Page 54 - Demo

54%u0010%u0013%u0016%u0017)2%u00061 Zamoyski, Adam; The Forgotten Fe the Polish Air Force in the Second World War (John Murray, 1995), p66. 2 The first two PAF bomber units, Nos 300 and 301 (Polish) Squadrons, were formed at Bramcote on 1 and 22 July 1940 respectively. It was initially believed that Polish airmen were unsuitable for training as fighter pilots because their fighting spirit had been damaged by defeat in 1939. 3 Cynk, Jerzy B; The Polish Air Force at War: the Official History: Volume One, 1939?1943 (Schiffer Military History, 1998), pp1508152. Michael Alfred Peszke discusses the legal status of the PAF in %u2018The Polish Air Force in the United Kingdom, 193981946%u2019, Air Power Review, Volume 11 Number 3 (2008). 4 The first part of this paper draws heavily on chapters Two and Three of Alan Brown%u2019s study of the evolution of British policy towards the Allied air forces, Airmen in Exile: the Allied Air Forces in the Second World War (Sutton Publishing, 2000). 5 %u010capka, Flight Lieutenant Jo; Red Sky at Night, (Anthony Blond, 1958), p56 6 Zamoyski, op cit, p57. 7 Ibid, p58. 8 I am indebted to Krysia D Michna8Nowak, daughter of the late Squadron Leader Wladyslaw Jan Nowak, for this anecdote. 9 Brown, op cit, pp84886. 10 TNA AIR2/6053: Polish Units Employed with the RAF 8 Rank on Entry and Promotion of Officers. 11 Zamoyski, op cit, p65. 12 Brown, op cit, p 43 & 92. 13 TNA AIR2/4213: Report by Flight Lieutenant Landau, 29 March 1940; Landau%u2019s findings are discussed in Brown, Ibid., pp30832. 14 TNA AIR2/7196: Minute by Wing Commander C Porri, 24 May 1940. This offers a more sympathetic assessment of the Poles and their disciplinary and organisational problems and concludes: %u2018I cannot help feeling that there must, in the present crisis, be a growing feeling of impatience and unrest amongst so large a body of men whose aim in coming here was to help the Allied cause%u2026. and who at this crucial moment find themselves limited to such duties as foot drill, guarding the station, lectures etc.%u2019 15 Royal Air Force Museum (RAFM) X00580968: Interview of Squadron Leader Miroslav Antonin Liskutin covering the period 192881973; Liskutin, Squadron Leader Miroslav; Challenge in the Air: a Spitfire Pilot Remembers (William Kimber, 1988), p66; Brown, op cit, pp91895. 16 Liskutin, p67. On 18 September 1941, Sergeant P%u0159eu%u010dil escaped to occupied Belgium in a Hurricane of 55 Operational Training Unit. P%u0159eu%u010dil provided information about Czechoslovak personnel for his Gestapo handlers and was later employed as an informer and agent8provocateur in prisoner of war and concentration camps. He was tried and hanged for his crimes in Prague in 1947. 17 TNA AIR2/5162: Proposed Agreement with Czechoslovakian Authorities on Employment of Air Personnel in RAFVR. Letter from Mr M. Ripka of the Czechoslovak Provisional Government to Mr William Strang of the Foreign Office, 10 October 1940. See also Anglo8Polish Agreement, 5 August, 1940: Article 4,