- Polish War Memorial
The Polish War Memorial is a
memorial erected to remember the contribution of airmen fromPoland who helped the Allied cause duringWorld War II .It is situated beside the A40/A4180 roundabout junction near
RAF Northolt betweenRuislip andNortholt in the Englishcounty ofMiddlesex , in theLondon Borough of Hillingdon . The Polish War Memorial is often used by locals as a landmark when giving directions, as it is prominently situated by a major road junction on one of the main routes intoLondon . Other Polish war memorials exist within theUnited Kingdom , including those atInvergordon ,Scotland .The
Polish Air Forces in France and Great Britain supported theAllied powers duringWorld War II . A group of Polish officers who remained in Britain after the war formed thePolish Air Force Association and decided to erect a memorial. A committee, led byAir Vice Marshal Izycki , raised the necessary funds mostly from British people, and the memorial was unveiled on2 November 1948 by Lord Tedder,Chief of the Air Staff , after a speech byViscount Portal of Hungerford in which he said that it was a sad blow that many Polish veterans were unable to return home, as their country had been occupied by the Soviet Union. He added that it would be to the mutual advantage of Britons and Poles that the latter were to make their home in Britain. The memorial was designed byMieczysław Lubelski , who had been interned in aconcentration camp during the war. The memorial is made fromPortland stone withbronze lettering and a bronzeeagle - the symbol of the Polish air force. The names of 1,243 Poles who died during the war were inscribed on the memorial, and a further 659 names added between1994 and1996 , when the memorial was refurbished and rededicated.Polish presidents
Lech Wałęsa andAleksander Kwaśniewski have both visited the war memorial to lay a wreath, in1991 and2004 respectively [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3684897.stm]References
* [http://www.ealing.gov.uk/services/leisure/local_history/historic_buildings/polish_war_memorial.html Local council page providing a brief history of the memorial]
* [http://www.ruislip.co.uk/polish Pictures of Polish War Memorial]ee also
*
Polish Air Forces in France and Great Britain
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