A BF-109 roars across the British sky with a Hawker Hurricane hot on his tail.
Tracers streak past the German’s canopy
as he desperately tries to turn the tide of the dogfight in its favor.
Dodging, diving, and turning
he attempts every trick in the book to absolutely no avail
for he isn’t going against the average RAF pilot.
At the controls of the enemy fighter is a man with nothing to lose
someone who has watched his home burn under the hand of the German army and is hungry for revenge.
An ace in exile.
His name is Mirosław Ferić.
It’s the 1st of September 1939, at a field near Warsaw in Poland.
Feric and his fellow pilots gather in front of their leader
Zdzisław Krasnodębski, a.k.a “The King.”
He speaks words of valor and courage
for today the Germans have begun their invasion of Poland.
Feric cheers alongside his fellows
they are driven and committed with the tales of Polish might, heroism, and chivalry fresh in their mind.
For the future Feric opted to start a diary of their activities
aware of the historical impact of what was to come.
Little did he know, the fight was as brutal as it was unfair.
The Poles bravely flew their outdated PZL P.11c’s
against the hordes of German bombers escorted by far superior BF 109’s and 110’s.
By sheer skill they had claimed a handful of victories and repelled a couple of attacks
but their inferiority both numerical and in equipment quality was unmanageable.
The third day Feric found himself in a dogfight against a BF 110
when one of the fighters got on it’s tail and there was nothing he could do to avoid it.
Mid-turn the enemy riddled his aircraft’s side with bullets
shredding its fuselage and shooting off the control stick from his hands.
Powerless, Feric spun down to the ground, the G’s pinning him to the seat.
He could do nothing but watch the green forest below coming closer and closer
until the disintegrating aircraft miraculously rolled and expelled him from the open cockpit.
Feric barely managed to open his chute and drift gently to the ground below.
It was there, sitting defeated in the forests of his beloved homeland
watching his compatriots faring little better than himself
that the reality of his situation seriously began to set in.
By the 5th day the squadron was a shadow of its former self
and the Luftwaffe bombed Polish land at will.
The Polish Squadron claimed 8 victories to 36 lost aircraft.
With the nation on the brink of defeat, the men were ordered to flee to fight another day.
Krasnodębski led the sorry flight to neighboring Romania.
From there the Poles were pushed from country to country
followed by rumors of their almost immediate defeat and greeted with contempt by the Allies.
In this time of inaction, Feric continued with his diary, asking other pilots to put in some entries as well.
After a while they’ve found themselves in Britain in an all-too-familiar escape.
The Poles were thrown into some barracks to waste away, and not even allowed to fly patrols.
But with losses mounting for the RAF
after a time the Poles were finally given the opportunity to shine.
They were formed into a new 303rd RAF Squadron with their old squadron leader Krasnodębski.
They were brought to Northolt, an airfield West of London,
to meet their British squadron leader - Ronald Kellett
a wealthy volunteer with not a single hour of combat under his belt.
Things did not get off to a smooth start.
Kellett was a firm subscriber to the idea of Polish incompetence and treated the men as such.
Feric and the rest of the Polish veterans were sent to learn English
the imperial measurement system, and many more things that they found unnecessary.
The mutual disrespect reached extremes and would’ve boiled over if it hadn’t been for “The King”.
Krasnodebski became a stabilizing force, cheering up the men of the 303rd
while pressuring the British to move on to flight as soon as possible.
Finally, they were presented to their new birds, the modern Hawker Hurricane.
In the air the Poles were in their element.
They raced through the program, and on August 30th it would come to a spectacular end.
Feric was behind the controls of his Hurricane practicing attacks on bombers
when Kellett ordered the formation back to base
Germans were approaching and they weren’t yet clear for combat.
He sighed and begrudgingly followed Kellett back to Northolt
but in the rear of the formation, another pilot was having a very different idea.
Pilot Ludwik Paszkiewicz had had enough.
He broke formation and slammed the throttle to full, roaring across the sky towards the enemy all on his own.
After a minute, he spots a BF 109 diving away from a fellow Hurricane.
He pounces, charging down to intercept the fleeing German.
In a blur the 109 is struck by a barrage of bullets from the flank
the second Hurricane sees Paszkiewicz coming and pulls off the attack
as the pilot of the 303rd shreds the German machine to pieces.
The enemy bursts into flames and he witnesses the 109 twist in the air
and impact on the ground with a fiery explosion.
A weight lifted from his shoulders. He'd done it.
Back at Northolt Feric waited for news on Paszkiewicz
when suddenly he hears the unmistakable roar of the Hawker Hurricane in the distance.
He runs out of his barracks with the other pilots and witnesses Paszkiewicz arriving over the treetops
barrel rolling over the airfield in celebration.
The men erupt in cheers.
Paszkiewicz landed to the applause of his comrades
only for a furious British officer to storm through the gathered men
and order Paszkiewicz to the Group Captain’s office, for a verbal beatdown.
But this wouldn’t dampen his spirits.
Immediately after getting the biggest dressing down of his career
he went straight to Feric with a smile on his face and asked for the diary.
There, he wrote "I have fired at an enemy aircraft for the first time in my life!"
That night the men celebrated.
The notoriously sober Paszkiewicz got outrageously drunk
and the celebrations got even bigger
when Kellett informed the men the squadron was now fully operational.
They would see action the very next day.
At 6 in the afternoon the order came to scramble,
Feric ran for his Hurricane alongside all of his brothers
and the orchestra of war machines came to life in just two minutes.
The flight A of the Squadron headed to intercept enemy bombers on their way to London
when they spotted a group of BF 109s in the distance guarding the bombers.
The first three Hurricanes under Kellett’s lead charged the enemy with the sun behind their backs
and in an instant 3 enemy fighters burst into flames.
The rest of the enemy gave chase to their attackers
but unwittingly showed their backs to the three remaining Poles with Feric among them.
Feric dived into the fray, picking a target and racing after him.
The German pulled off his pursuit of an allied Hurricane and turned his entire attention to avoiding Feric.
Feric matched the German, chasing after him and bringing him into his sights.
He would write
“I was surprised and puzzled at the ease of it.
Their fuselage filled the entire diameter of the luminous ring.
The result was immediate and wonderful.”
In just an hour the 303rd had claimed 6 victories with 0 casualties of their own.
The animosity of the past month seemingly vanished with the first sight of burning Messerschmitts.
Kellett grew to respect the Polish pilots and, having downed his first German plane that day, became one of their own.
And the success is continued.
They took to the skies every day that followed, fighting fearlessly in defense of the Isles.
Throughout it all Feric dutifully continued writing into his diary, explaining in an entry
"I am committed to preserving all that may be forgotten
all that is most dear to us right now
the heroic battle deeds of our pilots.”
Their efforts would reach their peak on the 15th of September
when a massive last-ditch push was made by the Luftwaffe to destroy the RAF once and for all.
Hundreds of German bombers and fighters crossed the channel in the biggest attack of the Blitz
focused entirely on wrecking devastation upon London.
The Poles rose to the occasion with the 303rd as well as the many others scattered in squadrons across the RAF.
They charged like cavalry, throwing themselves at the enemy with near suicidal maneuvers
and unleashing devastating broadsides from point-blank range.
Their volleys ripped wings and fuselages in half like saws.
In the flurry of crisscrossing tracers, German crosses, and British roundels are torn apart and engulfed in flames.
Pilots of both sides bail en masse
the giant melee of aircraft causing hundreds of parachutes to sprout in the sky amidst the rain of aircraft debris .
The Polish Squadron would end that day battered, but victorious.
The RAF successfully repelled the onslaught
and the squadron would be credited with 16 downed enemies
but tragically, they lost one pilot.
Statistically, it was incredibly good
but numbers did little to ease the pain of a tight-knit group of friends.
The squadron would continue to fight throughout the war, racking up a stunning record.
But tragically, Feric would not live to see its end.
He passed away in February 1942
near the base that he called his home throughout the battle of Britain
when a wing on his Spitfire disintegrated and it plummeted to earth in a spin.
His loss was greatly felt by the men of the squadron, who took to the task of continuing his diary in his honor.
By the end of the war it was thousands of pages long, encompassing 7 volumes
full of the day to day actions of the brave men, tales of their battles, and obituaries for the fallen.
Today it resides in the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London.
It’s always hard to estimate the exact contribution of every unit into such huge battles as the Battle of Britain.
Beyond all question, 303 Squadron was one of the most impactful units of the RAF.
Initial wartime reports mention 126 victories by 303 Squadron during the Battle.
According to the most recent research they are credited with over 58 verified victories
which still makes them the most efficient aerial unit in the Battle.
Sadly, post-war wasn’t kind to the valiant airmen.
Their beloved Poland was left in the hands of the USSR
the same nation that had allied with Germany to destroy them in 1939.
But not all was lost.
The pilots spread across the West
and some even lived to see Poland remove itself from the Soviet Union's influence
and return to see their beloved homeland free after so many years.
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