The Forgotten Few – The Honourable Few

I have to declare an interest before carrying on with the review, in that my Grandfather was Polish, and he too came here during the Second World War. Whereas he was an infantry man, the Polish Airforce was part of the Polish Army and he always saw them as, a) fellow Poles and proud countrymen, b) honourable soldiers.

This book has been reprinted by Pen and Sword from the 1995 original. It is a thought provoking book, especially for those who do not know about the Poles who fought under British command during the Second World War.

What has been forgotten is that 17,000 men and women passed through the ranks of the Polish Airforce while it was stationed on British soil. They played a crucial part in the Battle of Britain, one of the ‘few’ that Churchill referred too. At the same time they contributed significantly to the allied war effort, shooting down around 745 enemy aircraft, shot down over 150 flying bombs aimed at sites in London. Dropped over 13.206 tons of bombs and laid over 1,502 mines. Sank 3 enemy ships, 8 miniature submarines and 2 U-Boats and putting out of action another 30.

Flying over 102,486 sorties, with over 290,895 operational flying hours and took part in every type of RAF operation. All this came with a cost of 1,973 killed and 1,388 wounded. They won 342 British gallantry awards as well as 15 American ones.

What this book does, is not give a comprehensive or pretend to assess the exact contribution of the men and women of the Polish Airforce. What it does well is give an idea of who they were, where they came from, how and why they came here and what they actually did. It does not shy away from the sometime strained relations, but ultimately successful collaborations with the RAF. While not forgetting that their sometimes difficult but eventually happy relationship with the people of Britain.

Real recognition has bypassed those that served with great honour in the defence of freedom. As Zamoyski says ‘It rarely falls to heroes to receive their reward’, this book goes some way in doing that. ( )

Zamoyski combines the facts with personal records to create a real and human picture of the Polish airforce in Great Britain during ww2. From the bit that I know he gets it exactly right, especially with regard to the loathsome post war trades union / intellectual "scientific" socialist / communist sympathisers, agitating for the expulsion of Poles from the U.K. As a matter of record, the post war labour government of Clement Atlee also excluded the Poles from the June 1946 London Victory parade to avoid offending Stalin and his pro communist labour supporters, and the Battle of Britain monument ,erected at Dover in 1993, commemorated every squadron that took part except two. Neither the (Polish) 302 nor 303, the highest scorer of the lot , is mentioned. This book is just as well written and interesting as Zamoyski's much better known, "1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow". ( )