[5][6] Its first commander, General Michał Tokarzewski, began the task of forming this army in the Soviet village of Totskoye on 17 August.

In February 1944, the Polish II Corps was transferred from Egypt to Italy, where it became an independent part of the British Eighth Army, under Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver Leese.

[7] The II corps was assigned to lead the Allied advance along the Adriatic Sea and by 20 June 1944 the Poles had reached Fermo and were closing in on Ancona.

[7] After advancing 60 miles over a four day period, the II corps was halted by a German counterattack which drove the Poles back to the Chienti river.

Their bear mascot, named Wojtek, was officially entered onto the unit roll as a private soldier, subsequently being promoted to corporal.

Following Operation Barbarossa and the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement, many of them were released and allowed to join the Polish Armed Forces in the East being formed in Southern Russia and Kazakhstan.

For political reasons, the Soviet Union soon withdrew support for the creation of a Polish Army on its territory and reduced the supply rate, which resulted in General Władysław Anders withdrawing his troops to British-held Persia and Iraq.

From there, they were moved to British-controlled Palestine, where they joined forces with the 3rd Carpathian Division, which was composed mainly of Polish soldiers who had managed to escape to French Lebanon through Romania and Hungary after the defeat of Poland in 1939.

However, Menachem Begin – the future Prime Minister of Israel and at the time a II Corps soldier – though urged by his friends to desert, refused to remove his uniform until he had been officially discharged.