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The Lion and the Eagle
Polish Second World War Veterans in Scotland.
Edited by Dr Diana M Henderson.
Foreword by Dr Stanislaw Komorowski,
Former Ambassador of the Republic of Poland.
Part of the Voices of War series.
ISBN 095350364X pbk £9.99£5.00
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Foreword
The Embassy of The Republic of Poland in London has a special place in the hearts of the Poles. Firstly, because of their common history and secondly, because of the events of World War II, including the tragic occupation of Poland by two totalitarian powers in 1939 and the fall of France in 1940. All of this meant that Polish dreams of a free, democratic Poland were in tune with the British.
I remember Professor Bronislaw Geremek, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, telling me about his being outside the British Embassy in Warsaw on 3rd September 1939 where Poles demonstrated their joy when Britain declared war on Germany. The only power then able to stand against Nazi Germany was Britain. For many Poles, the UK became their second homeland and London was the seat of the wartime Polish Government in exile. During times of war, Britain was Poland’s closest ally. The Polish and the British soldiers fought together for the freedom of their countries and the freedom of Europe and the men whose stories are recorded in this book are Poland’s heroes.
For many Poles after the war, ‘the London government’ meant the Government of the free, democratic Poland. There are lots of Polish graves in the British cemeteries, and almost every large town in this country had, or still has, a Polish Club. Today’s relations between Poland and the United Kingdom are excellent. Indeed, the second half of this millennium year has seen just a few initiatives in Polish-British relations that can support this statement. These were, for example, the handing over of an Enigma encoding machine to the Polish Prime Minister by HRH The Duke of York ‘as a symbol of British thanks’ for the role of Polish mathematicians who made an outstanding contribution towards breaking the enigma’s code by British analysts at Bletchley Park in 1939; the unveiling in London, in September, of a statue of General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the war time Prime Minister of the Polish Government in exile and the Supreme Commander of the Polish Armed Forces; and, the setting up of a joint Polish-British commission of historians to examine British archives in order to provide evidence of the contribution of Polish Intelligence to the Allied war effort during World War II. These initiatives prove that, after all this time, Polish efforts have been appreciated and that the truth about the difficult past will be known to the public.
Representatives of Polish Veterans present their memories in this book. There are common factors in their stories: they found their shelter on friendly British soil; they served in many areas when they arrived in Britain and they enjoyed the kindness of the Scottish people. If Europe had not been divided by Yalta, Poland, and other central European states which found themselves, against their will, on the wrong side of ‘the iron curtain’, would most probably have participated in the Euro-Atlantic structures. Nevertheless, Poles were never comfortable with the imposed system and, as a result, Poland was in the forefront of the transformations in Central and Eastern Europe. These transformations have been achieved in a way in which Timothy Garton Ash calls a ‘revolution’, a peaceful revolution through reforms. Poland’s membership of the North Atlantic Alliance may be described as crossing the political Rubicon in the process of anchoring Poland among the group of countries collectively referred to as ‘the west’. But it will be the membership of the European Union that will finally secure a comprehensive and favourable environment for Poland to achieve further economic development, her widely understood security and her sense of being part of a community of states with which we share a cultural and historic heritage, as well as common values.
I would like to thank everybody involved in The Scots at War Trust for their efforts to collect and record this important historical material concerning Polish Armed Forces in Scotland during World War II. Especially, I would like to express my deepest thanks to Dr Diana Henderson, for her personal involvement in the project. Dr Stanislaw Komorowski Ambassador of the Republic of Poland.
Historical Scene
I would like to set the historical scene - the backdrop for the stories these remarkable Polish Veterans have to tell us. On 1st September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Seventeen days later, Soviet troops crossed the Polish border from the east ‘to protect their fellow Slavs’. After a heroic fight on two fronts, the Polish Government crossed the border into Romania, and there its members were interned. During these dramatic events, as we shall read, a number of Poles escaped across the Romanian, Czech and Hungarian borders and eventually joined the Polish Forces in France. Other Poles were captured by the advancing Soviet Army and taken as forced labour to Siberia and Northern Russia. The Polish Nation was divided: this effectively created the strands of two stories.
Poles in France formed and trained. Some were sent to the defence of Norway and were at Narvik with the British in the spring of 1940. In May 1940, when Germany attacked France, Free Polish Forces prepared to defend Paris. With the fall of France, some of the Polish troops crossed into Switzerland where they were interned. Others escaped from French ports to Britain. Many were sent to Scotland and there was good reason for this. Lost in the Battle for France in 1940 was the whole of the cream of the Highland Territorial Army, the 51st Highland Division, which had been forced to surrender at St Valery-en-Caux. This Division was reconstituted overnight by simply renaming the 9th Scottish Division, then stationed at home, as the 51st Highland Division.
In Scotland, now completely unprotected against invasion and the real threat of German attacks, the newly arrived Poles were warmly welcomed. They immediately set to work defending Scotland. There was, however, no military infrastructure to accommodate them and they were left in our inhospitable climate, largely to their own devices, to live in tents, build their own camps, patrol the coastline and build coastal defences. These Polish Service men and women made a lasting impression in Scotland during those early years. They could be seen in Cupar, Leven, Milnathort, Auchtermuchty, Crawford, Biggar, Douglas, Duns, Kelso, Forres, Perth, Tayport, Lossiemouth, Arbroath, Forfar, and Carnoustie. There were Polish Schools of Engineering, a Polish Staff College, a Polish Record Office and a Polish Parachute Training School. Many Scots, especially ladies, were astounded by Polish good looks and by Polish courtesy. When the Poles left for D Day and the campaign in North West Europe in 1944, a large number of Scottish girls were heartbroken.
Meanwhile, the Polish Forces in the Soviet Union had not fared so well. When Germany invaded Russia in 1941, the Soviets and the Poles became allies overnight. Poles were released from forced labour and a Polish Army was raised in Southern Russia. The Soviet Government, however, was reluctant to arm and equip Polish Forces on Russian soil and in 1942, in a situation of deteriorating Polish-Soviet relations, the Polish Army in the Soviet Union was evacuated to the Middle East and placed under British command. This Army fought with distinction in North Africa and Italy.
The final breakdown of Polish-Soviet relations was in April 1943, when the Germans announced the discovery of a mass grave in the Forest of Katyn, near Smolensk, containing the bodies of 4,000 Polish Officers murdered by the Soviets.
In the west, Polish Forces served with distinction on the sea, on the land and in the air. A number of Polish Squadrons was formed as part of the Royal Air Force and they had an outstanding success rate. Polish Infantry and Armoured Forces landed in France shortly after D-day in 1944 and Polish Airborne Forces landed at Arnhem.
In 1945, the Polish Army, which had formerly been based in the Soviet Union, and the Polish Forces which had trained and served in Scotland, were joined in the United Kingdom. However, the January 1945 Yalta Agreement meant that many of these men and women could not return to their homes because of boundary changes and the establishment of a Stalinist sphere of influence over Poland. A large number of Poles chose to stay in the United Kingdom and, happily, a large number of those chose to stay in Scotland. In the following pages are some of their stories of survival against the odds. It is a privilege to record them.
Dr Diana M Henderson, Honorary Research Director The Scots at War Trust 2001.