Senate honours 80th anniversary of Battle of Britain and Polish heroes

Poland's Senate adopted a resolution on Wednesday commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and the role of Polish pilots, among other heroes in view of the importance of the battle for the course of World War II.

The resolution was approved by 85 senators, with no abstentions and no votes against.

The Senate described the Battle of Britain as "one of the most decisive battles of the Second World War," which showed that the course of the war could be reversed, and that the participation of Polish pilots was priceless.

The upper house recalled in its resolution that 145 Polish pilots fighting in the Battle of Britain, both in Polish and British squadrons, shot down over 200 German planes. Twenty-nine Polish pilots were killed during the battle.

The Battle of Britain was a WWII military campaign in which the RAF successfully defended the United Kingdom against the German Luftwaffe between June and October 1940. Notable in the battle were 16 Polish squadrons formed from pilots who escaped from Poland after its 1939 invasion by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Among them was the famous No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadron, which was the highest-scoring Hurricane squadron in the RAF and boasted the highest ratio of enemy aircraft destroyed to their own lost.

Speaking about heroic actions by pilots fighting in the Battle of Britain, then British PM Winston Churchill said that "never (...) was so much owed by so many to so few."