,
Pole Mokotowskie 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Guy la Chambre ordered all C.710s withdrawn.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 Although the planes were hopelessly outdated compared to the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. 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. 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 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.
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. 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. Fighter Command operated with a fully integrated air defence system for ground controlled intercept (the "
Dowding System") to direct squadrons against the Luftwaffe raids and all pilots needed to be able to speak English. 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 set up. Some Polish airmen chose to stay with their British squadrons. 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. The 303 squadron became the
most efficient RAF fighter unit at that time, 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". 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. 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., London 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. 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==