09/20/2026
Polands Last Spitfires 🇵🇱🇬🇧
In autumn 1945 the Royal Air Force sent Polish-squadron Spitfires to Warsaw for a public exhibition of the wartime Royal Air Force. Polish pilots of the exile air force were not allowed to fly them in as Stalin’s authorities did not recognise the London government, so British pilots made the delivery flights.
A first pair including a 308 Squadron aircraft, turned back after landing at Soviet-controlled Poznań. A second pair completed the journey on 29 October 1945:
• TB581, Spitfire LF.Mk XVI, coded JH-Q, from 317 (Wilno) Squadron
• TB292, Spitfire LF.Mk XVI, coded QH-Z, from 302 (Poznań) Squadron
Both were late-war high-back XVIs. They were freshly painted for the exhibition; the word “POLAND” under the chequerboard and the usual squadron badges were omitted.
TB581 stood in front of the National Museum and was the showpiece when the RAF exhibition opened that day. TB292 remained for a time at Okęcie airfield, where airport staff photographed themselves beside it.
Late in 1945 both aircraft were presented as a gift from RAF command to the Polish Army Museum. They stood in the open on the museum grounds through 1946–47 and appear in photographs of May 1947, TB581 on the left.
In the early 1950s they were ordered destroyed. The Political Directorate of the Polish Army treated them as traces of the Polish armed effort in the West. Ground crew from the Technical Aviation School at Boernerowo dismantled them and sent the remains for scrap. A few cockpit instruments were quietly taken by students.
No fragment of TB581 or TB292 is known to survive on public display. The only complete Spitfire in Poland today is SM411 at the Polish Aviation Museum in Kraków, painted to represent a different aircraft: 308 Squadron’s TB995.
Only 2 Spitfires exist in the world that saw service in the Polish Air Force during the Second World War and still carry these Polish markings today.
Part of the Polish Heritage Flight when it was formed in November 2019, Spitfire BM597, a Mk Vb, flew solely with 315 and 317 Squadrons from RAF Woodvale in 1942–43 as PK-C and then JH-C; restored in 1997,it still flies and was exported to Australia in 2025 after ownership was passed to Aerial Speed Icons Ltd in 2023.
Spitfire BS410, a Mk IX with 315 Squadron at Northolt (PK-E / PK-A), flew some 35 sorties before being abandoned in combat on 13 May 1943. Rebuilt as a two-seat Tr.9 (G-TCHI), it returned to the air in 2022 and remains based in the United Kingdom and operates with Spitfires. com and was the aeroplane given a temporary ‘K5054’ colour scheme to commemorate 90 years since the Spitfire first flight this year.
ML407, the Grace Spitfire (G-LFIX), is an airworthy Mk IX converted after the war to a two-seat Tr.9. Built at Castle Bromwich in 1944, she flew 176 operational sorties with six Allied squadrons of 2nd Tactical Air Force. After service with 485 (New Zealand) and 341 (Free French) Squadrons she was on the strength of No. 308 (Kraków) Squadron very briefly in January 1945, coded ZF.
Two Polish pilots flew her on two sorties: a weather reconnaissance and a dive-bombing mission. She then passed to Belgian, Free French and Norwegian units before returning to 485. She remains based in the United Kingdom with Ultimate Fighters at Sywell in Northamptonshire. (In fact as I am writing this she has just flown over my house!😊)
Other flying Spitfires wear Polish markings only as representations.
So, as things stand: three airworthy veterans, no intact static original from a Polish squadron on public display, and the two that once stood in Warsaw no longer exist.
We believe and hope that one day Poland gets the airworthy Spitfire it deserves.
Remember. Inspire. Unity. 🇬🇧🇵🇱
