REMEMBRANCE

As Long As We Live

by Charles Casimer Krawczyk


Formats

Softcover
$22.99
$17.30
Hardcover
$34.99
$24.10
Softcover
$17.30

Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 5/19/2006

Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 6x9
Page Count : 428
ISBN : 9781420881189
Format : Hardcover
Dimensions : 6x9
Page Count : 428
ISBN : 9781420881196

About the Book

In the “August Madness” of 1914, most of Europe was at war.

They, of the forgotten Polish Blue Army Air Corp, soared as eagles in their rickety crates, through two wars, their wings straining and guy wires screaming as their machine guns chattered and bombs dropped in support of the ground wars.

By a combination of historical facts and fiction the human drama of the times is brought to life through the struggles of a young Polish farm peasant. To avoid Austrian army conscription he immigrated to the United States, but nevertheless became a part of the obscure Canadian-trained, American-immigrant Blue Army. Under the command of the French, they fought the tragically devastating battles of the trenches. Transferred to its newly formed air corps, he became an airman. Facing the German Fokker scourge with each flight, the airman’s mortality rate became greater than of the trenches. Most barely lasted weeks, a few became aces.

After Armistice, the surprised Blue Army Air Corps was transferred to Poland, now as part of the country’s air force. A group of veteran pilots from the American Air Corps also appeared in Poland, volunteered their services, and created the “Kosciuszko Squadron.”

Russia, shattered by Germany, convulsed by civil war, fell into the grip of the Bolsheviks. Considering that all of Europe was in disarray and professing its intentions to spread the communist revolution throughout the world, the Bolshevik horde crashed on through Poland in the Russo-Polish war of 1920, bent on invading all of Europe. Germany, France and England were too devastated for another war. Only infant Poland stood in the Bolshevik’s way. All of Western European civilization was at bay, and perhaps that of the world. Then a miracle happened.


About the Author

Born of Polish immigrant parents at start of the stock market crash of 1929, Charles Krawczyk spent his youth in the ethnic neighborhood of Black Rock (Buffalo, N. Y.) living with an extended family of parents, grandparents, relatives, and friends as they consolidated their meager assets to weather the Depression. These were the Polish Blue Army veterans that became his personal source of information upon which this book is based.

After his discharge from a tour with the navy during the Korean War, he attended the School of Engineering at the University of Buffalo (also as a scholarship varsity football player). Later he graduated from the Syracuse College of Law to begin forty years of practicing intellectual property law (as a member of the New York, Ohio, Florida, and Hong Kong bars).  Prior to his retirement as the Chief Patent Counsel of a major U. S. corporation, he was involved in mergers, divestitures, and technology transfers on a worldwide basis. He has been instrumental in the creation of several successful joint ventures and technology transfers in China, and became an associate of the Hong Kong law firm of Y. K. Ho & Co.