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The European theater of World War II opened with the invasion of Poland by German armed forces in the 1939 Polish September Campaign. After Poland had been overrun, she managed to establish a government-in-exile, armed forces and an intelligence service outside Poland, contributing to the Allied effort throughout the war. Poland never made a general surrender and was the only German-occupied country which did not produce a puppet government that collaborated with the Nazis. Instead her people provided crucial assistance to the Allies throughout the War, including the cracking of the Enigma machine by cryptologist Marian Rejewski, the assistance given by Polish pilots to the United Kingdom in the Battle of Britain, and their costly victory over German forces at the Battle of Monte Cassino, to name a few.

Polish September Campaign

The Polish September Campaign was the World War II invasion of Poland by military forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and by a small German-allied Slovak contingent. The invasion of Poland marked the start of World War II in Europe as Poland's western allies, the United Kingdom and France, declared war on Germany on September 3. The campaign began on September 1 1939, one week after the signing of the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and ended on October 6 1939, with Germany and the Soviet Union occupying the entirety of Poland.

German personnel losses were about ~16,000 KIA, and the loss of over ~30% of armored vehicles during the campaign was one of the reasons the plans for an immediate attack west were discarded.

Underground resistance in Poland

The main resistance force in the Nazi occupied Poland was the Armia Krajowa ("Home Army"; abbreviated "AK"), numbered some 200,000-300,000 soldiers at its peak as well as many more sympathizers. The Home Army coordinated its operations with the exiled Polish Government in London and its activity concentrated on sabotage, diversion and intelligence gatheringIts combat activity was low until 1943Red Army in the Eastern Front and the Home Army started a nationwide uprising (Operation Tempest) against Nazi forces*." target="_blank" >Before that the AK units carried out thousands of raids, intelligence operations, bombed hundreds of railway shipments, participated in many clashes and battles with the German police and Wehrmacht units, and conducted tens of thousands of acts of sabotage against German industry1941 German attack on the USSR, the Home Army assisted Soviet Union's war effort by sabotaging German advance into Soviet territories and providing intelligence about deployment and movement of German forces[http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/3802_1.html" target="_blank" >*. Following 1943 its direct combat activity increased sharply. German losses to the Polish partisans ranged at 850-1700 per month in early 1944 compared to about 250-320 per months in 1942.

Distinct from the Home Army was an underground ultra-nationalist resistance force called Narodowe Siły Zbrojne (NZS or National Armed Forces), with a fiercely anti-communist and chauvinist stance. It participated in fighting German units, winning many skirmishes. From 1943 onwards, some units took part in battling the Gwardia Ludowa, a communist resistance movement. From 1944, the advancing Red Army was also seen as a foreign occupation force, prompting skirmishes with the Soviets as well as Soviet-backed partisans.

In the latter part of the war, when Soviet partisans started attacking Polish partisants, symphatisers and civilians, all non-communist Polish formations were to a growing extent involved in actions against the Soviets.*

The Armia Ludowa, a Soviet proxy fighting forcewas another group that was unrelated to the Polish Government in Exile, allied instead to the Soviet Union. As of July, 1944 it incorporated a similar ogranization, the Gwardia Ludowa, and numbered about 6,000 soldiers[http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/3804_1.html (estimates vary).

There were separate resistance groups organized by the Polish Jews: the right-wing zionist Jewish Fighting Union (ZZW) and the more left-leaning Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB). These organizations cooperated little with each other and their relationship with the Polish resistance varied between occasional cooperation (mainly between ZOB and AK) to armed collisions (mostly between ZZW and NZS).

Other notable Polish resistance organizations included the Bataliony Chłopskie (BCh), a mostly peasant-based organization allied to Armia Krajowa. This organization at its height included 175,000 members.

Intelligence

During a period of over six and a half years, from late December 1932 to the outbreak of World War II, three mathematician-cryptologists (Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki) at the Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau in Warsaw had developed a number of techniques and devices — including the "grill" method, Różycki's "clock," Rejewski's "cyclometer" and "card catalog," Zygalski's "perforated sheets," and Rejewski's "cryptologic bomb" (Polish term: bomba, precursor to the later British "Bombe," named after its Polish predecessor) — to facilitate decryption of messages produced on the German "Enigma" cipher machine. A few weeks before the outbreak of World War II, on July 25, 1939, near Pyry in the Kabaty Woods just south of Warsaw, Poland disclosed her achievements to France and the United Kingdom, which had, up to that time, failed in all their own efforts to crack the German military Enigma cipher.

Had Poland not shared her results at Pyry, the United Kingdom would, at the very least, have been delayed by one or two years in reading Enigma, and could well have been unable to read it at all. In the event, intelligence gained from this source, codenamed ULTRA, was extremely valuable in the Allied prosecution of the war, although the exact influence of ULTRA on the course of the war has been a subject of debate. Some have argued that it decided the very outcome of the war itself, but more recently the view that ULTRA hastened the defeat of Germany by a period of time (between 6 months and 4 years) has found widespread acceptance.

As early as 1940, Polish agents (see Witold Pilecki) penetrated German concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and informed the world about Nazi atrocities.

Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa) intelligence was vital in locating and destroying (18 August 1943) the German rocket facility at Peenemunde and in gathering information about Germany's V-1 buzzbomb and V-2 rocket. The Home Army delivered to the United Kingdom key V-2 parts, after a V-2 rocket, fired 30 May 1944, crashed near a German test facility at Sarnaki on the Bug River and was recovered by the Home Army. On the night of 25-26 July, 1944, the crucial parts were flown from occupied Poland to the United Kingdom in an RAF plane, along with detailed drawings of parts too large to fit in the plane (see Home Army and V1 and V2). Analysis of the German rocket became vital to improving Allied anti-V-2 defenses (see Operation Most III).

Polish intelligence cooperated with the other Allies in every European country and operated one of the largest intelligence networks in Nazi Germany. Many Poles also served in other Allied intelligence services, including the celebrated Krystyna Skarbek ("Christine Granville") in the United Kingdom's Special Operations Executive.

Polish Armed Forces in the West

Army

Polish Armed Forces in the West
at the height of their power
Deserters from the German Wehrmacht 89,300 (35.8%)
Evacuees from the USSR in 1941 83,000 (33.7%)
Evacuees from France in 1940 35,000 (14.0%)
Liberated POWs 21,750 (8.7%)
Escapees from occupied Europe 14,210 (5.7%)
Recruits in liberated France 7,000 (2.8%)
Polonia from Argentina, Brazil and Canada 2,290 (0.9%)
Polonia from United Kingdom 1,780 (0.7%)
Total 249,000
Note: Until July 1945, when recruitment was halted, some 26,830 Polish soldiers were declared KIA or MIA or had died of wounds. After that date, an additional 21,000 former Polish POWs were inducted.
Source: Reference #4

After the country's defeat in the 1939 campaign, the Polish government in exile quickly organized in France a new army of about 80,000 men. In 1940 a Polish Highland Brigade took part in the Battle of Narvik (Norway), and two Polish divisions (First Grenadier Division, and Second Infantry Fusiliers Division) took part in the defense of France, while a Polish motorized brigade and two infantry divisions were in process of forming. A Polish Independent Carpathian Brigade was formed in French-mandated Syria, to which many Polish troops had escaped from Romania. The Polish Air Force in France comprised eighty-six aircraft in four squadrons, one and a half of the squadrons being fully operational while the rest were in various stages of training. After the fall of France, many Polish personnel had died in the fighting or been interned in Switzerland. Nevertheless, General Władysław Sikorski, Polish commander-in-chief and prime minister, was able to evacuate many Polish troops to the United Kingdom. In 1941, pursuant to an agreement between the Polish government in exile and Joseph Stalin, the Soviets released many Polish citizens, from whom a 75,000-strong army was formed in the Middle East under General Władysław Anders ("Anders' Army"). The Polish armed forces in the west fought under the British command and numbered 195,000 in March 1944 and 165,000 at the end of that year, including about 20,000 personnel in the Polish Air Force and 3,000 in the Polish Navy. At the end of WWII, the Polish Armed Forces in the west numbered 195,000 and by July 1945 had increased to 228,000, most of the newcomers being released prisoners of war and ex-labor-camp inmates.

Air Force

The Polish Air Force fought in the Battle of France as one fighter squadron GC 1/145, several small units detached to French squadrons, and numerous flights of industry defence (in total, 133 pilots, who achieved 55 victories at a loss of 15 men).

Later, Polish pilots fought in the Battle of Britain, where the Polish 303 Fighter Squadron achieved the highest number of kills of any Allied squadron. From the very beginning of the war, the Royal Air Force (RAF) had welcomed foreign pilots to supplement the dwindling pool of British pilots. On 11 June 1940, the Polish Government in Exile signed an agreement with the British Government to form a Polish Army and Polish Air Force in the United Kingdom. The first two (of an eventual ten) Polish fighter squadrons went into action in August 1940. Four Polish squadrons eventually took part in the Battle of Britain (300 and 301 Bomber Squadrons; 302 and 303 Fighter Squadrons), with 89 Polish pilots. Together with more than 50 Poles fighting in British squadrons, a total of 145 Polish pilots defended British skies. Polish pilots were among the most experienced in the battle, most of them having already fought in the 1939 September Campaign in Poland and the 1940 Battle of France. Additionally, prewar Poland had set a very high standard of pilot training. The 303 Squadron, named after the Polish-American hero, General Tadeusz Kościuszko, achieved the highest number of kills (126) of all fighter squadrons engaged in the Battle of Britain, even though it only joined the combat on August 30, 1940: these 5% of pilots were responsible for a phenomenal 12% of total victories in the Battle. The Polish Air Force also fought in 1943 in Tunisia (Polish Fighting Team, so called "Skalski's Circus") and in raids on Germany (1940-45). In the second half of 1941 and early 1942, Polish bomber squadrons were the sixth part of forces available to RAF Bomber Command (later they suffered heavy losses, with little replenishment possibilities). Polish aircrew losses serving with Bomber Command 1940-45 were 929 killed. Ultimately 8 Polish fighter squadrons were formed within the RAF and had claimed 629 Axis aircraft destroyed by May 1945. By war's end, there were 14,000 Polish airmen in 15 RAF squadrons and in the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF).

Polish squadrons in the United Kingdom:

Navy

Just on the eve of war, most of the major Polish Navy ships had been sent for safety to the British Isles (Operation Peking). There they fought alongside the Royal Navy. At various stages of the war, the Polish Navy comprised two cruisers and a large number of smaller ships, including three destroyers and two submarines that had left the Baltic Sea in late August 1939.

The above list does not include a number of minor ships, transports, merchant-marine auxiliary vessels, and patrol boats.

The Polish Navy fought with great distinction alongside the other Allied navies in many important and successful operations, including those conducted against the German battleship, Bismarck.

Polish Armed Forces in the East

The Soviet Union created in Moscow a Union of Polish Patriots (ZPP) as communist puppet counter-govenmentto the Polish government in exile. At the same time a parallel army (Polish People's Army or LWP) was created which by the end of the war numbered about 200,000 troops. There pro-Soviet Polish resistance Armia Ludowa was integrated with Polish People's Army at the end of the war. These Soviet-created Polish army units on the Eastern Front included the First, the Second and the Third Polish Armies (the latter was later merged with the second), with 10 infantry divisions and 5 armored brigades. Many of their soldiers were forced into military formations from former Home Army units taken prisoner during Soviet advances into Poland, while others joined in order to escape labour camps, prisons and Gulags in Soviet Union. These units were led by the Soviet commanders, appointed by the Soviets and fought under the Soviet general command.[http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/3818_1.html In Air Force of those formations 90% of officers and engineers were Soviet ones, the situation was similar in armored formation. In the Polish Second Army they consisted 60% of officers and engineers, and in the 1st 40%. In the command staff and training the percentage of Soviets and Russians was about 70 to 85%. Special political officers, that almost exclusively consisted out of the Soviets , were overseeing the Polish soldiers.*. The Soviets created also political military police, based on thousands of secret informants called in Polish Główny Zarząd Informacji Wojska Polskiego.

The Polish First Army was integrated in the 1st Belorussian Front with which it entered Poland from the Soviet territory in 1944. Ordered so by the Soviet leadership it did not advance towards Warsaw as Germans suppressed the Warsaw Uprising fought mainly by AK, and in January 1945 after Germans crushed the uprising the 1st Army participated in the Soviet Warsaw offensive that finally ended the Nazi occupation out of the ruined city. It took part* in battles for Bydgoszcz, Kolobrzeg (Kolberg), Gdańsk (Danzig) and Gdynia loosing 20,000 people in winter 1944-45 battles. In April-May 1945 the 1st Army fought in the final capture of Berlin. The Polish Second Army fought within the Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front and took part in the Prague Offensive. In the final operations of the war the losses of the two armies of the LWP amounted to 32,000.

Battles

Major battles and campaigns in which Polish regular forces took part:

Technical inventions

References

In-line

General

  • Władysław Anders: An Army in Exile: The Story of the Second Polish Corps, 1981, ISBN 0898390435.
  • Margaret Brodniewicz-Stawicki: For Your Freedom and Ours: The Polish Armed Forces in the Second World War, Vanwell Publishing, 1999, ISBN 1551250357.
  • Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski: Secret Army, Battery Press, 1984, ISBN 0898390826.
  • Jerzy B. Cynk: The Polish Air Force at War: The Official History, 1939-1943, Schiffer Publishing, 1998, ISBN 076430559X.
  • Jerzy B. Cynk: The Polish Air Force at War: The Official History, 1943-1945, Schiffer Publishing, 1998, ISBN 0764305603.
  • Robert Gretzyngier: Poles in Defence of Britain, London 2001, ISBN 190230454.
  • Norman Davies: Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw, Viking Books, 2004, ISBN 0670032840.
  • Norman Davies, God's Playground, Oxford University Press, 1981
  • Lynne Olson, Stanley Cloud: A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II, Knopf, 2003, ISBN 0375411976.
  • Józef Garliński: Poland in the Second World War, Hippocrene Books, 1987, ISBN 0870523724.
  • Jan Karski: Story of a Secret State, Simon Publications, 2001, ISBN 1931541396.
  • Jan Koniarek, Polish Air Force 1939-1945, Squadron/Signal Publications, 1994, ISBN 0897473248.
  • Stefan Korboński, Zofia Korbońska, F. B. Czarnomski: Fighting Warsaw: the Story of the Polish Underground State, 1939-1945, Hippocrene Books, 2004, ISBN 0781810353.
  • Władysław Kozaczuk, Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War Two, edited and translated by Christopher Kasparek, University Publications of America, 1984, ISBN 0890935475. (This remains the standard reference on the Polish part in the Enigma-decryption epic.)
  • Władysław Kozaczuk, Jerzy Straszak: Enigma: How the Poles Broke the Nazi Code, Hippocrene Books; February 1 2004, ISBN 078180941X.
  • Michael Alfred Peszke, Battle for Warsaw, 1939-1944, East European Monographs, 1995, ISBN 0880333243.
  • Michael Alfred Peszke, Poland's Navy, 1918-1945, Hippocrene Books, 1999, ISBN 0781806720.
  • Michael Alfred Peszke, The Polish Underground Army, the Western Allies, and the Failure of Strategic Unity in World War II, foreword by Piotr S. Wandycz, Jefferson, NC, McFarland & Company, 2005, ISBN 078642009X. Google Print
  • Polish Air Force Association: Destiny Can Wait: The Polish Air Force in the Second World War, Battery Press, 1988, ISBN 089839113X.
  • Harvey Sarner: Anders and the Soldiers of the Second Polish Corps, Brunswick Press, 1998, ISBN 1888521139.
  • Stanisław Sosabowski: Freely I Served, Battery Press Inc, 1982, ISBN 0898390613.
  • E. Thomas Wood, Stanislaw M. Jankowski: Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust, Wiley, 1996, ISBN 0471145734.
  • Steven J. Zaloga: Poland 1939: The Birth of Blitzkrieg, Osprey Publishing, 2004, ISBN 1841764086.
  • Steven J. Zaloga: The Polish Army 1939-1945, Osprey Publishing, 1982, ISBN 0850454174.
  • Adam Zamoyski: The Forgotten Few: The Polish Air Force in the Second World War, Pen & Sword Books, 2004, ISBN 1844150909.

See also

External links

Military history of Poland during World War II

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Polish contribution to World War II".

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