Page 76 - Demo

76ffi%u0001%u0010%u0007%u00103%u0006A%u0006:%u0006%u0004%u0006#,%u0006%u0009-%%u0006%u000e%u001799%u0006%u000e%u001799%u0013%-? There was an initial flood of Poles and Czechs into the UK following the fall of France in 1940 but we kept a Polish ITW running for the whole of the war, and there would have been a need to find a constant stream of replacements for casualties and to man additional squadrons as they formed. Where did the second wave come from? Were they simply poached from the Polish Army? fi%u0017%u0016%u0017%%u0006 %u0018%u00177%u0015%u0016%u0016? They came out of the Gulags. Following BARBAROSSA in 1941 substantial numbers of Polish personnel, not all by any means, were released and they found their way to General Anders II Corps in the Middle East and from there into the air force. Any women who served in the Polish Air Force, or Army, had more than likely come from a Soviet prison camp. %u000c@/%u0006 %u0005-%%u0006 %u0009%u0013+%u0015/%u0006 %u0001%u0015&*(%-)%u0013/? We have heard something of the formation of the air forces of Australia, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand but India has not been mentioned. I believe that the Indian Air Force was formed before WW II and that it fought in Burma, presumably with Indian pilots. Can anyone expand on that? %u000c%u00170()%u0016%u0015(/%u0006%u0009%u00131? The Indian Air Force was formed before WW II, butit did not become the Royal Indian Air Force until 1945 (%u0004/%u0013/ %u2013 at the specific behest of King George VI in recognition of its achievements). As with all of the Commonwealth air forces, it was a fairly small scale affair to begin with but, although run by RAF officers, there were Indian pilots, and groundcrew, from the outset and several independent squadrons were formed, and became operational, during the war, several of them going on to form the basis of the post8war Indian and Pakistani Air Forces. Where the Indian Air Force differed from the other Commonwealth air forces is that India lacked the independent status of a Dominion, so, while there was an Indian Air Force, answering, like the Indian Army, to a nominally Indian Government, that Indian Government was ultimately a British institution %u2013 which was not the case with, for instance, Australia. %u0018%u00177%u0015%u0016%u0016? I would just add there was an element of %u2018colonial%u2019 policy at play here. As with the Indian Army, which, following the Mutiny of 1857, was not provided with its own artillery or sappers, the air force was deliberately constrained in size and operational capability. In