Biplane fighter pilots

Slovakia

Catár Viliam Grún

From left to right: M. Lisický, F. Pociatok and Viliam Grún in the cockpit of a Heinkel He 111
Image kindly provided by Jan Safarik

During the Polish invasion 1939, catár (Sergeant) Viliam Grún were shot down and made an emergency landing on Polish territory, but avoided capture, eventually making it home after a very treacherous journey.

On 26 September 1939 a two-aircraft patrol attacked a Polish RWD-8 which was fleeing to Hungary and it was shot down by catár Grún. The Polish aircraft force-landed near Presov. However no Polish plane was found by ground-troops so it is possible that the Polish pilot only made a forced landing and took of again after Grún left.

Grún ended the war with 1 unconfirmed biplane victory.

Claims:

Kill no.	Date	Time	Number	Type	Result	Plane type	Serial no.	Locality	Unit
	1939
1	26/09/39		1	RWD-8 (a)	Destroyed	Avia B-534		near Presov	39th letka

Biplane victories: 1 unconfirmed destroyed.
TOTAL: 1 unconfirmed destroyed.
(a) Not confirmed.

Sources:
Air Aces Home Page - Jan Safarik
Air Enthusiast No 56 winter 1994 kindly provided by via Lars Larsson
Avia B-534 - Jirí Vraný, 1994
VVS Slovakiib (Aviacia i Vremya 1/99) - V. Kotlobovkiy, 1999 (via Ondrej Repka)