Squadron 303 - Luftschlacht um England

The movie gets you perplexed. First you do not believe that, with Nazi aces being shot en masse, all Polish make it safe to an airfield. That is until you see the final credits which inform you that only 8 Polish pilots have been KIA in 303 Dywizjon. Otherwise the movie is overflown with Poles' victories of British women's hearts, their combat tactics superior to RAF's, and the ability to instantly command British fighter with never having flown them before. Many ends remain loose like the murky role of the actress Victoria Brown and sketchy story how Poles got finally to the Isles via Romania. The combat scenes are very amauterish perhaps due to the modest budget. Still, this is tribute to Polish heroes.

A good film, and a serious attempt to represent 'how it was' for Polish pilots in the Battle of Britain. The flying sequences are excellent, and they correctly portray the stupid Fighter Command early tactics, finally moving to 'finger 4' formation late in the battle.

One gripe. "The Battle of Britain" 1967 started the idea that Polish (and other) squadrons were kept out of the battle because of racism. That is not correct. It was Dowding's decision and he wouldn't have them because of sloppy R/T procedure, which the film highlights BTW. Going into the battle Dowding had a very clunky radar (far, far behind German radar although he didn't know that) which meant that the battle had to be controlled from a battle control room that collated the information. That was entirely new, but turned out to be a huge strength. The battle control room controlled the battle over radio, again entirely new, one voice channel for the whole battle. If any pilot left his R/T on send it jammed communication and control was lost, battle control lost communication with their pilots in the air. The Poles were wonderful pilots and very brave, but they wouldn't shut up, they kept leaving their R/T on send in training. So they were kept in reserve until it got desperate, then we saw what they could do. They still didn't shut up.

Did I watch a documentary? A war film? The CGI parts were okay, the script and acting not. The film is piecemeal, disjointed and badlly told. AND: It borrows shamelessly from the 1997 Czech film "DARK BLUE WORLD"

Terrible writing and editing ruined what should have been a great story. The music at the end credits makes no sense either

Occasionally the budget does leave it looking slightly tacky but the story and performances make it a worthwile watch and is certainly something that should be known by more.