Non-British personnel in the RAF during the Battle of Britain
The numbers differ slightly from the participants whose names are engraved on the Battle of Britain Monument in London, unveiled on 18 September 2005.
All pilots, regardless of nationality, who flew with British units during the Battle are known collectively, after a phrase coined by Winston Churchill, as "The Few".
Prior to the outbreak of war, in view of the worsening European situation, the RAF had embarked on a series of expansion plans.
These included Short-Service Commissions for pilots from the air forces of other British Commonwealth countries, namely Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and Southern Rhodesia.
[6] Australia was among the first countries to declare war on Germany and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) was among the world's oldest air forces, having been formed in 1921; a predecessor, the Australian Flying Corps served during the First World War, in the Middle East and Europe, but was disbanded in 1919.
Aubrey "Sinbad" de Lisle Inniss (1916–2003) was the sole Barbadian to serve as a pilot during the Battle of Britain.
Although it played little role during the campaign in Belgium, a number of Belgian pilots succeeded in reaching Britain in the aftermath of the surrender.
[5] Altogether, Belgium provided the largest contingent of pilots during the Battle of Britain that were not from Eastern Europe or the Commonwealth.
[12][11] Pilot Officer Jacques Philippart, who had destroyed at least six German aircraft during the Battle of Britain by the time of his death on 25 August 1940, was the first Belgian flying ace of the Second World War.
In fact, although the RAF only recognises 83 Canadian pilots as flying on fighter operations during the Battle of Britain, the RCAF claims the actual figure was over 100, and that of those 23 who died and 30 more were killed later in the war.
401 "City of Westmount" Squadron RCAF, in line with Article XV of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (see above).
1 Squadron made an inauspicious start to its service with Fighter Command, when on 24 August 1940 two of its Hurricanes mistook a flight of Bristol Blenheims for Junkers Ju 88s, shooting one down with the loss of its crew; an example of what is now known as friendly fire.
In a Luftwaffe attack on the Royal Navy Dockyard naval base at Portland Harbour, Plt Offr D. A. Hewitt of Saint John, New Brunswick, flying a Hurricane with No.
303 (Polish) Squadron, who claimed 17 confirmed kills, making him the highest scoring non-British pilot in the Battle of Britain.
The Irish Free State (officially called Ireland or, in Gaelic, Eire from 1937[23]) seceded from the British rule in 1922 after a two-year war of independence.
Many individual Irish citizens did enlist in the British military, however, and ten pilots from the country fought in the RAF during the Battle of Britain.
[25][26] The world's last verified surviving Battle of Britain pilot as of March 2023 is Group Captain John Hemingway, who was born in Dublin and returned to settle in Ireland in 2011.
The sole Jamaican recognized as a participant in the Battle of Britain was Herbert Capstick, a Pilot Officer of British origin, who had been born in Jamaica in 1920.
Pilot Officer Richard Alexander Howley is recognized as the sole Newfoundlander to serve in the RAF during the period by the Battle of Britain monument.
The Empire Air Training Scheme had resulted in about 100 RNZAF pilots being sent to Europe by the time the battle started.
Unlike the other dominions, New Zealand did not insist on its aircrews serving with RNZAF squadrons, thereby speeding up the rate at which they entered service.
During the German invasion of France in May 1940, of the 1,600 Polish pilots available to the Armée de l'Air it is estimated that only about 150 took an active part in combat.
However, the Air Ministry and the RAF underestimated their potential value in fighting against the Luftwaffe, as they felt that the Polish defeat on home soil was due to incompetence and lack of training.
By comparison, one Polish pilot referred to the close formation flying and set-piece attacks practiced in the RAF as "simply suicidal".
Antoni Głowacki was one of two Allied pilots in the battle to shoot down five German aircraft in one day, on 24 August –the other being New Zealander Brian Carbury.
Basil Gerald "Stapme" Stapleton, with several probables to his credit, survived a crash on 7 September, trying to stop bombers getting through to London.
Hull, the highest-scoring RAF ace of the Norwegian Campaign earlier in the year, was killed in a dogfight over south London on 7 September 1940, a week after taking command of No.
[citation needed] Billy Fiske was probably the most famous American pilot in the Battle of Britain, although he pretended to be a Canadian at the time.
[53][circular reference] Arkady Fiedler wrote a book about Polish pilots flying in the RAF during the Second World War, which was published in August 1942.
[55] The song "Aces in Exile" from the 2010 album Coat of Arms by Swedish power metal band Sabaton is about foreign pilots serving in the battle of Britain.
