RAF 303 squadron

[Hawkeye2]

My wife just e-mailed me this link from Warsaw: "Bloody foreigners. Untold Battle of Britain. (polskie napisy)". It is fantastic, extremely well done and well worth watching. At 49 minutes it is long but you won't be bored. Her comment in the e-mail: "This film was made by the British Channel 4, but was not allowed to be broadcast in UK and Ireland". I wonder if that might not be because of the way the British expressed their gratitude to the poles at the close of the war.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptijNcDanVw

[olyinaz]

It was good!

Oly

[Tycer]

Thanks. Very good. Sad.

[1894c]

thank you for posting...watched it...learned something new...was angry that the Polish Veterans were not allowed to march in England's Victory Parade, because Churchill didn't want to offend Stalin :( ...the Poles were on the sidelines and watching, knowing full-well that the Western Powers handed their home country over to Soviet slavery...i'm ashamed and saddened...the most powerful statement made by the Polish Airman, who defended England, was that the West won the war, but for them they had lost... :(

[gamekeeper]

This video is STILL blocked in the UK..

[Hawkeye2]

Game Keeper, thank you for the update.

[Mike D.]

Excellent story! Why on God's green earth is it blocked in the UK? Are the old RAF hands embarrassed at being "out flown" by foreign aviators? It's been nearly 70 yrs, why the grudge?

[perry owens]

This film was made by the British Channel 4, but was not allowed to be broadcast in UK and Ireland". I wonder if that might not be because of the way the British expressed their gratitude to the poles at the close of the war.

Not so. It was broadcast in Britain on June 29th 2010. It's only blocked for UK viewing on YouTube because Channel 4 own the copyright. UK viewers can see it on the 4On Demand internet site if they want to. It's a typical Channel 4 anti-establishment biased documentary in my view.
Perry Owens

[Hawkeye2]

"It's a typical Channel 4 anti-establishment biased documentary in my view."

Since I'm in the US I'm not familiar with Channel 4's agenda. Do you regard part (or all) of the documentary as untrue?

[Bruce Scott]

thank you for posting...watched it...learned something new...was angry that the Polish Veterans were not allowed to march in England's Victory Parade, because Churchill didn't want to offend Stalin ...the Poles were on the sidelines and watching, knowing full-well that the Western Powers handed their home country over to Soviet slavery...i'm ashamed and saddened...the most powerful statement made by the Polish Airman, who defended England, was that the West won the war, but for them they had lost...

Churchill was no longer PM in June 1946 when the Victory Parade took place - a Labour (socialist) govenment under Clement Atlee had come to power in the General Election of July 1945.

"Britons including Winston Churchill, figures in the RAF and a number of MPs protested against the decision, which was described as an affront to the Polish war effort as well as an immoral concession to communist power.

After these complaints, 25 pilots of the Polish fighter squadrons in the Royal Air Force, who had taken part in the Battle of Britain, were invited to march together with other foreign detachments as part of the parade of the Royal Air Force.[24] The government said this was a necessary compromise due to the political circumstances of the day.[24] Also, after the public criticism in Britain,[25] last-minute invitations were sent by Foreign Minister Bevin directly to the Chief of Staff of the Polish Army, General Kopanski, who was still in post in London, and to the chiefs of the Polish Air Force and the Polish Navy and to individual generals.

These invitations were declined,[26] and the airmen refused to participate in protest against the omission of the other branches of the Polish forces.[21] The Soviet-backed Polish government, in turn, chose not to send a delegation, and later cited the invitation to the pilots as its reason to stay away.[27] In the end, the parade thus took place without any Polish forces. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia[9] also stayed away."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Vic ... ns_of_1946

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference

[perry owens]

"It's a typical Channel 4 anti-establishment biased documentary in my view."

Since I'm in the US I'm not familiar with Channel 4's agenda. Do you regard part (or all) of the documentary as untrue?

No, there are some technical errors but nothing which is patently untrue, but the programme ends with the betrayal of the Poles by Britain without explaining the complex political situation at the time. In 1945 the Western allies recognised the communist controlled government of Poland so the invitation to take part in the victory march went to that government and not the Polish government in exile. Bruce Scott's post explains the attempts at a compromise that followed.
The programme makers were able to find Poles who were unhappy about their treatment in post-war Britain but strangely none who married British girls and settled down here. The programme makes no mention of the Polish Resettlement Act of 1947, which offered British citizenship to over 200000 Poles on British soil who had fought against the Nazis.
British television was at one time dominated by the BBC and the Independent Television Authority, so when Channel Four came on the scene it had to carve a niche for itself to secure sponsorship income. It chose to do this by screening "cultural" programmes featuring nudity and profanity, promoting multiculturalism and alternative lifestyles and portraying our proud British heritage as something to be ashamed of.
Perry Owens

[gamekeeper]

Thanks Bruce and Perry,
I found it hard to believe Churchill would condone such an act, I know he was no friend of Joe Stalin after the war was over.
The Labour government however!!