Polish Armed Forces in the West
The formations, loyal to the Polish government-in-exile, were first formed in France and its Middle East territories following the defeat and occupation of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939.
After Poland's defeat in September–October 1939, the Polish government-in-exile quickly organized in France a new fighting force originally of about 80,000 men.
Polish ships and sailors had been sent to Britain in mid-1939 by General Sikorski, and a Polish-British Naval agreement was signed in November of the same year.
"[8] Dowding later stated further that "had it not been for the magnificent [work of] the Polish squadrons and their unsurpassed gallantry, I hesitate to say that the outcome of the Battle would have been the same.
This army, successively gathered in Bouzoulouk, Samarkand, was later ferried from Krasnovodsk across the Caspian Sea to the Middle East (Iran) where Polish II Corps was formed from it and other units in 1943.
By the end of the Second World War, they were 195,000 strong, and by July 1945 had increased to 228,000, most of the newcomers being released prisoners-of-war and ex-labor camp inmates.
Polish troops were factored into the British 1945 top secret contingency plan, Operation Unthinkable, which considered a possible attack on the Soviet Union in order to enforce an independent Poland.
By 1945, there was growing anti-Polish sentiment in Britain, particularly among the trade unions—which feared competition for jobs from Polish immigrants—and from Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin.
[13] In March 1945, Time reported on Polish "Surplus Heroes", stating that Bevin promised Anders that those of his soldiers who did not want to return to the new Poland could find asylum in the British Empire.
Anders argued that he could not advise the soldiers to return to Poland unless the Polish Government promised elections this spring.
In Poland the split between the Communist-Socialist groups and shrewd Stanislaw Mikolajczyk's Polish Peasant Party was deepening.
[14] In January 1946, Bevin protested against killings by the Polish provisional government, which defended its actions saying it was fighting terrorists loyal to Anders and funded by the British.
[13] In February 1946, Time reported "Britain's Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin told a tense House of Commons last week that terror had become an instrument of national policy in the new Poland.
Many members of Vice Premier Stanislaw Mikolajczyk's Polish Peasant Party who opposed the Communist-dominated Warsaw Government had been murdered.
I regard it as imperative that the Polish Provisional Government should put an immediate stop to these crimes in order that free and unfettered elections may be held as soon as possible, in accordance with the Crimea decision.
I am looking forward to the end of these police states ...", while the Polish government blamed Anders and his British backers for the bloodshed there.
[1][16][17] At first the British Government invited representatives of the newly recognised regime in Warsaw to march in the Parade, but the delegation from Poland never arrived, the reason never being adequately explained; pressure from Moscow is the most likely explanation.
The only Polish representative at the parade was Colonel Józef Kuropieska, the military attaché of the Communist regime in Warsaw, who attended as a diplomatic courtesy.
[4] The formation was disbanded in 1947, many of its soldiers choosing to remain in exile rather than to return to communist-controlled Poland, where they were often seen by the Polish communists as "enemies of the state", influenced by the Western ideas, loyal to the Polish government in exile, and thus meeting with persecution and imprisonment (in extreme cases, death).
6 (Polish) Troop was under the command of Captain Smrokowski and comprised seven officers and 84 men, who were recruited from a variety of different sources.
Some were Polish Army soldiers taken prisoner after the 1939 German invasion of Poland and forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht, who had then deserted whenever they had the chance.
This army, successively gathered in Bouzoulouk, Samarkand, was later ferried from Krasnovodsk to the Middle East (Iran) through the Caspian Sea (in March and August 1942).
Known as the 'Second Department', it cooperated with the other Allies in every European country and operated one of the largest intelligence networks in Nazi Germany.
Many Poles also served in other Allied intelligence services, including the celebrated Krystyna Skarbek ("Christine Granville") in the United Kingdom's Special Operations Executive.
Forty-three percent of all the reports received by the British secret services from continental Europe in 1939-45 came from Polish sources.
