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Pole wins ‘People’s Spitfire Pilot’ vote

PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk 25.09.2017 10:15
A Polish World War II squadron leader has won an online poll to pick a heroic RAF Spitfire pilot to be highlighted at a special exhibition.
Supermarine Spitfire Vb 'BL614 / ZD-F'. Photo: Alan Wilson, [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsSupermarine Spitfire Vb 'BL614 / ZD-F'. Photo: Alan Wilson, [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Franciszek Kornicki, now 100, won 325,000 votes -- sixteen times more than all the other nominees put together.

The poll was launched by the London-based Royal Air Force Museum together with The Telegraph newspaper in the run-up to next year’s centenary of the British air force.

The ballot saw a wave of support for Kornicki from Poles, including the Polish diaspora in Britain, totalling nearly 1 million people.

An image of Kornicki, the winner of "The People’s Spitfire Pilot" title, will be turned into a life-sized cut-out to stand beside an iconic Spitfire VB BL614 plane in the exhibition gallery.

Museum curators decided that instead of being based on how many enemy aircraft were shot down by each pilot, the selection would be done online, with voters choosing the most captivating individual story.

The last surviving Polish World War II squadron leader, Kornicki turned 100 last December.

(pk)

Source: PAP

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