Pre-WWII, pilot for LOT - he is mentioned as being a 'half-million-kilometer pilot' in 1934: "With our brave pilots the second "millioner" will be Mr. Długaszewski, who will complete his million probably this summer, and then pilots Mitz, Płonczyński, Karpiński and Witkowski, who are missing more or less 100,000 km. In [order] then go pilots Dmoszyński, Barciszewski and Tokarczyk, who completed half-million in 1932, pilots Klisz, Jakubowski, Pecho - half-million in 1933, pilots Bocheński, Satel from 1934, pilots Świtalski, Sławiec, Lewicki, Kotarba, Nartowski and Bargiel from 1935." Quite possibly he is in this photo, showing "P. Kazimierz Burzyński (with flowers) surrounded by fellow pilots and the managers and officers of the P. L. L. "Lot" airline" in 1936.
The majority of PLL LOT staff were evacuated in September 1939. Leonard flew Lockheed Electra SP-LMK with 10 passengers to Perth, Scotland, arriving 21 Sep 1939.
Lockheed L-14H Super Electra SP-LMK - one of 10 aircraft of this type purchased by LOT Polish Airlines and then operated in the years 1938–1939 Address in 1939: Flat 4, 29 Nottingham Place, Marylebone, London Postings: 3FPP
d. 28 Oct 1940 (Died in ATA) "On October 28, 1940, I was a five-year-old pupil at Castle Road School, now Lightwoods School, Warley, on the Wolverhampton Road near to the old Warley Odeon. As we were leaving school that afternoon there was an explosion, and a column of smoke could be seen down the hill beyond the Odeon. I saw a body lying at the side of the road covered with some kind of blanket. I picked up a couple of pieces of metal, which I still have, from the wrecked aircraft. One of the men shouted at me, and I ran off to my home at 284 Hagley Road West, about 200 yards away. The aircraft was a Blenheim Mark IV bomber. One of its wings had been severed when it struck the cable of the barrage balloon located in Ridgeacre Road, Quinton, causing the aircraft to crash. In recent years, I have confirmed that the pilot, the sole occupant of the aircraft, whose body it would have been that I saw at the crash site, was First Officer, Leonard Satel of the Air Transport Auxiliary. He lived in Maidenhead and was based at White Waltham Aerodrome, Berkshire. He was Polish.
First Officer Satel will never enjoy the publicity attached to the spitfire women of the Second World War. He will never receive the recently-announced award acknowledging his service with the Air Transport Auxiliary. The fact that he was Polish speaks for itself. He was fighting his war against Nazi Germany, the aggressor who had torn his own country apart, and against whom England had declared war. It was ironic and a tragedy that in the year following the invasion of his homeland First Officer Satel, all the way from Poland, should lose his life by misad-venture in Quinton." JOHN SANDERS, Stourbridge Buried Brandwood End Cemetery, Birmingham "NOTE: The name of L. Satel did not find its rightful place on the Monument to the Honor of Polish Aviators who died in 1939–1945, located in Pole Mokotowskie in Warsaw. It is also permanently omitted in the vast majority of statements of airmen who paid tribute to their lives during aviation activities during World War II. That is why the figure of Leonard Satel (1901–1940) and the memory of his aviation achievements deserve special attention and respect." http://zszachownica.blogspot.com/2018/07/piloci-komunikacyjni-na-niebie.html Probate (for his effects, £110 13s 2d in England) was finally granted on 16 Feb 1954 to "Stanislaw Zebrowski, Head of the Legal Department of the Polish Consulate General in London, and Franciscek Morenc, Consular Attache, attorneys of Tadeusz Leonard Tabenski." Tadeusz Tabenski was also a pre-war LOT pilot. |
c. 1930
