Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: IronDog on December 22, 2010, 10:20:02 PM
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The highest scoring squadron in the R.A.F. wasn't British,but Politoejamhe 303 Squadron,made up of all Polish pilots,started up in 1940,got 126 kills.They lost 1,970 pilots in the course of the war.
Anyone care to guess where the first American officer was killed in WWII?I will check back and see if anyone can get it right later.
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Capt. Robert Losey
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had to be in the BoB.
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Billy Fiske. He flew for the 303 Kosciuszko Squadron. Very interesting book written on the named A Question of Honor By Lynne Olson abd Stanley Cloud.
#S# Banshee7
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Billy Fiske didn't fly for 303, but was killed flying with the RAF in the B of B.
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hmm..thought i read that. I'm going off of memory, but I do recall reading that he was the first killed.
The Book is still a must read :)
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Banshee7
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Now you've gotten me wondering where I read about Fiske. I could have sworn it was in that book (as I don't do much reading lol). Maybe it was mentioned there. I'll have to re-read the book to see.
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Banshee7
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Buzzard7 got it right on.Killed in Norway when Germany invaded Norway.He was just an observer!Seems like a lot of observers get killed if my fading memory is somewhat accurate.
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So they got 126 kills for 1970 deaths. That sucks.
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Billy Fiske didn't fly for 303, but was killed flying with the RAF in the B of B.
didnt he fly a hurricane? i remember seeing a portrait of his hurricane shot up, on flames and going down in a book once.
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I imagine in the kills they got,many were bombers with several crew members.The Poles weren't worried about taking losses.I believe it was a unit from the Polish army that finally got the capture of Monte Casino.They were tough,brave fighters!
The Dawg
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Brawo moich polskich kolegów :salute
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So they got 126 kills for 1970 deaths. That sucks.
When you're up against the real world equivalents of the muppets, that is great.
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I don't think 126 kills can be correct for the highest scoring squadron in the RAF.
The top scoring Canadian squadron, 418 Squadron, scored 105 in the air and 73 on the ground with a further 103 damaged in combat or by strafing and they did that flying first Bostons and then Mosquito VIs.
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So they got 126 kills for 1970 deaths. That sucks.
Seems that irondog's information was incorrect or incomplete.
The 303 scored 126 kills in 6 weeks with a loss of 18 hurricanes and 5 pilots killed.
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He flew for the 303 Kosciuszko Squadron. Very interesting book written on the named A Question of Honor By Lynne Olson abd Stanley Cloud.
#S# Banshee7
Great book. The "Question of Honor" cut many ways - the pilots who flew for the honor of Poland, the RAF's honor in their treatment of the unit during the war (they didn't want to cut the foreigners loose, so the Poles almost had to go off the reservation to get into their first scraps), and especially the dishonorable way the Poles were treated at war's end.
Many of these guys were flight instructors, the best of the best and enormously skilled. Olson suggests their reputation for being overly aggressive hot dogs likely came more from their uberness compared to the average BoB pilot, as the Poles were confident enough to dive in where the doctrinaire feared to tread.
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Anyone care to guess where the first American officer was killed in WWII?I will check back and see if anyone can get it right later.
ID
I would have to guess that the first American officer to be killed was in China flying for the Flying Tigers.
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I would have to guess that the first American officer to be killed was in China flying for the Flying Tigers.
forgive my limited knowledge of beginning ww2, but didnt the FT get transfered to china in 1937? and ww2 didnt officially start till august 1939? :headscratch:
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well it's all i could think of :lol :frown:
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Great book. The "Question of Honor" cut many ways - the pilots who flew for the honor of Poland, the RAF's honor in their treatment of the unit during the war (they didn't want to cut the foreigners loose, so the Poles almost had to go off the reservation to get into their first scraps), and especially the dishonorable way the Poles were treated at war's end.
Many of these guys were flight instructors, the best of the best and enormously skilled. Olson suggests their reputation for being overly aggressive hot dogs likely came more from their uberness compared to the average BoB pilot, as the Poles were confident enough to dive in where the doctrinaire feared to tread.
I do remember reading about how "crazy" the Brits thought the Poles were for getting up close and personal when firing. But what really hit me was the way the Brits treated the Poles. It's almost like that they still regarded them as a minority after all they'd done. An example is when the Polish pilot, I can't remember his name, stood watching the Air Parade in tears because they wouldn't allow the Poles to be involved in it.
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Banshee7
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yeah, the Brits were afraid of offending the Communist government by honoring expatriates.