A little reminder for those Brits that ***** about Poles

youtu.be/ptijNcDanVw

nuncza. So because Polish pilots alone saved Great Britain from Nazi tyranny we are not allowed to criticize terrible service in the post office.
btw thanks for the film.

Number #1,, The Poles alone did not save England.. It was a joint effort.The same as all other Allies.
My complaint is that the Poles earned their way by contributing their service in a time of need . Where were the other immigrants? All that I ever see on here is condemnation of Poles.

Yep, that would be it. Because 30 Polish airmen died fighting in the Battle of Britain, no Brit is ever allowed to say even a single word bad about anything Polish, even if all Poles themselves criticise that thing.

Interesting that that is what 30 of your country sacrificing themselves gets. Sadly 24 of your country sacrificing themselves get you bugger all: 24 British airmen died during bombing raids against Germany on 4 September 1939, but still we read about how the RAF didn't bomb Germany at all in 1939 and only dropped leaflets.

To be fair the Poles fought hard in a number of theaters (including Brit inspired disaster Market Garden, despite having raised valid concerns) only to be betrayed by their Allies to Stalin. Must have been a bitter pill to swallow for those Polish pilots who did fight in the Battle of Britain. Granted at least the Brits did feel uncomfortable with it.

anybody heard of The Spitfire - Polish restaurant in Hammersmith, London, I drove past it the other day. I was hungry at the time but opted for a Lebanese kebab on the opposite side of the road and it was awesome i have to say.

viewlondon.co.uk/restaurants/the-spitfire-restaurant-info-8195.html

Just let the Poles have their 303 squadron and all the glory with it, its not much to ask, is it?

Hi there Wroclaw!

What were you doing in my neck of the woods? I live in Chiswick but frequently go down the Fulham Palace Rd on the way to watch my footie team Fulham.

I have only been to the Spitfire Restaurant once, and that was a couple of years ago - from what I remember the barszcz was pretty tasteless and the main course was ok but nothing to rave about; the fact I can't remember what I had probably says a lot. The szarlotka (apple pie) for desert was not bad; I also had an Irish Coffee which was basically coffee laced with whisky and covered with cream from an aerosol can - not really what I call a proper Irish Coffee.

I haven't been back to the Spitfire, and that in itself should tell you that I wasn't impresssed with the food. Maybe it's got better over the years.

Are you no longer living in Pl? What are you up to these days?

Polanglik

You're reading all the wrong threads.

Plenty of people here live in Poland and are entitled to express an opinion about it without constantly and uncritically praising everything they see around them. Foreign people of Polish extraction who have a romantic opinion of a country they have nothing to do with may not like that, but so what.


Plenty of threads on that and gigabytes of discussion on the Polish contribution to the war effort.

You have to be a complete idiot. Did you ever read about the Red Poppies of Monte Cassino?

For the entire operation to close the Falaise pocket, the 1st Polish Armoured Division's operational report states 1441 casualties including 466 killed in action...

How about the Fate of the Polish Parachute troops in Operation Market Garden. How many of them died because of Montgomery folly?

The question is, what could the British have done to prevent the actions of the Soviets (for want of a better word to describe the people of the USSR) in Poland?


Of course we are so entitled and so what if they do not like it: they are perfectly welcome to come here and try to improve the things we do not uncritically praise.

Link or it didn't happen.

That old chestnut has been on here, despite the war memorial in Warsaw.

Nice way to address the ever-so slightly different weight which is placed on the Polish airmen (who are claimed to have won the entire battle) and the British airmen (the existence of whose missions are denied by most of those who make the aforementioned claim).


None, actually, but do carry on with that peculiar habit of blaming the British for everything. The 1st (Polish) Parachute Brigade were ordered to turn back before dropping but only 41 of the 114 did, the rest either did not have the correct transmission codes and did not understand the messages they were sent. Do feel free to blame that on the British.


Happily:
Taken from 'The Bomber Command War Diaries' - Middlebrook / Everitt


Second source:


raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/h139.html

Actually Harry Polish were heavily involved in Market Garden and suffered badly, coming under intense German fire as they landed. To make a difficult situation worse, unfortunately the RAF messed up when dropping the Polish supplied leaving them in a perilous position. Ultimately they were forced to retreat suffering between 20-25 per cent casualties. They took even more when being forced to row across the Rhine under heavy fire when a combined British / Polish engineer element failed to put in place a temp bridge. Despite taking serious losses the Polish brigade eventually managed to get 200 men across to reinforce the 1st airborne.

The Polish commander, Gen Sosabowski subsequently volunteered the Polish Brigade for an all out assault on German positions but was turned down. Instead the Poles shielded the 1st airborne as they retreated, yet again suffering heavy losses as a result. By the end of the operation, Polish units had suffered 30-50 per cent losses, the majority due to poor planning by Allied High Command. Disgracefully, Monty was to push much of the blame on Sosabowski for the failure for Market Garden, despite the fact the general was one of the few who pointed out the critical risks entailed prior to the which whole thing going badly wrong. Not quite sure where you get your facts but worth revisiting. Market Garden was a farce, largely due to Monty's over inflated ego.

Happy to pm list of books etc on the subject

Yes, I know that. You know that. It was known that they would be dropping under fire. That is one of the reasons that they were ordered to turn back while in the air.


None at all due to their failure to carry out the order to abort the mission and not jump?

Everytime I come on here, I check the latest threads and, sadly, I agree with nunczka.

There are certainly trolling threads, usually started by racists (and some of the OPs comments in other threads are pretty hair-raising) but those are usually demolished. Most of the posters here are very pro-Poland. From time to time there'll be a post from a foreign person who isn't having a great time here, but it's important to distinguish between something anti-Polish and something about how bad, say, the tax office is here.

They got it all wrong. This generation has not earned any pilot wings yet and all they should do now is to quietly bask in possibility of a future glory on the scale of the squadron 303, one day - but hopefully won not by war, but by other means.

Discussions like this lead to nasty fights here, on youtube and elsewhere - with British-Polish name callings and total anger. Over-glamorizing selected few leads to these sort of things and to trivialization of the real history. It should be reminded from time to time that it was a joint war effort of many allies. We should pay respect to all of them from time to time - including those airmen from Polish Air Force in England.

Here are few numbers to reflect on - 2,165 Polish airmen have been killed during WWII (that's what it says on their war memorial in Northolt), 15 (some say 18) Polish squadrons were serving under RAF command, they suffered heavy losses - Polish bomber squadrons alone lost 929 airmen during 1940-1945, and 17,000-19,400 Poles (depending who is counting) have served in RAF structures during the war.

Some British people, such as Neville Bougourd, lovingly preserve memory of some of those brave airmen. Take a look at his blog, 304squadron.blogspot.com , devoted to squadron 304, and go back to his earliest entries from 2008, where he provides some interesting overviews.

Source for failing to turn back? Yet to come across it in any of the books have read on it so would be good to read up on that element. It's true some were forced to turn back due to a mixture of bad weather and unexpected Luftwaffe activity.

And yes, the heavy losses by the Poles and indeed the entire mission was largely due to Monty's ego ( he admitted afterwards himself he had been over optimistic). Hell, senior Allied commanders had ignored warnings that many of their comms units had proven faulty in the run up to the battle while also blissfully ignoring warnings from their meteorological services that sunspot activity was expected which would further hamper communications. They sent in lightly armed paratroopers with inadequate if any anti-Armour weaponry into a firefight where there was every possibility of encountering Tigers etc. All this while completely underestimating the fighting ability of the Wehrmacht and SS forces in the region. So yeah, would say that Allied High Command had a bigger part to play. It was a complete and utter disaster which helped contribute to the war dragging on into 1945.

Middlebrook, Martin (1994). Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle, page 403, apparently.

Cheers thanks, will see if I can source it.

A little too bombastic and romantic, but honey for a Polish heart.

PS. Language barrier isn`t so unsurmountable after all.

PS. 2. Funny Polish uttered by these British actors!

Coudn't watch it in the UK on copyright grounds. I had to change my IP address. Got the vibe it was made for schools by C4 going by the impassioned voiceover.

Every country complains about their post office, tax office, etc. But, like I said, it seems every single thread turns to bashing, not discussions, when I check the latest threads.

PS. 3

A quote from the film:

I am not surprised that English girls went after Polish boys. Polish men -they liked to show off.

Exactly! :):):):)

One girl scored 30 Polish pilots! :):):):):)

Watch more about Polish English sex at 32:14.

It's the hand-kissing.


All at the same time would have been a record.


There's something in that, but most bashing of things is generally in a different direction.

don`t worry for the British BS about Poles (actually, not British but English BS). Every sane person in the Europe consider English to be very idiotic

Yes. Yes, it is. I know I like it. (Stupid American husband)

There's a great deal of pride in being Polish I think s the message of this post?

Yes the Poles have so much pride in their country that 2 million of them descended en masse in 2004 as soon as the shackles were free. So proud of Poland were they that they bussed themselves over here living 24 to a room cleaning flats for a few british pounds per hour.

Yes, a really proud nation!

As compared to the English who stayed at home over the past 800 years? If only they had eh