Polish Air Forces in France and Great Britain explained

Unit Name:Polish Air Forces in France and Great Britain
Native Name:Polish: Polskie Siły Powietrzne
Start Date:18 May 1940
Country:United Kingdom, France
Allegiance:Polish government-in-exile
Identification Symbol 3 Label:Fin flash
Aircraft Attack:Fairey Battle
Aircraft Bomber:Avro Lancaster, Vickers Wellington

The Polish Air Forces (Polish: Polskie Siły Powietrzne) was the name of the Polish Air Forces formed in France and the United Kingdom during World War II. The core of the Polish air units fighting alongside the Allies were experienced veterans of the 1939 invasion of Poland. They contributed to the Allied victory in the Battle of Britain and Allied air operations during the war.

A total of 145 Polish fighter pilots served in the RAF during the Battle of Britain, making up the largest non-British contribution.[1] By the end of the war, around 19,400 Poles were serving in the Polish Air Forces in Great Britain and in the RAF.[2]

History

After the German–Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939, most of the flying personnel and technicians of the Polish Air Force were evacuated to Romania and Hungary, after which thousands found their way to France. There, in accordance with the Franco-Polish Military Alliance of 1921 and the amendments of 1939, Polish Air Force units were to be re-created. However, the French headquarters was hesitant about creating large Polish air units, and instead most Polish pilots were attached to small units, so-called keys. Only one large unit was formed, the Groupe de Chasse polonaise I/145 stationed at Mions airfield. However, it was not until May 18, 1940, that this unit was equipped with planes – and even then these were the completely obsolete Caudron C.714 fighters. After 23 sorties the bad opinion of the plane was confirmed by the front-line pilots. It was seriously underpowered and was no match for the enemy fighters of the period. Because of that, on May 25, only a week after the plane was introduced to active service, French minister of war Guy la Chambre ordered all C.710s withdrawn. However, since the French authorities had no other planes to offer, the Polish pilots ignored the order and continued to use the planes. Although the planes were hopelessly outdated compared to the Messerschmitt Bf 109Es they faced, the Polish pilots nevertheless scored 12 confirmed and 3 unconfirmed kills in three battles between June 8 and June 11, losing 9 in the air and 9 more on the ground. Among the planes claimed shot down were four Dornier Do 17 bombers, but also three Messerschmitt Bf 109 and five Messerschmitt Bf 110 fighters. The rest of the Polish units were using the slightly more reliable Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 fighter. A small improvised Polish unit at Salon and Clermont-Aulnat (now Clermont-Ferrand Auvergne Airport) operated the equally inadequate Koolhoven F.K.58 from 30 May commanded by Captain Walerian Jasionowski.[3]

The Polish Air Force in France had 86 aircraft with one and a half of the squadrons fully operational, and the remaining two and a half in various stages of training.[4] Altogether, the Polish pilots flew 714 sorties during the Battle of France. According to Jerzy Cynk, they shot down 51.9 enemy planes (summing fraction kills – 57 kills including 16 shared victories), in addition to 3 unconfirmed kills and 6 3/5 damaged. According to Bartłomiej Belcarz they shot down 53 aircraft, including 19 kills shared with the French. These 53 victories makes 8% of 693 allied air victories in the French campaign. At the same time they lost 44 planes (in combat, accidents and on the ground) and lost 8 fighter pilots in combat, 1 missing, and 4 in accidents.[5]

In Britain

After the collapse of France in 1940, a large part of the Polish Air Force contingent was withdrawn to the United Kingdom. However, the RAF Air Staff were not willing to accept the independence and sovereignty of Polish forces.Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding later admitted he had been "a little doubtful" at first about the Polish airmen. The British government informed General Sikorski that at the end of the war, Poland would be charged for all costs involved in maintaining Polish forces in Britain. Initial plans for the airmen greatly disappointed them: they would only be allowed to join the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, wear British uniforms, fly British flags and be required to take two oaths, one to the Polish government and the other to George VI; each officer was required to have a British counterpart, and all Polish pilots were to begin with the rank of "pilot officer", the lowest rank for a commissioned officer in the RAF. Only after posting would anyone be promoted to a higher grade.[6] Because of this, the majority of highly experienced Polish pilots had to wait in training centres, learning English Command procedures and language, while the RAF suffered heavy losses due to lack of experienced pilots. On June 11, 1940, a preliminary agreement was signed by the Polish and British governments and soon the British authorities finally allowed for the creation of two bomber squadrons and a training centre as part of the Royal Air Force.

Dowding had been doubtful about integration of Polish pilots within British squadrons due to language issues and wanted all-Polish units. In August all Polish airmen became members of the Polish Air Force and four squadrons - two fighter (based on the Poznan and Warsaw air regiments) and two bomber - were setup. Some Polish airmen chose to stay with their British squadrons.[7]

The first squadrons were 300 and 301 bomber squadrons and 302 and 303 fighter squadrons. The fighter squadrons, flying the Hawker Hurricane, first saw action in the third phase of the Battle of Britain in late August 1940, quickly becoming highly effective. Polish flying skills were well-developed from the invasion of Poland and being highly motivated by patriotism for revenge the pilots were regarded as fearless and sometimes bordering on reckless. Their success rates were very high in comparison to the less-experienced British Commonwealth pilots.[8] The 303 squadron became the most efficient RAF fighter unit at that time,[9] and RAF commanders protested when government censors refused to allow this fact to appear in the press. By late 1940 the American visitor Ralph Ingersoll reported that the Poles were "the talk of London" because of their victories. Although at first the Poles memorised basic English sentences to identify themselves if shot down over Britain to avoid being mistaken as Germans, Ingersoll wrote that such pilots returned with "a girl on each arm. They say the girls cannot resist the Poles, nor the Poles the girls". Some British airmen resorted to faking Polish accents to be more successful with women.[10] Bomber squadrons Nos. 300 and 301 started operations on 14 August 1940, attacking German invasion barges in French ports, and then attacking targets in Germany as a part of British bombing offensive.[11]

Many Polish pilots flew in other RAF squadrons, usually given nicknames because, as Ingersoll wrote, "the Polish names, of course, are unpronounceable". Later, further Polish squadrons were created: 304 (bomber, then Coastal Command), 305 (bomber), 306 (fighter), 307 (night fighter), 308 (fighter), 309 (reconnaissance, then fighter), 315 (fighter), 316 (fighter), 317 (fighter), 318 (fighter-reconnaissance) and 663 (air observation/artillery spotting). The fighter squadrons initially flew Hurricanes, then Supermarine Spitfires, and eventually some were equipped with North American Mustangs. Night fighters used by 307 were the Boulton-Paul Defiant, Bristol Beaufighter and the de Havilland Mosquito. The bomber squadrons were initially equipped with Fairey Battles and Vickers Wellingtons, then Avro Lancasters (300 sqn), Handley Page Halifaxs and Consolidated Liberators (301 sqn) and de Havilland Mosquitos and North American Mitchells (305 sqn). 663 flew Auster AOP Mk Vs.

On April 6, 1944, a further agreement was reached and the Polish Air Forces in Great Britain came under Polish command, without RAF officers. This resulted in the creation of a dedicated Polish Air Force staff college at RAF Weston-super-Mare, which remained open until April 1946.[12]

After the war, in a changed political situation, their equipment was returned to the British. Due to the fact that Poland ended the war under Soviet occupation, only a small proportion of the pilots returned to Poland where they suffered from harassment, while the rest chose to exercise their new found right to remain in Britain post war as detailed in the UK Polish Resettlement Act 1947, in doing so they remained exiled from their native country.

A memorial to those Polish pilots killed while on RAF service was erected in 1948 at the south-eastern corner of RAF Northolt aerodrome. On the public highway, it is accessible without entering RAF areas. It is adjacent to the A4180 junction on the A40 Western Avenue; the official name for this junction is "Polish War Memorial". A large memorial to Polish Air Force squadrons in the war is situated on the floor of the north aisle of the reconstructed Wren church, St Clement Danes, London.

The Polish-American fighter ace Francis S. "Gabby" Gabreski flew his first combat missions attached to a Polish RAF squadron.

King George VI, on visiting a Polish squadron, asked a Polish airman what was the toughest thing he had to deal with in the war. The reply was "King's Regulations...."

Polish Volunteer Air Force squadrons' coats of arms

When the Polish RAF squadrons were formed, a series of badges or coats of arms were designed for each of the Polish squadrons or flying units with the exception of 945 & 929 Balloon Squadrons, 1586 Flight and 6(C) OTU.

Some of the squadron badges were based on squadron or escadrille badges of Polish flying units pre-1939 before the Second World War.

Some were long established such as 303's Kościuszko badge and some were designed specially for the large and growing number of flying units being formed in the RAF.

Other squadrons:

Badges

In the Polish Air Force, their Air Force unit badges had two versions depending on which side of the aircraft they were painted, so that the emblem was always pointing or facing forwards. So on the port (left) side, the emblem faced left (forward) and on the starboard (right) side, the emblem faced right (forward).For the RAF Polish squadrons, there was only one design with most facing left, but 308, 316 and 663 squadrons' emblems faced right.

Polish volunteer wings in Allied Air forces, 1940–45

France

List of Polish units based on Bartłomiej Belcarz's research and publications.[5] [13]

United Kingdom

Bases

Statistics

+Deployments1940[16] 19411942194319441945total
ROWSPAN=2 Fighterssorties4,11513,03210,39013,26625,3999,23873,524
hours4,53316,72215,36523,26446,59518,575122,816
ROWSPAN=2 Bomberssorties971,3572,9991,8953,6071,75111,706
hours3687,45117,78811,482.518,1268,88964,113
ROWSPAN=2 Specialsorties–2104191943951,335
hours–228351,5736,7817169,927
ROWSPAN=2 Transportsorties1631,4752,6483,9956,7473,76018,788
hours26114,86816,91420,11130,20414,70997,067
+Claims194019411942194319441945total
destroyed266 1/620290114¾10338½769 5/12
probable38523642102177
damaged43⅔ + 3/560½43662718252 1/6

See also

References

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Number of participants from the Battle of Britain Monument . Bbm.org.uk . 1940-10-31 . 2011-06-07 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150822121641/http://www.bbm.org.uk/participants.htm . 2015-08-22 .
  2. Web site: WWII Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West . In Depth . Fighting with the Allies . PBS . 2011-06-07.
  3. https://books.google.com/books?id=0yXvAAAAMAAJ&q=Walerian+Jasionowski Cync 1998
  4. Book: Andrew Hempel. Poland in World War II: An Illustrated Military History. 7 November 2012. 2005. Hippocrene Books. 978-0-7818-1004-3. 26.
  5. Bartłomiej Belcarz: Polskie lotnictwo we Francji, Stratus, Sandomierz 2002,
  6. For your freedom and ours, The Kosciuszko squadron, Olson & Cloud, pp. 98–100, Arrow books, 2003,
  7. Bungay 2000 p 173
  8. Lynne Olson & Stanley Cloud. 2003. A Question of Honor. The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II. New York: Knopf.
  9. Jerzy B. Cynk. 1998. The Polish Air Force at War: The Official History, 1943–1945. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1998, .
  10. Book: Ingersoll, Ralph . Report on England, November 1940 . Simon and Schuster . 1940 . New York . 197–198.
  11. Hodyra, Piotr (2016). 301 Dywizjon Bombowy 1940–1943 (in Polish). Warsaw: Oficyna Wydawnicza Alma-Press. . pp. 18, 54
  12. Web site: RAF Weston-super-Mare. rafweb.org. 2009-07-12.
  13. Belcarz, Bartłomiej. Morane MS 406C1, Caudron Cyclone CR 714C1, Bloch MB 151/152 (Polskie Skrzydła 2) (in Polish), Sandomierz, Poland: Stratus, 2004. .
  14. Web site: Zmyślony . Wojciech . Polskie Siły Powietrzne w II wojnie światowej . Polskie Siły Powietrzne w II wojnie światowej . Wojciech Zmyślony . 10 April 2020. (In Polish)
  15. Web site: Zmyślony . Wojciech . Polskie Siły Powietrzne w Wielkiej Brytanii 1940–1946 . Siły Powietrzne w II wojnie światowej . Wojciech Zmyślony . 10 April 2020. (In Polish)
  16. Including Polish units both in France and in United Kingdom

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