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Posts by Olaf D  

Joined: 14 Aug 2011 / Male ♂
Last Post: 14 Aug 2011
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Olaf D   
14 Aug 2011
History / 'Battle of Britain' won thanks to Polish aces !! [158]

Ay chums, all pilots and crews of all nationalities fought and died doing their bit.

One thing that gave Poles the edge, was the experience of fighting Germans in the air from day one of the war, followed by air combat over France and then in Britain that was passed along with the skills on to their less experienced new pilots and thus preserving their lives and the skill.

British command was not sure what to do with the Poles for number of reasons, but notably the issue was how to integrate them in to the system given the potential for miscommunication due to the command of English language, and of course due to their different school and style of combat deemed too dangerous for average British pilots.

Polish pilots tended to close in on their opponent at top speeds, and fire at the last moment when the opponent’s airplane couldn’t be missed then pulled high Gs and veer off probably hoping that the engine wont choke.

And this was the reason why they got so many kills probably as many as they have claimed.

If you think this was “mad and reckless” tactic as some less skilled contemporaries had sneered, remember that it proved to be most effective and efficient way to shoot down large numbers of opponent’s airplanes and stay alive. Low attrition, high kills.

They had the skill and the confidence in their skills, as well as in their airplanes and ground crews tending them to take up this fight on that level of performance.

If every Briton had chance to develop their skill and experience to the same level as Poles had and bring the fight to Germans on the same level of confidence and cold bloodiness as Polish and Czech did, Battle of Britain would turn out to be an curious episode in the history book known as great massacre in the skies where black crosses fell from the sky like a rain.

However although some had good deal of experience and probably could have quickly adopted and perform on this same level of effective close quarter aggressive combat, most British pilots after 10h or even 20h of training that survived few combat missions, still weren’t experienced enough to push the limits of their skills that far.

British commanders knew that and used different tactics to minimize exposure and maximize gains in something that strikes uncanny resemblance with 19 century set piece battle scenarios.

On average Poles were more experienced and skilled fighter pilots then British.

Had they been involved earlier in the battle, less British lives would have been lost and it may have shortened its duration, although if Goring would continue with his highly (unbeknownst to him) effective bombing campaign that briefly and nearly totally wiped out operational defense capability of RAF on the ground this battle would have been won by the Luftwaffe quite quickly too.

Poles were not fighting for Britain or France or Whomever else, they were fighting for Poland and their very lives, and it just happen that fog of war and dumb luck brought them to these shores which they helped to protect, to the benefit of all but one ally.

Polish units that fought on the western fronts alongside our only allies were the only nation that was not present on Any victory parades; Polish pilots although invited for the victory parade, refused to participate because Poland was still occupied and because no other Polish units were invited as not to upset uncle joe. After all the bullshit they have gone through liberating everyone else but themselves they had been hidden from history, told: well done, thank you and please leave now.

Those Pilots, soldiers and officers who decided to return to Poland were arrested and spent years in prisons, trapped and abandoned.

Sad end to great story.

Re: Topic – No, too late in the game, they played important part and proved that If they were engaged earlier, they would play decisive factor in shortening it and winning in the contest of attrition and in combat.

This Battle was won by a fluke of chance due to Goring lack of information on the effectiveness of bombing RAF airfields and in part due to bomber command unrelated decision to bomb Berlin pissing of Hitler.

Besides Germany had no capacity to invade UK even if they would obtain the mastery of the air for a while in the region.

Ta