Polish war hero leads the way in RAF campaign to find best Spitfire pilot after massive social media campaign in his homeland

When the RAF Museum decided to launch a public vote deciding the greatest Spitfire Mark V pilot in history, they might have presumed the winner would be found somewhere close to home.

After all the expected target of the ‘People’s Spitfire Poll’, hosted on the Telegraph website, was the British public, whom the RAF have protected for 99 years.

But after being hijacked by a massive groundswell of public support from the Polish community, Franciszek Kornicki, the last surviving Polish World War Two squadron commander, is leading the poll by a landslide - more than 250,000 votes and counting. 

Polish weekly news magazine Newsweek Polska and national newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza have both supported the campaign to have Kornicki voted number one in the poll, which was set up to celebrate 100 years of the RAF in 2018. 

The Eastern Europe campaign has also been waged here in the UK, with the Polish Embassy and ‘Polish Radio London’ urging the UK’s 813,000-strong Polish population to back Kornicki, who turned 100 last year.

Speaking yesterday from his care home on the south coast, Kornicki admitted he was “surprised and a little bewildered" at the overwhelming support, but was quick to point out that he was “just one of a great many” who helped win the war.

Born in the small village of Wereszyn, east Poland in 1916, Kornicki was unable to afford university, so instead decided to join the Polish Air Force academy as a cadet.

After the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, like thousands of other Polish pilots Kornicki was ordered to retreat through western Europe and continue the fight as best they can. By the start of the Battle of Britain in July 1940 some 6,500 members of the Polish Air Force had made it to Britain including 146 pilots - many travelling the same route as Kornicki from Romania to France before crossing the Channel.

Kornicki arrived in October 1940 and was posted to 303 squadron, which achieved the highest score of any other squadron to take part in the Battle of Britain.

In February 1943, aged just 26, he became the youngest squadron commander in the Polish Air Force.

That same year Kornicki was awarded the Virtuti Militari, Poland’s highest military decoration for his leadership of the squadron. Cited in the award was Kornicki’s exemplary leadership while escorting a group of British bombers over northern France and ordering a daredevil attack on a squadron of enemy aircraft attempting to intercept them.

Four enemy aircraft were shot down in the ensuing dogfight. “It may not have done much to advance the war effort,” Kornicki said, recalling the incident. “But it was fantastic for morale.”

Speaking yesterday Kornicki, a grandfather of five and great-grandfather of seven, recalled close comradery between the British and Polish pilots while in command at RAF Northolt, not least plying each other with beer during evenings off duty.

Kornicki remembers his old Spitfire fondly and always flew with a crucifix wired into the cockpit. Yesterday, he paid tribute to the men who kept it airborne.

“My aircraft was cared for by a fitter and rigger – great chaps - and my only regret is that I cannot recall their names because they deserve equal recognition for everything this wonderful aircraft achieved,” he said.

After the war, with Poland under Communist-control, Kornicki decided to remain in exile and joined the RAF; serving as an officer for more than 20 years. Since retiring he has been an active member of the Polish community in Britain.

In 1948, he married Patience Williams, 94, and the couple have two sons: Peter, 67, a professor of Japanese at Cambridge University and Richard, 64, a former civil servant and chairman of the Polish Air Force Memorial Committee who was appointed CBE in 2000 for service to the Home Office.

To celebrate his 100^th birthday last December the family gave a surprise lunch at a hotel close to his home in Sussex.

While Richard Kornicki described the family as “delighted” by the poll, he insisted his father would want “equal attention paid to everybody who took part in that struggle”.

He added: “Poland was the only country in Europe that was occupied by the Nazis but never surrendered - maintaining their government and armed forces fighting from abroad - all under the same motto the Polish always fought under ‘for your freedom and ours’.”

The poll concludes this Sunday and a full-length image of the winner will be turned into a life-sized cut-out to stand beside the iconic Spitfire VB BL614 in the Museum’s centenary exhibition next year.

Peter Devitt, curator at the RAF Museum and the man behind the poll, said: “We are absolutely astonished by how successful it has been - not just for Franciszek Kornicki but for all the pilots who will feature in the centenary exhibition next year.”

To complete the poll, please click here.