Gladiators of WW II (5/13) : The Free Polish Forces
For educational purposes
The German overrunning of their country in 1939 did not crush the Polish spirit. Many escaped to the West to carry on the fight.
Polish fighter pilots played a major role in the Battle of Britain, while Polish ground forces helped to liberate Western Europe.
Another Polish force, held captive by the Russians in Siberia, made an epic trek to the Middle East to fought in Italy, where their courage brought a victorious end to the bitter battle for Monte Cassino.
The German overrunning of their country in 1939 did not crush the Polish spirit. Many escaped to the West to carry on the fight.
Polish fighter pilots played a major role in the Battle of Britain, while Polish ground forces helped to liberate Western Europe.
Another Polish force, held captive by the Russians in Siberia, made an epic trek to the Middle East to fought in Italy, where their courage brought a victorious end to the bitter battle for Monte Cassino.
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LearningTranscript
00:30The four-month battle for the dominant peak of Monte Cassino was the grimest of the whole
00:59Italian campaign. Three times the Allies assaulted it early in 1944 and three times
01:10they were flung back by the German defenders. Not until May 1944 was Monte Cassino finally
01:25captured. The flag that was hoisted over the monastery at its peak was Polish.
01:40The Polish troops who fought at Cassino had travelled a long way since their country was
01:45overrun by the Germans and Russians in September 1939. This crushing defeat was the beginning of
01:51a crusade to restore their nation's pride and independence. To continue the struggle,
02:00some had travelled thousands of miles from Siberian prison camps down through the Caucasus
02:05and Persia to the Middle East. Others had escaped through Hungary and Romania. Their
02:13goal to get to France so as to continue their struggle against the Nazis. Once there,
02:22they formed a Polish army to fight alongside their traditional ally. When France was defeated,
02:30they continued their struggle from Britain, fighting in all the major campaigns of the war
02:39in North Africa and Western Europe. The story of the free Polish forces is one of the epics of
02:48military history. It is also one which is little known. For a half century,
02:53the communist rulers of their country were happy to see these gladiators forgotten.
02:59Poland has always had a strong fighting spirit, born of centuries of conflict. In 1918,
03:11she regained her independence after nearly 150 years of Russian, Prussian and Austrian occupation.
03:17Almost immediately, the new republic was at war with the Russian Bolshevik regime. Although
03:25heavily outnumbered, the Poles snatched victory out of defeat in front of Warsaw in August 1920.
03:34This left a vengeful Russia on Poland's eastern border. And the creation by the Treaty of Versailles
03:41of a corridor of Polish territory that split East Prussia from the rest of Germany left
03:45Poland with an equally resentful Western neighbour. Thus, the Poles had to maintain
03:56strong armed forces between the world wars. But they lacked the industrial base to provide
04:01these with sufficient modern equipment. When Hitler invaded on the 1st of September 1939,
04:09the Polish Air Force proved no match for the Luftwaffe with its state-of-the-art fighters.
04:16The small Polish Navy realised that it could do little against the German fleet in the Baltic.
04:22Three of its four destroyers were sent to Britain on the eve of war. The remaining surface warships
04:29were either destroyed by German bombers, scuttled or captured. Two Polish submarines managed to
04:36escape to Britain. Others were interned in neutral Sweden, together with their crews.
04:43The Polish army tried to conduct a delaying action in the vain hope that their British
04:50and French allies would launch a major offensive in the West. But they could do little against
04:59the German blitzkrieg. With almost insane courage, Polish cavalry charged the German panzers.
05:05Inevitably, they were moaned by. Any hope that the Poles might be able to hold out was dashed
05:16on the 17th of September, when the Russians invaded from the east, under an agreement
05:21made with the Germans just before the war. The Polish high command and government were
05:31forced to flee to Romania. There, under German pressure, they were interned. All Polish resistance
05:38by the regular armed forces ended on the 6th of October. The country was partitioned between
05:46Germany and the Soviet Union. Hundreds of thousands of Polish servicemen were incarcerated
05:54in Soviet and German prisoner-of-war camps. Yet, in spite of the disaster that had befallen
06:02Poland, its fighting spirit had not been crushed, and many thousands of troops were determined
06:07to fight on. These included not only professional soldiers, but men from all walks of life who
06:13had been conscripted when war threatened. Many were only teenagers. Many came from remote
06:21villages and had little knowledge of the wider world. But all were united in the belief that
06:27they must continue the struggle, no matter what the cost. As so often, the crisis brought forth
06:36the man. General Wladyslaw Sikorski had been Prime Minister of Poland in the early 1920s,
06:42but had been retired after a coup in 1926. After the German occupation, Sikorski set up
06:50a government-in-exile in France, which became a focus for his fleeing compatriots. An underground
06:58organisation was set up to guide them via Romania, Hungary and Italy. Epic journeys
07:05were made on foot over hundreds of miles, often with little food or water. They were
07:12hunted as illegal immigrants by the countries through which they passed. In France, new units
07:22were formed for the men who got through. Trained Polish airmen joined the French Army of the Air.
07:35They quickly mastered flying French planes like the Douatine D-520 fighter.
07:40The ground troops were concentrated at Angers, in the Loire region of western France.
07:50There, they were re-equipped and re-trained, forming two divisions, an armoured brigade and
08:00an independent rifle brigade. These were placed under the command of the French Army.
08:05Throughout the winter of 1939, General Sikorski was tireless in his efforts to maintain the morale
08:14of his men. He knew that they would soon be in action again against their hated enemy, Nazi
08:22Germany. The free Polish forces first went into action in a totally unexpected place,
08:33for on 9 April 1940, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway. The Allies responded
08:45by making landings to prevent the Germans from advancing northwards. Among the troops sent,
08:52was the Polish independent Podolanska Rifle Brigade. This landed at the port of Narvik,
08:58in the extreme north. The German forces which had landed there, had eventually driven out,
09:04but the Luftwaffe's total supremacy in the air made life increasingly difficult.
09:08Among the casualties was the Polish destroyer Grom, now serving with the Royal Navy. She had
09:26supported the operations at Narvik, but was sunk by German bombers on 5 May.
09:30Fortunately, most of her crew were rescued, and got back to Britain to continue the struggle for
09:42a free Poland. The Allied forces held on until early June before withdrawing. The Poles returned
10:00to a France which was now facing total defeat, for the German assault which had begun on 10 May,
10:05had swiftly led to the collapse of her armies. Two Polish divisions in an armoured brigade were in
10:21the French line, as the German onslaught began. The 2nd Rifle Division was in Alsace, and was
10:27eventually driven back to the Swiss border. The French corps commander ordered his men to cross
10:36into Switzerland, rather than surrender to the Germans. The Poles were interned, and took no
10:42further part in the war. The 1st Grenadier Division was eventually surrounded in northeast
10:49France, but its commander ordered his men to break out, and make for Britain as best they could.
10:58In the air, Polish pilots fought desperately against the Luftwaffe, many for the 2nd time.
11:04But it was an unequal struggle, and more than 10 pilots were lost.
11:12Determined to carry on the fight, General Sikorski moved his government in exile to
11:26London. 24,000 of his men escaped as well. The Polish soldiers, still in their French
11:36uniforms, were sent to Scotland to be re-equipped. Soon they were wearing their 3rd different uniform
11:45of the war, and were impressing everyone with their smartness and enthusiasm.
11:50Scots living near the camps took the exiled Poles to their hearts, and many of them were
11:59to return to live there when the war was over. Members of the Polish Air Force had begun to
12:13arrive in Britain as early as December 1939, under an agreement made with the British government.
12:18They were incorporated in the Royal Air Force, and their ranks were swelled by those who escaped
12:23from France. After considerable pressure from Sikorski, two wholly Polish RAF fighter squadrons
12:31were formed. They were 302, City of Poznan, and 303, Kosciuszko squadrons. Both were involved in
12:42the Battle of Britain, while other Poles fought with RAF squadrons. They swiftly gained a
12:52reputation for a ruthless determination to destroy the enemy. Witold Urbanowicz was one
13:07of the top aces in the battle, with 17 confirmed kills. Another was Antoni Glowacki, who shot down
13:17five German aircraft in one day. 303 squadron achieved 125 victories in the space of just
13:30five weeks fighting, making it the top-scoring squadron in RAF fighter command.
13:45In all, 144 Poles flew in the battle. 29 lost their lives. Polish bomber squadrons flying
13:59Vickers Wellingtons joined RAF bomber command. Their crews were to fight throughout the four-year
14:08bomber offensive against Germany. The Free Polish Navy was strengthened by the handing
14:18over of seven British destroyers and two submarines, and later a cruiser. Polish ships
14:24fought in the Battle of the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean, where the submarines earned the
14:30terrible twins from their exploits. Not all the Poles who escaped from their homeland ended up
14:45in Britain. Many had got through the Balkans and ended up in the French protectorate of Syria,
14:50where they were formed into the Carpathian Rifle Brigade. When France fell, the brigade
15:00crossed into Palestine and offered its services to the British. Under the command of General
15:09Stanislaw Skopanski, it was re-equipped and trained on British army lines. And then in
15:18August 1941, the brigade was sent to the Libyan port of Tobruk. This had been under siege by
15:24General Erwin Rommel's Axis forces since April. The Poles defended Tobruk throughout the remainder
15:30of the siege. General Sikorski visited them, eager to support the first of his ground forces to be
15:37back in action. When Tobruk was finally relieved in early December, the Polish brigade joined in
15:47the main British offensive, which drove Rommel out of Saraniac. It was then withdrawn to refit,
15:54but the Carpathian Rifle Brigade would soon be joined by other Polish troops. Every member of
16:03the free Polish forces was continually aware of the suffering that their homeland was enduring
16:08under German and Soviet occupation. The Russians, determined that Poland should never regain its
16:21independence, deported many Polish soldiers and civilians to remote labor camps in Siberia.
16:27In Poland itself, resistance did not cease.
16:39An underground force, later known as the Home Army, was formed under Sikorski's direction and
16:44took its orders from London. But on the 22nd of June 1941, Poland's situation changed dramatically
16:55when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, bringing Stalin onto the Allied side.
17:00Sikorski demanded that Moscow now release the Poles it was holding,
17:07so that they could rejoin the war against Nazism. In July 1941, he signed an agreement in London
17:16with Soviet Ambassador Ivan Maisky for a Polish army to be raised in Russia. General Wladyslaw
17:24Anders, the senior Polish officer in the Soviet Union, was released from the Lubyanka prison to
17:30command it. Anders set up his headquarters at Buzuluk, 600 miles south of Moscow. But bringing
17:37together his troops, who were scattered in camps throughout the Soviet Union, was a major problem.
17:42The Russians gave only minimal help. And as the winter closed in, conditions for the Poles in
17:50Russia remained harsh. At the beginning of December 1941, as the German assault stalled
18:08in front of Moscow, Sikorski traveled to the Russian capital to meet Anders and speak with Stalin.
18:13They obtained Russian agreement for the Poles to be transferred to the more temperate climate
18:22of Soviet Central Asia. But even then, the Russians continued to give little help,
18:27especially in supplying adequate rations. Sikorski wanted the Polish army in Russia
18:36to fight with the Red Army on the Eastern Front, so that it could help liberate Poland. Anders,
18:42knowing the paranoia of Stalin, disagreed, believing that his men would be more effective
18:47if they joined the British forces fighting in the Mediterranean. Eventually, the Russians
18:54agreed that a proportion of the Poles could go to the Middle East. Those who remained in
19:04Russia would eventually form the first Polish army, which fought alongside the Red Army.
19:09The first contingent of Poles left Russia in spring 1942. Their journey took them across
19:26the Caspian Sea and down through Iran, an odyssey of more than 2,000 miles. They finally arrived in
19:34Iraq, where the British had set up camps for them. A second contingent followed,
19:38making a grand total of 115,000 soldiers and civilians. Named Second Polish Corps,
19:47Anders' men were joined by the Tobruk veterans of the Carpathian Brigade.
19:51Among the members of Second Polish Corps was an unusual recruit, Wojtek, a brown Syrian bear cub.
20:03Hunters had shot his mother and he'd been picked up by members of an ammunition supply company.
20:08Wojtek swiftly adopted them as his family. He grew quickly and became a familiar sight in
20:16the company's lines. One of his favorite pastimes was wrestling with anyone rash enough to take him
20:24on. While the strength of the Free Polish Forces was being built up, the war in the Middle East
20:41swept off. In the autumn of 1942, the British defeated Rommel at El Alamein and pursued him
20:48through Libya and into Tunisia. Then in November, Anglo-US forces landed in French
20:54Northwest Africa and advanced into Tunisia, threatening to attack Rommel from behind.
20:59As the Allies in Tunisia wore down the Axis forces, the Polish troops in Britain and the
21:07Middle East became increasingly impatient to rejoin the war. It seemed as though the army
21:15had been forgotten, even though Free Polish ships continued to fight as part of the Royal
21:20Navy in the Battle of the Atlantic against Hitler's U-boats and Polish merchant ships
21:25sailed in the convoys they guarded. The Polish fighter and bomber squadrons were also busy.
21:56The bomber offensive continued with the frequency of raids building up. One group of experienced
22:05fighter pilots, known as the Polish Fighting Team, was sent out to Tunisia under the command
22:09of Stanislaw Skalski, who had already had 15 victories to his credit. The team quickly
22:15impressed the RAF and became known as Skalski's Flying Circus. It accounted for 25 Axis planes
22:22in six weeks of combat. Then, in April 1943, as the campaign in Tunisia drew to an end,
22:46came a bombshell which severely threatened the Free Pole's relationship with the Soviet Union.
22:52The Germans announced that they had discovered a mass grave of Polish officers in Katyn Wood
22:57in western Russia, near Smolensk. Sikorski knew that several thousand Polish officers
23:06in Russian hands could not be traced, and was convinced that Moscow was to blame.
23:14The Free Poles in London asked Stalin for an explanation, but none was forthcoming.
23:21Worse, Stalin broke off relations with the London Poles and set up his own puppet Polish
23:27government in Russia. The British government, keen not to upset relations with their eastern
23:37ally, declined to give Sikorski and his government in exile any support in the matter.
23:42As the row rumbled on, General Sikorski set off on a tour of the Free Polish forces in the Middle
23:52East. He was only too aware that their morale was suffering both from lack of action and the
23:57aftermath of the Katyn Wood discovery. As Sikorski's tour ended, the Free Polish cause was struck by a
24:11shattering tragedy. On the 4th of July, Sikorski departed from Gibraltar to return to England in
24:20his B-24 Liberator. The plane had scarcely lifted off before it plunged into the sea.
24:42Sikorski and his daughter were among those who died. The pilot survived and reported that the
24:50controls had failed to respond during takeoff. Sikorski's body was recovered and brought back
24:57to England in a Polish destroyer to be buried at a cemetery in the Nottinghamshire town of Newark,
25:01where the Polish Air Force had its own burial plot. Officially, Sikorski's death was put down
25:09to an accident. But ever since, suspicions have remained that it came at a particularly
25:14convenient moment for the Soviet Union.
25:16Stanislaw Mikołajczyk succeeded Sikorski as Prime Minister, while the Free Polish Ground Forces
25:43continued to train. But they would not have much longer to wait before getting back into action.
25:50The Allies had invaded Italy in September 1943. By the end of November, they had been brought to a
26:03halt by the formidable defences of the German Gustav Line in the mountains south of Rome.
26:08Initial efforts to break through failed. It was now that General Wladyslaw Anders and his
26:19Second Polish Corps were ordered to move from Iraq to Italy to join the British Eighth Army.
26:24One recruit who was not prepared to be left behind was Wojtek, the soldier bear. He boarded a
26:37transport with his colleagues in the ammunition supply company and was given an official rank
26:41and pay book so that he could draw his rations. At last, for the Free Poles, the fighting would
26:48get serious. They found the Italian winter a sharp contrast to their long stay in the Middle East,
26:59but they were given time to acclimatise. While they were doing this, the Allies decided to
27:12outflank the Gustav Line. Landings would be made at Anzio, some 30 miles south of Rome.
27:22These took place on the 22nd of January, 1944. Little opposition was met on the beaches,
27:30but failure to exploit this and advance immediately inland enabled the Germans
27:35to rush in reinforcements and contain the beacher. The failure at Anzio meant that
27:42the Allied commanders had to renew their efforts to break through the Gustav Line.
27:46The key to the defences was a town of Cassino, which guarded the entrance to the Liri Valley,
27:52through which the road to Rome passed, and the hill with a monastery on top, which dominated it.
27:58At the end of January, the Americans tried to capture Monte Cassino, but failed.
28:05In the mistaken belief that the Germans were using the monastery as an observation post,
28:16the Allies then bombed it. The German paratroops quickly took full advantage of the rubble in both
28:31the monastery and Cassino town to secure their defences. They repulsed further Allied attacks
28:40in February and March, although the second by Indians and New Zealanders did manage to get into the town.
28:46General Sir Harold Alexander, commanding the Allied armies in Italy, now decided to wait
29:05until the ground had dried out after the spring thaw. In the meantime,
29:08he launched an air offensive against German road and rail communications.
29:17It was now that the 2nd Polish Corps was deployed in front of Cassino.
29:23Its mission? To finally capture the mountain.
29:27On the night of the 11th of May, the Poles attacked.
29:36In spite of displaying desperate bravery, they were repulsed after two days fighting.
29:45However, three French troops managed to make progress in the mountains on the southern side
29:51of the Liri Valley. Three days later, Marshal Albert Kesselring, the German commander,
30:04ordered a gradual withdrawal from the Gustav Line, beginning with the forces facing the Americans in
30:10the south. But the German paratroops defending Cassino remained in position,
30:16confident that their dominating defences would keep the Allies at bay.
30:20The Poles attacked again on the 17th of May, and there was further desperate fighting before
30:31the 12th Podolski Lances closed in on the monastery itself the following morning.
30:36Among the troops spearheading the assault was Lieutenant Jurek Kowalski.
30:43Shortly after 10 o'clock, I entered Cassino Monastery with the 1st Polish Troops,
30:48a famous Polish Lancer Regiment of the Carpathian Division. Only 17 Germans were
30:53left in the building, and they surrendered to 2nd Lieutenant Gurbiel Kazimierz and his Lancers.
30:58Part of the building was still standing. Rubble, equipment and soldiers' beds littered the
31:05inside of the monastery. Our division has not met the Germans since Tobruk and has
31:11been looking forward to this moment for two years. The Poles raised their national flag
31:17in triumph over the ruins. Within an hour, General Oliver Lees,
31:34the commander of the 8th Army, was at Anders' headquarters and toasting him in champagne.
31:39It had been a magnificent effort, but the Poles were not finished yet. They continued
31:48to drive along the north side of the Liri Valley, displaying great dash and determination.
32:05But their casualties were rising. They suffered some 3,800 killed and wounded in just two weeks
32:15of fighting. As a result, the Polish Corps was pulled out of the line.
32:26In the days that followed, many distinguished visitors came to offer their congratulations to
32:41the Poles. These included General Alexander and King George VI. The reputation of General
32:48Anders and his men was now second to none. Wojtek, too, received his share of congratulations
33:02for his coolness under fire and his help in humping ammunition. He now became his unit's
33:12official symbol. Meanwhile, on the 5th of June 1944, the Allies entered Rome. The Poles
33:27were soon back in action, taking part in the subsequent advance northwards. In July,
33:39they added the capture of the important Adriatic port of Ancona to their laurels.
33:43But by the end of 1944, the Allies were again stalled by the German defences,
33:51this time by the Gothic line running along the Apennine Mountains north of Florence.
33:56When they mounted their final offensive in April 1945, the Poles played a leading part,
34:05ending their war with the capture of the northern city of Bologna.
34:08Back in Britain, the Polish forces followed the exploits of their comrades at Cassino
34:18with enormous pride. They, too, were impatient to rejoin the fight. There were two key fighting
34:32formations training for the liberation of Western Europe. One was the 1st Polish Armoured Division.
34:43The other was the Independent Polish Parachute Brigade.
34:54The Polish ground forces did not take part in the Normandy landings or the subsequent
34:59fighting in the Beech Hill. But Polish ships were present off the beaches from D-Day onwards.
35:14And Polish pilots were also in action in the skies over Normandy.
35:18One was Eugeniusz Horwaczewski, who had been one of the aces of Skalski's Flying Circus in Tunisia.
35:33He led the Polish 315 Squadron in their Mustangs with great verve.
35:40But Horwaczewski was shot and killed during an epic dogfight with Focke-Wulf Fw 190s on the 18th of August.
35:50His squadron claimed 16 German planes down for the loss of three of their own.
35:56By this time, the 1st Polish Armoured Division had arrived in France and become part of the 1st
36:05Canadian Army. It soon moved into action. Following the American breakout from Normandy
36:14at the end of July, a major part of the German forces became trapped in the Falaise area.
36:19Massive air attacks pounded the German troops.
36:27The Canadians were given the job of sealing the Falaise pocket,
36:36and their attack was spearheaded by the Polish Armoured Division.
36:41Although it was the first time they had been in action in their tanks, they fought like veterans.
36:55Within three days, the pocket had been closed, and more than 50,000 dazed and shocked Germans
37:06were taken prisoner. Falaise ended any hope for the Germans that they could conduct an
37:17orderly withdrawal through France. Over the next three weeks, the tanks of the Polish Division
37:24roared across northern France in a high-speed pursuit which took them through Abbeville and
37:29onto Ypres in Belgium. Finally, they liberated the Dutch town of Breda, where they were given
37:38a memorable welcome by the inhabitants. But shortly afterwards, overstretched supply lines
37:47brought an end to the rapid Allied advance. Meanwhile, back in Britain, the Polish Parachute
38:05Brigade was still eagerly awaiting its baptism of fire. Its men, and every other free Pole
38:12involved in the Allied advances in the West, were very aware that a desperate struggle was
38:17now raging in their homeland. By late July 1944, the great Soviet counteroffensive had
38:26driven the Germans back over the Polish border and was closing in on Warsaw. It was the moment
38:34that the Polish Home Army, the armed underground force, had been waiting for. On the 1st of August,
38:44the Poles in Warsaw rose against their hated Nazi occupiers. But on the previous night,
38:51the Red Army had halted its offensive. A delegation of London Poles immediately went
38:58to Moscow to plead for the offensive to be resumed, but Stalin refused. He had already
39:06installed his own Polish administration at Lublin and told the London Poles that there
39:10could not be two governments in exile. Likewise, he refused to allow US and British aircraft to
39:20use Russian bases to drop supplies to the Home Army. The battle for Warsaw continued,
39:28with the Poles becoming ever more desperate. The Polish Home Army fought on throughout August
39:44and September, and it was not until early October that the Germans finally crushed
39:49all resistance. While the fighting was at its height, the Polish Parachute Brigade begged
39:55that it should be dropped into Warsaw to help its compatriots. The request was turned down
40:01by the British government on the grounds that not only would it be suicidal, but the brigade
40:06was at last about to be sent into battle. They were to take part in Operation Market Garden,
40:15General Montgomery's ambitious plan to seize bridges over waterways in Holland so as to
40:21outflank Germany's main natural obstacle in the West, the River Rhine. The Poles were to drop
40:30at Arnhem to provide reinforcement for the British 1st Airborne Division. But the Polish
40:37airborne commander, General Stanislaw Sosobowski, objected to the plan. He believed that the 48-hour
40:45interval between the first British drop and that of the Poles was too wide. Sosobowski's objections
40:56were ignored, because there were not enough aircraft and gliders to deploy his troops more
41:00quickly. The operation went ahead on Sunday, the 17th of September, 1944. The British paras succeeded
41:12in getting into Arnhem, but were pinned down by two German Waffen-SS divisions and unable to
41:17secure the bridge over the lower Rhine. To make matters worse, fog delayed the Polish drop,
41:26and they did not arrive until four days after the initial landings. By that time, the German forces
41:36around Arnhem had been much strengthened, and the lightly equipped British paratroops were
41:40under increasing pressure. The Poles landed on the south bank of the lower Rhine, and only about
41:47250 men were able to get across the river to reinforce their British comrades. The next day,
41:55troops from the 30th British Corps managed to link up with Sosobowski's men, but it was too
42:00late to alter the situation at Arnhem. Some of the British and Polish paratroops did manage to
42:11get back across the river, but the majority were forced to surrender to the Germans.
42:18The failure to secure the bridge at Arnhem meant that the last chance for the Allies to end the
42:28war in Europe before the end of 1944 had gone. The 1st Polish Armoured Division spent the autumn
42:36on the river Maas. It then took part in the grim winter battles to clear the approaches to the
42:48river Rhine. The Poles took part in the final Allied advance into Germany, and 1st Armoured
42:57Division's war ended with the capture of the port of Wilhelmshaven. They were still 350 miles from
43:04the Polish border, but it was the nearest that the Free Poles got to their country.
43:08Unlike the other Allies, the Free Poles reacted to the end of the war in Europe with mixed feelings.
43:19They had hoped that their great contribution to victory would result in their country regaining
43:29its independence, but it was not to be. The Western Allies had agreed that Poland would
43:41be in the Soviet sphere of influence, and when Soviet troops liberated the country from the
43:48Germans, Stalin was able to ensure that the pro-Moscow Polish Lublin government was installed
43:54in power, and Red Army troops were stationed in the country. The hopes of the Free Poles
44:05were dashed, and they were left in a dilemma over what to do. Nevertheless, half of those
44:14who had fought with the Western Allies did decide to return home to be reunited with those of their
44:18loved ones who had survived the war. As the Communist grip on Poland tightened, many of them
44:24were to be arrested, murdered, or deported to the Soviet Union. The remainder of the Free Poles
44:35settled in the West, most of them in Britain, and made new lives for themselves.
44:45Among them was Wojtek, the soldier bear. On the demobilization of his unit, he set up home in
44:55Edinburgh Zoo, where he still remembered. Here he lived, often visited by his former comrades,
45:01until his death at the age of 22. Throughout the Cold War, the exiled Free Poles continued
45:16to live in hope that their country would once more be free. Their dreams were finally realized
45:25in 1989, when the Communist government was defeated in a general election by Lech Wałęsa,
45:30and his reformist Solidarity Party. This was followed by the breakup of the Soviet Union,
45:39and the withdrawal of its forces from Poland. Then, in September 1993, the remains of General
45:55Władysław Sikorski finally left Newark, where they had lain for 50 years, and were taken back
46:01to Poland to be reburied in Kraków, seat of the ancient kings of Poland. The Free Polish dream
46:08had finally been realized. Today, among the many memorials to the Free Polish forces who gave so
46:20much for so little, there are two that stand out. One is the memorial to the Polish Air Force at
46:29Northolt, on the outskirts of London. The other is a statue of General Sikorski himself, which
46:41was unveiled in 2000, and stands outside the Polish Embassy in London. Its simple inscription
46:51commemorates not just him, but all who fought in the Free Polish Armed Forces and in the resistance
46:57movement. They were all gladiators, prepared to sacrifice everything for the cause of their