The Memory of Lithuanian Military Pilot Romualdas Marcinkus Laying of a Wreath in Zagan and Poznań
On the 23rd -24th of March in Zagan (Poland) and Poznań, the Defence Attaché of the Republic of Lithuania in the Republic of Poland, Colonel Vilmas Šatas, and the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Lithuania in Poznań, Benedykt Dubski, participated in the 80th anniversary commemoration of the escape of prisoners of war from the nazi camp Stalag Luft III.
The participants of the commemoration paid tribute to the 50 military pilots who took part in the unprecedented escape. Among them was the Lithuanian military pilot, aviation captain Romualdas Marcinkus (1907-1944), who fought in the ranks of the French military aviation and the Royal Air Force of the United Kingdom during the Second World War.
Ambassadors, defence attachés, diplomats and representatives of the Air Force of Lithuania, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France and other representative offices residing in Poland, honoured the memory of the fallen pilots with a moment of silence and placed wreaths at the memorial board. Defence attaché col. V.Šatas and Honorary Consul of the Republic of Lithuania B.Dubski laid a wreath on the grave of captain R.Marcinkaus.
On the night of March 24, 1944, allied pilots imprisoned by the Nazis organized an escape from the POW camp. The escape was organized by about 600 people, of which only eighty were prisoners of war. During the mass escape, the pilots ran through a tunnel dug underground by themselves, but fifty of them were caught, including R. Marcinkus, and shot. Only a few of them managed to escape successfully.
The mass escape of Allied pilots became a real sensation of the Second World War and was called "The Great Escape". A book has been written about this memorable historical event, and in 1963 the feature film "The Great Escape" was created.
