Operation "Jacket - Marek Celt

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Résumé :
This is the true story of a Polish WWII courier who survived two secret parachute missions and escaped Gestapo capture multiple times. The six-man commando team of Operation Jacket was dropped into Poland before dawn on December 28, 1941, to deliver information and money to the Underground authorities. They flew in under fire, parachuted into a dangerous area, and got into a savage firefight with the Germans almost immediately, losing two men. Second Lieutenant Chciuk and three others got away despite a determined German manhunt, and fulfilled their various assignments in Poland. Chciuk's assignment was to make an assessment of the state of the Polish Underground and report back to HQ. His observations include two unforgettable trips to the Warsaw Ghetto. There followed an arduous and complicated plan for Chciuk to return to HQ in London by any means possible, which included several clandestine border crossings and numerous assumed identities, several visits to Gestapo headquarters in Zagreb, and time spent in a Spanish concentration camp. He finally got back to England in June of 1943, filed his report, and was awarded the Virtuti Militari, Poland's highest military decoration. This is his story....

Biographie:
Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt (1916-2001), writing as Marek Celt, was born in eastern Poland in the small town of Drohobycz. He had just completed his Master's Degree in Law in 1939 when World War II broke out. He was active in the Polish Underground as a courier, and then joined the Polish forces regrouping in Scotland. He went on two secret parachute missions into occupied Poland, and survived them both. After the war, he worked for Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany for many years....

Sommaire:

This is the true story of a Polish WWII courier who survived two secret parachute missions and escaped Gestapo capture multiple times. The six-man commando team of Operation Jacket was dropped into Poland before dawn on December 28, 1941, to deliver information and money to the Underground authorities. They flew in under fire, parachuted into a dangerous area, and got into a savage firefight with the Germans almost immediately, losing two men. Second Lieutenant Chciuk and three others got away despite a determined German manhunt, and fulfilled their various assignments in Poland. Chciuk's assignment was to make an assessment of the state of the Polish Underground and report back to HQ. His observations include two unforgettable trips to the Warsaw Ghetto. There followed an arduous and complicated plan for Chciuk to return to HQ in London by any means possible, which included several clandestine border crossings and numerous assumed identities, several visits to Gestapo headquarters in Zagreb, and time spent in a Spanish concentration camp. He finally got back to England in June of 1943, filed his report, and was awarded the Virtuti Militari, Poland's highest military decoration. This is his story.