Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
polish airman
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Message 1.Β
Posted by ritajoh (U10855204) on Thursday, 1st July 2010
Watching the programme the other night about the polish airman who took part in the battle of britain, i couldnt help thinking how shabby they were treated by this country at the end of the war. All because we didnt want to offend the russians. -
Message 2
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Thursday, 1st July 2010
The realities of post-war politics, I'm afraid....
Realistically, what could Churchill and Roosevelt have done? They were in position to force Stalin out of Poland. -
Message 3
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Thursday, 1st July 2010
Never be afraid of your political enemies, but be very wary of your political friends!
As I have said before on these boards, Politicans can usually be depended upon to to 'do the right thing' at any given time, but the 'right thing' can change very quickly, depending on what way the wind is blowing.
The Western Allies sold out a lot of friends at the end of the war, to keep 'Uncle Joe' happy, and in the end it only made the Russians stronger at our expense, and consolidated their grip on Eastern Europe.
Had we been willing to tell them to get stuffed, it is hard to see how we would have ended worse off. Appeasement did not work with Hitler, and didn't do much use with Stalin either. -
Message 4
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Friday, 2nd July 2010
giraffe47,
Unfortunately, due consideration of the conduct of the war, the opposing pressures for a political settlement in Europe, the willingness of the Allied leaders to continue to involve their respective citizens in hostilities which may have stretched on indefinitely(as seen in 1945)discounted any continuation of the war. Unless of course the use of nuclear weapons was to be considered as legitimate to maintain the freedom of Eastern Europe.
Perhaps too, we need to ask ourselves if we were really fully aware in 1944 -45 of the true implications of Soviet influence.
Britain certainly could not afford to continue the war, nor retained the necessary clout to convince the other Allied countries to act in concert in a continuation that might last another five years; with how many more casualties? Because of these factors the end of the war was a result of pragmatism and the usual diplomatic manoeuvring, just as it has always has been.
But this is true of the 1919-45 war in the Far East too. A tired nation could hardly find the energy to welcome home the armed forces from that conflict, let alone those that had endured the brutality at the hands of the Japanese. -
Message 5
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Friday, 2nd July 2010
Spruggles
That is exactly what I mean, about 'the right thing' to do will always influenced by the 'the possible thing' to do. We do not have the luxury of making our choices in a vaccuum, so what was 'right' a few years ago may no longer be possible.
This is often ignored on these pages, with 21st century moral judgements being made on things that happened long ago, in a different world, with different moral and ethical standards.
I think Britain had little influence on the big decisions, but the USA must bear responsibility for some of the worst ones. If Churchill had still been in charge, things might have been different - I doubt if even he could have changed much, although he never doubted 'Uncle Joe' was not the nice guy the Yanks seemed to imagine. -
Message 6
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Friday, 2nd July 2010
I have started watching this and the first thing I've noticed that C 4 seem to think the Canadian officer I/C of 303 Squadron is Captain Jack from Dr. Who, as they keep refering to him as Captain.The rank he is wearing is Squadron Leader, so I assumed he finished the war as a GROUP Captain. The same rank that's on Captain Jacks RAF Greatcoat. A captain in the army would be equal to a Flight Lieutenant in the RAF. A Group Captain equals a Lieutenant Colonel.
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Message 7
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Friday, 2nd July 2010
Giraffe47,
ABSOLUTELY. I think we have mentioned before haven't we, the useless excercise of judging historical events and figures by present day standards or morality.
I must confess to a feeling of hopelessness when I first read about how, in Chester Wlimot's words, 'we won the war and lost the peace.' so many years ago now.
If the accepted wisdom concerning Churchill's warnings about Soviet plans for Europe(as in 'Alliance' and 'Masters and Commanders')how frustrated must he have been. No wonder he claimed to have wept! -
Message 8
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Friday, 2nd July 2010
GrumpyFred,
Well it did claim that it was 'The untold Battle of Britain.' Apart from that what was it like? -
Message 9
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Friday, 2nd July 2010
you have to wonder what exactly the allies could have done - even given churchills warnings -before the end of the war
they were after all the people who had won the war - having fought 5/6 of the wehrmacht to a standstill at whatever cost (well actually at about 20 m cost)
at d day the war was already won - we hastened its end - NOT turned the tide
if we werent sweet to the russkies they could have stopped and released 100+ german divisions in the west - bit sticky then !!
i always remember reading that t----r Woodrow Wyatt writing in the mirror and him saying something like "the allies missed their chance to stop the soviet dominance of eastern europe- after germany had surrended the allies should have carried on into eastern europe - american air power would have forced the soviets to their knees"
yeah right !!
st -
Message 10
Posted by RedGuzzi750 (U7604797) on Friday, 2nd July 2010
Indeed stalti! What a nightmare indeed - but it doesn't alter the fact the Poles got totalled left, right and centre. And it was a disgusting act.
Sprug the show was a good one I thought - I had only heard snippets about the Poles I think they are mentioned in passing in a few books, Reach For The Sky, First Light, and a couple of recent histories. I knew Franticzech was a good pilot (maybe the best in the RAF at the time?) but never knew he was a "lone wolf". He wasn't the only one to do this I think Kozhedub, Marseille, Hartmann all went off alone... -
Message 11
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Friday, 2nd July 2010
I enjoyed it. The battle shots were of course all from the film Battle of Britain. 303 Squadron flew Hurricanes, but most of the shots seemed to be Spitfires. I liked the minefield story though. Very funny though. For those who haven't seen it, the Polish pilot bales out and lands on the beach then wonders why the soldiers are shooting at him. They are not, they are trying to get him to stand still as he has landed in the middle of a mine field.
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Message 12
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 2nd July 2010
Just an aside really, but when I saw this come up I thought of the piano tuner, trader, and author from whom I bought our children's first piano about 30 years ago.
We went to his house,and he had a display by his front door that he pointed to with pride as having been one of that Polish unit.
Like many Polish friends, colleagues and pupils I have had over the years he was not bitter about what Britain did in 1945. The situation in Eastern Europe had already crushed Poland in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century; and it is difficult to see how anyone who had been part of "The Few" to whom so much was owed by so many people could fail to see that Britain had really stood the test of "blood, sweat and tears."
Perhaps through my French wife and family, it is easier for me to understand that a continental country has to understand its limitations perhaps more than we do; and it is almost arrogant of "Brits" to feel that we should have "changed the course of history"..
A few years ago some French friends- it was when we had been fighting in Iraq, while France had said "Non"- advised me never to go to Dunkirk, because as primary school teachers they knew that the children were taught to hate Britain for "the miracle of Dunkerque".. I asked my father-in-law, who was about 17 in 1940, what he thought about the British evacuation. He said that Britain was right to withdraw. The French forces-and the small British force in the area was not stopping and could not stop the German Blitzkrieg. It was to be a long haul.
[That British force incidentally included, as I read in an unpublished piece in a private collection of family documents, units that had been sent to Normandy or Brittany to make a film.. only to be rushed towards the Belgian boarder when the Germans attacked]
But my Polish Head of Department,however, and probably the Polish Community in South London, never abandonned Poland; and I remember her Solidarity support.
Just over ten years ago I was going to my allotment, and met at the gate going out a Polish man who had been visiting and drinking. He was crying his eyes out in happiness. Tomorrow I am going home to my city. I left there in 1939, and I have not been back to now.
We sometimes have no patience. Everything these days must be "chop chop".
As for the piano player, his name caught my eye when a unit marched through town a couple of month ago, back from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. A grandson said how sad it was that his grandfather, who had proudly flown in that unit of Polish pilots, was now dead and could not also be proud of his grandson.
The challenge of change is always with us; and we will always be found wanting. To think otherwise is to think ourselves Gods, or to think that there is no cause worth fighting, dying and killing for.
Cass -
Message 13
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Saturday, 3rd July 2010
Cass,
The delight of being able to speak to those directly involved in that Great Upheaval is manifest so long as we remember that it is just an individual reaction to the minuscule event of global circumstances.
The French no doubt think it remiss of us to blather on about Dunkirk omitting to mention the dramatic and gallant rearguard action by the French army that facilitated the evacuation. Some still view the British retreat as betrayal and perhaps to some individuals this is a legitimate reaction to the circumstances that they found themselves in.
No doubt too that some Frenchmen were having a profitable time under the Nazi occupation and viewed liberation with a more jaundiced eye. Thus the somewhat sullen greetings meted out to some of our troops after the landings.
I have been lucky to know three Poles fairly well. One had been a mechanic with a Panzer division on the Eastern Front and who spoke with reluctance about his experiences, but he told me that he joined the German army because it was the lesser of two evils. He was badly wounded but I never discovered how he managed to evade capture, I suppose he was one of the lucky ones who was sent back west - but how did he manage to turn up in Britain?
Another also served with the German army and fought at Casino where he was captured by fellow (Allied)Poles. I asked him if there was a particular irony here; two Catholic Poles fighting over a monastery in Italy. He shrugged and blamed the British for encouraging his country to fight the Germans while promising to come to there assistance if they did. He had no illusions concerning 'Perfidious Albion' and became very hot under the collar if his opinions were challenged(many interesting debates there I can tell you).
The last was the son of a Polish pilot who had flown with Bomber Command. He had a far different reasoning than the others. He insisted that his father never intended to go home after the war, having refused along with all of his fellow Poles a volunteer repatriation attempt by the British authorities in 1945. Mind you, he, the son insisted that Winston Churchill was a liar and he was responsible for the annexation of Eastern Europe by the Soviets, strangely NOT an opinion shared by his father.
It appears that we all see 'through a glass darkly' sometimes as a result of ignorance, sometimes by accident and sometimes deliberately. -
Message 14
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Saturday, 3rd July 2010
GrumpyFred,
Any mention of Jan Zurakowski? He flew Spitfires and got five victories I think - and after the war gave some incredible aerobatic demonstrations, including cart-wheeling Meteors!
There was another Polish pilot whose name was Skalski, I hope that's the right spelling, who although being badly burnt in a crash insisted on leaving hospital after only six weeks to rejoin his squadron. I hope he got a mention! -
Message 15
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 3rd July 2010
Spruggles
Thanks for that.. I had forgotten in my mental list of Poles the school carpenter handy-man who, knowing that I went to France regularly, asked me to bring back a detailed map.. He was part of the forced labour that the Germans brought to the east of France, and he managed to escape.. Being tracked down by guards and dogs, who walked right over him, huddled in a ditch covered with as much as he could muster, he confirmed that in extreme fear you do lose bowel control. Fortunately the dogs were too far away by the time the smell got out... He managed to escape to England, and had made a life here. But he wondered whether he could work out where it had all happened. Obviously no-one had given him a map.
I did not ask the colleague who overheard me talking about the extermination camps in the Staff Room, and said "Actually I was at Auschwitz"- whether she considered herself Polish, or had been considered Polish by other Poles.
There have been dark days when glimmers of humanity stick out against the sobbering blackness- like small stars that can not light up the sky, but yet still have proved unvaluable guides to navigation.
Cass -
Message 16
Posted by rhmnney (U14528380) on Saturday, 3rd July 2010
GF, Now living in the USA some years ago was given a VCR in a presentation box of the Battle of Britain, we have not run it to date as we lived in Britain at the time and were teenagers during the Battle of Britain so ignored it. From what I read in your post I will certainly view it now, I thought it would be all about sky battles.
During the war at that time, the newsreels played between films would show Ack-Ack fire, over, and over again, as its said, "once you've seen it why bother again"? One could go outside the cinema and see it for yourself so in fact also could a large percentage of the population during those times. Granted I was never overwhelmed with common sense in Britain at any time, but windows were constantly being rattled probably at any time of the day or night. One could during daytime see a group of German bombers, (one could recognize them by their sound) hear the gunfire and see the brown puffs of smoke in and around the planes but of course out of range owing to height.
One place we lived during the war one could hear the bus when it was miles away, we lived in the countryside, and also when a plane was in the area as the sound came out of the fireplace with a fire or not, it was if a speaker was placed right were the fire was, if going outside to check none of us could hear it,but come back into the house the sound would be quite clear, later of course you would hear the sound if the plane or bus was in your area, wonder if that fireplace could be classified as an, 'Early Warning System' in today's world?
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