"Nick" wrote in message
om...

To be more accurate, it's called the 'Battle of Britain'.

Yes, the sun never sets on the British Empire ;-)


There were several squadrons of them. Over two thousand sacrificed
their
lives in the air fight.

To be more accurate, more than 2000 Polish airmen may have been killed
during
the entire war, but far fewer than 2000 were killed during the Battle of
Britain in 1940.

Thanks for correcting me. That`s exactly what I`ve heard on the radio but
distorted a little ;-)


The most famous was of course squadron 303.

303 'Kosciuszko' Squadron--named in honour of Tadeusz Kosciuszko
(1746-1817),
a national hero in Poland and the United States--was formed on 2 August
1940
in Northolt, England. 303 Squadron fought in the Battle of Britain from
31 August 1940 until 11 October 1940, shooting down 125 aeroplanes (as
officially confirmed kills), which made it the highest scoring RAF
squadron
in the Battle of Britain. Out of the 38 pilots who then flew in the
squadron,
34 were Polish, three were British officers, and the highest scoring
fighter
pilot was a Czech, Josef Frantisek, who shot down 17 aeroplanes (more than
anyone else during the Battle of Britain) before his death on 8 October
1940.

Nice statistics, Nick.
I must look it up in the book about the 303 squad written by Polish writer
Arkady Fiedler ;-)

In general, the non-British pilots in the Royal Air Force were more
skilled
than the British pilots at that time, and a disproportionately high number
of its leading fighter aces were not British.


I`ve heard about several aces in RAF of English origins but I`m not sure.
Anyway I`m not a historian ;-)

Regards,
Jerzy