Kino OKO invites viewers to a screening of the documentary movie “Spitfire Liberator. The Alex Herbst Story” (92′) at the Polish Cultural Center. The movie directed by Sławomir Ciok and produced by Krzysztof Poraj-Kuczewski is in English and Polish with English subtitles. 

The movie tells the story of Witold “Alex” Herbst, a WWII Polish ace fighter pilot, who served in the famous Polish RAF squadrons 308 and 303. Alex was also a member of our local Polish community. The movie had its premiere at the Museum of Flight in Seattle in October 2015. His widow, Doreen Herbst will attend the screening at the Polish Cultural Center.

Witold Aleksander Herbst was born in Warsaw in 1919 in a Polonized family of German origin. He entered the Polish Air Force Academy in Dęblin in 1938. After the WWII started in September 1939, he managed to evade capture and with several fellow cadets joined the Polish forces in France. After training in France and England he flew 141 missions over Great Britain and Europe with the Polish RAF fighter squadrons 303 & 308 from 1942 to 1944. Shot over France in 1943 he escaped through Spain to rejoin his squadron. He ended the war as a captain and was decorated with the Polish Cross of Valor three times and a number of British medals.

Mr. Herbst published two war memoirs in Polish, “Pod angielskim niebem” in 1997 and “Podniebna kawaleria” in 2013 and is featured in the book “The Question of Honor” by Lynn Olson and Stanley Cloud.

After the war, Mr. Herbst stayed in England where he met his wife Doreen. He graduated from the London School of Economics. After over twenty years in England, he moved to the United States and settled in Seattle.

The film is presented by Krzysztof Poraj-Kuczewski.

Free admission.

More: Capt. Herbst bio

by RK