News / What did Poland get out of the wars and struggles for others? [1108]

The second point has little to do with the reliability of the source rather than my choice of quotation of the source(s). From the same source:

"The following is based on a number of historic accounts and the reports of the RAF Command in lhe Mediterranean theater of operations on August 4, the whole British RAF 148 Squadron of 15 planes, including the Poles, prepared for a flight to Warsaw. At last moment, Air Marshall Schlessor rescinded the order bUI allowed rhe mission to territOries in Poland but outside of Warsaw itself.

But the commander of the flight, Major Arciuszkiwicz, got four crews to volunleer to fly to Warsaw. The Polish mission was successful but the RAF crews attempting to drop supplies into Poland took heavy losses. Four were shot down and one crashed on landing at base.

Not surprisingly, given the Polish "independence" and RAF losses, Slessor ordered all flights to Poland to be placed on hold. This order was forcefully challenged by the Polish military in London. All efforts were made to get help and to get Slessor to rescind his order. Finally, under intense pressure from the highest political center of the British government, Slessor, with understandable poor grace. allowed Polish volunleers to fly to Warsaw."...........this was August 8. So the Warsaw Rising Museum is correct and so is my original quotation of the source if my point was to illustrate volunteering to fly to Warsaw.


Absolutely agreed 100% ..... if it were otherwise my late father would have felt able to return to his home in Warsaw to live after the war!

News / What did Poland get out of the wars and struggles for others? [1108]

This is all true of course. But I personally do not see how Sikorski or his government's position re a Red Cross investigation of Katyn would mean Sikorski was a target of some USSR, USA or British sponsored assasination conspiracy? But weren't the two previous Sikorski aircraft related 'incidents' which included an onboard explosive device much earlier that the Katyn graves disclosures and subsequent furore?

It has proved a great debating subject for decades and it would make for even more exciting future debates if evidence could be found that implicated one government or another....but somehow I don't think any such evidence will be found on these three suspects.


An approximation of the curzon line eastern boundary was also proposed by General Sikorski. The giving up of eastern Polish territory was to be compensated by the westward shift of Polish borders to the Oder and Neisse line again this was Sikorski's concept. Therefore this can't be fairly or entirely laid at either Roosevelt and Churchill's door. The issue was that Sikorski's plan was obviously an anathema to many in the Polish-government-in-exile and was never likely to be acceptable to them. Ironically Sikorski's plan though was eventually the settlement that became the post-war reality however the big difference was that Stalin (with the de facto occupation of central Europe by the Red Army) was able to exploit the weakness of his western allies (including the sidelined Polish-government-in-exile) to his own ends as there was no willingness by Roosevelt and Churchill to fight the Soviets who had aftreall played a major role in the defeat the Nazi regime.

History / Poland Betrayed in WW2 [243]


In 20th Century history I think some Ukranians (and to a smaller extent Slovakians when part of Slovakia was occupied by Poland in December 1938) might have reason to disagree with such an absolute and definitive statement.

News / What did Poland get out of the wars and struggles for others? [1108]


Hope this helps?

"Under relentless political pressure from the Polish Government and its military staffs in London, Air Marshall Slessor relented and on August 8 allowed volunteer Polish crews to fly to Poland."

Sources for further reading:

Michael A. Peszke "Polish special duties Flight no. 1586 and the Warsaw Uprising". Air Power History.

Airlift to Warsaw: The Rising of 1944 by Neil D. Orpen

Destiny Can Wait: The Polish Air Force in the Second World War
Edited by M. Lisiewicz, J. Baykowski, J. Glebocki, R. Gluski, and Dr. W. Czerwinski

News / What did Poland get out of the wars and struggles for others? [1108]


Is it not now widely accepted that the Oder and Neisse line proposal mentioned was not originally a Soviet concept but one that was postulated much earlier by General Sikorski as a pragmatic solution to Poland's place in post-war Europe.

Sikorski's wartime policy was aimed at the recreation of an independent and viable Poland after the war. Sikorski's aim was that a revised Polish state boundary along the Oder and Neisse rivers (and an approximation of the Curzon line in the East) would secure Poland lasting peace with the USSR.

As part of Sikorski's post-war plan for Poland he also envisioned a federation of central European states which would be a counter-balance to USSR power and any future resurgent German state.

First class study on this issue is:
Poland's place in Europe : General Sikorski and the origin of the Oder-Neisse line, 1939-1943 by Sarah Meiklejohn Terry

As an aside it does make one wonder which faction would want to see Sikorski dead—if his death were no simple accident?

News / What did Poland get out of the wars and struggles for others? [1108]


I have probably missunderstood the point you are trying to make but factually the Yalta conference took place in February 1945 some four months after the Warsaw Rising capitulation. So any western Allied landing rights on Soviet contolled air fields were an irrelevance by the time of the Yalta conference?

History / 70th Anniversary of start of WWII [50]


Don't know what is happening in Poland but a major new Polish Forces War Memorial is being designed and built at the National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire, England is to be unveiled at a commemoration ceremony in September 2009. This is a non-governmental initiative by the families of UK Polish veterans and the memorial pays tribute to Polish land forces, Airforce, Navy and Underground Resistance forces—it also recognises those Polish forces that fought alongside the Red Army in the final victory over Nazism in Berlin 1945.

Project website is at (www) PolishForcesMemorial.com

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