esting new 'Poll' going on in the Polish community

[Phil Perry]

'Polish war hero leads the way in RAF campaign to find best Spitfire pilot after massive social media campaign in his homeland'

 

"When the RAF Museum decided to launch a public vote deciding the greatest Spitfire Mark V pilot in history, they might have presumed the winner would be found somewhere close to home.

 

After all the expected target of the ‘People’s Spitfire Poll’, hosted on the Telegraph website, was the British public, whom the RAF have protected for 99 years.

 

But after being hijacked by a massive groundswell of public support from the Polish community, Franciszek Kornicki, the last surviving Polish World War Two squadron commander, is leading the poll by a landslide - more than 250,000 votes and counting........"

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...

 

The vote is here:-

 

'Britons, the RAF needs you: have your say in the vote for 'The People's Spitfire Pilot''

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...

 

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Here are some responses to this story, form several different websites. . .

 

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Well it has been made a bogus poll by the Poles plus I was quite surprised to see the top British pilot was actually Douglas Bader as have met prosthetists that had actually made his limbs at Roehampton and the general consensus was that he had a very bad attitude to everybody [he even used to say 'Do you know who I am?!?!" to junior staff who was not aware he expected to be treated like royalty...] I am sure there are more braver British pilots who made a bigger difference than him - I guess it is more of a 'PC poll' than a genuine one...

 

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Even the Germans were glad to see the back of Bader. An insuffereable man.

 

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That is the nicest thing I think I've heard said about him ;-)

 

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Some big names there - Beurling, Bader, Malan - but cheapened but some obvious box ticking (first I'd heard of Ian Gleed being gay).

 

I voted for Yule and his noble passing.

 

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A lot of people are going to have to vote to catch up with the cheating Poles though and everybody really needs to vote for the same one to make sure he/she overtakes the Pole... so a 'gay' one, a 'leg;ess' one, a 'black one', a 'female' one and a 'Pole' - any other diverse airmen they can find for their next list...

 

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Bader was not popular as a leader but his pilots did respect him. Funnily enough Guy Gibson was similar in personality (not that well liked but highly respected), problem is people think of Kenneth Moore as Bader and Richard Todd as Gibson and both didn't play their characters that accurately.

 

Personally I don't have a problem with the pole if the Polish vote for a Spitfire pilot so what?

 

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Well I can only think what the staff who treated him told me about him - they had no reason to lie to me at all ;-)

 

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What was the name of Guy;s dog then, the name escapes me :)

 

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WELL .. . .this is the flavour of the replies. . . .from five assorted blog sites. . . .

 

Best of luck to the winner.

 

 

[Jonny_J]

My first reaction was "seriously, how are these people not learning lessons from public votes?" - you'll end up with the greatest pilot being 'Cpt Shooty McSpitface' or something insufferable. But, then, you know I realised. I grew up with my grandfather's stories, and my great uncle's stories, and their friend's stories down the social club growing up. But they're all gone now, we lost the last member of our family from that generation earlier this year, so young people are growing up without access to the real living history. If these silly competitions help carry it to a new generation I think that's a good thing.

 

Honestly, we didn't have a fighter pilot in the family - just two mosquito guys and a wellington/lanc lad, but all of them would have had the same reaction to this news; a bit of friendly rivalry to get a British guy in top spot, followed by utter respect for the polish pilots in the war. Every guy I spoke to growing up had so much respect for them. They wouldn't be sad that a Pole was voted the best fighter pilot. They'd be sad nobody closer to home cared about it until some hack headlines.

 

I always used to hear the old boys say that as long as people remember, it'll never happen again. Honestly, looking at the state of politics and international relations lately, it seems pretty clear people are forgetting.

 

 

[Yenn]

I think it quite reasonable that a Polish pilot could be the best spitfire pilot. They did have a very high reputation during the war. They really hated the Germans more than the British did and they were more aggresive.

 

I suppose that somewhere their must be the numbers to work out who had the greatest number of kills.

 

Bader sounds just as if he was a typical pommie officer.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

I'm laughing at the Pole's Pole poll's poll.

 

I have had a lifetime of the English determining who was best at what in history, just a co-incidence of course that it happens to be them most of the time.

 

 

[kaz3g]

Well, my vote would be for "Screwball" Beurling, but he was Canadian. Sailor Malan was South African. Closterman was French. Finnane was Irish. They all were better leaders than their stuffier British counterparts. Bader flew Hurricanes more than Spitfires and was a prick.

 

I think Johnny Johnson has to be the best English Spitfire pilot if for no other reason than he had was the highest score (just in front of Beurling).

 

Kaz

 

 

[Paul davenport]

Robert Stanford Tuck would have to be up in the front row

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Well, my vote would be for "Screwball" Beurling, but he was Canadian. Sailor Malan was South African. Closterman was French. Finnane was Irish. They all were better leaders than their stuffier British counterparts. Bader flew Hurricanes more than Spitfires and was a prick.I think Johnny Johnson has to be the best English Spitfire pilot if for no other reason than he had was the highest score (just in front of Beurling).

 

Kaz

Johnson also never got shot down, although he had a cannon shell go through the wing of his Spitfire leaving a large hole, the shell did not explode.

 

He had the hole plated over and used the same aircraft for nearly a year, until the end of the war. . .

 

 

[onetrack]

As soon as I read "massive social media campaign", I knew straight up, this would turn out to be a lop-sided contest.

 

As Kornicki himself says - a Spitfire pilot was only able to become a hotshot due to the efforts of many other people, such as Spitfire test pilots, airframe fitters and mechanics, and the people who slaved long hours on the Spitfire production lines.

 

The Poles were a vital and sizeable part of the British defences, and they proved themselves more than capable fighters, time after time.

 

1939- 1945 : Poland’s Contribution to Victory in the Second World War - The International Churchill Society

 

Personally, I think Kornicki deserves an award just for reaching 101 in good shape, after all he's been through. No-one fought more valiantly, nor endured more Nazi horrors, than the Poles.

 

Just reading about the Poles repeated ground defence of Warsaw against the vicious Nazi onslaught, will make you realise what these people endured. Then they had to endure another vicious invasion by the Russians.

 

The 1939 Seige of Warsaw and the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, rate as the most horrendous record of human suffering, Nazi depravity and cruelty, that the world has seen for centuries.

 

I can recall reading about a group of fighting Poles in the Warsaw uprising being caught in the basement of a large stone building.

 

The Nazis bombarded the basement at close range with flamethrowers, threw dozens of hand grenades into it, then filled it with water - and still the surviving Poles fought them off.

 

85% of Warsaw was totally and utterly destroyed by the Nazis, with the intention of wiping the city off the face of the Earth.

 

Nothing was spared, innocent civilians were murdered wholesale, and every single item that represented Polish civilisation was annihilated - not only important buildings, but also libraries, monuments, art works, and cultural works.

 

 

[Hargraves]

Absolutely right onetrack. Except possibly for the 900 mile deep nazi invasion of russia I once read an accounting of civilian casulties, transport infrastructure damage, private dwellings, historical buildings, government buildings, hospitals, museums, and art galleries, and when you see that listed it really brings a better understanding of the reasons why russians felt the way they did towards everyone after the war. Everyones aware they killed 6 million innocent jewish people but who remembers the 20 million russians they murdered in the same times. Cheers Hargraves

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Everyone's aware they killed 6 million innocent jewish people.

Who bent over and took it up the, ask me what I really think. They don't even call it the War, they call it the holocaust, because only they suffered apparently, the disrespectful sods.

 

but who remembers the 20 million Russians they murdered in the same times.

I do, so do many, and many of them died fighting. Closer to 30 million they believe including later deaths due to famine, Winter etc. China around 20 million, the Germans suffered badly, they weren't all Nazis you know, the Poles 6 million but big losers based on percentage of population, and shockingly forgotten in history are the Indonesians who account for 4 million but many more is believed because so many little villages and jungle dwellers were just wiped off the map.

 

The Jews are put closer to 4 million by a number of experts who collect many German War records. The Germans were fastidious at keeping records. These experts are harrassed badly and some have their lives ruined for daring to say anything. A number of been banned from traveling to America to speak for example.

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Well, my vote would be for "Screwball" Beurling, but he was Canadian. Sailor Malan was South African. Closterman was French. Finnane was Irish. They all were better leaders than their stuffier British counterparts. Bader flew Hurricanes more than Spitfires and was a prick.I think Johnny Johnson has to be the best English Spitfire pilot if for no other reason than he had was the highest score (just in front of Beurling).

 

Kaz

I should have mentioned Johnson's book 'Wing Leader' by 'Johnnie Johnson' ( in case you try to find it ) published by World Books. I have a battered copy of this book, given to me by an old RAF lad, now sadly deceased. It is a well written story, and Johnson makes no attempt to 'Big' himself up therein. He was a product of his time, a fairly wealthy man, 'Officer Class' who even had his own personal trailer taken across the Channel to France folllowing D-day. . .and he had a personal 'Batman' to look after the humdrum stuff ( ! )

 

He had his shotguns along as well, and engaged in a bit of wildlife shooting for food, between 'Ops' . . .

 

Some cracking action narratives in there, including the bit where a duff cannon shell nearly had him, but did not explode. Darned good read if you can get hold of a copy, and if you can't . . .I probably won't read it again, so you can have mine. . . My email addy should be in the profile. I would happily post it to you.

 

When thoroughly read, you could always pass it around the guys for a peruse !

 

 

[Phil Perry]

The great bloke who taught me to fly in a DH82A, was a Sergeant pilot on Hurricanes, although he finished his training too late to be involved in the Battle of Britain ( 1943 ). . .said he never even got a sniff at a Spitfire, but loved his Hurricane(s) as they could take a lot more punishment than the Spit. He got shot down twice, and picked up in the channel by air sea rescue. Once he got his engine damaged but managed to land intact in a field. He noted that at no time during these events did he see any enemy aircraft, nor deduce where the shots came from and it all happened very quickly.

 

His comments were that, one minute the sky was full of aircraft twisting and turning all over the place,. . .and the next minute, you couldn't see where they all went ! ! Said he got his engine shot at when he flew level for too long for a look around. around 20 seconds he thought, - too long evidently ! He was around three miles off the Kent Coast that time, flying at around 14,000 feet. He didn't bale out, as there was no fire, he just lost all the glycol and had to throttle the engine back to idle. . . said he was glad to land on grass that time as he was sick of the taste of saltwater. . .

 

He finished his RAF career as a flight instructor, with the rank of Pilot Officer. The last aircraft he flew was a Canberra.

 

 

[kaz3g]

I should have mentioned Johnson's book 'Wing Leader' by 'Johnnie Johnson' ( in case you try to find it ) published by World Books. I have a battered copy of this book, given to me by an old RAF lad, now sadly deceased. It is a well written story, and Johnson makes no attempt to 'Big' himself up therein. He was a product of his time, a fairly wealthy man, 'Officer Class' who even had his own personal trailer taken across the Channel to France folllowing D-day. . .and he had a personal 'Batman' to look after the humdrum stuff ( ! )He had his shotguns along as well, and engaged in a bit of wildlife shooting for food, between 'Ops' . . .

 

Some cracking action narratives in there, including the bit where a duff cannon shell nearly had him, but did not explode. Darned good read if you can get hold of a copy, and if you can't . . .I probably won't read it again, so you can have mine. . . My email addy should be in the profile. I would happily post it to you.

 

When thoroughly read, you could always pass it around the guys for a peruse !

That's a lovely offer Phil, but I already have this autobiography in my little library of WW II aviation history. JJ clearly flew well and had the fighter pilot's thirst for a kill. Fighter Command gave him every opportunity to add to his score towards the end. Beurling was side-lined on a couple of occasions including by Johnson and managed to achieve most of his score in a few short weeks on Malta. Johnson had a whole wing around him whereas Beurling was usually fighting in pairs.

 

Cheers

 

Kaz