Jan Zumbach: Polish Mercenary Pilot
Jan Zumbach enlisted in the Polish Army in 1935 and a year later would transfer to the Airforce. During the summer of 1939, prior to the German invasion, he crashed a plane and suffered a broken leg. His injury prevented him from flying against the Germans during their invasion. His unit was evacuated to France through Romania where he would fly against the Germans. He was shot down by a Messerschmitt Bf-109 and escaped surprisingly unscathed. He would take to the skies once again in June 1940 during the Battle of Britain, where he would shoot down 8 Bf-109s. He would get shot down once again in May 1941 and once again bailout unharmed. He was also one of the first Allied pilots to engage in dogfight with the venerable Focke-Wulf Fw-190. In 1945, on a routine flight to visit the group headquarters, he made a navigational error and ran out of fuel, forcing him to land in German territory where he remained a POW until the end of the war. By the end of WWII he had a total of 12 kills, 5 p
