• Polish Air Force ranks do not correlate efficiently with their nominal English equivalent. For example, the Polish rank of both Marian Andruszkow and Waclaw Andrzejczyk is listed as plutonowy, yet the former's English rank is listed as flight sergeant while the latter's is corporal. Polish non-com pilots were often considered to be Sergeants by the British. 
• A number of air crew were lost on missions but the location where they went down is unknown. Some airmen are known to have been buried in a particular town or cemetery but the exact location of the grave or the grave number is unknown. In these cases, a "?" signifies the place of burial.  
• Total losses of the Polish Air Force in Great Britain (including Polish airmen who flew with R.A.F. units) stood at 2,191 as of July 1, 1945. Out of a total personnel count of 13,480 men, the losses stand at 16% of the total. Eighty-eight per cent of the losses are due to battle and training flights, 2.5% to automobile accidents, 2.5 % to other accidents and some 7% to illness and disease.
• A grateful thank you goes out to Mr. Adrian den Houdijker and family of Amsterdam for providing additional information about Polish airmen buried at Nieuwe Ooster War Cemetary in Amsterdam. Of the 16 airmen buried there, two are unknown (died May 20, 1941 and July 20, 1942).

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The Times (England) in an article on the occasion of shooting down the 500th German plane by Polish Air Force in Great Britain.

1st January, 1943.

"The Polish Air Force operating from these shores yesterday shot down its 500th German enemy. One squadron, No. 303, proudly named after Kosciuszko - claims 200 of them. To the 500 have to be added many more aircraft probably destroyed. In the Battle of Britain the Poles accounted for 195. This has been the work of the fighters. For their part, the bomber squadrons have carried out 3,200 raids and dropped 9,000 tons of bombs on enemy targets. No fewer than 120 airmen have been decorated. The figures eloquently epitomise an inspiring enterprise. The rise of the Air Force from the tragic ruins and seeming obliteration of September 1939 symbolises the undying spirit of the whole nation. Its own motto 'We shall return' expresses both a faith and a resolve. Poland, fated to a new and worse crucifixion, looks across its own scarred and despoiled lands to the west for a sign and does not look in vain.

"The strength of the Polish Air Force is now double what it was at the outbreak of war with Germany. Its losses have not been light. All told, 1,000 of its members are listed as killed, missing or captured. Many rest in the cemetery at Newark. The stone cross under whose shadow their graves lie is inscribed: 'For Freedom....' Each Polish airman regards himself as a 'self-appointed instrument of justice.' "

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Extracts from the book There's Freedom in the Air - the official story of the Allied Air Forces from the occupied countries, prepared for the Air Ministry by the Ministry of Information (1944).

"Poland was a country under conscription; the number of recruits to the Air Force each year was therefore considerable. If its reserves of aircraft were poor and soon to be used up, its reserves of men were enormous. If it was not possible to save the planes from destruction by the Luftwaffe, it became evident, as early as September 14th, that it would be possible to save the men. Before active Polish resistance in Poland had ended, therefore, the escape of thousands of men of the Polish Air Force - and also of the Polish Army and the Polish Navy - had been planned. This escape, both because of its size and because of the triumphs over hardship and distances, was one of the most remarkable in history...

"The first of these men of the Polish Air Force began to reach England in early December, 1939; only three months after the collapse of their country. In a sense they were fortunate. Europe had not crumbled; France was still a free country; the avenues of escape were still open. For these reasons they were to be followed by many thousands of their countrymen. Meanwhile many Polish airmen had reached France. They had skied across the Carpathians. They had been through the prisons of Hungary. They had stolen boats and had rowed down the Drava River into Yugoslavia. They had come by steamer to Marseilles. They found themselves in a France on the verge of defeat and disunity.

"So in June, 1940, their escape began again. There was now only one country left for them - England....

"As time went on they (i.e., Norwegians) became a powerful force, second in numbers only to the Poles among the Allies in Britain...

"By July, 1940, the first two Polish bomber squadrons, Nos. 300 and 301, had been formed, though they were not to begin operating until September; and the first Polish fighter squadrons, Nos. 302 and 303.

"Within three weeks of each other, on August 7th and August 26th, 1940 respectively, the Poles and Czechoslovaks had their first success in battle. On the first date the Polish Squadrons No. 302 and 303 shot down five enemy planes without loss to themselves.

But on September 7th, exactly a month after their first victory, the Poles did even better. That day, indeed, they did magnificantly. At about half-past four in the afternoon a formation of 16 Hurricanes of No. 303 Squadron took off to meet a large enemy bomber formation protected heavily by enemy fighters. An extremely fierce encounter took place over Essex, where the Poles had kept a rendezvous with one of the most famous of all R.A.F. squadrons, the thirty-year-old No.1. In a short time the Poles alone had scored the following successes: - 10 Dornier 215s destroyed, 3 Messerschmitt 109s destroyed, 2 Dornier 215s probably destroyed, 3 Messerschmidt 109s probably destroyed, 2 Dornier 215s damaged.

"For this magnificent achievement the Poles paid with three Hurricanes, from which two pilots jumped safely; the third was wounded. The day was historic. The Poles had given to the world their first real demonstration of that fanatical courage, determination and skill for which they have since become famous....

"The new phase had even then begun; the Battle of Britain had simply overshadowed it. It was the offensive by Bomber Command; the offensive in which the Allied Air Forces had begun to take part in September, when the first Polish bomber air-crews, flying the Battles of which we now never hear, had bombed enemy shipping in the harbour of Boulogne. Two squadrons had taken part in this operation, Nos. 300 and 301, and both had been formed in July of that year..... 

"All this time the strength of the Poles was growing. The coloured map of Europe with its bright strings of retribution was becoming more and more interesting. From the Atlantic coast of France to the Baltic ports of Germany, the strings were growing closer and closer together into a solid fan. This fan represented, in 1941, the dropping of a total load of 1,200,000 lb. of bombs on German and German-occupied soil. But in the first six months of 1942 it represented a total load of nearly two and a half million lb. of bombs. The Polish power to hit back had been doubled and doubled again.

"The defence of Great Britain, in which many of their compatriots had played a splendid part, was only part of the immense plan of the war. To carry the war into Germany, to demonstrate to the citizens of Cologne and Bremen some of the experiences of the citizens of Warsaw, to make war a horrifying, positive and striking evil whose evidence could be smelt in the house, the factory and the street - all this seemed to the Polish bomber crews a clear course towards its end. Poles have been at war with Germans for something like a thousand years. It is consequently natural that they should feel they know them well.

"The Poles, therefore, were not only proud, but extremely satisfied, at their part in these enormous raids of the summer of 1942, for by it they were carrying the answer common to all the disinherited nationals of Europe - that the subjection of one nation by another is ultimately an impossible thing. A nation cannot fight with abstract qualities like faith and honour and resolution; but its people can endure by reason of them. And if they can endure long enough and somehow support that resolution and honour and faith with tanks and guns and aircraft and bombs, they can accomplish a miracle. To the Poles the great bomber raids were the first part of that miracle. It must have seemed an uneasy miracle for the people of Germany. For who in Germany could have guessed that, three years after the crushing defeat of Poland, a resurrected Polish Air Force would raid the cities of Germany in greater strength than it possessed in 1939? 

"All these great raids, and many others, were not made without loss. Though not comparatively greater than British and other Allied losses, they were nevertheless considerable. And since it is the story of the returning aircraft, not the aircraft lost, that the public almost invariably hears, the story of Polish courage in the nights over Germany will never be fully written or known.

"But the stories of those who return are also great. Behind the big victories, which are world news, lie the little victories, which time turns into something like local legend. So the public probably read, after one Bremen raid, the story of five Polish Sergeants and a Polish Flying Officer in a Wellington.....

"Behind all such exploits lies a single inspiration. It is perfectly expressed in an inscription that hangs above an altar in the hangar of a Polish bomber squadron. Almost all Polish airmen in this country are Catholics. Their altar of devotion is rightly very close to the scene of their action and sacrifce. In the huge dark hangar, among the black bombers, it shines with its inscription that in its profound and touching simplicity is the voice not only of Poles, but of all the disinherited peoples of Europe everywhere: 'Lord, please bring back our country's freedom'."

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Information listed in this order: surname, given name, rank, date of death (day/month/year), place of death/burial

Abraham, Julian, szer., 11.9.42, ? in Great Britain

Adach, Henryk, plut-pchor., 13.6(7).41, utonal w morzu kolo Montrose, Szkocja (drowned in the ocean near Montrose, Scotland)

Adamek, Miecz., por., 18.5.44, Northwood, W. Bryt., sect. H