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No. 309 Polish Fighter-Reconnaissance Squadron

military unit

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ579679
Source-derived summary

No. 309 "Land of Czerwień" Polish Fighter-Reconnaissance Squadron (Polish: 309 Dywizjon "Ziemi Czerwieńskiej") was a Polish squadron formed in Great Britain as part of an agreement between the Polish Government in Exile and the United Kingdom in 1940. It was one of 15 squadrons of the Polish Air Force in exile that served alongside the Royal Air Force (RAF) in World War II. It was at first a reconnaissance squadron, and later converted into a fighter squadron. It was named after the region around the city of Czerwień; which was then in southeastern Poland, and is now in western Ukraine.

History

The squadron was formed in the RAF base at RAF Renfrew near Glasgow on 8 November 1940, and declared operational on 5 December 1940. It was disbanded on 9 January 1947.

Commanders

Aircraft operated

References

Bibliography

Lewis, Peter (1968) [1959]. Squadron Histories, RFC, RNAS and RAF, Since 1912. London: Putnam. SBN 370-00022-6.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “No. 309 Polish Fighter-Reconnaissance Squadron” as military unit. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Polish, Fighter-Reconnaissance and Squadron.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1940, 1947, 1968, 1959—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1941-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Polish, Fighter-Reconnaissance and Squadron providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “No. 309 Polish Fighter-Reconnaissance Squadron”, the useful work is to connect “military unit” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q579679. VIAF identifies the subject as 303555787. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940, 1947, 1968 and 1959.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from No. 309 Polish Fighter-Reconnaissance Squadron” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.