{"id":1574738,"date":"2018-03-08T11:10:20","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T10:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/armahobbynews.pl\/en\/?p=1574738"},"modified":"2024-07-11T09:13:03","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T07:13:03","slug":"pzl-p-7a-70007-of-2nd-lieutenant-zygmunt-kinel-151-fighter-squadron-1939","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armahobbynews.pl\/en\/blog\/2018\/03\/08\/pzl-p-7a-70007-of-2nd-lieutenant-zygmunt-kinel-151-fighter-squadron-1939\/","title":{"rendered":"PZL P.7a of 2nd Lieutenant Zygmunt Kinel, 151. Fighter Squadron, 1939"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today we present another airplane from PZL P.7a Expert Set 1939 model kit<\/a>. Aircraft of the elite 151. Fighter Squadron presents spectacular unit insignia and may be displayed on a very interesting diorama setting from 1939 Polish roads. Read the history and see great photos! \"PZL<\/a><\/p>\n

PZL P.7a, 151. Fighter Squadron from City of Wilno, in 1939 attached to the \u201cNarew\u201d Task Force. 2nd<\/sup> Lt. Zygmunt Kinel\u2019s airplane.<\/em><\/p>\n

Fighters from City of Wilno<\/h3>\n

III\/5 Fighter Wing, consisting of Squadrons 151. and 152. has been formed in the 1937 summer, along with the III\/6 City of Lw\u00f3w Fighter Wing, as the last Polish fighter unit before the start of the war. Its personnel came from the disbanded \u201cthird\u201d squadron from Toru\u0144 \u2013 143. Fighter Squadron, with addition of the fresh graduates of the pilot schools. During peacetime its base was Wilno-Porubanek airfield. Despite quite short experience, the fighters from Wilno have reached very high skill level. It was proven by the Wing contingent victory in 1938 Central Fighter Aviation Contest. The three winners were: 2nd<\/sup> Lt. Anatol Piotrowski and Cpl. Stanis\u0142aw Brzeski from 152. and 2nd<\/sup> Lt. Zygmunt Kinel from 151. Sqadron.<\/p>\n

Wartime assignment \u2013 \u201eNarew\u201d Army Task Force<\/h3>\n

Mobilization plan for the war against Nazi Germany included split of the Wing and attachment of the separate squadrons to the Armies defending the country North border with East Prussia. Stronger, PZL P.11c equipped 152. Squadron joined the \u201cModlin\u201d Army and the 151. Squadron, flying older PZL P.7a fighters \u2013 the \u201cNarew\u201d Army Task Force. On 31st<\/sup> August the units flew to the frontline airfields, for 151. Sq. it was Biel village near Ostr\u00f3w Mazowiecka. The squadron, commanded by 1st Lt. J\u00f3zef Brzezi\u0144ski, despite the best skills of the crews, was not considered a first-rate unit by the Command. Everybody knew that the obsolete PZL P.7a are no match for the fast German airplanes, so the squadron had lower priority of supply. Because of that till the outbreak of the war only three of its PZLs had their worn and often jamming Vickers machine guns replaced with new PWU wz. 33 guns.<\/p>\n

\"wile\u0144ski<\/a><\/p>\n

PZL P.7a, 151. Fighter Squadron\u00a0 in 1939.\u00a0 Airplane of the Squadron commander Lt. J\u00f3zef Brzezi\u0144ski, Brze\u015b\u0107-Adamkowo aifield, September 1939. Markings of this airplane are incuded in <\/em>70008 PZL P.7a Junior Set<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

September sky<\/h3>\n

Despite that the orders given to the 151. Squadron on the first day of the war were very challenging. Besides of the maintaining of typical combat air patrol over ground forces of the \u201cNarew\u201d TF, the first mission was escort of the PZL P.23 Kara\u015b bomber from 51. Squadron performing reconnaissance and ground attack sortie over enemy territory of Prussia (Olsztyn and Szczytno cities). The fighters near Myszyniec have spotted and strafed the units of German 1st<\/sup> Cavalry Brigade, and the Kara\u015b bomber has bombed the transport column. This was followed by the reconnaissance of the German airfield near Szczytno. The mission was successful, but the losses inflicted to the Germans were only moderate, because the old Vickers MGs have jammed very quickly. The following days were similar lights and shadows of Army Cooperation unit daily work: strafing of the German cavalry, combat air patrols against enemy reconnaissance and even attacking enemy observation balloons! Such WWI-style mission was performed on 6th<\/sup> September near Polish-defended R\u00f3\u017can bridgehead by the 2nd<\/sup> Lt. Zygmunt Kinel, who was unfortunately not able to shot down the balloon due to Vickers MGs jamming. Worn guns were the Squadron\u2019s nightmare, severely limiting its combat value. Despite the ground crews efforts the armament was never fully functioning.<\/p>\n

Against Guderian\u2019s tanks<\/h3>\n

Since 9th September morning the Squadron was stationed on the Brze\u015b\u0107-Adamkowo airfield of the famous former Imperial Russian Brze\u015b\u0107-Litovsk fortress, at that time used as Polish Army Headquarters. The pilots defended the fortress against the air raids and performed strategic reconnaissance missions for the Supreme Commander. The most important was constant surveillance of the fast-moving armoured forces of the XIXth Corps led by Gen. Heinz Guderian, famous creator of the Blitzkrieg doctrine and brilliant tank commander. These missions were very dangerous due to the heavy and effective anti-aircraft armament of the Panzer-columns. On 11th<\/sup> September piloted by 2nd<\/sup> Lt. Zygmunt Kinel PZL P.7a marked with \u201c6\u201d has been hit by the German flak over the armoured column near Zambr\u00f3w. The wounded pilot managed to safely land behind friendly lines and was taken to the hospital in Wilno, but the airplane was soon captured by advancing German tanks of the elite Panzer-Lehr-Abteilung (Armoured Battalion manned by the highly skilled tank school\u2019s instructors), the only German unit equipped at that time with the newest Panzer III E tanks. Their crews made some souvenir photos of the tanks near the damaged airplane.<\/p>\n

\"P.7a<\/a><\/p>\n

2nd<\/sup> Lt. Kinel\u2019s <\/em>airplane with two Panzer III E tanks of the Panzer-Lehr-Abteilung. \u201cSouvenir hunters\u201d have already removed the rudder. Photo from dr Tomasz Kopa\u0144ski collection<\/em><\/p>\n

Zygmunt Kinel\u2019s \u201eThe six\u201d \u2013 modeller\u2019s view<\/h3>\n

Marked with the number \u201c6\u201d and the blue condor \u2013 unit marking of the 151. Fighter Squadron, the airplane is well documented by the German photos and may be very tempting subject for the modeler, both as a \u201cnormal\u201d airplane model or as an interesting diorama with German tanks and trucks as well. The number \u201c6\u201d on the plane side (ordinal number of the plane in the unit) is on the photo visibly darker than the white of the national markings (the checkerboards), it was painted probably in blue (but could have been yellow too). We don\u2019t know the whole serial number, but the part of its dark (red) first digit \u201c6\u201d is barely visible near the tailplane leading edge. Wing undersurfaces are not visible, but we can assume (similarly as on the PZL from the same unit marked with \u201c1\u201d), that the checkerboards had white fields and the big tactical underwing number was not present, and plane was marked only with the letter \u201cL\u201d denoting the 5th<\/sup> Air Regiment from Wilno. Clearly visible are asymmetricaly applied small checkerboards on the wing top surface. The most difficult to determine is presence of the \u201cP 7\u201d type marking on the fin and rudder. One can\u2019t see it on the picture, but the light conditions make this area of the photo not very clear due to the low-contrast \u2013 also the red parts of the checkerboard are hard to distinguish from the khaki surroundings. So the decision in this case we leave to the modeler.<\/p>\n

\"P.7a<\/a><\/p>\n

2nd<\/sup> Lt. Kinel\u2019s <\/em>airplane after emergency landing near Zambr\u00f3w, with the German soldiers of the motorized unit. Photo from dr Tomasz Kopa\u0144ski collection<\/em><\/p>\n

Diorama with the tanks?<\/h3>\n

Which of the modellers has not thought about building a diorama with airplane and tanks standing together? In reality such situations are very rare and rather unrealistic. This time we have an exception: the photographs, being historical documentation, justifies placing near your airplane model not only one, but two Panzer III E tanks (very good, though a bit simplified kit is cheaply available in the \u201cFirst to Fight\u201d series)! Used by the Panzer-Lehr-Abteilung \u201cmark III\u201d tanks were in September 1939 most modern Panzerwaffe equipment. According to the rules these were camouflaged with the dark grey Panzergrau colour with brown fields. White crosses typical for 1939 are clearly visible on the turret, while on the front hull armour these were often covered with mud as they made an excellent aid for the enemy artillery aimers. The tactical numbers were most probably yellow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>Advertisement<\/h3>\n

Check out PZL aircraft model kits<\/a> in Arma Hobby Internet Shop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today we present another airplane from PZL P.7a Expert Set 1939 model kit. Aircraft of the elite 151. Fighter Squadron presents spectacular unit insignia and may be displayed on a very interesting diorama setting from 1939 Polish roads. Read the history and see great photos!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":1577101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,20],"tags":[237,452,273,151,460],"class_list":["post-1574738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-history","tag-70007-en","tag-452","tag-pzl-en","tag-p-7a-en","tag-vilnus","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/armahobbynews.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/armahobbynews.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/armahobbynews.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armahobbynews.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armahobbynews.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1574738"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/armahobbynews.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1595814,"href":"https:\/\/armahobbynews.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574738\/revisions\/1595814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armahobbynews.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1577101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/armahobbynews.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1574738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armahobbynews.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1574738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armahobbynews.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1574738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}