Witold Urbanowicz Witold Urbanowicz ( 30 March 1908 – 17 August 1996 ) was a Polish fighter ace of the Second World War . According to the official record , Witold Urbanowicz was the second highest - scoring Polish fighter ace , with 17 confirmed wartime kills and 1 probable , not counting his pre - war victory . He was awarded with several decorations , among others the Virtuti Militari and British Distinguished Flying Cross . He also published several books of memoirs . Biography . Urbanowicz was born in Olszanka , Augustów County . In 1930 he entered the Szkola Podchorazych Lotnictwa cadet flying school in Dęblin , graduating in 1932 as a 2 / Lt . Observer . He was then posted to the night bomber squadron of the 1st Air Regiment in Warsaw . Later he completed an advanced pilotage course to become a fighter pilot . In the 1930s he flew with the 113th and No . 111th " Kosciuszko " Squadron . In August 1936 , flying an PZL P . 11 a , he shot down a Soviet reconnaissance plane which had crossed into Polish airspace . He was officially reprimanded and unofficially congratulated by his superior officer and as " punishment " in October 1936 was transferred to an air force training school in Deblin where he was nicknamed " Cobra " . Second World War . During the Invasion of Poland in 1939 , Urbanowicz was in an improvised Ulez Group , composed of flying instructors , flying obsolete PZL P . 7 a fighters and covering the Dęblin and Ułęż airfields . Despite a few encounters with enemy airplanes the Polish fighters ( which could barely match the speed of German bombers ) were not able to shoot down any enemy planes . On 8 September the school was evacuated from Ulez and Dęblin . He was ordered with the cadets to Romania , where they were told to await re - equipment : British and French aircraft were rumoured to have been sent , but no aircraft arrived . Urbanowicz returned to Poland to continue to fight , but after the Soviet invasion on Poland , he was captured by a Soviet irregular unit . The same day he managed to escape with two cadets and crossed the Romanian border and eventually found his way to France where , after the fall of Poland , a new Polish army was being formed . While in France he and a group of other Polish pilots were invited to join the Royal Air Force in Great Britain . After initial training with 1 School of Army Co - operation at Old Sarum , he was sent to 6 OTU for re - training on fighters in July 1940 . In August he was assigned to No . 145 Squadron RAF , and became operational on 4 August 1940 . On 8 August he shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 110 Major Joachim Schlichting of V . / LG 1 while flying with No . 601 Squadron ( although he was never officially attached to the unit ) and on 12 August a Junkers Ju 88 of KG 51 . On 21 August he was transferred to the Polish - manned No . 303 Squadron , flying a Hawker Hurricane as " A " Flight commander . On 6 September he shot down a Bf 109 of JG 52 . On 7 September he became Squadron Leader , after Zdzisław Krasnodębski was badly burned . On 15 September Urbanowicz claimed two Dornier Do . 17 ' s of KG 2 . On 18 September 1940 Urbanowicz was awarded the Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari by the Commander - in - Chief of the Polish Forces , General Sikorski . On 24 October , he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross . On 27 September he was officially credited with shooting down four aircraft : two Ju 88s of KG 77 , a Bf 109 and a Bf 110 of 15 . LG 1 . On 30 September he claimed three Bf 109s ( one from stab . JG 26 , one of II . / JG 53 and one of 4 . JG 54 ) and one Dornier Do 17 of KG 3 . Despite his success Urbanowicz was never popular at Polish headquarters and on 21 October he was forced to hand over command of the Squadron to Zdzisław Henneberg . During the Battle of Britain , he claimed 15 confirmed kills and 1 probable , which made him one of the top Polish aces ( second only to Stanisław Skalski ) and in the top ten Allied aces of the battle . Between 15 April 1941 and 1 June 1941 he commanded the 1st Polish Fighter Wing based at RAF Northolt , before being posted to staff work at No . 11 Group RAF HQ . In June 1941 he was assigned as the 2nd Air Attaché in the Polish Embassy in the United States . In September 1943 Urbanowicz joined the USAAF 14th Air Force on attachment in China . On 23 October he joined the 75th Fighter Squadron of the 23rd Fighter Group ( Flying Tigers ) . Flying a P - 40 Warhawk he took part in several combat missions . On 11 December he fought against six Japanese Mitsubishi Zero s and claimed two shot down ( these were probably Nakajima Ki - 43 " Oscars " ) . According to his reports he also shot other airplanes over China , and destroyed some on the ground but those victories were not officially confirmed . According to Kenneth K . Koskodian , he downed 11 Japanese aircraft while being Claire Lee Chennault ' s guest . He was later awarded the US Air Medal and a Chinese Flying Cross . In December 1943 he returned to the United Kingdom and later became an Air Attaché in the USA again . During the war none of Witold Urbanowicz ' s planes were hit by a single enemy bullet . After the war . In 1946 he returned to Poland , but was arrested by the communist Służba Bezpieczeństwa secret police as a suspected spy . After his release he fled to the USA . He lived in New York City working for American Airlines , Eastern Airlines and Republic Aviation , retiring in 1973 . In 1991 he visited Poland after the fall of communism and again in 1995 when he was promoted to the rank of General . He died in New York on 17 August 1996 . A fibreglass Hawker Hurricane gate guardian was unveiled at RAF Uxbridge in September 2010 in the colours of Urbanowicz ' s aircraft from the Battle of Britain .