well spotted vpmedia. It is a reference to the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg to the krauts!).
My father was extremely patriotic (as were many Poles) regarding thier turbulent history at the hands of the Tuetonic Knights, Tartars etc. The Knights Gauntlet represented the alliance between the Poles and Lithuanians against the Teutonic order, who had been given permission by the pope to occupy northern Poland following thier participation in the crusades. they were jealous that the Templers had such a hold on Europe and the church. The Pope commanded them to bring `christainity' to the heathen poles, bearing in mind that they had been a christian nation since the 9th century. Eventually the Polish king had had enough of the subjugation by the order, made an alliance with the Lithuanian king (who had been an ally for many years) and met the Teutonic knights at the battle of Grunwald.
The Teutonic order was all but wiped out with the grand master, and all the high command dead on the battlefield. eventually the area known as Prussia was returned to Poland. My father believed that Hitler did not `just' invade Poland to get to Russia, the polish military was strong, highly trained and quite a few of my fathers fellow officers believed that he could have formed an alliance to get passage through Poland but invaded and decided to wipe Poland off the map as revenge for the annihilation of Germany's strongest military order who similar to the Templars were deemed as invincible.
The gauntlet is crushing a messerchmitt on the Polish checkerboard flag background. Both Hub Zemke and Gabby Gabreski said to him that the germans would never imprison him if captured, they would have shot him for that one!!! but my father being so strong willed had a smaller version made to put on his flying jacket (which i have in my possession now).
sorry for the long winded post!
Krys
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Topic: P-47 M 56th FG 'Lanny' Lanowski (Read 21705 times)
