File under “you couldn’t make it up”. The BNP’s 09 election campaign, which they presumably regard as the first step to the road to their promised land of racial purity, is clearly setting out to target migrant workers.Never ones to worry about a hackneyed image they use that iconic image of a Spitfire to illustrate “the Battle for Britain”.
Just one slight problem. The Spitfire they used is one from 303 squadron. Which was made up of Polish airmen who escaped from Nazi occupied France.
John Hemming MP pointed out the lunacy of the BNPs position:
They have a policy to send Polish people back to Poland – yet they are fronting their latest campaign using this plane.
It is absurd to make claims about Englishness and Britishness fronted by this image.
It’s obvious they just picked an image at random and they are really clutching at straws if they say this was deliberate.
For the record on July 1st 1940 Britain had 1103 trained fighter pilots. The RAF role of honour recognises 574 pilots from other countries who fought at least one operational sortie. 145 Poles flew in the Battle of Britain, 30 of whom were killed in action. And to be pedantic it was arguably Hurricanes that “won” the Battle of Britain shooting down many more planes than the Spitfires.
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It’s even more challenging to the BNP world view than that…
To quote Wikipedia:
Sorry, if I’m quoting exactly, that should be:
And to be pedantic it was arguably Hurricanes that “won” the Battle of Britain shooting down many more planes than the Spitfires
…many of which were piloted by the men of 303 Squadron, which did not start using Spitfires until March 1941.
We have a memorial to Polish Airmen on the canal near here.
OK so only tenuously relevant…
There’s more to it.
First, a detail: the poster shows a 303 Spitfire with Donald Duck painted just below cockpit, which means it’s RF-D, flown by sqn ldr. Jan Zumbach in 1942-43.
If you feel something’s wrong here, you’re right. BoB was fought in 1941.
303rd flew Hurricanes back then.
I do, however, think, BNP idiot who used the picture had a reason to believe this is a BoB machine.
There was a bad British movie “BoB”, and its poster featured a Spitfire shown from (AFAIR) the same angle as here. The movie was re-issued on DVD around 2001-2003 with DVD cover printed by Agimedia. To be exact, by their branch in Poland. And Zumbach’s markings were put on the Spitfire by my friend Andrzej with full knowledge of anachronism 😀
So BritSDAP uses graphics made by a Pole, showing aircraft flown by a Pole leading a squadron which is a symbol of Polish contribution to the defence of Britain, and the world in general, against nazis.
I love it ]:->
Sorry, I got one year ahead when describing 303 timeline…
Dowding: “Had it not been for the magnificent [work of] the Polish squadrons and their unsurpassed gallantry, I hesitate to say that the outcome of the battle would have been the same.”
There were approximately 3 times as many Hurricanes deployed in the BoB than Spitfires. Hurricanes tended to be deployed shooting down bombers, whose task it was to destroy airfields RDF (radar) and production. Spitfires tended to be deployed shooting down the Me 109 and Me 110 escorts of the bombers.