RAF Hucknall's Polish pilot training school

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The Polish pilot shown is Stefan Nosowski on the wing of his Spitfire named "HEH Nizam's State Railway No. 2". The Spitfire was very likely funded by the Nizam's Guaranteed State Railway in the Hyderabad State, India. He was killed aged 27 in a crash at RAF Newton, Notts.

RAF Hucknall in WW2 was a major training base for Polish RAF pilots. Twenty percent of all RAF Battle of Britain pilots were wartime exiles or from overseas. The Poles were the most numerous with 145 pilots and Hucknall's young trainee pilots were among the regulars at Watnall Hall's wartime parties².

RAF Newton memorial
Displaced pilots from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Free France and pilots from the Commonwealth fought alongside home grown RAF pilots. Their aircraft were often funded from overseas too. The Polish pilot shown is Stefan Nosowski on the wing of his Spitfire named "HEH Nizam's State Railway No. 2". The Spitfire was very likely funded by the Nizam's Guaranteed State Railway in the Hyderabad State, India. He was killed aged 27 in a crash at RAF Newton, Notts.
Unsurpassed Gallantry
Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, who once was so reluctant to allow Polish pilots into battle, summarised their contribution in probably the most telling way...
"Had it not been for the magnificent work of the Polish squadrons and their unsurpassed gallantry, I hesitate to say that the outcome of battle would have been the same."
Dowding himself gave his name to the system of early warning radar which was also vital in winning the Battle of Britain. Watnall's underground bunkers are a present day legacy of the system... https://watnallhall.blogspot.com/2023/09/wartime-watnall-on-battle-of-britain.html
Watnall's underground early-warning Operations Room
looked very similar to this painting

Timeline  
From January 1941, Hucknall housed No.1 (Polish) Flying Training School (FTS) and Polish units were based there for the rest of the war. The advanced Service Flying Training School moved from Hucknall to another Nottinghamshire airbase, RAF Newton, in July 1941. No.1 FTS became No.16 (Polish) SFTS and took its de Havilland Tiger Moths, Fairey Battles and Airspeed Oxfords to its new base at Newton. It was replaced at Hucknall by No.25 (Polish) Elementary Flying Training School which remained for the duration of the war. After WW2, many Polish pilots and airmen who had served with the Allied forces, particularly in Britain, found themselves unable to return to their homeland due to the communist regime's control of Poland. The British government established the Polish Resettlement Corps to help these refugees settle in the UK. Many chose to remain in Britain, while others returned to Poland, sometimes facing persecution or imprisonment. 
The Mess Parties
The trainee Pilots Officers were reportedly enthusiastic party-goers and the hundreds of female WAAFs of RAF Watnall were keen to let off steam too. Imperial War Museum interviews with former Watnall WAAFs tell us that they used to throw parties at the Officer's Mess at Watnall Hall or they'd head to the Palais in town when off-duty.  The RAF Museum reports... "Over the summer, the people of Britain took the East Europeans to their hearts, and young British women competed for the honour of dating a dashing Czech or Polish ‘fighter boy’. Indeed, such was the appeal of the Poles, British airmen acquired ‘POLAND’ shoulder flashes and spoke in broken English in the hope of improving their chances." 
A tall and dashing male escort was essential for nights out in Lincoln which ex-Watnall WAAF Patricia Elton describes as as "chaos" with the pilots from the many surrounding airbases sometimes getting dangerously drunk and disorderly... "They didn't mean to be dangerous but they could be as they got so drunk." 
An 18-year-old RAF Watnall guard, Jack Davidson, when first posted to Watnall in 1940 commented on the balance of the sexes...
"On arriving at Watnall we stood around in an untidy group outside what I found out later was the Guardroom. There was no one about except a couple of WAAFs [a girl in the Women's Auxiliary Airforce] who walked past and looked at us like we were a prize in a raffle. Not surprisingly, for we found out later that up to us arriving there had been 200 WAAFs on the camp and about 50 airmen. What a shock greeted us in the cookhouse, bread and butter on plates, fish chips and peas followed by strawberries and cream served by pretty WAAFs; they were forced to look pretty as we hadn’t seen any females for four weeks."
Balance of the sexes RAF Watnall

Films
The 2018 Polish-British film "Hurricane" (renamed "Mission of Honor" for release in the USA) depicts the experiences of a group of Poles flying as part of the No. 303 Squadron RAF (Dywizjon 303) in the Battle of Britain during the war. Watch the trailer here. 

Also highly recommended is "Dark Blue World" (Czech: Tmavomodrý svět) a 2001 war drama film by Czech director Jan Svěrák, the Academy Award-winning director of Kolya. The film is about refugee Czech pilots, their escape from their homeland and adapting to their new life in England. The air-to-air dogfighting scenes are particularly excellent. Watch the trailer here.




Read more about Jack Davidson's time at RAF Watnall here https://watnallhall.blogspot.com/.../who-goes-there-who...
the WAAF parties at Watnall Hall here https://watnallhall.blogspot.com/.../wartime-watnall-waaf...
and the history of RAF Hucknall here https://watnallhall.blogspot.com/.../history-of-hucknall...
at the main "Tales from Watnall Hall" website. 

Notes and Sources:
1 - Circumstances: The pilot, sole on board, was performing a circular training sortie in RAF Nuthall. On final approach, while flying at a height of 100 feet, the twin engine aircraft nosed down and crashed in a huge explosion near the runway threshold. The aircraft was destroyed and the pilot was killed.
Crew (16th SFTS):
W/O Stefan Kazimierz Nosowski.
Probable cause: The exact cause of the loss of control could not be determined with certainty. However, it was reported that the pilot was not wearing his seat belt at the time of the accident. It is possible that due to turbulence or external factors, his head hit the ceiling of the cockpit or was violently thrown against the control column.

Polish Training School - 25 (Polish) Elementary Flying Training School
Non-British personnel in the RAF during the Battle of Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-British_personnel_in_the_RAF_during_the_Battle_of_Britain

State of originNumberRef
 Poland145-146[1][2][3]
 New Zealand127–135[2][4]
 Canada112[2]
 Czechoslovakia84–88[2][5]
 Belgium28–30[2][5]
 Australia26–32[2][5]
 South Africa22–25[2][5]
 Free France13–14[2][5]
 Republic of Ireland10[2]
 United States9–11[2][5]
 Southern Rhodesia3–4[2][5]
 Barbados1[2]
 Jamaica1[2]
 Newfoundland1[2]
 Northern Rhodesia1[5]

Allied aircrew in the Battle of Britain

2,937 British and Allied airmen were awarded the Battle of Britain
clasp for having flown at least one authorised sortie with an accredited
unit of RAF Fighter Command in the period 10th July to 31st October
1940.

The names of all the airmen are now available. Just click on country
name below to view by country. Alternatively use the search facility
(on the home page) to search by name.

Airmen came from the following countries:

Great Britain - 2,342
Australia - 32
Barbados - 1
Belgium - 28
Canada - 112
Czechoslovakia - 88
France - 13
Ireland - 10		Jamaica - 1
Newfoundland - 1
New Zealand - 127
Poland - 145
Rhodesia - 3
South Africa - 25
United States - 9
During the Battle 544 lost their lives and a further 795 were to die before the end of the war.
Source : The BOB Monument, Victoria Embankment, London.
https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/our-history/anniversaries/battle-of-britain/

Polish Resettlement Corps - with comments from National Archive about Polish refugees fleeing persecution to the UK

https://cms.rafmuseum.org.uk/blog/poles-and-czechoslovaks-in-the-battle-of-britain/

2 - Watnall Hall wartime parties
Tony Horton interviewed Watnall Hall's former butler Emma Leaper for his book on the Rollestons and Watnall Hall... "Due to the war, however, the poor finances were helped a
great deal by the RAF, for only four months after Sir Lancelot's funeral most of
the Hall was requisitioned for use as an Officers Mess by the 43 WAAF officers
stationed at the base. Mrs. Leaper, butler at the Hall, remembers that Pilot
Officers used to come to the Hall from Hucknall for parties with the WAAFs." 

Other sources

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