Franciszek Dąbrowski (17 April 1904 in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

- 24 April 1962 in

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

) was an officer of the

Polish Navy The Polish Navy (; often abbreviated to ) is the Navy, naval military branch , branch of the Polish Armed Forces. The Polish Navy consists of 46 ships and about 12,000 commissioned and enlisted personnel. The traditional ship prefix in the Polish ...

during the

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 R ...

in 1939.

Life

In September 1939, he served at

Westerplatte Westerplatte (, , ) is a peninsula in Gdańsk, Poland, located on the Baltic Sea coast mouth of the Dead Vistula (one of the Vistula delta estuaries), in the Gdańsk harbour channel. From 1926 to 1939, it was the location of a Polish Military ...

military transit depot, which took part in the

Battle of Westerplatte The Battle of Westerplatte was the first battle of the German invasion of Poland, marking the start of World War II in Europe. It occurred on the Westerplatte peninsula in the harbour of the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). A small f ...

. The Polish garrison fought against overwhelming odds and repulsed all German attacks from 1 to 7 September. After the surrender, he was imprisoned in several German POW camps. He wrote two books about his experiences during the Battle of Westerplatte: ''Dziennik Bojowy załogi Westerplatte'' (1945) and ''Wspomnienia z obrony Westerplatte'' (1957). Dąbrowski was awarded the

Order of Virtuti Militari The War Order of Virtuti Militari (Latin: ''"For Military Virtue"'', ) is Poland's highest military decoration for heroism and courage in the face of the enemy at war. It was established in 1792 by the last King of Poland Stanislaus II Augustus ...

V class, the Gold Cross of Merit, the Medal for Odra, Nysa and the Baltic and the Grunwaldzka Badge. During the postwar years,

Melchior Wańkowicz Melchior Wańkowicz (10 January 1892 – 10 September 1974) was a Polish army officer, popular writer, political journalist and publisher. He is most famous for his reporting for the Polish Armed Forces in the West during World War II and writin ...

's mythologised account of

Henryk Sucharski Henryk Sucharski (1898–1946) was a Polish military officer and a major in the Polish Army. At the outbreak of World War II, he was one of the commanders of the Westerplatte position in Gdańsk, which troops under his command defended for seven ...

as a brave commander enduring under hopeless odds became the main source of information on Westerplatte action. The myth was propagated in numerous books and films. It is often thought that the communist authorities preferred to maintain the myth of Sucharski, a heroic son of a peasant and shoemaker, than to support his deputy, Dąbrowski, who was born into a ''

szlachta The ''szlachta'' (; ; ) were the nobility, noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Depending on the definition, they were either a warrior "caste" or a social ...

'' family. It was not until the 1990s that the truth about Sucharski and Westerplatte started to become more widely known.

References

Biography at westerplatte.pl
1904 births 1962 deaths Military personnel from Budapest Clan of Jelita Polish Workers' Party politicians Polish United Workers' Party members Polish Navy officers Polish military personnel of World War II World War II prisoners of war held by Germany Polish prisoners of war Recipients of the Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari Recipients of the Gold Cross of Merit (Poland) Prisoners of Oflag II-C {{World-War-II-stub