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Cichociemny
The Silent Unseen ( Polish: ''Cichociemni'', ) were elite special-operations paratroopers of the Polish Army in exile, created in Great Britain during World War II to operate in occupied Poland (''Cichociemni Spadochroniarze Armii Krajowej''). Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki, ''The Unseen and Silent: Adventures from the Underground Movement, Narrated by Paratroops of the Polish Home Army'', Sheed and Ward, 1954, p. 350. A total of 2,613 Polish Army soldiers volunteered for training by Polish and British SOE operatives. Only 606 people completed the training, and eventually 316 of them were secretly parachuted into occupied Poland. The first operation ("air bridge", as it was called) took place on 15 February 1941. This operation was conducted by Captain Józef Zabielski, Major Stanisław Krzymowski and political courier Czesław Raczkowski. After 27 December 1944 further operations were discontinued, as by then most of Poland had been occupied by the Red Army. Of 316 Cichociemni, 10 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki
Kazimierz Wincenty Iranek-Osmecki ('' noms de guerre'' Kazimierz Jarecki, Włodzimierz Ronczewski, Makary, Antoni Heller, Pstrąg; 5 September 1897 – 22 May 1984, London) was an infantry colonel (''pułkownik'') in the Polish Army, and colonel in Poland's Home Army (''AK''). He fought in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, and was responsible for negotiations between the Home Army and the German Wehrmacht. Iranek-Osmecki commanded the Home Army General Staff's Section II (Intelligence and Counterintelligence), and was a ''Cichociemny''. He discovered the German V-1 and V-2 testing facility at Peenemünde. Life Born on September 5, 1897, in the village of Pstrągowa, Austrian Galicia, he attended the Second High School in Rzeszów, joining the Riflemen's Association in 1913. In December 1916, he became a soldier of the Second Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment of the Polish Legions in World War I. After the Oath crisis of 1917, Iranek-Osmecki was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dębowiec, Cieszyn County
Dębowiec is a village and the seat of Gmina Dębowiec, Cieszyn County in Silesian Voivodeship, southern Poland. It has an area of and a population of 1,772 (2007). It lies in the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia. Etymology Both Polish and German names are of topographic origins, but with a slightly different meanings. The Polish name is derived from oaks (Polish: ''dąb'', plural ''dęby'') and denotes ''an oaken part of wood''. German name: ''Baumgarten'' is a conjunction of two words: Baum (tree) and Garten (''garden''). History The village was first mentioned in a Latin document of Diocese of Wrocław called '' Liber fundationis episcopatus Vratislaviensis'' from around 1305 as ''item in Dambonczal''. It meant that the village was in the process of location (the size of land to pay a tithe from was not yet precise). The creation of the village was a part of a larger settlement campaign taking place in the late 13th century on the territory of what would later ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars to oppose the military forces of the new nation's adversaries during the Russian Civil War, especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army. In February 1946, the Red Army (which embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces alongside the Soviet Navy) was renamed the "Soviet Army". Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union it was split between the post-Soviet states, with its bulk becoming the Russian Ground Forces, commonly considered to be the successor of the Soviet Army. The Red Army provided the largest land warfare, ground force in the Allies of World War II, Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II, and its Soviet invasion of Manchuria, invasion of Manchuria assisted the un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Airborne Force
Airborne forces are Ground warfare, ground combat units airlift, carried by aircraft and airdropped into battle zones, typically by parachute drop. Parachute-qualified infantry and support personnel serving in airborne units are also known as paratroopers. The main advantage of airborne forces is their ability to be deployed into combat zones without a land passage, as long as the airspace is accessible. Formations of airborne forces are limited only by the number and size of their transport aircraft; a sizeable force can appear "out of the sky" behind enemy lines in merely hours if not minutes, an action known as ''vertical envelopment''. Airborne forces typically lack enough supplies for prolonged combat and so they are used for establishing an airhead to bring in larger forces before carrying out other combat objectives. Some infantry fighting vehicles have also been modified for paradropping with infantry to provide heavier firepower. Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlantic, North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and List of islands of France, many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean, giving it Exclusive economic zone of France, one of the largest discontiguous exclusive economic zones in the world. Metropolitan France shares borders with Belgium and Luxembourg to the north; Germany to the northeast; Switzerland to the east; Italy and Monaco to the southeast; Andorra and Spain to the south; and a maritime border with the United Kingdom to the northwest. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea. Its Regions of France, eighteen integral regions—five of which are overseas—span a combined area of and hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Special Forces
Special forces or special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equipped forces using unconventional techniques and modes of employment". Special forces emerged in the early 20th century, with a significant growth in the field during World War II, when "every major army involved in the fighting" created formations devoted to special operations behind enemy lines. Depending on the country, special forces may perform functions including Airborne forces, airborne operations, counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, foreign internal defense, Covert operations, covert ops, Direct action (military), direct action, Hostage crises, hostage rescue, high-value targets/Manhunt (military), manhunt, intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance, intelligence operations, Mobility (military), mobility o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maciej Kalenkiewicz
Maciej Kalenkiewicz (; 1906–1944; nom de guerre Kotwicz) was a Polish engineer and lieutenant colonel of the Polish Army. During World War II was a soldier of Henryk Dobrzański's military unit, member of cichociemni, officer of the Home Army, partisan commander in the Nowogródek District of the Home Army. Biography Early years Maciej Kalenkiewicz was born July 1, 1906, in a small manor in Pacewicze, to Jan Kalenkiewicz, an impoverished member of the Polish gentry and a peasant politician, and Helena née Zawadzka. He graduated from a gymnasium in Vilna (modern Vilnius) and then the Cadet Corps in Modlin. In 1924 he was admitted to the Officer Engineering School in Warsaw, where he took part in the May Coup d'État on the side of the government. In 1927 he graduated as an engineer, with the best marks at his year. After a yearly practice in the prestigious Modlin-based 1st Engineering Regiment, he applied for the faculty of Land Engineering of the Warsaw University of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polish Air Force
The Polish Air Force () is the aerial warfare Military branch, branch of the Polish Armed Forces. Until July 2004 it was officially known as ''Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej'' (). In 2014 it consisted of roughly 26,000 military personnel and about 475 aircraft, distributed among ten bases throughout Poland. The Polish Air Force can trace its origins to the second half of 1917 and was officially established in the months following the end of World War I in 1918. During the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939, 70% of its aircraft were destroyed. Most pilots, after the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September, escaped via Romania and Hungary to continue fighting throughout World War II in allied air forces, first in France, then in Britain, and later also the Soviet Union. History Polish Air Force backline Origins Military aviation in Poland started even before the officially recognised date of regaining independence (11 November 1918). The first independent units of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invasion Of Poland
The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union, which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, and one day after the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union had approved the pact. The Soviet invasion of Poland, Soviets invaded Poland on 17 September. The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty. The aim of the invasion was to disestablish Poland as a sovereign country, with its citizens destined for The Holocaust, extermination. German and Field Army Bernolák, Slovak forces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Captain (land)
The army rank of captain (from the French ) is a commissioned officer rank historically corresponding to the command of a company of soldiers. The rank is also used by some air forces and marine forces, but usually refers to a more senior officer. History The term ultimately goes back to Late Latin meaning "head of omething; in Middle English adopted as in the 14th century, from Old French . The military rank of captain was in use from the 1560s, referring to an officer who commands a company. The naval sense, an officer who commands a man-of-war, is somewhat earlier, from the 1550s, later extended in meaning to "master or commander of any kind of vessel". A captain in the period prior to the professionalization of the armed services of European nations subsequent to the French Revolution, during the early modern period, was a nobleman who purchased the right to head a company from the previous holder of that right. He would in turn receive money from another nobleman t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German-occupied Europe
German-occupied Europe, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly military occupation, militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the government of Nazi Germany, government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 and 1945, during World War II, administered by the Nazi regime under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.Encyclopædia Britannica German occupied Europe.World War II. Retrieved 1 September 2015 from the Internet Archive. The occupied European territory: * as far east as Franz Joseph Land in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (1943–1944) * as far north as Franz Joseph Land in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (1943–1944) * as far south as the island of Gavdos in the Kingdom of Greece * as far west as the island of Ushant in the French Third Republic, French Republic In 1941, around 280 million people in Europe, more than half the popul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
