Funeral of General Sikorski, Plymouth 1943, source: Wikimedia Commons

On 4 July 1943, at 23:07, moments after take-off from Gibraltar Airport, Liberator II aircraft AL523 with General Władysław Sikorski on board crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. The body of the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces was soon fished out of the waters of the Bay of Catalonia. Despite several independent investigations, none of the bodies of the victims of the crash have ever been found, and historians still do not know what caused it. British military historian Jonathan Walker believes that the death of General Sikorski significantly weakened Poland’s position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, especially in view of Joseph Stalin’s then policy of consistently trying to isolate Poland internationally. This was confirmed by the arrangements of the Tehran Conference regarding the future geopolitical positioning and borders of our country.