Battle of Britain veteran Franciszek Kornicki reunited with spitfire at RAF Northolt

Airframes said:

Brilliant ! He certainly doesn't look 93 either !

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"I first came to England in 1939. The war had started, and the British didn't have enough trained pilots," he says.

Frank was an experienced pilot in Poland and a fully qualified graduate of the Polish Air Force College. He was soon in combat: "Fighter squadrons would fly across the Channel and it was our job to defend the bombers. If you are shot at and you don't see it you are dead. A lot of chaps died on our side and on their side - France was awash with blood at that time."

The Poles made a vital contribution to the war, not to mention the Battle of Britain, where the highest scoring squadron within the whole Allied air force was the Polish 303.

But what of the constant danger?: "You have no time to contemplate how dangerous it is. Everyone was aware it was a dangerous job, but you were flying a jolly good aeroplane!"

Frank decided to stay in England after the war, rather than return to a country in the grip of Soviet Communism, but life was far from easy. He didn't feel totally accepted in those early days, in spite of his wartime work:

"At first, it was like the British were ungrateful for what I did. But I stuck at it and eventually I made a good living in the catering trade.

"People would always ask me, 'When are you going back to Poland?... You're a pilot, you're not useful!'. I told them I would not be a slave to a communist regime.

"Mr Bevin, the Secretary of State, sent a letter to encourage us to leave the country.

"You can imagine how one would feel. We were, at the beginning of the war, the only allies of any consequence. When the war ended we were redundant and we were a burden."

Nevertheless Frank decided to stay in England with his English wife, work hard at learning the language and make a full contribution to society in the process.

"I decided I liked England. The people are fair by and large. The laws are good. I thought it was a good country to settle in..."

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