Tadeusz Lesisz – the exhibition

It's quite something to see the name of one's father-in-law in large letters on the front of a national museum! To Gdynia on a family trip for the opening of an exhibition dedicated to the life and times of Tadeusz Lesisz, naval officer and architect. The exhibition will be on for six months, right up to the end of this year, taking in the 15th anniversary of his death. [My obituary of Tadeusz Lesisz is here.]

Left: Aleksander Gosk, deputy director of the Polish Naval Museum in Gdynia, making the opening speech at the event. Mr Gosk made the point that Tadeusz Lesisz was a real-life Private Ryan, in that all three of his brothers were killed during the war. Below: my wife Barbara, Tadeusz's younger daughter, takes guests around the exhibition; to her right are pre-war photographs of Tadeusz's brothers, Edward, Edmund and Feliks. Two were murdered by the Soviets at Katyń, one was murdered by the Nazis. Edmund's Virtuti Militari (Poland's highest military decoration), is on display, which he was posthumously awarded for leading the only Polish attack into the territory of the Third Reich during the September 1939 campaign.
 

Below: Barbara in front of a post-war photo of her father, by then Lieutenant-Commander, and a map with the main campaigns in which he took part, and his medals. He was the artillery officer on board the ORP Dragon during the Normandy campaign, shelling German gun emplacements on the shore, before it was sunk by a German manned torpedo. During the heroic defence of Cowes on the Isle of Wight on 4-5 May 1942, the fierce anti-aircraft fire from the ORP Błyskawica that he directed kept the town and its docks from suffering as badly as might have been feared. He was also artillery officer on the Blyskawica during the Allied landings in North Africa, Operation Torch, where the the ship was hit by a German bomb, resulted in many killed and wounded. 

The exhibition covers the early years of Tadeusz Lesisz (born 10 February 1918), the youngest of 13 (and nine surviving) children of Franciszek and Wiktoria Lesisz. He entered the Polish cadet corp and by the outbreak of WW2 was a cadet officer in the Polish Navy, assigned to the ORP Burza, which along with other Polish naval units was attached to the Royal Navy, alongside which the Polish sailors fought, from the beginning of the war to its end. By 1941, he was the artillery officer on the ORP Błyskawica.

Left: another emotional moment; the ensign from the ORP Błyskawica which draped Tadeusz Lesisz's coffin at his funeral service. His grandson Edmund looks on. He would have been proud of the work his daughter has put into keeping his memory alive – in Poland, as well as on the Isle of Wight, and with the Atlantic and Arctic convoys.

Below: the ORP Błyskawica. The museum laid on a special friends-and-families tour for those who had attended the opening of the exhibition, the highlight of which was visiting the ship's upper superstructure, including the bridge and the gunnery control centre.

Below: the gunnery control centre, with Admiralty Fire Control Clock to the left. It was from here that Tadeusz Lesisz would command the ship's guns.

Below: on the bridge, Moni poses by the ship's wheel.

As we stepped off the Błyskawica, the most intense deluge opened up; it was only 400 metres to our hotel but we got soaked to the skin. Given that I travel light and had no change of clothes, I had to blast myself with the hotel-room hair dryer to be in a state to attend the dinner that took place in the restaurant above the museum.

The exhibition is beautifully and clearly laid out (outstanding design and execution), and though I've dwelt on Tadeusz Lesisz's wartime service, it also shows his post-war work as an architect in England, reproducing some of his designs for schools, hospitals and churches across the North-West. The exhibition also stresses his engagement with the Polish community in the UK, ex-combatants' associations, and his support for the Solidarity movement in Poland, especially after marital law. An exhibition of this kind shows the lives of the people behind institutions such as the Polish navy, and the wealth of materials from his life that have been brought back to Poland, serving to show this heritage, is the credit of his daughter Barbara, who has put in so much time and effort to make this important exhibition a reality.

If, dear reader, you happen to be in Gdynia this summer or autumn, I commend a visit to the Polish Naval Museum and the ORP Błyskawica.

This time five years ago:
Jakubowizna in high summer

This time six years ago:
Warsaw's Raffles Hotel opens

This time nine years ago:
The ballad of Heniek and Ziutek

This time 10 years ago:
Yorkshire's yellow bicycles

This time 15 years ago:
Horse-drawn in the Tatras

This time 16 years ago:
Rain, wind and fire

This time 17 years ago:
The Road beckons