- I know you're honest and mean well but, as so often happens, you're misguided and poorly informed (SIGHHHH!).

Frankly 1939-June 1940 and 1940-45 are two entirely different things and can hardly be compared to each other. You could have added that from 1944 on the Germans flew jets and this was frustrating for the Polish and French pilots flying within the RAF.

I fear it is really not possible to explain this whole Polish-French problem here and its is not the right place (a book is, or an article in a serious historical review). When the Poles arrived in France 1939 they were not treated - by the POLITICAL French AUTHORITIES - as well as I would be the first man to wish. If I had been in charge (but I wasn't borne yet) I would have billeted them in good hotels, if possible in the best hotels of the region and there are many in the Lyon-area. These hotels were empty or almost so anyway for the country was at war - tourists were rather few. Many hotels and "châteaux", as British people say, were used by some HQs and military units so why not by the Poles? I don't think they were treated like this - billetted first in the cold Lyon-Fair halls - on purpose, it was just the usual French stupidity, usual at the time, 1939-40. This is what antagonised them.

More : they wanted to fight immediately, without any delay, they wanted to throw themselves at the Huns and kill as many as possible, but it was simply NOT POSSIBLE to disorganise and jeopardise the whole French fighter arm (with over 200 Polish fighter pilots in a force of about 400-500 at the time!) just in order to please them! Most of them, if any at all, had never flown a "modern" aircraft, i.e. equipped with a retractable landing gear (something new and very important for pilots for they had to change many of their reflexes!), with flaps, cannon, modern gunsights (optical devices), a closed cockpit, a very powerful engine (even the MS 406 had 860 ch, the others around 1,000 ch) etc. Some people were not able to cope with all these technicalities. They needed a full new training - not to forget, in the French language too! They simply MUST understand what people said to them and this was not easy, in particular inside an aircraft with all the terrible noise and the horrible radio interferences.

Most people are not aware of it but if fighter units are to be effective in battle (I am meaning 1939-40) they MUST be trained, fly and fight as TEAMS not as gaggles of wild, fanatic individuals listening only to their hate of the Huns. This is not an indidual game like tennis or bow and arrow (and even these sports have a lot of rules!) but is more like a collective sport like football and especially rugby (rugger). Every single pilot was not a lone fighter in the sky but a member of a UNIT, of a formation, of a team and every man had to play a certain part. French pilots had received an outstanding training in this field. This means that before they could be sent to combat the Polish fighter pilots had to be retrained on modern aircraft AND also AS FIGHTING TEAMS, either purely Polish or intermingled with French and Czech pilots in French fighter units. 1939 and until June 1940 the Poles were still convinced that the Allies would win soon or at least stop the German army in their tracks so understandably they were very impatient to have a go.

They didn't understand French fighter tactics (similar to RAF tactics 1940 over France), in particular NOT always flying a direct course at any German aircraft they spotted (this was often suicidal and didn't give any result), which were new to them and entirely different from their old Polish tactics, which corresponded low-performance aircraft (with a... fixed undercarriage!). These new tactics were not only made possible, but imposed, by the much higher performance of modern fighters including "even" the MS 406 and, not to forget, including the enemy. You simply can't use the same tactics with fighters having a max. speed of 250 or 480-500 km/h. You can-NOT! I fear most Polish pilots never understood this and remained very resentful and angry at the French. They're wrong.

In the French AF and, I understand, also in the RAF, Polish fighter pilots had a reputation of being excellent and very brave pilots but terribly undisciplined and unpredictable : poor soldiers. In particular over France if they saw an enemy AC they couldn't stand it and they often left formation in order to kill the Hun. They didn't care about the ordered mission (which could be entirely different, and they didn't know that often other French units were taking care of the other Huns, just like over England during the BoB) nor about discipline and the cohesion of their own formation. They didn't even understand that the French "cowards" didn't behave like they did and that there were some hard "explanations" on the radio (if it worked) and after landing... German fighters often took advantage of such situations to attack with far better odds so some French pilots were killed because of bad¨Polish discipline in flight .

What happened later in GB is an entirely different story under entirely different conditions of numbers, radar-control, own territory, safe airfields (no German tanks in England) etc., not to forget strict British discipline-or-else! and after a while the Poles were bound to understand at last - not to soon! - for they were not more stupid than the French or the British, but 1940 in France they dad not understood yet, they had to change their habits and their way of thinking.

QUOTE (see above) : << You complain about some statements from one Polish member of this forum (why haven't you complained when they were posted?) >>

- I always did. If I happened to forget or not have any time virtually all readers know what I think about such insults, like French fighter officers taking the wrong course, away from battle (!). This has been repeated many times here. That Grabowski regrets that the Poles couldn't shoot the French is a relatively new element. You can make your own opinion on his statement.

It is not only ONE Pole for I fear these weird ideas are widespread among Polish people even today (!) - whatever the reason. May I repeat that France unwillingly declared war on Germany ONLY because of the German aggression on Poland and as a consequence had to endure terrible destructions for 5 years and high human losses - "because of Poland only". French HQ and government didn't do the right thing from September through May 1940 and I am very upset myself but they BELIEVED they could do nothing else (this was an error). I know, French people didn't shed enough of their blood : French blood and the lives of their small children didn't matter for they were only French not Polish or British so they had no value.

Remember, dear Polish friends and faithful allies, that 1940 France experienced exactly the same German invasion as you did 1939 - with machine-gunning and bombing of refugees on roads, massacres etc. - but that France contrary to Poland, which had been attacked and invaded in the first place, could have stayed aside and NOT declare war on Nazi Germany, and live in peace behind border fortifications and with an air force which would have been invulnerable by early 1941. Do you think the latter would have helped Poland more?

I'll only add that in 1940 France - contrary to the UK - readily accepted the formation of a national POLISH AIR FORCE on French soil (in France) including Polish bomber units. Too bad the German victory came so soon and prevented this from giving concrete results. Within the French AF contrary to the RAF fighters flown by Polish pilots sported a large Polish national insignia on both sides of the fuselage. We never saw this within the RAF! How come? And how come you don't hate the Brits?

And finally within the French Air Force, the Armée de l'Air, contrary to the RAF, Polish pilots flew exactly the same fighter types as their French comrades, including the best, the "élite" types : Curtiss H-75, Bloch 152 (it was not at all that bad!) and also, "even", D.520. The French didn't make any difference for, as I said above, every pilot was important and it didn't matter if the comrade who saved your life or otherwise did the job was a Frenchman, a Czech, a Pole or a Senegalese. What mattered was his skill as a fighter pilot, yes, AND HIS BEHAVIOUR.

These myths of the horrible French giving the poor Poles, the victims, only the worst aircraft etc. are pure nonsense. Dozens of FRENCH pilots were killed flying the Bloch 151 (151 not 152), a rather poor fighter (armed with only 4 light machine-guns and no cannon, with a weak engine) which French HQ had classified "Not combat-worthy" but some dozens had to be used (?) in battle at the beginning, as well as flying some worne-out models of the MS 406 while eagerly awaiting the arrival of the hotly wanted D.520s!

We shall not forget that all these Polish pilots except the superior officers (from major upwards) were very young guys, prone to explode very quickly and think only afterwards. National Polish temperament, too.