Hurricane - 303 Squadron

Recently James mentioned a film that he wanted to see at the cinema. It’s called Hurricane, and is about Polish airmen during the Second World War, who had escaped from occupied Europe to Britain, and who were formed into a Polish squadron of the RAF. However when we checked the cinema listings, we found out that we were too late and it was finished. So we decided to stay at home and watch a film on television instead. James was serving out our curry while I looked for a film to watch - and guess what? The film was available on the Virgin Media On Demand Service. James was very surprised and pleased that we could watch it after all!

The Polish pilots were at first greeted with suspicion by the British but their flying skills earned them respect and they were the highest scoring of the Hurricane squadrons during the Battle of Britain. What was very sad was that after the end of the war they were not included in the 1946 London victory parade for political reasons, because they were loyal to the old pro-democracy Polish government-in-exile. Instead, representatives from the new Soviet-backed Polish government were invited. The airmen were invited at the last minute to march with the RAF but declined, and then the Soviet-backed Polish Government didn’t turn up either - because the pilots had been invited. It was certainly an interesting film but there was something kind of awkward about the script, it seemed a bit stilted sometimes and I felt that it could have told the story better. But I learned some new things; I remember my Mum and Dad talking about how badly Poland was let down by the Allies after the war.