-remove- (Mhoulsby) wrote in message ...
(snipped)
There is no doubt that without its Polish pilots (and Canadians and Hungarians
and Indians... although Poles comprised the greatest number of foreign
nationals) the RAF would, at the very least, have struggled to win the Battle
Of Britain and would most probably have lost.

Some historical inaccuracies in that statement have been corrected earlier
in this thread.

According to the RAF Battle of Britain Museum (Hendon, England), during the
Battle of Britain (1940), Fighter Command had a total of 2863 airmen (503 of
them were killed in the Battle) flying on its operations. Of these airmen,
2316 (403 were killed) were from the United Kingdom, and 547 (100 were killed)
were not from the United Kingdom.

So slightly under 20% of the participating airmen (and the fatalities) were
not British. On average, the non-British airmen were more skilled than the
British airmen, many of whom had been hastily trained before being flung into
the Battle. Hence, the non-British airmen probably accounted for at least 25%
and perhaps more than 30% of Fighter Command's effective strength. Without
their vital contributions, the margin between victory and defeat would have
been erased, and the Luftwaffe should have been able to win the battle of
attrition in the skies over Britain in 1940.

http://www.guardiancentury.co.uk/194...128255,00.html

'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.'
--Winston Churchill (21 August 1940)

--Nick