Nationalism

I used to enjoy Private Eye but it’s increasingly hysterical anti-Brexit stance is getting on my wick.  It seems Lord Gnome has decreed that any reference to Europe must be accompanied by stern admonishment for the madness of voting to leave, regardless of the context.  For example, in an otherwise thoughtful article about RAF Biggin Hill, Piloti remarks:

 “Those who were killed in 1940 in the fight against the Luftwaffe, as well as the RAF in general, are now commemorated in St George’s RAF Chapel of Remembrance at Biggin Hill.  Dedicated in 1951. …. It is both a working church and a war memorial honouring the 454 pilots and ground crew at Biggin Hill who died in the defence of Britain (some of these pilots, Brexiteers please note, being Polish, Dutch, French and Belgian), and is Grade II listed.”

Brexiteers should note what?  Respective contributions to the NATO Alliance, the real foundation of post-war European security, perhaps? In 1940, the Governments of Poland, Holland, France, and Belgium had all surrendered to Germany. The European Union had not been invented in 1940 (although, these days, listening to fanatical Europhiles, one could be forgiven for believing that the vision pre-dated The League of Nations).  The only concept of European unity, armed supremacy, was being vigorously prosecuted by Hitler’s Germany.  The pilots that fled their respective homelands to fight with the RAF were unlikely to have done so under an impulse to fight for a vision of European Union – they were fighting for the lives of those they left behind.  I think we could say that their motive was a decent and honourable sort of nationalism?

During my RAF career, I was privileged to know several Poles and Czechs but one stood out - Flight Lieutenant Ignatowski.  “Iggy” had been a Cadet in Poland when, as his camp was about to be overrun by advancing Germans, he was instructed to flee and make his way, as best he could, to allied lines.  He went via Romania, Greece, Vichy France (joining the Foreign Legion on the way as I recall), North Africa, and Gibraltar eventually to England where he trained as a pilot and flew operationally for the rest of the War.  I cannot recall all the details of his RAF career but I do remember that he flew over 18,000 hours on active service during the war and afterwards on meteorological research.

I know this because, one night in about 1970, Iggy knocked on the door of my room in the Mess at Church Fenton and asked me to proof-read a letter he had written to MOD.  His letter was in response to a notice of compulsory redundancy which had just been issued to him.  Reading through, he recounted his incredible journey to joining the RAF, his distinguished operational career, his gallantry citations and his invaluable work with the Meteorological Research Flight (for which I think he was awarded the Air Force Cross).  It was written in the sort of pigeon English to which Poles and Czechs seemed to cling, despite the length of time they had been in the country.  The letter concluded, plaintively, “and after all that you tell me to leave!”  I could have spent hours correcting the grammar but I suggested it was just fine as it was.  And it still brings a lump to my throat when I think about it!