Page 82 - Demo

82oxygen mask. Another example is that in the first book to deal with Poles in the RAF, Squadron 303, which is about to be republished incidentally, noone is identified by name. They all have nicknames %u2013 %u2018Ox%u2019, for instance, is Feric and Zumbach is %u2018Donald%u2019 %u2013 he was known as Donald Duck. And the Germans certainly did target their families; there was no publicity given to the award of their DFCs, for instance. %u0001%u0013,%u0017%%u0006%u0004//%u0017%u0016%u0016? What about Finland? They had a pretty tortuous war. Did any Finns find their way into an allied air force? %u0018%u00177%u0015%u0016%u0016? Not so far as I am aware, although we nearly found ourselves fighting alongside the Finns with the French, and the Poles, against the Soviets %u2013 while simultaneously fighting the Germans %u2013 which would have been quite an achievement! I think that Finland was technically on the side of the Axis, certainly during the %u2018Continuation War%u2019 against the Soviets but in 1944 they are obliged to switch sides and fight the Germans, but, from the British point of view, Finland was seen as a separate issue and England was a long way to come for a Finn. That said, there was at least one Lithuanian in the RAF; he was one of the fifty executed following the Great Escape, and I have just been reading about two Mexicans and an Icelander as well, so there were some wildcards who found their way here, perhaps because one of their parents was British. %u0009%u00131? While Finland had fought the Soviet Union single8handed, and with surprising success, in 1939840, it was more or less obliged to ally itself with Germany in 1941 because, following Hitler%u2019s attack on Russia, they shared a common enemy. Since that enemy was the Soviet Union, which was allied to Great Britain, it would have made no sense for Finns to have sought to enlist in the RAF to fight for the %u2018wrong side%u2019. %u000e%u001799%u0013%-? I think that the point is that, while Finland was obliged to cede some territory to Russia in 1940, the country was never actually overrun, so there was no need for Finns to emigrate to fight their wars; they could stay at home and do it. 1 RAF Historical Society Journal No 9, p42. 2 General Anderson%u2019s given name was Orvil, rather than Orville. -