World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the Polish armed forces were the fourth largest Allied forces in Europe, after those of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

. Poles made substantial contributions to the Allied effort throughout the war, fighting on land, sea, and in the air. Polish forces in the east, fighting alongside the

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 ...

and under Soviet high command, took part in the Soviet offensives across Belarus and Ukraine into Poland and across the Vistula and Oder Rivers to the Battle of Berlin. In the west, Polish paratroopers from the 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade fought in the

Battle of Arnhem The Battle of Arnhem was fought during the Second World War, as part of the Allies of World War II, Allied Operation Market Garden. It took place around the Netherlands, Dutch city of Arnhem and vicinity from 17 to 26 September 1944. The Alli ...

/ Operation Market Garden; while ground troops were present in the

North Africa Campaign The North African campaign of World War II took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943, fought between the Allies and the Axis Powers. It included campaigns in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts (Western Desert campaign, Desert Wa ...

(

siege of Tobruk The siege of Tobruk () took place between 10 April and 27 November 1941, during the Western Desert campaign (1940–1943) of the World War II, Second World War. An Allies of World War II, Allied force, consisting mostly of the 9th Division ...

); the Italian campaign (including the capture of the monastery hill at the

Battle of Monte Cassino The Battle of Monte Cassino, also known as the Battle for Rome, was a series of four military assaults by the Allies of World War II, Allies against Nazi Germany, German forces in Kingdom of Italy, Italy during the Italian Campaign (World War ...

); and in battles following the invasion of France (the battle of the

Falaise pocket The Falaise pocket or battle of the Falaise pocket (; 12–21 August 1944) was the decisive engagement of the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. Allied forces formed a pocket around Falaise, Calvados, in which German Army Group B, c ...

; and an armored division in the

Western Allied invasion of Germany The Western Allied invasion of Germany was coordinated by the Allies of World War II, Western Allies during the final months of hostilities in the European theatre of World War II, European theatre of World War II. In preparation for the Allied ...

). Particularly well-documented was the service of 145 Polish

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

s flying British planes under British Command during the

Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain () was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force ...

, 79 in mixed squadrons under the RAF after July 1940, 32 in wholly Polish Squadron 303 after 31 August 1940 and 34 in entirely Polish Squadron 302. Other instances of service flying French planes in the

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 an ...

took place during the Battle of Britain at the same time, and from 1944 the Polish Air Force (also with British planes) was established in Britain. Some Polish contributions were less visible, notably the prewar and wartime decrypting of German Enigma-machine

cipher In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...

s by cryptologists

Marian Rejewski Marian Adam Rejewski (; 16 August 1905 – 13 February 1980) was a Polish people, Polish mathematician and Cryptography, cryptologist who in late 1932 reconstructed the sight-unseen German military Enigma machine, Enigma cipher machine, aided ...

, Henryk Zygalski, and Jerzy Różycki. An extensive Polish intelligence network also proved of great value to Allied intelligence. The

European Theatre of World War II The European theatre of World War II was one of the two main theatres of combat during World War II, taking place from September 1939 to May 1945. The Allied powers (including the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union and Franc ...

opened with the German

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 ...

on Friday September 1, 1939, followed by the

Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military conflict by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Second Polish Republic, Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Polan ...

on September 17, 1939. On 6 October, following the Polish defeat at the Battle of Kock, German and Soviet forces gained full control over Poland. The success of the invasion marked the end of the Second Polish Republic, though Poland never formally surrendered. A

Polish Underground State The Polish Underground State (, also known as the Polish Secret State) was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organizations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Government of the Republic of Poland ...

with a

government-in-exile A government-in-exile (GiE) is a political group that claims to be the legitimate government of a sovereign state or semi-sovereign state, but is unable to exercise legal power and instead resides in a foreign country. Governments in exile usu ...

that would eventually set up headquarters in London resumed the struggle against the occupying powers. The Polish forces in the West, as well as in the East and an

intelligence service An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives. Means of info ...

were established outside of Poland, and contributed to the Allied effort throughout the war.

Invasion of Poland

The invasion of Polish Second Republic by the military forces of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

on September 1st, 1939, marked the beginning of World War II in Europe. The Soviets invaded Poland on September 17th as had been agreed with

in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In keeping with the terms of the Secret Additional Protocol of the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Ge ...

Germany informed the Soviet Union that its forces were nearing the Soviet interest zone in Poland and so urged the Soviet Union to move into its zone. The Soviets had been taken by surprise by the speed of the German advance as they had expected to have several weeks to prepare for an invasion rather than merely a few days. They did promise to move as quickly as possible. On September 17 the Soviets invaded eastern Poland, forcing the Polish government and military to abandon their plans for a long-term defense in the Romanian bridgehead area. The last remaining Polish Army units capitulated in early October. In accordance with their treaty obligations, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany on September 3. Hitler had gambled, incorrectly, that France and Britain would allow him to annex parts of Poland without military reaction. The campaign began on September 1, 1939, one week after the signing of the

containing a secret protocol for the division of Northern and

Central Europe Central Europe is a geographical region of Europe between Eastern Europe, Eastern, Southern Europe, Southern, Western Europe, Western and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Central Europe is known for its cultural diversity; however, countries in ...

into German and Soviet

spheres of influence In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence (SOI) is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military, or political exclusivity. While there may be a formal a ...

. It ended on October 6, 1939, with Germany and the Soviet Union occupying the entirety of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. German losses included about 16,000

killed in action Killed in action (KIA) is a casualty classification generally used by militaries to describe the deaths of their personnel at the hands of enemy or hostile forces at the moment of action. The United States Department of Defense, for example, ...

, 28,000 wounded, 3,500 missing, over 200 aircraft, and 30% of their armored vehicles. The Polish casualties were about 66,000 dead and 694,000 captured. German losses in the Polish campaign amounted to 50% of all casualties they would suffer until their invasion of USSR in 1941; and the campaign that lasted about a month consumed eight months worth of supplies.

Aid to Jews

Jewish prisones of KZGesiowka liberated by Polish Soldiers of Home Army Warsaw1944

A substantial number of Poles risked their lives in the German occupation to save Jews. German-occupied Poland was the only European territory where the Germans punished any kind of help to Jews with

death Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose sh ...

for the helper and his entire family. Even so, Poland was also the only German-occupied country to establish an organization specifically to aid Jews. Known by the cryptonym '' Żegota'', it provided food, shelter, medical care, money, and false documents to Jews. Most of Żegota's funds came directly from the

Polish Government-in-Exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent Occupation ...

in Great Britain. Most Jews who survived the German occupation of Poland were saved by Poles unconnected with Żegota. Estimates of Jewish survivors in Poland range from 40,000 to 50,000 to 100,000–120,000. Scholars estimate that it took the work of ten people to save the life of one Polish Jew. Of the individuals awarded medals of ''

Righteous among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( ) is a title used by Yad Vashem to describe people who, for various reasons, made an effort to assist victims, mostly Jews, who were being persecuted and exterminated by Nazi Germany, Fascist Romania, Fascist Italy, ...

'' (given by the

State of Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

to non-Jews who saved Jews from extermination in

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

) those who were Polish citizens number the greatest. There are 6,339 Polish men and women recognized as "Righteous" to this day, amounting to over 25 percent of the total number of 22,765 honorary titles awarded already.

Polish resistance

The main resistance force in German-occupied Poland was the

Armia Krajowa The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...

("Home Army"; abbreviated "AK"), which numbered some 400,000 fighters at its peak as well as many more sympathizers. Throughout most of the war, AK was one of the three largest resistance movements in the war. The AK coordinated its operations with the exiled Polish Government in London and its activity concentrated on sabotage, diversion and intelligence gathering. Its combat activity was low until 1943 as the army was avoiding suicidal warfare and preserved its very limited resources for later conflicts that sharply increased when the Nazi war machine started to crumble in the wake of the successes of the

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 ...

in the Eastern Front. Then the AK started a nationwide uprising (

Operation Tempest file:Akcja_burza_1944.png, 210px, right Operation Tempest or Operation Burza (, sometimes referred to in English as "Operation Storm") was a series of uprisings conducted during World War II against occupying German forces by the Polish Home Arm ...

) against Nazi forces. Before that, 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 industry The AK also conducted "punitive" operations to assassinate Gestapo officials responsible for Nazi terror. Following the 1941 German attack on the USSR, the AK assisted the Soviet Union's war effort by sabotaging the German advance into Soviet territory and provided intelligence on the deployment and movement of German forces. After 1943, its direct combat activity increased sharply. German losses to the Polish partisans averaged 850–1,700 per month in early 1944 compared to about 250–320 per month in 1942. In addition to the Home Army, there was an underground ultra-nationalist resistance force called '' Narodowe Siły Zbrojne'' (NSZ or "National Armed Forces"), with a fiercely anti-communist stance. It participated in fighting German units, winning many skirmishes. From 1943 onwards, some units took part in battling the '' Gwardia Ludowa'' and the Polish People's Army PAL, both communist resistance movement. From 1944, the advancing

was also seen as a foreign occupation force, prompting skirmishes with the Soviets as well as Soviet-backed partisans. In the later part of the war, when Soviet partisans started attacking Polish partisans, sympathizers and civilians, all non-communist Polish formations were (to an increasing extent) becoming involved in actions against the Soviets. The '' Armia Ludowa'', a Soviet proxy fighting force was another resistance group that was unrelated to the

Polish Government in Exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile A government-in-exile (GiE) is a political group that claims to be the legitimate government of a sovere ...

, allied instead to the Soviet Union. As of July, 1944 it incorporated a similar organization, the '' Gwardia Ludowa'' and the Polish People's Army PAL, and numbered about 6,000 soldiers (although estimates vary). There were separate resistance groups organized by Polish Jews: the right-wing '' Żydowski Związek Walki'' ("Jewish Fighting Union") (ŻZW) and the more Soviet-leaning '' Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa'' ("Jewish Combat Organization") (ŻOB). These organisations cooperated little with each other and their relationship with the Polish resistance varied between occasional cooperation (mainly between ZZW and AK) to armed confrontations (mostly between ŻOB and NZS). Other notable Polish resistance organizations included the '' Bataliony Chłopskie'' (BCh), a mostly peasant-based organization allied to the AK. At its height the BCh included 115,543 members (1944; with additional LSB and PKB-AK Guard, for the estimated total of 150,250 men, not confirmed). Throughout the war the German state was forced to divert a substantial part of its military forces to keep control over Poland: Hubal3

Warsaw Uprising by Deczkowki - Wacek Platoon - 15911

Intelligence

Polish intelligence supplied valuable

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...

to the Allies; 48% of all reports received by the British secret services from continental Europe in between 1939 and 1945 came from Polish sources. The total number of those reports is estimated at 80,000, and 85% of them were deemed high or better quality. Despite Poland becoming occupied, the Polish intelligence network not only survived but grew rapidly, and near the end of the war had over 1,600 registered agents (Another estimate gave about 3,500). Western Allies had limited intelligence assets in Central and Eastern Europe, and extensive Polish intelligence network in place proved to be a major asset, even described as "the only allied intelligence assets on the Continent" following the French capitulation. According to , for the Western Allies, the intelligence provided by the Home Army was considered to be the best source of information on the Eastern Front. In a period of more than six and a half years, from late December 1932 to the outbreak of World War II, three mathematician-cryptologists (

, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki) at the Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

had developed a number of techniques and devices including the "grill" method, Różycki's "

clock A clock or chronometer is a device that measures and displays time. The clock is one of the oldest Invention, human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month, a ...

", Rejewski's " cyclometer" and "

card catalog A library catalog (or library catalogue in British English) is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations. A catalog for a group of libraries is also ...

", Zygalski's " perforated sheets", and Rejewski's " cryptologic bomb" (in Polish, "''bomba'', precursor to the later British "

Bombe The bombe () was an Electromechanics, electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma machine, Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The United States Navy, US Navy and United Sta ...

", named after its Polish predecessor) to facilitate

decryption In cryptography, encryption (more specifically, encoding) is the process of transforming information in a way that, ideally, only authorized parties can decode. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plai ...

of messages produced on the German " Enigma" cipher machine. Just five weeks before the outbreak of World War II, on July 25, 1939, near Pyry in the Kabaty Woods south of

, 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 Enigma-

results at Pyry, the United Kingdom might have been unable to read Enigma ciphers. In the event, intelligence gained from this source, codenamed Ultra, was extremely valuable to the Allied prosecution of the war. While ULTRA's precise influence on its course remains a subject of debate, ULTRA undoubtedly altered the course of the war. As early as 1940, Polish agents (including Witold Pilecki) penetrated German concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and informed the world about Nazi atrocities. Jan Karski is another important Polish resistance fighter who reported to the

Polish government in exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile A government-in-exile (GiE) is a political group that claims to be the legitimate government of a sovere ...

and the Western Allies on the situation in German-occupied Poland, especially the destruction of the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...

, and the secretive German-Nazi

extermination camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe, primarily in occupied Poland, during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocau ...

Polish Home Army (''Armia Krajowa'', ''AK'')

was vital to locating and destroying (18 August 1943) the German rocket facility at

Peenemünde Peenemünde (, ) is a municipality on the Baltic Sea island of Usedom in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in north-eastern Germany. It is part of the ''Amt (country subdivision), Amt'' (collective municipality) of Used ...

and to gathering information about Germany's

V-1 flying bomb The V-1 flying bomb ( "Vengeance Weapon 1") was an early cruise missile. Its official Reich Aviation Ministry () name was Fieseler Fi 103 and its suggestive name was (hellhound). It was also known to the Allies as the buzz bomb or doodlebug a ...

and

V-2 rocket The V2 (), with the technical name ''Aggregat (rocket family), Aggregat-4'' (A4), was the world's first long-range missile guidance, guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the S ...

. The Home Army delivered to the United Kingdom key V-2 parts after a rocket, fired on 30 May 1944, crashed near a German test facility at Sarnaki on the

Bug River The Bug or Western Bug is a major river in Central Europe that flows through Belarus (border), Poland, and Ukraine, with a total length of .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). Operations of the II Bureau, the intelligence service of the Polish government in exile, extended beyond Poland and even beyond Europe. Polish agents provided reports on German war production, morale and troop movements, including information on German submarine operations. The II Bureau is reported to have had two agents in the upper levels of the German high command. Polish intelligence monitored the French fleet at Toulon. Mieczysław Zygfryd Słowikowski has been described as "the only allied agent with a network in North Africa". In July 1941 Mieczysław Słowikowski (codenamed "''Rygor''—Polish for "Rigor") set up " Agency Africa", one of World War II's most successful intelligence organizations. His Polish allies in these endeavors included Lt. Col. Gwido Langer and Major Maksymilian Ciężki (prewar heads, respectively, of Poland's ''

Biuro Szyfrów The Cipher Bureau ( Polish: ''Biuro Szyfrów'', ) was the interwar Polish General Staff's Second Department's unit charged with SIGINT and both cryptography (the ''use'' of ciphers and codes) and cryptanalysis (the ''study'' of ciphers and cod ...

'', Cipher Bureau, and of its German section, ''B.S.-4'', which broke Germany's Enigma ciphers). The information gathered by the Agency was used by the Americans and British in planning the amphibious November 1942

Operation Torch Operation Torch (8–16 November 1942) was an Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of securing victory in North Africa whil ...

landings in North Africa. These were the first large-scale Allied landings of the war, and their success in turn paved the way for the Allies' Italian campaign. Some Poles also served in other Allied intelligence services, including the celebrated Krystyna Skarbek (" Christine Granville") in the United Kingdom's

Special Operations Executive Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a British organisation formed in 1940 to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in German-occupied Europe and to aid local Resistance during World War II, resistance movements during World War II. ...

. The researchers who produced the first Polish-British in-depth monograph on Home Army intelligence ''(Intelligence Co-operation Between Poland and Great Britain During World War II: Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee'' of 2005) and who described contributions of Polish intelligence to Allied victory as "disproportionally large" have also argued that "the work performed by Home Army intelligence undoubtedly supported the Allied armed effort much more effectively than subversive and guerilla activities."

Polish Forces (West)

Army

After the country's defeat in the 1939 campaign, the

quickly organized in France a new army of about 75,000 men. In 1940 a Polish Highland Brigade took part in the Battle of Narvik (Norway), and two Polish

divisions Division may refer to: Mathematics *Division (mathematics), the inverse of multiplication * Division algorithm, a method for computing the result of mathematical division Military *Division (military), a formation typically consisting of 10,000 t ...

( First Grenadier Division, and Second Infantry Fusiliers Division) took part in the defense of France, while a Polish motorized

brigade A brigade is a major tactical military unit, military formation that typically comprises three to six battalions plus supporting elements. It is roughly equivalent to an enlarged or reinforced regiment. Two or more brigades may constitute ...

and two infantry divisions were in process of forming. A Polish Independent Carpathian Brigade was formed in French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, French Mandate Syria, to which many Polish troops had escaped from Romania. The Polish Air Forces in France and Great Britain, Polish Air Force in France had 86 aircraft with one and a half of the squadrons fully operational, and the remaining two and a half in various stages of training. By the fall of France, numerous Polish personnel had died in the fighting (some ) or had been interned in Switzerland (some ). Nevertheless, about 19,000 Polish—about 25% of which were aircrew—were evacuated from France, most alongside other troops Operation Aerial, transported from western France to the United Kingdom. In 1941, following an agreement between the

and Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union, Soviets released Polish citizens, from whom a 75,000-strong army was formed in the Soviet Union, USSR under General Władysław Anders. Without any support from the Soviets to train, equip and maintain this army, the

followed Anders' advice for a transfer of some (and about civilians), in March and August 1942, across the Caspian Sea to Iran permitting Soviet divisions in occupation there to be released for action. In the Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of World War II, Middle East, this "Anders' Army" joined the Eighth Army (United Kingdom), British Eighth Army, where it formed II Corps (Poland), Polish II Corps. Winston Churchill reviewing Polish troops in England

Winston Churchill reviewing Polish troops in England

The Polish Armed Forces in the West fought under 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

and 3,000 in the Polish Navy. At the end of World War II, 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 prisoner of war, prisoners of war and ex-labor camp inmates.

Air force

The

first fought in the 1939 Invasion of Poland. Significantly outnumbered and with its fighters outmatched by more advanced German fighters, remained active up to the second week of the campaign, inflicting significant damage on the ''Luftwaffe''. The ''Luftwaffe'' lost, to all operational causes, 285 aircraft, with 279 more damaged, while the Poles lost 333 aircraft. After the fall of Poland many Polish pilots escaped via Hungary to France. The

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 53–57 victories for a loss of 8 men in combat, what was 7.93% of allied victories). Later, Polish pilots fought in the

, where the Polish 303 Fighter Squadron claimed 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

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 (No. 300 Polish Bomber Squadron, 300 and No. 301 Polish Bomber Squadron, 301 Bomber Squadrons; No. 302 Polish Fighter Squadron, 302 and No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadron, 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, claimed 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 Polish pilots, constituting 5% of the pilots active in the Battle of Britain, were responsible for 12% of total victories in the Battle. The

also fought in 1943 in Tunisia—the Polish Fighting Team (nicknamed "Stanisław Skalski, Skalski's Circus")—and in raids on Germany (1940–45). In the second half of 1941 and early 1942, Polish bomber squadrons formed a sixth of the forces available to RAF Bomber Command but later they suffered heavy losses, with little replenishment possibilities. Polish aircrew losses serving with Bomber Command from 1940 to 1945 were 929 killed. Ultimately eight Polish fighter squadrons were formed within the RAF and had claimed 629 Axis aircraft destroyed by May 1945. By the end of the war, about 19,400 Poles were serving in the RAF. Dywizjon 303 4

Polish squadrons in the United Kingdom: * No. 300 Polish Bomber Squadron, No. 300 "Masovia" Polish Bomber Squadron (''Ziemi Mazowieckiej'') * No. 301 Polish Bomber Squadron, No. 301 "Pomerania" Polish Bomber Squadron (''Ziemi Pomorskiej'') * No. 302 Polish Fighter Squadron, No. 302 "City of Poznań" Polish Fighter Squadron (''Poznański'') * No. 303 Squadron RAF, No. 303 "Kościuszko" Polish Fighter Squadron (''Warszawski imienia Tadeusz Kościuszko, Tadeusza Kościuszki'') * No. 304 Polish Bomber Squadron, No. 304 "Silesia" Polish Bomber Squadron (''Ziemi Śląskiej imienia Ksiecia Józef Poniatowski, Józefa Poniatowskiego'') * No. 305 Polish Bomber Squadron, No. 305 "Greater Poland" Polish Bomber Squadron (''Ziemi Wielkopolskiej imienia Marszałka Józef Piłsudski, Józefa Piłsudskiego'') * No. 306 Polish Fighter Squadron, No. 306 "City of Toruń" Polish Fighter Squadron (''Toruński'') * No. 307 Polish Night Fighter Squadron, No. 307 "City of Lwów" Polish Fighter Squadron (''Lwowskich Puchaczy'') * No. 308 Polish Fighter Squadron, No. 308 "City of Kraków" Polish Fighter Squadron (''Krakowski'') * No. 309 Polish Fighter-Reconnaissance Squadron, No. 309 "Czerwien" Polish Fighter-Reconnaissance Squadron (''Ziemi Czerwieńskiej'') * No. 315 Polish Fighter Squadron, No. 315 "City of Dęblin" Polish Fighter Squadron (''Dębliński'') * No. 316 Polish Fighter Squadron, No. 316 "City of Warsaw" Polish Fighter Squadron (''Warszawski'') * No. 317 Polish Fighter Squadron, No. 317 "City of Wilno" Polish Fighter Squadron (''Wileński'') * No. 318 Polish Fighter-Reconnaissance Squadron, No. 318 "City of Gdansk" Polish Fighter-Reconnaissance Squadron (''Gdański'') * No. 663 Squadron RAF, No. 663 Polish Artillery Observation Squadron – flying in support of Polish artillery units * Polish Fighting Team (''Skalski's Circus'') – attached to No. 145 Squadron RAF * No. 138 Special Duty Squadron Polish Flight "C" * No. 1586 Polish Special Duty Flight

Navy

Just on the eve of war, three destroyers—representing most of the major Polish Navy ships—had been sent for safety to the United Kingdom (Peking Plan, 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. The Polish navy was given a number of British ships and submarines which would otherwise have been unused due to the lack of trained British crews. The Polish Navy fought with great distinction alongside the other Allied navies in many important and successful operations, including those conducted against the . In the war the Polish Navy operated a total of 27 ships: 2 cruisers, 9 destroyers, 5 submarines and 11 torpedo boats. They sailed a total of 1.2 million nautical miles, escorted 787 convoys, conducted 1,162 patrols and combat operations, sank 12 enemy ships (including 5 submarines) and 41 merchant vessels, damaged 24 more (including 8 submarines) and shot down 20 aircraft. 450 seamen out of the over 4,000 who served with the Navy lost their lives in action. ORP Grom

* Cruisers: ** Dragoon – (British ) ** (British ''Danae'' class) * Destroyers: ** – Gale () sunk September 1939 ** – Storm (''Wicher'' class) ** – Thunder () sunk 1940 ** – Lightning (''Grom'' class) ** (British G and H-class destroyer, G class) ** – Windstorm (British L and M-class destroyer, M-class destroyer ''Myrmidion'') sunk 1943 ** , sometimes called ''Huragan''– Hurricane (French ) ** – Thunderbolt (British J-, K- and N-class destroyer, N class) * Escort destroyers: ** – Cracovian (British ) 1941–1946 ** – Kujawian (British Hunt class) ** – Silesian (British Hunt class) * Submarines: ** – Eagle () lost 1940 ** – Vulture (''Orzeł'' class) interned Sweden ** – Hawk (USN United States S-class submarine, S class) ** – Wolf () to reserve 1942 ** – Lynx (''Wilk'' class) interned Sweden ** – Wildcat (''Wilk'' class) interned Sweden ** – Boar (British British U-class submarine, U class) 1942–1946 ** – Falcon (British U class) 1941–1945 * Heavy minelayers: ** – Griffin sunk 1939 * Light minelayers ("''ptaszki''"– "Birds"): ** – Swallow, sunk 1939 ** – Seagull ** – Tern ** – Lapwing ** – Crane ** – Heron * Polish River Fleet This does not include a number of minor ships, transports, merchant-marine auxiliary vessels, and patrol boats. Polish Merchant Navy contributed about 137,000 Gross Register Tonnage, BRT to Allied shipping; losing 18 ships (with capacity of 76,000 BRT) and over 200 sailors in the war.

Polish Forces (East)

After the Polish government-in-exile organized the ''Anders Army'' in 1941 in the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the Operation Barbarossa and evacuated it to the West, Polish communists sought to create a new army, under communist control, out of the many ethnic Poles that remained in the Soviet Union. These were primarily citizens of the prewar Second Polish Republic that had been deported and often imprisoned by the Soviets following the Soviet annexation of Kresy, Poland's eastern territories, as per the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviet Union created the Union of Polish Patriots (ZPP) in 1943, a communist Polish organization intended to represent the interest of Poles on Soviet soil and organize this new army. The relocated Poles, along with numbers of Byelorussians, Ukrainians, and Polish Jews, were organized into a division, the nucleus of a force known as the Ludowe Wojsko Polskie, Polish People's Army (''Ludowe Wojsko Polskie'', LWP) but colloquially known as the ''Berling Army'' after its first commander, Zygmunt Berling. The division made its combat debut in October 1943 at the Battle of Lenino. Afterwards, it was rapidly expanded into the 1st Polish Corps, which in turn grew by 1944 into the First Polish Army (1944-1945), 1st Polish Army. In 1945, Polish Second Army, 2nd Polish Army was added to the LWP. By the end of the war, the LWP numbered about 200,000 front-line soldiers. The Polish communist guerilla force, the Armia Ludowa, was integrated with the Polish People's Army in January 1944. The Polish First Army was integrated in the 1st Belorussian Front with which it entered Poland from Soviet territory in 1944. In the Warsaw Uprising, 1944 Warsaw Uprising it liberated the suburb of Praga, but otherwise sat out most of the battle, aside from a series of unsuccessful crossings of the Vistula in mid-September. It took part in battles for Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), Kolobrzeg (Kolberg), Gdańsk (Danzig) and Gdynia, losing about 17,500 killed in action over the course of the war. In April–May 1945 the 1st Army fought in the Battle of Berlin, final capture of Berlin. The Polish Second Army fought as part of the Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front and took part in the Prague Offensive. In the final operations of the war the casualties of the two armies of the LWP amounted to about 67,000.

Poles in the German Armed Forces

Hundreds of thousands of former Polish citizens, particularly residents of Areas annexed by Nazi Germany, parts of Poland annexed to Germany, were conscripted into the German Armed Forces. Also, a number of former Polish citizens, especially members of the prewar German minority in Poland (see ''Volksliste''), volunteered for service in the German Armed Forces. These were mostly members of the German minority in Poland who were considered by the Nazi authorities to be ethnically German (Volksdeutsche). In 1939 in the Invasion of Poland they created the paramilitary organisation Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz, and actively supported German forces in occupied Poland. On the Western Front (World War II), Western Front, German military personnel of Polish ethnicity, held in prisoner-of-war camps, became a substantial source of manpower for the Polish Armed Forces in the West. Nearly 90,000 former German military personnel were eventually recruited into the Polish Armed Forces in the West. By Victory Day (9 May) in 1945, a third of Polish service members in the West were former members of the German Armed Forces.

Battles

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

Technology

* Józef Kosacki invented the Polish mine detector, which would be used by the Allies from 1942. * The Vickers Tank Periscope MK.IV was invented by engineer Rudolf Gundlach and patented in 1936 as the ''Gundlach Peryskop obrotowy''. Initially it was mounted in Polish tanks such as the 7TP and TKS. Subsequently, the design patent was sold to the British for a nominal sum and used in most tanks of World War II, including the Soviet T-34, the British Crusader tank, Crusader, Churchill tank, Churchill, Valentine tank, Valentine and Cromwell tanks, and the American M4 Sherman. The main advantage of the periscope was that the tank commander no longer had to turn his head in order to look backwards. The design was also later used extensively by the Germans. * Vis pistol, pistolet wz. 35 Vis, often simply called the "Radom" in English sources, is a 9 mm caliber, single-action, semi-automatic pistol. It was adopted in 1935 as the standard handgun of the Polish Army. The design was appropriated by the Germans and from 1939 to 1945, 312,000–380,000 VIS pistols were produced and used by the German paratroopers and police as the 9 mm ''Pistole 35(p)''. * PZL.37 Łoś was a Polish twin-engine medium bomber designed in the mid-1930s at the PZL factory in Warsaw by Jerzy Dąbrowski, and used operationally in the Invasion of Poland in 1939. Thanks to the laminar-flow wing it was one of the most modern bombers in the world before World War II. * Swiatecki bomb slip, a bomb-release system was invented by Władysław Świątecki (inventor), Władysław Świątecki in 1925 and patented in the 1926 in Poland and abroad. Some components was used in the pre-war Polish PZL.37 Łoś (''Elk'') bomber. In 1940 Świątecki's invention was taken over by the British, who used it in the Avro Lancaster bomber. In 1943, an updated version was created by Jerzy Rudlicki for the American B-17 Flying Fortress. * Wz. 35 anti-tank rifle, 7.92 mm anti-tank rifle developed in secret and used by the Polish Army in the

invented by Józef Maroszek (engineer), Józef Maroszek. The rifle was a development of the Mauser rifle with its own DS 7.92, special 7.92 mm cartridge with a muzzle velocity of over 1,000 meters per second. With a range of 300 metres it was very effective against all German tanks of the period (the Panzer I, Panzer II, II and Panzer III, III, as well as the Czech-made LT-35 and LT-38 tanks in German service) at 100 meters. * In World War II, there was an important need to take bearings on the high frequency radio transmissions used by the German Kriegsmarine. The engineering of such high frequency direction finding systems for operation on ships presented severe technical problems, mainly due to the effects of the superstructure on the wavefront of arriving radio signals. However, solutions to these problems were proposed by the Polish engineer Waclaw Struszynski, who also led the team which developed the first practical system at the Admiralty Signal Establishment, England. These systems were installed on convoy escort ships, and were very effective against the U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. The father of Wacław Struszyński was Professor Marceli Struszyński, a member of the Polish resistance, who analysed the fuel used in the V2 rocket, the formula being subsequently sent to England. * Henryk Magnuski, a Polish engineer working for Motorola, co-designed the SCR-300 radio in 1940. It was the first small radio receiver/transmitter to have manually set frequencies. It was used extensively by the American Army and was nicknamed the "walkie-talkie".

Weapons

Polish engineers who escaped German-occupied Poland contributed to weapon developments during the war. A Polish/Czech/British team brought the 20 mm Polsten to fruition as a simpler and cheaper to produce but as effective derivative of the Oerlikon 20 mm cannon. The Polish Home Army was probably the only World War II resistance movement to manufacture large quantities of weaponry and munitions. In addition to production of pre-war designs they developed and produced in the war the Błyskawica submachine gun, Bechowiec, KIS (weapon), KIS and Polski Sten (from the British Sten) machine pistols as well as the filipinka and sidolówka hand grenades. In the Warsaw Uprising Polish engineers built several armored car (military), armoured cars, such as the Kubuś, which also took part in the fighting. The KIS was designed and made in the Jan Piwnik's "Ponury" ("Grim") guerrilla unit that was operating in Holy Cross Mountains region. It was probably the only kind of modern firearm that could be manufactured in the forest without the need for sophisticated tools and factory equipment in the Second World War.

Notes

a Numerous sources state that Polish Army was the fourth biggest Allied fighting contingent. Steven J. Zaloga wrote that "by the war's end the Polish Army was the fourth largest contingent of the Allied coalition after the armed forces of the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain." Jerzy Jan Lerski writes "All in all, the Polish units, although divided and controlled by different political orientation, constituted the fourth largest Allied force, after the American, British and Soviet Armies." M. K. Dziewanowski has noted that "if Polish forces fighting in the east and west were added to the resistance fighters, Poland had the fourth largest Allied army in the war (after the USSR, the U.S. and Britain)". b Sources vary with regards to what was the largest resistance movement in World War II. As the war progressed, some resistance movements grew larger—and others diminished. Polish territories were mostly freed from Nazi German control in the years 1944–1945, eliminating the need for their respective (anti-Nazi) partisan forces in Poland (although the cursed soldiers continued to fight against the Soviets). Several sources note that Polish

was the largest resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Europe. For example, Norman Davies wrote "Armia Krajowa (Home Army), the AK, which could fairly claim to be the largest of European resistance"; Gregor Dallas wrote "Home Army (Armia Krajowa or AK) in late 1943 numbered about 400,000, making it the largest resistance organization in Europe"; Mark Wyman wrote "Armia Krajowa was considered the largest underground resistance unit in wartime Europe". Certainly, Polish resistance was the largest resistance until the German invasion of Yugoslavia and the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. After that point, the numbers of Soviet partisans and Yugoslav partisans grew rapidly. The number of Soviet partisans quickly caught up and were very similar to that of the Polish resistance. The number of Tito's Yugoslav partisans were roughly similar to those of the Polish and Soviet partisans in the first years of the war (1941–1942), but grew rapidly in the latter years, outnumbering the Polish and Soviet partisans by 2:1 or more (estimates give Yugoslavian forces about 800,000 in 1945, to Polish and Soviet forces of 400,000 in 1944).

References

Bibliography

* Władysław Anders: ''An Army in Exile: The Story of the Polish II Corps, Second Polish Corps'', 1981, . * Władysław Anders: '' Mémoires (1939–1946)'', 1948, Paris, La Jeune Parque. * Margaret Brodniewicz-Stawicki: ''For Your Freedom and Ours: The Polish Armed Forces in the Second World War'', Vanwell Publishing, 1999, . * Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski: ''Secret Army'', Battery Press, 1984, . * * * Jerzy B. Cynk: ''The Polish Air Force at War: The Official History, 1939–1943'', Schiffer Publishing, 1998, . * Jerzy B. Cynk: ''The Polish Air Force at War: The Official History, 1943–1945'', Schiffer Publishing, 1998, . * Norman Davies: ''Warsaw Uprising, Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw'', Viking Books, 2004, . * Norman Davies, ''God's Playground'', Oxford University Press, 1981. * Józef Garliński: ''Poland in the Second World War'', Hippocrene Books, 1987, . * Robert Gretzyngier: ''Poles in Defence of Britain'', London, 2001, . * Harry Hinsley, F.H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp, eds., ''Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park'', Oxford University Press, 1993. * Jan Karski: ''Story of a Polish Underground State, Secret State'', Simon Publications, 2001, . * Halik Kochanski: ''The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War'', Harvard University Press, 2012, . * Jan Koniarek, ''Polish Air Force 1939–1945'', Squadron/Signal Publications, 1994, . * Stefan Korboński, Zofia Korbońska, F. B. Czarnomski: ''Fighting Warsaw: the Story of the

, 1939–1945'', Hippocrene Books, 2004, . * 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, . (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; 2004, . * Richard Lukas: Did the Children Cry? Hippocrene Books, 1994. * Richard Lukas: Forgotten Holocaust. Hippocrene Books, 2nd rev.ed., 2005. * Richard Lukas: Forgotten Survivors. Univ. Press of Kansas, 2004. * Lynne Olson, Stanley Cloud: ''A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II'', Knopf, 2003, . * Michael Alfred Peszke, ''Battle for Warsaw, 1939–1944'', East European Monographs, 1995, . * Michael Alfred Peszke, ''Polish Navy, Poland's Navy, 1918–1945'', Hippocrene Books, 1999, . * 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,
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* Polish Air Force Association: ''Destiny Can Wait: The Polish Air Force in the Second World War'', Battery Press, 1988, . * ''Polish Troops in Norway'', a photographic record of the campaign at Narvik, published for the Polish Ministry of Information by M.I.Kolin (Publishers) Ltd., London July 1943. * Harvey Sarner: ''Anders and the Soldiers of the Second Polish Corps'', Brunswick Press, 1998, . * Stanisław Sosabowski: ''Freely I Served'', Battery Press Inc, 1982, . * Dr Marek Stella-Sawicki, Jarek Garlinski, and Stefan Mucha: ''First to Fight: Poland's Contribution to Allied Victory in World War II'', 2009, . * Gordon Welchman, ''The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes'', New York, McGraw-Hill, 1982. * Michał Wojewódzki, ''Akcja V-1, V-2'' (Operation V-1, V-2), 3rd ed., rev., Warsaw, Pax, 1975. * E. Thomas Wood, Stanislaw M. Jankowski: ''Jan Karski, Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust'', Wiley, 1996, . * Steven J. Zaloga: ''Poland 1939: The Birth of Blitzkrieg'', Osprey Publishing, 2004, . * Steven J. Zaloga: ''The Polish Army 1939–1945'', Osprey Publishing, 1982, . * Adam Zamoyski: ''The Forgotten Few: The Polish Air Force in the Second World War'', Pen & Sword Books, 2004, .

External links

Military contribution of Poland to World War II
Polish Ministry of Defence official page

Historical documents
The Poles on the Fronts of WW2

* Listen to Lynn Olsen & Stanley Cloud, authors of "A Question of Honor", speak about the "Kościuszko" Squadron and Polish contribution to World War I
here.

World War 2 in Poland – the September Campaign and Poles on the fronts of WW2
* * *

Personnel of the Polish Air Force in Great Britain 1940–1947
{{DEFAULTSORT:Polish Contribution To World War Ii Military history of Poland during World War II,