Jackson - Through the eyes of the worlds fighter aces: the greatest fighter pilots of World War Two

I t was a beautiful morning. Five thousand feet below the vibrating wings of the nine fighters the silver snake of the Vistula wound its way through the September colours of the Polish countryside, finally disappearing under a thin curtain of blue haze that shimmered over the horizon.

The fighters, gull-winged PZL P-11Cs of No 152 Squadron, Polish Air Force, were fighting hard to gain altitude, their noses pointing towards the north-east. From the cockpit of his Jedenastka, as the little aircraft was known, Lieutenant Stanislaw Skalski scanned the horizon over to the left; the treacherous quarter of the sky from which the formations of the Luftwaffe came to unload their deadly cargoes on Polish targets, their guardian Messerschmitts roving everywhere to challenge Polands pitifully outclassed fighter defences.

Skalski still found it hard to grasp that his country had been at war for twenty-four hours. He was still dazed by the sudden fury of the German attack the day before, in the early hours of 1 September 1939. Both he and his fellow pilots had known that war was inevitable, but now it had come it seemed unreal.

Slightly ahead of Skalskis aircraft and to the right, the Jedenastka flown by his squadron commander, Major Lesniewski, rose and fell gently on the currents of air, its red and white insignia and the distinctive wild-duck marking of 142 Squadron standing out boldly against its drab camouflage. It could have been just another pre-war training flight; any moment now, thought Skalski, they would emerge from the nightmare and return to base for a meal.

It was then that he saw the enemy: a cluster of black dots, sliding low across the Vistula away to port. Opening the throttle, Skalski brought his P-11 alongside Lesniewskis aircraft and waggled his wings, pointing at the enemy formation. The squadron commander waved in acknowledgement and winged over into a dive, followed by the other eight fighters. The wind screamed past Skalskis open cockpit as the Jedenastka gathered speed, plummeting down towards what could now be recognized as slim, twin-engined Dornier 17 bombers; seven of them, holding a tight arrowhead formation.

With eyes only for the leading bomber, Skalski levelled out and sped towards it head-on, crouching low in the cockpit as tracer flickered past from the Dorniers nose gun. The Pole forced himself to hold rthe fighter steady as the distance between the two aircraft narrowed with terrifying speed, holding his fire until the bulk of the Dornier filled the sky ahead. A gentle pressure on the trigger, and a stream of bullets from the Jedenastkas twin 7.7mm machine guns tore into the enemy bomber at point-blank range. At the last moment, Skalski rolled the little fighter over on its back and pulled on the stick, passing inverted under the bomber. Pulling the P-11 up in a steep climbing turn, he looked back in time to see the Dornier nose-dive into a field and erupt in a tremendous explosion as its bomb load went off.

Pushing the throttle open, Skalski came up behind a second Dornier, closing in to fifty yards and firing in short bursts. Suddenly, a jet of flame burst from the Dorniers starboard engine. Skalski fired again, and this time the bombers glasshouse cockpit shattered into fragments. The stricken aircraft went into a steep climb, hung poised for an instant, and then spun into the ground.

Climbing, Skalski looked around. The remaining Dorniers had jettisoned their bombs and were heading flat out for the border. There was no sign of the other Polish fighters. Later, when he landed, Skalski learned that the rest of the squadron had attacked a second formation of nine Dorniers, shooting down five of them. With Skalskis two, that made seven and all the Polish fighters had returned safely to base. Nevertheless, their victory did little to boost the Polish pilots morale. For every German aircraft they destroyed there seemed to be ten more to take its place, and each pilot was grimly aware that if the Dorniers had been escorted by Messerschmitts, the outdated P-11s would have been massacred.

Stanislaw Skalski, pictured later in the war in the cockpit of a Mustang fighter. He was then a wing commander in the RAF, commanding No 317 Squadron. (Polish Ministry of Information)

When, shortly after 0400 on 1 September 1939, it was reported that German reconnaissance aircraft were flying over Polish territory, the news came as no surprise to the Polish General Staff. The political unrest of the previous months had given the Poles ample warning of Germanys intention to invade, and plans to resist the invasion had already been in force for several weeks. On 29 August all Polish operational squadrons had been moved from their peacetime bases to specially-prepared secret airfields. But the defensive preparations came too late. Because of high-level confusion and the belief of the Polish High Command that a major European war was unlikely to begin before 1941 or 1942, plans for the expansion and modernisation of the Polish Air Force had been delayed time and again, with the result that when Poland finally went to war it was without modern aircraft or reserves and with critical shortages of spares, fuel and ammunition.

The last pre-war expansion scheme had been approved by the Polish government in 1936 to be put into effect in 1941. It envisaged a total of seventy-eight operational squadrons with 642 first-line aircraft and 100 per cent reserves. The force was to consist of fifteen interceptor squadrons, each with ten fighters; ten twin-engined heavy fighter squadrons with ten aircraft each; fourteen light bomber-reconnaissance squadrons, each with ten aircraft; twenty-one bomber squadrons, each with six aircraft; and eighteen army co-operation squadrons, each with seven aircraft.

Home-produced combat aircraft were to be the mainstay of the force; new types as good as any in the world. They were to include 300 Jastrzeb (Hawk) fighters, 300 P-46 Sum (Swordfish) bombers, 180 P-37 Los (Elk) medium bombers, 200 LWS-3 Mewa (Gull) army co-operation aircraft, a number of twin-engined Wilk (Wolf) heavy fighters and dive-bombers, and some 200 training aircraft. Then came the blow; the government announced cuts in the military budget, and the whole expansion scheme was placed in peril. Air Force Commander General Rayski resigned, and his post was taken over by General Kalkus who promptly cancelled the order for the 300 Jastrzebs on the grounds that the prototypes had proved to be badly underpowered, and ordered more P-11s to make up for the deficiency.

The PZL P.24, seen here in Romanian markings, was basically an export version of the P.11, fitted with a Gnome-Rhone engine instead of a Bristol Mercury (Source unknown)

During 1939, the maximum normal monthly output of the Polish aircraft industry was 160 machines; with careful planning and shift-work, the figure could have been doubled at any time. Yet right up to the outbreak of war Polands newest and largest factory PZL WP-2 at Mielec, which was capable of producing 450 aircraft a year employed only a skeleton staff engaged on completing a handful of Los bombers transferred from another factory. Incredibly, combat aircraft were still being exported at a time when the Polish Air Force was desperate for new machines.