3rd Mountain Brigade (3. Brygada Gorska) was a unit of the
Polish Army
The Land Forces () are the Army, land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 110,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military histor ...
, which took part in the
Polish September Campaign
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 Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet ...
in 1939.
Commanded by Colonel , it was part of Operational Group “Slovakia” of
Armia Karpaty. It guarded southern Polish border from
Gorlice
Gorlice () is a town and an urban municipality ("gmina") in south-eastern Poland with around 29,500 inhabitants (2008). It is situated south east of Kraków and south of Tarnów between Jasło and Nowy Sącz in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship (sinc ...
to the
Bieszczady Mountains
Bieszczady Mountains (; ; ; ) is a mountain range that runs from the extreme south-east of Poland and north-east of Slovakia through to western Ukraine. It forms the western part of the Eastern Beskids of the Outer Eastern Carpathians, Eastern B ...
.
First days of the war were quiet in that area, but on September 7, the German
1st Mountain Division attacked Polish positions in the junction of the 2nd and 3rd Mountain Brigades. Next day, after the Slovaks captured
Rymanow Zdroj and the Germans seized
Krosno
Krosno (in full ''The Royal Free City of Krosno'', ) is a historical town and Krosno County, county in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in southeastern Poland. The estimated population of the town is 47,140 inhabitants as of 2014.
The functional ...
, the Brigade was ordered to withdraw to
Sanok
Sanok (in full the Royal Free City of Sanok — , , ''Sanok'', , ''Sianok'' or ''Sianik'', , , ''Sūnik'' or ''Sonik'') is a town in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of southeastern Poland with 38,397 inhabitants, as of June 2016. Located on the San ...
and leave
Dukla
Dukla is a town and an eponymous municipality in southeastern Poland, in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship. As of December 2021, the town has a population of 2,017. The total area of the commune is . Dukla belongs to Lesser Poland, and until the Pa ...
.
On September 10, the Brigade fought the aggressors in the area of Sanok, but was forced to retreat towards
Turka. Between September 16 and 17 it attacked the Germans in
Sambor, and three days later remnants of the unit left Poland for
Hungary
Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
.
See also
*
Polish army order of battle in 1939
This article discusses the Polish order of battle during the invasion of Poland. In the late 1930s Polish headquarters prepared "Plan Zachód" (''Plan "West''), a plan of mobilization of Polish Army in case of war with Germany. Earlier, the Poles d ...
*
Polish contribution to World War II
In World War II, the Polish armed forces were the fourth largest Allied forces in Europe, after those of the Soviet Union, United States and Britain. Poles made substantial contributions to the Allied effort throughout the war, fighting on land, ...
References
{{Reflist
3rd Mountain Brigade
Mountain infantry brigades of Poland