(Nick) wrote in message . com...
From: "Jerzy"
Date: 28/08/03 07:33 GMT Daylight Time
Message-id:
Right Nick, I`ve just heard on the radio that today we are commemorating
Polish pilots that fought in the Battle of England in 1940 on your side.
There were several squadrons of them. Over two thousand sacrificed their
lives in the air fight. 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.

Actually, the Royal Air Force officially recognised its highest scoring fighter
pilot in the Battle of Britain as James ('Ginger') Lacey (1917-1989), a NCO
who was flying the Hawker Hurricane (then the most common RAF fighter type),
with 18 confirmed victories. At the war's end, Lacey was credited with a total
of 28 confirmed victories in air combat.

During the shooting of the 1969 film, "The Battle of Britain", Adolf Galland,
an expert consultant who had been a top German fighter ace during the battle,
became engaged in a passionate argument when he contended that the Luftwaffe
did *not* lose the Battle of Britain. Evidently, he believed that the
Luftwaffe should have won the battle eventually if it had continued fighting
it with improved tactics.

Adolf Galland (1912-1996) became the Luftwaffe's General der Jagdflieger.
At the war's end, Galland (who had been demoted to take command of JV 44,
an elite unit of pilots flying the Me-262 jet fighter) was credited with a
total of 104 confirmed victories in air combat.

For further reading:

"The Battle of Britain: the Making of a Film" by Leonard Mosley
"Die Ersten und die Letzten" ("The First and the Last") by Adolf Galland
"Adolf Galland: the Authorised Biography" by David Baker

(William Falkner (1826-1889) and William Faulkner (1897-1962) are different.)

"War on paper and war on the field are as different as darkness from light,
fire from water, or heaven from earth."
--William Falkner (The Little Brick Church)

--Nick