The true story of a WWII commando parachute mission into occupied Poland

The six-man commando team of Operation “Jacket” was dropped into Poland before dawn on December 28, 1941, to deliver information and money to the Underground authorities. They got into trouble almost immediately, losing two men. Second Lieutenant Tadeusz Chciuk and three others got into a wild firefight with the Germans, managed to get away, and fulfilled their various assignments. Chciuk’s particular mission was to make an assessment of the state of the Polish Underground and report back to HQ in London. His observations include two unforgettable trips to the Warsaw Ghetto. There followed an arduous and complicated plan for Chciuk to get back to HQ “by any means possible.” He finally made it back to England in June of 1943, filed his report, and was awarded the Virtuti Militari, Poland’s highest military decoration. This is his story.

Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt (1916-2001), writing as Marek Celt, was born in eastern Poland in the small town of Drohobycz. He had just completed his Master’s Degree in Law in 1939 when World War II broke out. He was active in the Polish Underground as a courier, and then joined the Polish forces regrouping in Scotland. He went on two secret parachute missions into occupied Poland, and survived them both. After the war, he worked for Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany for many years.