Special exhibition at the Royal Air Force Museum
The Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon in north-west London was opened in 1972 and I visited it regularly in the 1970s and 1980s. However, I haven’t been there for many years, but was drawn back this week for a special exhibition.
The exhibition – small but very informative – is called “Brothers In Arms” and deals with the Poles and Czechoslovaks who fought with the RAF in the Second World War. The Poles made up 16 squadrons and the Czechoslovaks had four.
The focus of the exhibition is very much on the Battle of Britain and the contribution made by the Polish 303 Squadron. The unit was home to two of the most successful RAF aces of the Battle: Witold Urbanowicz and Josef Frantisek (who was in fact Czech).
I visited the exhibition with my wife Vee whose father was a Czech pilot with the wartime RAF. He never actually served with a Czechoslovak squadron but he did shoot down 18 Luftwaffe aircraft.
We were delighted to see Karel Kuttelwascher mentioned in the exhibition and there was the original of his combat report for his third ‘kill’ with his personal signature.
After the war, those airmen who returned to Poland and Czechoslovakia found that the Communist regimes there regarded them with such distain that most were dismissed from the air force and many were falsely imprisoned. In order not to offend Stalin, the British did not even allow the Poles to march in the victory celebrations in London.
Since the fall of Communism in Central & Easter Europe, these brave men are now recognised but too late – most of them are ‘flying with angels’.