Fighter Pilot turned Lancaster Captain - Antoni Ilnicki
Antoni Ilnicki was born on 19 June 1918 in Stanislawow, then in Poland but now part of Ukraine. Training as a pilot in Poland, he escaped to Romania with other Polish Air Force personnel in September 1939. Travelling via Yugoslavia, Italy and France, he arrived in England during 1940. Ilnicki flew his first Tiger Moth flight with 25 (Polish) Elementary Flying Training School at RAF Hucknall on 17 August 1941, with Flt Lt Gajek, being sent solo by Flt Lt Norfolk on the 19th. His final flight from Hucknall after 53 hrs flying on the Tiger Moth as a solo spinning exercise, flown in R4769 on 18 September 1941.
Ilnicki continued his training with 16 (Polish) Service Flying Training School (SFTS), flying Fairey Battles and Miles Masters, graduating as a ‘F’ pilot on 11 Apr 1942. He joined No 6 Anti-Aircraft Co-Operation Unit, based at Manchester (Ringway), spending May 1942 detached to RAF Sealand, flying Lysanders and Masters, mainly on ‘Chester Co-Operation’. His flying from Ringway during June 1942, was mainly ‘Buxton Co-Operation' in Tiger Moths. One assumes that it was during this period that Antoni Ilnicki met his future wife.
Posted to No 58 Operational Training Unit, at RAF Grangemouth, he flew a Spitfire for the first time on 6 October 1942 and for the last time on 22 Oct. A dramatic change in his destiny occurred around this time, as he returned to 16(P)SFTS for a ‘refresher’ course, which involved him qualifying as a multi-engined pilot on the Airspeed Oxford between November 1942 and March 1943.
Warrant Officer Ilnicki joined 300 (Polish) Sqn at RAF Faldingworth with his all-NCO crew and carried out his first mission, to Gelsenkirchen, on 6 November 1944. During this mission, the crew witnessed an aircraft exploding and its wreckage falling past them; one 300 Sqn aircraft did not return. Ilnicki’s crew completed 32 missions against German industrial, transport and oil targets, and raids in support of the advancing allied armies. Their missions included Operation THUNDERCLAP against Chemnitz and the two largest raids of the War, against Essen and Dortmund. The details of all his missions can be found here.
Lancaster NG265, in which the Ilnicki crew flew most of their missions, at RAF Faldingworth
Settling in Manchester post War, Antoni Ilnicki worked as a heating engineer, decorator and repairing property. He died on 18 June 2000.
