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56303 Squadron: 303 (Polish) Squadron Battle of Britain Diary (Red Kite, 2010). 34 Cnyk, Volume Two, op cit, Appendix 15, p633; Listemann, Phil H (ed); No 310 (Czechoslovak) Squadron, 1940?1945 (Tomas Polak and Phil H Listemann, 2006), pp 8815. 35 Gretzyngier, op cit, pp89890, 105. 36 TNA AIR27/1691: RAF Form 540, Operations Record Book for No 312 Sqn, 194081941; Smith, David J; Action Stations 3: Military Airfields of Wales and the North?West (Patrick Stephens, 1990), p173. 37 Cynk, Volume One, op cit, pp1928194. Mr Cynk makes the point that the figure of 203 enemy aircraft destroyed by the PAF was based on the estimate of 2,692 Fighter Command victories calculated in 1942. In 1947 this figure was reduced to 1,733 in the light of information gleaned from captured German documents but, with the disbandment of the PAF, the Polish figure was never officially reassessed. Mr Cynk suggests that it is reasonable to reduce the total Polish score by the same proportion, ie to 131 enemy aircraft confirmed destroyed. 38 Cynk, Volume One, op cit, pp 1928195; Olson and Cloud, op cit, p151. 39 Gelb, op cit, p49. 40 Sarkar, Dilip; Battle of Britain: Last Look Back (Ramrod Publications, 2002), p149. 41 Despatch from ACM Sir Hugh Dowding to the Air Council, 20 August 1941, quoted in Gretzyngier, Robert and Matusiak, Wojtek; Polish Aces of World War 2(Osprey Publishing, 1998), p26. Dowding however concluded: %u2018Other Poles and Czechs were used in small numbers in British squadrons and fought very gallantly, but the language was a difficulty and they were probably most efficiently employed in their own national units.%u2019 42 Zamoyski, op cit, p97. 43 TNA CAB66/12/14: Chiefs of Staff Committee: Organisation of Allied Naval, Army and Air Contingents, Ninth Weekly Report, 25 September 1940. 44 Brown, op cit, pp12813. This sets out the five (surprisingly enlightened) principles which governed the Air Ministry%u2019s relations with the allied contingents serving in or with the RAF during the Second World War. 45 Zamoyski, op cit, p12. 46 Ibid. 47 Zumbach, op cit, p42. 48 Daily Telegraph, 25 October 1940. 49 RAFM X00386084/151: Vrana, Flight Lieutenant Ada; Life?long Reminiscences of My Dearest Friend Tom%u00e1s Vybiral, pp182. 50 Hurt, Zden%u011bk; Czechs in the RAF in Focus (Red Kite, 2004), p6. In September 1938, the Czechoslovak Air Force was equipped with 326 Avia B.534 biplane fighters, 155 light, medium and heavy bombers of mixed Czechoslovak, French and Soviet manufacture and about 320 reconnaissance machines, mostly Letov %u0160.328s. 51 Ibid. 52 Pezke, Michael Alfred; Poland%u2019s Miitary Aviation, September 1939: It Never Had a Chance, in Robin Higham and Stephen J. Harris (ed.) Why Air Forces Fail: the Anatomy of Defeat (The University Press of Kentucky, 2006), Chapter One. See also

