Realizing their cause was doomed, most of the remainder of the Polish air force — more than 150 aircraft — fled to Romania along with the Polish government. The Romanians arrested the Polish pilots and impounded their planes, along with the aircraft sent by England and France.

The Romanian government had sensed which direction the wind was blowing, and broke its alliance with Poland.

Nonetheless, hundreds of pilots managed to escape to France and England and served in those countries’ air forces. The Polish pilots of 303 Squadron, given more modern Hurricane fighters, played a vital role in defending England during the Battle of Britain, shooting down 203 German aircraft for the loss of 29 pilots killed.

By the end of the war, more than 19,000 Poles had served in Allied air units.

The end of the beginning

The siege of Warsaw lasted two more weeks following the government’s flight into Romania. On Sept. 26, a Polish agent stole an interned PZL P.46 prototype in Romania and flew to Warsaw, delivering the exiled Polish government’s order to begin preparing an underground resistance movement.

The Polish air force’s last combat mission — a recon flight by two PWS observation planes — took place on Oct. 4, 1939. The pilots tossed grenades and fired small arms at German infantry.

Nazi propaganda exaggerated the extent of an already crushing victory. Despite flying outdated planes, despite being outnumbered and surrounded, the Polish air force was not destroyed on the ground — and managed to give as good as it got … for weeks. Many of its pilots escaped and went on to continue shooting down Luftwaffe aircraft for rest of the war.

The sacrifice of those Polish aviators is commemorated by a monument at the Polish air force museum in the beautiful fortified city of Krakow, along with the last surviving P.11 fighter.

This article by Sebastien Roblin originally appeared at War is Boring in 2016.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.