Between this book and "Rising '44" It seems that the Brits are finally being forced to acknowledge the Pole's role as their ally and how the Brits then betrayed Poland at the end of the War.
Posted on 11/14/2004 4:47:42 AM PST by lizol
Polish squadron earned place of honor in world history By CHRIS PATSILELIS
A QUESTION OF HONOR: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II. By Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud.
THE Kosciuszko Squadron, the first all-Polish fighter squadron in the Royal Air Force during World War II, is the subject of Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud's illuminating A Question of Honor. Authors of the acclaimed Murrow Boys: Pioneers on the Front Lines of Broadcast Journalism, they trace the squadron's history from its inception in 1919 to its unceremonious post-World War II disbandment.
The squadron was founded by a 28-year-old American World War I hero named Merian C. Cooper and named for Tadeusz Kosciuszko, the great Polish army engineer who constructed the strategically crucial fortifications at Saratoga and West Point during the American Revolution. A Question of Honor focuses primarily on six intrepid, romantic Poles of the squadron -- humorous, roguish Jan Zumbach; impulsive Witold Urbanowicz; womanizing Witold Lokuciewski; Moroslaw Feric; Zdzislaw Henneberg; and the popular and experienced commander, Zdzislaw Krasnodebski.
These six, along with 10,000 other pilots and ground crew, managed to escape from Poland through Romania to France after the September 1939 Nazi blitzkrieg and Soviet invasion.
The Polish Air force's 390 dreadfully obsolete planes were no match for the 2,600 ultramodern fighters and bombers of the German Luftwaffe. The squadron, however, vowed to return to fight the invaders and drive them from their homeland.
In France the pilots and crewmen of the Kosciuszko Squadron, including the book's six principals, were treated poorly, housed in "primitive barracks: no heat, no furniture, smashed windows, and only straw on the concrete floor to sleep on. They had to pay for hot showers and meals. French airmen regarded them with condescension, hostility, and suspicion."
It seemed to the squadron that the French were smugly overconfident in the strength of the Maginot Line, which in a few months would simply be bypassed by the German army on its way to Paris. Unwilling to heed the Kosciuszko Squadron's stories about the ferocious Nazi blitzkrieg and unwilling to allow the Poles to fly aggressive missions, the French, it seemed to the Poles, "really didn't care if the Germans overran their country."
Frustrated by their treatment and by French defeatism, the squadron accepted Prime Minister Winston Churchill's invitation to come to England and join the Royal Air Force. The squadron left for Great Britain just as the Nazis invaded France in May 1940.
In Britain, before they were allowed to fly, squadron members had to show skeptical RAF commanders they could learn English and comport themselves as gentlemen, and were willing to place themselves under RAF command. The Poles demanded to be allowed to fly under their own commanders, and they eventually got their way.
On Aug. 8, 1940, wearing RAF uniforms but with Polish Air Force buttons, cap badges and insignia of rank, the Kosciuszko Squadron became operational as part of the RAF. On Aug. 30, 12 months after the fall of Poland, Flying Officer Ludwik Paszkiewicz fired a short burst from his British Hurricane fighter at a German Messerschmitt. The German plane burst into flames and crashed to the earth. The Kosciuszko Squadron had its first kill. Paszkiewicz proudly wrote in the squadron diary, "I have fired at an enemy aircraft for the first time in my life." That night he got outrageously drunk.
The Kosciuszko Squadron would have many more kills -- 126, more than twice as many as any other RAF squadron during the Battle of Britain. Churchill had nothing but praise for the Polish forces as Poland became the fourth largest contributor to the Allied effort in Europe. In 1996 Queen Elizabeth acknowledged that "if Poland had not stood with us in those days ... the candle of freedom might have been snuffed out."
Besides giving close-up portraits of squadron members and their exploits, Olson and Cloud describe the sad fate of Poland as it was ravaged by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. They describe the Katyn Massacre of 4,000 Polish military officers by the Soviets in 1940 and the Nazi decimation of a whole Jewish society during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943.
Finally, A Question of Honor closely examines -- maybe in too much detail -- the cynical atmosphere in which Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt operated. Churchill promised Poland protection from its enemies and promised to reinstate the country as an independent democracy after the war. Britain reneged on both counts.
Roosevelt paid only lip service to keeping Poland free. According to the authors, he was interested in Poland's postwar fate only insofar as it "affected his alliance with Stalin and his chances in the next presidential election." In the end political expediency prevailed and Poland was consigned to the tender mercies of Stalin's invading troops.
Olson and Cloud have written both a revealing book about an unfamiliar aspect of World War II aviation history and a concise political history of Poland during and immediately after the war.
Flying the Hurricane (the wildcat of the RAF) {imo}
Seems convincing their English captors they were on the English side was more scary than aerial combat with he Germans.
ping
How true parts of this story are today:
The Poles are one of the larger groups fighting with us in Iraq. But according to John Frenchie Kerry, they are nobodys and we really need a real allie like the french (small f on purpose, because that is all they are or deserve)
Actually, the destruction of Jewish society had been proceding apace prior to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
The uprising began when the few surviving Jews finally realized "They mean to kill us all."
It's the basis of Leon Uris's Mila 18
I have read this book, and it is fascinating.
Even less well known is that there was another Kosciuszko Squadron, just after World War I, made up of Americans who fought with the Poles against the Bolsheviks. This Kosciuszko Squadron was a small group, fresh from the Great War, and none of them were of Polish ancestry. They were led by Merian C. Cooper, who later was a coproducer of the film "King Kong."
The Kosciuszko Squadron helped save Poland as an independent country. Four of the volunteer American flyers died (all in accidents), and were buried in a special military cemetery in Lwów. That city was in territory grabbed by the Soviets after World War II, and they destroyed the monument to the Americans by driving over it during tank exercises. The city is now called L'vov, and is in western Ukraine.
The monument read, in Polish and English, "To American heroes who gave their lives for Poland 1919-1920."
Perhaps their reluctance bears on their collective guilt in selling out the people of Poland to the communists. Very much as America has back-stabbed the once ardent support given during WWII by Serbian Christians, in what remains of Yugoslavia - after it was sliced and diced by the West.
Between this book and "Rising '44" It seems that the Brits are finally being forced to acknowledge the Pole's role as their ally and how the Brits then betrayed Poland at the end of the War.
The scenario described in the early part of Mila 18 does show a Jewish society fully integrated, or at least comfortably "left alone" in pre-war Poland.
Sorry for the apparent misunderstanding. ;-)
More than saving Poland, these brave men saved all of Continental Europe from Communism in the 1920's. If Poland fell all of Europe was in danger as WWI had decimated most of the armed forces.
Unfortunately, in many instances, "Yes".
That's why "homeschooling" is becoming much more widespread.
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