POLAND: HERE IS THE RECORD

By Ann Su Caldwell

Distributed by the Polonia Media Network

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, beginning World War II. This writing was published in 1945 by the Michigan Committee of Americans for Poland in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It not only presented an accurate picture of pre-war and wartime history, but an insightful prediction of the future. It was reintroduced in 1999 by Polonia Today as Polonians around the world commemorated the 60th anniversary of the invasion.

Part 2

POLAND'S WAR RECORD SINCE 1939

The Poles acted quickly after their country's fall. The Polish Constitution provided that in an emergency, the president could appoint his successor. This enabled President Moscicki, interned in Rumania, to name a head of the Polish state who could and did establish a Polish Government-in-Exile, with headquarters in France. The first task of the new government was the formation of a Polish army, made possible by the steady influx of Poles from Rumania, Hungary, Lithuania, and Latvia-whither they had escaped from the Germans-and by the presence in French and Belgium industry of many thousands of Polish workers. By 1940 this new army numbered some 70,000.

The shock of losing family, home, country, possessions was deep tragedy, but instead of being discouraged, the Poles were determined to regain their independence, and to salvage what was possible of earlier achievements. Poles do not beg for liberty, it is said; they fight for it. As Paderewski once remarked in my presence, Polish history is the record of a thousand years of fighting. Poles have always fought to win and maintain their independence.

When other peoples have been deprived of their liberty, Polish sympathy has gone out to them, particularly if the victim has gone down fighting. I recall the Polish attitude toward Ethiopia when Mussolini was guilty of aggression in the name of Italian fascism. In the spring of 1940, the Poles were the first to apply for inclusion in the British and French expedition to Norway.

That last was a bad chapter in Allied annals, but the Poles won merited praise from the French general in command for their achievements.

POLISH ROLE IN BATTLE OF FRANCE

Polish troops next met the Germans in France. The two Polish divisions, with the very inadequate and often antiquated equipment the French supplied, fought till the last. A part of the Second Division lost 2,000 men covering retreating French forces. Every unit of that division was decorated with the French Croix de Guerre. The Polish First Division, fighting with the Twentieth French Army Corps, lost approximately forty-five per cent of its combat strength. When Marshal Petain asked for an armistice--I was in Vichy that day-General Sikorski, the Polish commander, ordered what was left of the Polish Second Division to cross into Switzerland, where it was interned; ordered the remnant of the First farther west, and all men in training camps to make their way to the coast any way they could and thence to Britain. The Polish Government had, of course, been obliged to leave France, just as its predecessor had been obliged to leave Poland.

POLISH ARMY IN BRITISH ISLES

Those who succeeded in crossing the Channel to Britain became the nucleus of a second Polish army formed in exile. Here conditions for training were much better, equipment was excellent, and the group was daily augmented by the arrival of Poles who had traversed half Europe to reach the British rock, each man with a tale of fantastic adventures. The Polish land forces were assigned to the defense of a section of the Scottish coast.

But it was the aviators who had the chance in Britain. When that country had its "September" it came off better than did Poland, thanks in no small measure to Polish aviators who shot down every eighth German plane destroyed, spelling perhaps the difference between British victory and German invasion. The British fully recognized that fact.

By the end of 1944 the Poles had destroyed more than 1,000 planes and 223 flying bombs. Polish aviators have maintained their record in every phase of air activity, in transport as well as combat and reconnaissance, whether based in Britain, Africa, or Italy.

LAURELS IN AFRICA AND ITALY

Poles had fought in Norway's snows. Now they were to experience the heat of African sands and learn desert war technique in defense of Tobruk. Again they won laurels. The ill-starred Greek expedition was to include them; and after that they were set to be a part of a great Allied expeditionary force going into the Balkans-Churchill's cherished plan that went into the discard at Teheran.

Italy was next for the Poles, this time men who had been brought out of Russia and equipped and trained in the Middle East, plus the Polish Brigade from North Africa.

This group is now the Second Polish Corps, the base of the First being in Britain, and that of the Third, now forming, in Egypt. Tens of thousands of Poles who had been forced into the German armies and now are falling prisoner to the Allies are recruits for this new corps.

Narration of Polish exploits in Italy, I believe, is unnecessary. Such battles as Monte Cassino and Ancona are surely well known, but it may not be known that the' Poles have always had to face the toughest German defense.

POLES ARE FEARED BY NAZIS

Returning to the Continent with the British and Americans in 1944, the Poles from Britain helped in freeing Belgians, Dutch, and French, and made firm friends wherever they were sent. More recently they have been where of all places excepting Poland, they long to bein Germany itself. Not as prisoners of war or forced labor, but as fighting men. It is not strange that German civilians are reported fearing the Poles more than any others of the troops in the west. Germans are well aware of their five and one-half years of accumulated guilt in respect to the Polish state and people.

Exiled Patriots Sail the Seven Seas

Polish men of the sea appear in the news rarely. The world heard about the submarine Orzel's almost incredible escape o Britain. It learned that the Polish destroyer, Piorun, was the first to engage the Bismarck in the naval action that resulted in that German pirate's sinking.

But of the constant activities of the Polish Navy and merchant marine, both of which have achievements to their credit out of all proportion to their size, we hear little or nothing. Up to 1944 the Polish Navy had accounted for two German destroyers, one auxiliary cruiser, several submarines, thirty-five transports, and many smaller fry. It had served in over 600 convoys and as many patrols.

The Polish Merchant Marine literally sails the seven seas, carrying everything under the sun that people must have to live and fight, including soldiers. On more than one occasion Polish ships have been singled out for special mention after landings, such as those on Sicily and at Salerno.

UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE--"WE WILL ENDURE"

In Poland, as the underground press has stressed, everybody is a soldier. The men and women, boys and girls who write, print, and distribute the secret papers are fighting for Poland. I look with reverence at the copies of those papers I have, knowing what devotion and risks they represent.

The couriers who carry messages, teachers who conduct forbidden classes, women who serve as liaison between underground officials, members of the well-organized and smoothly functioning underground government, the people who "bend but will not break," the victims of concentration camps and torture who refuse to turn informerall these and those many others who throughout the years of enemy occupation always sent word to those outside, "We will endure," all these are part of Poland's army fighting for independence.

HOME ARMY FIGHTS

And lastly, that powerful factor, the Polish Home Army. Its operational units in the summer of 1944 numbered 250,000 men, living in barracks hidden in remote forest regions, always ready for combat or sabotage. Because of them the Germans had to keep nineteen divisions besides some 250,000 special guards, SS men, and police in Poland. Sabotage accomplished by the Polish Home Army was of inestimable value to the Soviet Union, since it prevented men and supplies reaching the Germans on that front.

In June, 1944, for example, the Polish Home Army derailed 54 trains, staged 42 railway holdups lasting from 3 to 90 hours, damaged 177 engines and 956 cars, burned 49 railway transports, 38 times interrupted telegraph communications for long periods, killed 379 Gestapo agents. And that is by no means the whole of the month's work.

The material contribution of the Poles to the conduct of the war is impressive, but the moral contribution is no less important, perhaps more so. With their losses in killed and missing in battle, dead or murdered in concentration camps, deported to forced labor in Germany, amounting even at the beginning of 1944 to 18% of Poland's total. prewar population, still the Poles have shown no sign of breaking. They continue to fight for justice and a free world.