A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II

by Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud

Book Overview

A Question of Honor is the gripping, little-known, and brilliantly told story of the scores of Polish fighter pilots who helped save England during the Battle of Britain and of their stunning betrayal... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375411976
• ISBN13: 9780375411977
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Fine History Of The Kosciuszko Squadron During WW2!

Anyone who is interested in the record of this outstanding Polish fighter squadron should read this outstanding book. The author gives plenty of background material, and explains exactly why the Polish Air Force had trouble defending Poland during the Germans’ unprovoked assault in September 1939. This crack Polish squadron was a great help during the Battle of Britain, and was known throughout the RAF as a skilled and courageous unit during England’s battle for survival during that critical summer of 1940. For those wishing to further understand this elite group of men, this is an indispensable and entertaining history.

An Affirmation of Honor

What a terrific book. It begins with the terribly dramatic and heroic saga of the men of the Kosciuszko Squadron and builds from that to the parallel saga of Polish history - especially its history in the Twentieth Century. I knew that the men of the Kosciuszko Squadron had been the most successful squadron in the RAF during the Battle of Britain. I knew something about the terrible tragedy of the Warsaw rising. I even remember visiting Warsaw, seeing photographs of the old city as it had been before WWII followed by photographs of the flattened ruin it was at the end of the war - and then walking out into a restored old city that looked absolutely like the old photographs and bespoke the indomitable spirit of the Polish nation. I did not know the extent of our responsibility for masking what happened to Poland after the War. That was sobering. Olson and Cloud's book affirms the very impressive heroics without resorting to hyperbole. It is a well told tale. It manages to be passionate about the commitment of these men without letting passion distort the telling of a complex historical tale. Absolutely first rate.

Heroism and Betrayal

This book retells, in all its grim truth, the story of how the Polish armed forces, particularly its Air Force, fought bravely for the Western Allies in WWII against the Nazis. That account takes up the first third of the book or so, and then the story begins to unfold about how Churchill and FDR, in order to placate Stalin and the Russians, slowly but surely went back on their promises to the Polish people, and in the end betrayed them into captivity by another totalitarian state, which captivity lasted almost 45 more years. It's a heartbreaking tale, extremely well told and documented, and shows the political saints of the Western Allies to have had feet of clay as regards Eastern Europe. Churchill at least suffered qualms of conscience occasionally about what he was doing to the Poles, but FDR didn't seem to give a damn! Read this book and you will be filled with the same righteous indignation I felt when going through it. Being Polish, of course, I have a vested interest in the country and the people, but it still is a book well worth reading for the other side to the story of the "peace" settlement concerning Eastern Europe.

Non-Polish Recognition of Polish Achievements and Fate

Olson and Cloud provide a broad overview of Polish history. As if to prove that Polish heroism is not the product of Polish self-flattery, the authors cite numerous prominent non-Polish personages to support their contentions. The progressive aspects of Polish society are attested by the democratic May 3, 1791 Constitution, the freeing of slaves by Kosciuszko but not Thomas Jefferson (p. 23), and the granting of women's suffrage in Poland before the USA (pp. 39-40). Gordon Welchman, one of Ultra's top cryptographers, acknowledges that, without the Poles' breaking of the "invincible" German Enigma code, British efforts would never have gotten off the ground (p. 39). Numerous British military and political figures are cited who recognized the skill and effectiveness of Polish pilots. Pointedly, Ronald Kellett, Air Chief Marshall Frederick Rosier, British air minister Sir Archibald Sinclair, and Sir Hugh Dowding all state that (p. 163), without Polish help, the RAF would have lost the Battle of Britain! British parliamentarian Sir Douglas Savory is quoted as saying that Polish sabotage of German transports to the eastern front had contributed greatly to the collapse of the German offensive (p. 278). Field Marshall Viscount Alanbrooke (p. 374) asserted the indispensability of Anders' army in the Allied advance through Italy. Several anti-Polish myths are refuted, including the tale of Polish cavalry charging German tanks and the Polish Air Force being promptly destroyed (p. 71). The long-lived caricature of Poles as an emotional and ungovernable people is shown to have originated from Poland's conquerors two centuries ago (p. 24). One hears frequent accusations of the Polish underground having been motivated by anti-Semitism for not supplying the Jewish Warsaw ghetto fighters (April 1943) with more than a few tens of guns. The authors implicitly demolish this charge by demonstrating the desperate shortage of arms that beset Polish guerillas as late as the ill-fated Warsaw Uprising (August-October 1944). Specifically, only 28 of the promised 301 Allied supply airdrops (October 1943-March 1944) were ever made (p. 285), largely to avoid offending Stalin. The underground forces of Greece, Yugoslavia, and France each received 10-20 times the arms airdropped on Poland (p. 283).Stereotyped comments about prewar Polish anti-Semitism are made (p. 41) without adequate historical context. Reference to prewar Polish discriminatory policies against Jews neglects the magnitude of Jewish economic dominance. At 10% of the prewar Polish population, Jews owned over 40% of Poland's wealth, and were comparably over-represented at universities. The prewar economic boycotts and numerus clausus at universities were, using modern parlance, a form of affirmative action designed to get more Polish gentiles, recently emergent from peasant backwardness aggravated by 123 years of foreign rule, into Jewish-dominated institutions. Olson and Cloud recognize (p. 41) that Poland's

Sets the Record Straight about Poland in WWII

Standard histories of World War II generally minimize, distort or simply ignore Poland's role in defeating Hitler. This book performs an invaluable service to the truth.While the pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron are its chief protagonists, this book has a much larger scope. More than half its pages are devoted to other aspects of Poland's fight in World War II and to that country's betrayal by its supposed allies, the British and the Americans.The Poles fiercely resisted the German invasion, killing over 16,000 German soldiers, destroying more than 25% of their tanks and shooting down over 20% of their aircraft. Later, over 200,000 Polish soldiers, airmen and sailors made their way to Western Europe and North Africa, the 3rd largest allied force in those theaters behind the Americans and British. Back at home, over 350,000 underground fighters continued to resist the Germans. In both cases, the Poles vastly outnumbered their counterparts from all other occupied nations combined. Moreover, Poland was the only occupied nation that would not form a collaborationist, puppet regime under the Nazis.Other vignettes in the book include the key role of Polish cryptographers in cracking Germany's Enigma codes and the Polish underground's critical contributions to spreading disinformation about allied war plans, including the invasion of Normandy.When Britain "stood alone" against Hitler, it actually depended greatly on the Poles, who constituted over 20% of the RAF's pilots. During the Battle of Britain, they not only contributed an even greater percentage of RAF "kills," but also taught the British superior aerial combat tactics. Without the Poles, it is likely that Germany would have won air superiority over Britain and launched an invasion.Instead, Hitler put the conquest of Britain on hold, redeployed his forces to the east and invaded the USSR in violation of his pact with Stalin. At this point, Churchill and his government quickly forgot their debt to the Poles, and began to worry more about ensuring that Stalin would not sign a separate peace with Hitler. Soon, in a striking emulation of Neville Chamberlain's attempt to appease Hitler by inviting him to take Czechoslovakia, Churchill and FDR offered the eastern half of Poland to Stalin. Meanwhile, they assured the Poles that the territorial integrity of their nation was inviolable. This secret deal was made long before the Red Army had re-entered Poland on its drive into Germany.In the cruelest irony, the Poles' success in defending Britain made their own country expendable. Just as ironically, the British and the Americans effectively decided to enforce the terms of the Hitler-Stalin pact, which granted the eastern half of Poland to the USSR. When word of this dirty deal finally leaked to the Poles fighting in the west, many wanted to lay down their arms, but eventually did not. In yet another irony, a year after the war Churchill was concerned about "an iron curtain," yet much culpability for it