces () are the land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 62,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stret ...
and
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
of the
Polish government in exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...
, General
Władysław Sikorski Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski (; 20 May 18814 July 1943) was a Polish military and political leader. Prior to the First World War, Sikorski established and participated in several underground organizations that promoted the cause for Polish ...
, in the 1943 B-24 crash in Gibraltar. Sikorski's Liberator II crashed off Gibraltar almost immediately after takeoff, with the plane's pilot being the only survivor. The catastrophe, while officially classified as an accident, has led to several
conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...
that persist to this day, and often propose that the crash was an assassination, which has variously been blamed on the Soviets, British, and even Nazis. The incident is still described by some historians as mysterious and was investigated by the Polish
Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...
. They concluded that the injuries sustained were consistent with a plane crash and that there was not enough evidence to support or reject the theory that the plane was deliberately sabotaged.


Air crash

In late May 1943, Sikorski went to inspect Polish forces stationed in the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
. He was inspecting the forces and raising morale of the Polish troops there. He was also occupied with political matters; around that time, a conflict was growing between him and general
Władysław Anders ) , birth_name = Władysław Albert Anders , birth_date = , birth_place = Krośniewice-Błonie, Warsaw Governorate, Congress Poland, Russian Empire , death_date = , death_place = London, England, United Kingdom , serviceyears ...
. The main reason for this was that Sikorski was still open to some normalization of Polish-Soviet relations, to which Anders vehemently objected. On 4 July 1943, while returning from the Middle East, Sikorski perished, together with his daughter Zofia, his
Chief of Staff The title chief of staff (or head of staff) identifies the leader of a complex organization such as the armed forces, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a principal staff officer (PSO), who is the coordinator of the supporti ...
,
Tadeusz Klimecki Tadeusz Klimecki (November 23, 1895July 4, 1943) – Brigadier General of the Polish Army, Chief of Polish General Staff. Early life and service in the Imperial and Royal Army Tadeusz Klimecki was born in Tarnów, Galicia, Austro-Hungarian Empi ...
, and seven others, when his aircraft, a
Consolidated Liberator II The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and some initial production aircraft were laid down as export models des ...
,
serial number A serial number is a unique identifier assigned incrementally or sequentially to an item, to ''uniquely'' identify it. Serial numbers need not be strictly numerical. They may contain letters and other typographical symbols, or may consist enti ...
''AL523'', crashed into the sea 16 seconds after takeoff from
Gibraltar Airport Gibraltar International Airport or North Front Airport is the civilian airport that serves the British overseas territories, British overseas territory of Gibraltar. The runway is owned by the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), Ministry of ...
at 23:07 hours.


Passengers and crew

The only survivor of the accident was the pilot Flight Lieutenant
Eduard Prchal Eduard Maximilian Prchal (January 1, 1911 – December 4, 1984) was a Czechoslovakian pilot and sole survivor of a 1943 plane crash that killed the Polish Prime Minister. Biography Eduard Prchal was born into a family of cabinet makers. Afte ...
, one of six crew on the aircraft. The 11 passengers killed were: * General
Władysław Sikorski Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski (; 20 May 18814 July 1943) was a Polish military and political leader. Prior to the First World War, Sikorski established and participated in several underground organizations that promoted the cause for Polish ...
– commander-in-chief of the
Polish Army The Land Forces () are the land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 62,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stret ...
and Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile * Major General
Tadeusz Klimecki Tadeusz Klimecki (November 23, 1895July 4, 1943) – Brigadier General of the Polish Army, Chief of Polish General Staff. Early life and service in the Imperial and Royal Army Tadeusz Klimecki was born in Tarnów, Galicia, Austro-Hungarian Empi ...
– Polish Army Chief of
General Staff A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, enlisted and civilian staff who serve the commander of a division or other large military un ...
* Brigadier John Percival Whiteley OBE
Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...
Member of Parliament for
Buckingham Buckingham ( ) is a market town in north Buckinghamshire, England, close to the borders of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire, which had a population of 12,890 at the 2011 Census. The town lies approximately west of Central Milton Keynes, sou ...
'Brig. J. P. Whiteley, M. P.' (obituary) in ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' dated 7 July 1943, p. 7
* Colonel
Victor Cazalet Colonel Victor Alexander Cazalet, MC (27 December 1896 – 4 July 1943) was a British Conservative Party Member of Parliament for nineteen years. He came from a prominent, wealthy English family. In his political career, he was a noted autho ...
MC – British liaison officer to the Polish forces * Colonel
Andrzej Marecki Andrzej Marecki (2 September 1898 – 4 July 1943) was a Polish military officer. He was a colonel in the Polish Army, lecturer in tactics and member of the Polish General Staff during World War II. He died in the controversial 1943 Gibraltar ...
– Polish Army Chief of Operations * Jan Gralewski – an ''
Armia Krajowa 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 ...
'' courier * Lieutenant , Polish Navy who was Sikorski's adjutant * Warrant Telegraphist Harry Pinder, Royal Navy – Chief of the Royal Navy signals station in
Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
* – Sikorski's adjutant * Zofia Leśniowska – Sikorski's daughter and secretary * Walter Heathcote Lock –
Ministry of Transport A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government age ...
representative in the Persian Gulf.


Official investigations

A British Court of Inquiry convened on 7 July that year investigated the crash of Sikorski's Liberator II serial ''AL 523'', but was unable to determine the cause, finding only that it was an accident and "due to jamming of elevator controls", noting that "it has not been possible to determine how the jamming occurred but it has been established that there was no sabotage." The Polish government refused to endorse the report, due to the contradiction about the cause not being determined but sabotage being ruled out, and pursued its own investigation, which suggested that the cause of the accident cannot be easily determined. The political context of the event, coupled with a variety of circumstances, immediately gave rise to much speculation that Sikorski's death had been no accident, and may have been the direct result of a German, Soviet, British, or even Polish
conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...
. In 2008, the Polish
Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...
(IPN) began an official inquiry into the incident. Sikorski was exhumed and his remains were examined by Polish scientists, who in 2009 concluded that he died due to injuries consistent with an air crash and that there was no evidence that Sikorski was murdered, ruling out theories that he was shot or strangled before the incident; however, they did not rule out the possibility of
sabotage Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identitie ...
. One of the IPN historians, Maciej Korkuć, has stated that "many facts suggest an assassination", although another,
Andrzej Chwalba Andrzej Chwalba (born 1949 in Częstochowa) is a Polish historian. Professor of history at the Jagiellonian University (since 1995), the university's prorector of didactics (1999-2002), head of the Institute of Social and Religious History of E ...
, notes that there is insufficient evidence to support this claim. He also complains that some British and Spanish documents still remain classified, hindering the investigation. The British documents concerning the accident will not be declassified until 2050; until that date, they will remain top secret. The Polish investigation ended in 2013 with the conclusion that deliberate tampering to the aircraft could be neither confirmed nor ruled out. As
Roman Wapiński Roman Wapiński (8 March 1931 in Nowa Wieś – 14 May 2008 in Gdańsk) was a Polish historian, lecturer at the University of Gdańsk. He specialized in the history of the Second Polish Republic and right-wing National Democracy political camp, b ...
noted in his biographical entry on Sikorski in the
Polish Biographical Dictionary ''Polski Słownik Biograficzny'' (''PSB''; Polish Biographical Dictionary) is a Polish-language biographical dictionary, comprising an alphabetically arranged compilation of authoritative biographies of some 25,000 notable Poles and of foreigners ...
in 1997, as no conclusive evidence of any wrongdoing has been found, Sikorski's death remains officially classified as an accident. The unresolved questions surrounding his death have led to a number of articles being published in the historical and mainstream press, both in Poland and abroad, questioning these findings. However, Polish historian
Andrzej Garlicki Andrzej is the Polish form of the given name Andrew. Notable individuals with the given name Andrzej * Andrzej Bartkowiak (born 1950), Polish film director and cinematographer * Andrzej Bobola, S.J. (1591–1657), Polish saint, missionary and ma ...
, building on a similar argument by historian
Marian Kukiel Marian Włodzimierz Kukiel (pseudonyms: ''Marek Kąkol'', ''Stach Zawierucha''; 15 May 1885 in Dąbrowa Tarnowska – 15 August 1973 in London) was a Polish major general, historian, social and political activist. One of the founders of Zwi ...
, stated in 2009 that without any evidence all conspiracy theories about Sikorski's death are irresponsible fiction.


Conspiracy theories

The earliest suggestions of a conspiracy was popularized by
Nazi propaganda The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation o ...
which suggested that Sikorski's death was the result of a British–Soviet conspiracy. Some modern sources still note that the accident is not fully explained; for example,
Jerzy Jan Lerski Jerzy Jan Lerski (''nom de guerre'': Jur; also known as George Jan Lerski; 1917-1992); was a Polish lawyer, soldier, historian, political scientist and politician. After World War II he emigrated to the United States, where he became a full profes ...
, in his ''Historical Dictionary of Poland'' (1996) entry on the "Gibraltar, Catastrophe of", notes that "there are several theories explaining the event, but the mystery was never fully solved." For example, there has been uncertainty since the say of the air crash about who boarded the plane and about the exact cargo manifest—all leading to uncertainty as to the identity of the bodies recovered from the crash site; some bodies, including that of Sikorski's daughter, Zofia, were never recovered. Since several bodies were never found and the bodies of several members of Sikorski's entourage were never positively identified, some conspiracy theorists such as journalist and amateur historian
Dariusz Baliszewski Dariusz Baliszewski (14 April 1946 – 10 August 2020) was a Polish historian, journalist and writer. Author of television show "Rewizja nadzwyczajna", he was a common author of historical articles to one of the biggest Polish magazines, ''Wpros ...
postulate that some might have been murdered on the ground< while others might have been abducted to the Soviet Union. Baliszewski and Tadeusz Kisielewski are among those who point out the opportunity the Soviets had at Gibraltar. At about the same time that Sikorski's plane was left unguarded at the Gibraltar airfield, a Soviet plane was parked nearby; it carried Soviet ambassador
Ivan Maisky Ivan Mikhailovich Maisky (also transliterated as "Maysky"; russian: Ива́н Миха́йлович Ма́йский) (19 January 1884 – 3 September 1975), a Soviet diplomat, historian and politician, served as the Soviet Union's ambassad ...
, giving the Soviets an officially confirmed presence at the site of the accident. The head of the British
Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
's
counterintelligence Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ot ...
for the
Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...
from 1941 to 1944 was
Kim Philby Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British secr ...
, the Soviet
double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...
who would defect in 1963 and later claim to have been a double agent since the 1940s. Before 1941, Philby had served as an instructor with the
Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...
, an organization specializing in sabotage and diversion behind enemy lines. Among the rumoured kidnap victims, a prominent role is given to Sikorski's daughter, Zofia Leśniowska, who was reported in 1945 to have been spotted in a Soviet
Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
by a member of the elite Polish commandos (
Cichociemni ''Cichociemni'' (; the "Silent Unseen") were elite special-operations paratroopers of the Polish Army in exile, created in Great Britain during World War II to operate in occupied Poland (''Cichociemni Spadochroniarze Armii Krajowej''). Kazimierz ...
), . Kobyliński attempted in 1945 or 1946 to gather
Armia Krajowa 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 ...
personnel for a mission to rescue Leśniowska. Another controversy surrounds the sole survivor of the flight, a Czech officer,
Eduard Prchal Eduard Maximilian Prchal (January 1, 1911 – December 4, 1984) was a Czechoslovakian pilot and sole survivor of a 1943 plane crash that killed the Polish Prime Minister. Biography Eduard Prchal was born into a family of cabinet makers. Afte ...
. Prchal, like many pilots who did not wish to tempt fate was known for never wearing his Mae West life jacket—but on this occasion, when rescued from the sea, he was wearing one. During the inquiry he denied this, and later blamed the inconsistency on post-crash shock affecting his actions and memory—essentially, on
amnesia Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or disease,Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R., & Mangun, G. (2009) Cognitive Neuroscience: The biology of the mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. but it can also be caused temporarily by the use ...
. Later he explained that he must have instinctively put the vest on when he realised the plane was in trouble. Polish aviation expert Jerzy Maryniak created a simulation of the crash, in which he concluded that the plane must have been under control up until the very moment of the crash. Kisielewski argues that the plane was likely under the control of the second pilot, who died in the crash. Other conspiracy theories point to the British, the German
Abwehr The ''Abwehr'' (German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', but the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context; ) was the German military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the ''Wehrmacht'' from 1920 to 1944. A ...
intelligence agency or the Poles themselves, some of whom (especially under the command of General Anders) had shown animosity toward Sikorski for, at least from their point of view, his policy of "colluding" with Soviet Premier
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
, which reached new heights by the Germans' April 1943 discovery of mass graves filled with thousands of Polish prisoners of war murdered by the Soviets at
Katyn Forest Katyn (russian: Кáтынь; pl, Katyń ) is a rural locality (a '' selo'') in Smolensky District of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located approximately to the west of Smolensk, the administrative center of the oblast. The village had a population o ...
in 1940. In 1967,
David Irving David John Cawdell Irving (born 24 March 1938) is an English author and Holocaust denier who has written on the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany. His works include ''The Destruction of Dresden'' (19 ...
published a book dedicated to this incident, and suggesting British complicity in the incident. Irving's book highlighted what he believed were two other suspicious occasions where assassination attempts may have been made on Silorski during aerial flight; including a crash-landing in Montreal in 1942, where sabotage was a suspected cause. Irving's method and selective use of sources have been the subject of significant criticism. In his book ''Disasters in the Air'', former
KLM KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, legally ''Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V.'' (literal translation: Royal Aviation Company Plc.), is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. KLM is headquartered in Amstelveen, with its hub at nearby Amste ...
pilot and one-time
IFALPA The International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations (IFALPA) is an international not-for-profit organization of national pilots' associations. IFALPA was founded in April 1948 and is based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. History After t ...
president Jan Bartelski, of Polish origin, suggests that the crash of the Liberator that carried Gen. Sikorski was caused by a half-empty mail bag jammed between the horizontal stabilizer and the elevator, thus "freezing" the controls and preventing F/Lt Prchal from gaining altitude after takeoff. The mail bag was in the cargo compartment and was blown out of the aircraft through the side hatch (which in normally configured Liberators would have served to protect the machine gun position) by a strong airflow rushing through the nose gear door.


In popular culture

The crash of Sikorski's Liberator is portrayed in the 1958 film '' The Silent Enemy'', in which the team of Royal Navy divers charged with retrieving Sikorski's briefcase from the wrecked aircraft is led by Lionel "Buster" Crabb, himself later to disappear in 1956 in mysterious circumstances while diving in the vicinity of a visiting
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
warship. In 1968, the play '' Soldaten. Nekrolog auf Genf'' (''Soldiers, An obituary for Geneva'') by German writer
Rolf Hochhuth Rolf Hochhuth (; 1 April 1931 – 13 May 2020) was a German author and playwright, best known for his 1963 drama ''The Deputy'', which insinuates Pope Pius XII's indifference to Hitler's extermination of the Jews, and he remained a controversial ...
debuted in London. The play partially drew on the work of
David Irving David John Cawdell Irving (born 24 March 1938) is an English author and Holocaust denier who has written on the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany. His works include ''The Destruction of Dresden'' (19 ...
and contained the sensational allegation that British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
had been in on the plot. In Hochhuth's play, Sikorski and other passengers were murdered by axe-wielding British commandos. Hochhuth, unaware that the plane's pilot
Eduard Prchal Eduard Maximilian Prchal (January 1, 1911 – December 4, 1984) was a Czechoslovakian pilot and sole survivor of a 1943 plane crash that killed the Polish Prime Minister. Biography Eduard Prchal was born into a family of cabinet makers. Afte ...
was still alive, accused him of participating in the plot. Prchal won a libel case that seriously affected the London theatre which staged the play. Hochhuth never paid the £50,000 imposed on him by the court and subsequently avoided returning to the UK. In 2011, he revealed his source for Churchill's involvement as Jane Ledig-Rowohlt, the British wife of his publisher
Heinrich Maria Ledig-Rowohlt Heinrich may refer to: People * Heinrich (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Heinrich (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) *Hetty (given name), a given name (including a list of peo ...
(née Jane Scatcherd). According to Hochhuth's biographer Birgit Lahann, these rumours relayed by Jane Ledig-Rowohlt had been the sole source for the allegations in the play. In 2009, a Polish film, '' Generał. Zamach na Gibraltarze'' was filmed; the film focused on a plot to assassinate Sikorski.


See also

*
2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash On 10 April 2010, a Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft operating Polish Air Force Flight 101 crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk, killing all 96 people on board. Among the victims were the president of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, and his wife, Maria, ...
, airplane disaster that led to the death of Polish president
Lech Kaczyński Lech Aleksander Kaczyński (; 18 June 194910 April 2010) was a Polish politician who served as the city mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 2005, and as President of Poland from 2005 until his death in 2010. Before his tenure as president, he prev ...
and other Polish dignitaries, which resulted in several conspiracy theories being spread *
Death and state funeral of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq The state funeral of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq was held on 19 August 1988 in the Shah Faisal Mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan. General Zia-ul-Haq, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) who was also serving as the President of Pakistan, was killed when a C-130 Hercule ...
, another leader who died in a plane crash where investigations by two different states came to different conclusions, and where there are multiple actors theorized to have been responsible *
List of unsolved deaths This list of unsolved deaths includes well-known cases where: * The cause of death could not be officially determined. * The person's identity could not be established after they were found dead. * The cause is known, but the manner of death (homi ...


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sikorski, Wladyslaw, death controversy 1943 in Gibraltar Aviation accidents and incidents in Gibraltar British Empire in World War II Controversies in Poland Conspiracy theories in Europe Death conspiracy theories Deaths in Gibraltar Military history of Gibraltar Poland in World War II Unsolved deaths in the United Kingdom