I’m trying to find out about a guy whose only name I know is his anglicised name – Stan Wilks – so I assume his first name was Stanislaw. Seemed to spend a lot of his time getting shot down in the Med. according to him, liked Hurricanes best and said he spent some time with partisans in Italy after one shoot down. Eventually married an english lass and emigrated to New Zealand. He died about 10 years ago. He was an interesting chap to talk to – wish I’d written some it down……

Sorry, Jon, that doesn’t seem to ring a bell. I know of only one Pole to fly Hurricanes on ops in the Med, and to my knowledge he was not shot down. Anyway, his first name was not Stan and his last name was nothing like “Wilks”. Also, I know of only one Polish fighter pilot who spent any significant time with Italian partisans, but he was a Spitfire guy shot down over France, who went to Italy after he escaped from a PoW camp. His name, too, was nowhere near resembling the name you mentioned.

The only Siwicki I was able to find in the Polish Air Force listings was
LAC Leon Siwicki, 705280, born 20.12.1916, ground crew member with No. 302 Sqn.

The Christian name that you mentioned is spelled Bronislaw (not “Broneslaw”) in Polish.

If you are positive that Bronislaw Siwicki was a pilot, one possibility is that he had served with the army (or the navy) and volunteered for flying training towards the end of the war or shortly after it ended. In that case he would technically remain a soldier (or a sailor) until he completed his service flying training, and his name may have been lost in PAF paperwork as it disbanded in 1946.

P7834 was RY-F with 313 Sqn
P7835 was ZF-S with 308 Sqn
P7839 was ZF-C with 308 and PK-T with 315

None of the shots of restored aircraft seems to follow the authentic application of the note “MAKE SURE DOOR IS LOCKED BEFORE FLIGHT”. After some initial varations it seems that Supermarine and Westland settled on the layout as in the black & white shots below and CBAF on a different stencil, as in the colour shot (both are wartime). I think the Supermarine one was applied either in red or in black. All CBAF ones I have seen were red.

My concern is the perpetuation of the hatred of WW2 and passing this on to generations essentially completely unaffected by these events.

they were approached by a group teenagers asking them were they were from. Answering “Denmark”, they were told that they should consider themselves lucky, because if they had been German they “would have had the sh*t knocked out of them”.

I guess it’s a bit of an exagerration to link any anti-German reaction with “perpetuation of the hatred of WW2”. While in UK I have met very similarly negative attitude of local youngsters against the French (the last war between France and Britain was some 200 years ago) and the Poles (I cannot recall any war between Poland and Britain).
In the case you described I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole incident had more to do with a recent international football match than WW2.

Interesting thread.

To me that throws up an interesting question in that Polish aircrew fought during the Battle-of-Britain and throughout the war in RAF squadrons. Although these are often called ‘Polish’ squadrons, to what extent were they actually Polish; were any of the aircraft paid for by the Polish government in exile, were any of the other costs, including pilot’s pay, met in this way?

Legally speaking they were completely Polish, although falling under British operational control (in about the same manner as British troops in places like Afghanistan might fall under US operational control, for example). I believe in summer 1940, when things got hot, it took the British Parliament just a couple of days to pass a new law that made it legal for foreign troops to be based in Britain, and that was specifically to allow the Poles, the Dutch and Norwegians (IIRC) to form their own troops in UK. The Czechs and the French, on the other hand, had to join the RAF, as their own governments have (in vastly different circumstances) surrendered to Germany, so there was no way for them to form their own national forces that would be internationally recognised.
And yes, the Polish government in exile did pay for the aircraft, fuel, ammunition, for using RAF bases etc. IIRC the final balance was something like 60 odd million pound sterling paid by the Polish government in exile.
‘Airmen in Exile’ by Alan Brown is strongly recommended if you’re really interested in the subject.

Well, the same phenomenon affects other nationalities when they post in their native languages. The “culture” you mention is, sadly, international.