Because Poles saved Britain

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."*

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 poll hosted on the Telegraph newspaper's 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. 

Kornicki Now & Then

Polish weekly news magazine Newsweek Polska and national newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza have both supported the campaign to have Kornicki voted number one in the poll, which was set up to celebrate 100 years of the RAF in 2018. 

The Eastern Europe campaign has also been waged in the UK, with the Polish Embassy and ˜Polish Radio London" urging the UK's 813,000-strong Polish population to back Kornicki, who turned 100 last year.

Quite possibly the Battle of Britain in 1940 would have been lost without the heroic efforts of Polish pilots flying in the RAF. The planned German invasion was thwarted.

Battle of Britain 303 Squadron - "Repeat please!" 

Dywizjon 303 "Ci cholerni cudzoziemcy" 

 * Winston Churchill