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58%u0004%u0005%u0005%u0007%u000c%u0006%u0004%u0006#%u0004%u00012%u0006%u000b%u0006%u0001%u0004%u0008%u0006%u0004%u0010%u0018%u0006%u000b%u0006#%u000c%u0001%u0010%u0006%u000f%u0001fi%u0004%u0010%u0006%u0004%u0005%u0005%u0007%u000c%u0006%u000c%u00164(%%u0016%u0006%u000b(-(.(8%u0006Stuart Hadaway read History at Christchurch College, Canterbury 1997?2000, subsequently adding a Postgraduate Diploma in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester. He spent two years with the Museum of the Worcestershire Soldier, followed by five at the RAF Museum before taking up his present appointment with the Air Historical Branch in 2009. He recently published a book on the tracing of RAF aircrew who were posted missing during WW II. More than a dozen European1 countries were represented in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, totalling over 30,000 personnel (see Figure 1). Two thirds of them came from Eastern Europe, notably Poland (nearly half the overall total), but men and women also came from the length and breadth of the continent, from colonies across the globe, and neutral countries where expatriates had taken up residence. Some 10,000 or so personnel came from Western Europe. The largest contingent was the French, especially as the Vichy domains in Africa were slowly liberated. With some of these exiles came political strife that would cast a shadow over many of them, but overall theirs would be a significant contribution towards the final victory. The Air Ministry and the Foreign Office would spend a considerable amount of their time throughout the war placating, pleading and generally politicking with the allied governments in exile. A good deal of liaison work had been carried out with the French, and later Norwegians, in the early months of the war, although approaches to the Netherlands and Belgium had been firmly rebuffed on the grounds of their neutrality. With the Belgians in particular, this would later cause resentment that would take a long time to dispel.2An Allied Military Commission had been established to liaise between the Allied nations, but in July 1940, with the rest of Europe fallen, this was disbanded and the Air Ministry set up its own organisation: The