World War I ended on November 11, 1918 and on the same day Poland regained independence. In the first days of independence a group of American pilots embraced the Polish cause and volunteered for service with the Polish forces. Sixteen Americans, four Poles and a Canadian pilot formed the 7th Squadron of the Polish Air Force. The squadron took its name as a tribute to a famous Pole, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, who fought in the American Revolution. The squadron emblem, a distinctive Polish four-cornered cap and crossed scythes on a field of thirteen stars, combined powerful Polish and American symbols. The cap and scythes commemorated Kosciuszko's famous victory over the Russians in 1794, which owed much to the local peasantry's gallant charge, and the 13 stars represented the original American colonies. The Kosciuszko Squadron played an important role in Poland's bitter war against the Russians in 1919-21. After Poland's victory in the war, every year Warsaw would commemorate the three Americans who died while serving in the squadron's ranks (Edmund Graves, Arthur H. Kelly, and T.V. McCallum). Between 1921 and the outbreak of World War II in 1939, one of Poland's Air Force squadrons (the 111th) always bore the name "Kosciuszko". After the evacuation of the Polish military and government to England following the fall of France in 1940, the Kosciuszko Squadron was reborn as the 303 Polish Fighter Squadron serving with the Royal Air Forces (RAF) in Great Britain.

Lewis E. Pierson was an honorary member of the Kosciuszko Squadron since 1921. His professional career was in banking and from 1916 till 1935 he was a chairman of the board of the Irving Trust Company. Mr. Pierson supported financially American pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron and was named an honorary member in July of 1921.