Were the Polish Fighters the best pilots in the Battle of Britain?

'..and no Polish chit chat!'

The average age of an RAF pilot in 1940 was about 20 years. Some were as young as 18 and there were others over 30. In those days, with the age of majority set at 21, many of the RAF’s Battle of Britain pilots were not old enough to vote but not too young to lay down their lives in the face of a life and death struggle to save Britain from coming under the tyranny of the Nazis.

Not all were British – in fact Fighter Command was a cosmopolitan mix. There were Poles (141), Czechs (87), Belgians (24) and Free French (13) who swelled the ranks along with those from the British Commonwealth and other nations who answered the call for pilots wanting to defend freedom.

Roughly two-thirds of the 3,000 or so RAF pilots who flew in the Battle of Britain were officers, the other third being sergeant and flight sergeant pilots.

In 1940 a pilot officer could expect to earn £264 per annum, roughly equivalent to just over £30,000 in today’s money, and non-commissioned officers quite a bit less, despite facing the same dangers: both received an allowance (flying pay) recognising their aircrew status. In addition their numbers were beefed up with pilots from the Auxiliary Air Force (AAF) – made up those from the largely middle and upper classes who trained at weekend (hence they earned the nickname “weekend warriors”), who provided a civilian pool of extra capability during emergencies.