For Your Freedom and Ours

Description

Members of the Polish air force fought through the defeat of their own country in 1939 and then alongside the French until the fall of France the following year, when they made their varied ways to Britain. There the Poles were among the Air Force's most successful aces. During the Battle of Britain, the pilots of the all-Polish Kosciuszko Squadron - 303 Squadron to the RAF - downed more German planes than any other squadron. According to Britain's wartime air force minister, without the Poles 'our shortage of trained pilots would have made it impossible to defeat the German air force and so win the Battle'. This gripping book tells the story of the Polish pilots, focussing on a small group of five of them, from defeat in Poland and France to victory in the Battle of Britain, from their idolisation by the public to the harrowing story of their betrayal, and Poland's, by Britain and the USA as the war came to its closing stages. This is an utterly fascinating story, heroic, inspiring and finally tragic, strikingly well-told.

Stanley W. Cloud and Lynne Olson are the authors of The Murrow Boys, an entertaining history book about the adventures of CBS radio broadcaster Edward R. Murrow and his team of broadcast journalists during World War Two. They live in Washington, D. C.

An astonishing achievement! Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud give us a fascinating account of the extremely well documented heroic and daring struggle of a group of Polish military pilots and through it they present us a glimpse of the harrowing history of Poland and Europe during the Second World War. -- Ryszard Kapuscinski A wonderful story, wonderfully told. Heroism and betrayal make for heady reading, and this book is long overdue. -- Norman Davies * The Sunday Times *