Page 37 - Demo

37%u2018%u2026the typical Englishman [differed] little in temperament from a fish.%u20196 It did not take long for the Slavs to discover that British people were much nicer than they had imagined, and they appreciated the genuine kindness and consideration they were shown. At the same time, some of the newcomers felt that their hosts privately considered them, in the words of one author, %u2018a rung or two lower on the ladder of civilization.%u20197 By way of example, Pilot Officer Wladyslaw Nowak was invited to a lavish party, complete with orchestra, only to be asked by his well8meaning hostess if Polish people %u2018lived in houses.%u2019 Amused, he and a friend borrowed two violins and established their cultural credentials by playing a Brahms duet.8 It should be said that Nowak%u2019s country had not enjoyed a good press before the war, being presented as a prickly, militaristic state given to ugly expressions of anti8Semitism. Now, however, British propaganda sentimentalised the Poles, portraying them as romantic cavaliers who fought with a primal hatred of the enemy. The Czechoslovaks for their part had been memorably dismissed by Neville Chamberlain as a people %u2018in a far8away country%u2026of whom we know nothing%u2019; and while there may have been residual guilt in Britain at having let them down at Munich, in Whitehall, Czech refugees were viewed as politically suspect.9 In fairness to the British, the Central Europeans presented very real political, social and administrative problems at a time of grave national peril. At all levels the language barrier had a profound effect on interaction between the exiles and their RAF comrades, and it raised doubts about the wisdom of attempting to integrate them into Fighter Command%u2019s sophisticated system of command and control. The authority of Polish and Czechoslovak leaders, both civil and military, had been compromised by defeat and it was by no means certain that they commanded the loyalty of their men. Worse, communists and fascists present in Slav units represented a disruptive element alarming to the British with their traditional mistrust of politicised fighting forces. These problems were compounded by the Air Ministry%u2019s decision to commission all exiled air force officers in the lowest rank of Pilot Officer before assessing their suitability for promotion.10 Broadly speaking this arrangement favoured younger, more active men at the expense of desk8bound senior and middle8