WWII - who really was the first to help Poland?

The parade was supposed to feature representatives from all Allied nations marching alongside their flags. Supposed to because the Soviets and Yugoslavs rejected their invitations while the Polish government accepted its, then failed to send any representatives and then appeared to rejected it after the event. Units from all Commonwealth nations were invited but not from non-Commonwealth nations: for example no units from the US army were invited. Representatives from all of the allied air forces which had had units based in Britain were also invited. In the case of Poland that invitation was sent to the western-command Poles; however, they rejected their invitation because they felt the Polish land and sea forces should also have been invited. Poles got special treatment but apparently not special enough for them.

@Atch
That is a fact -25 pilots. Now where is the controversy? ;)

I still can't wait for that quote as I'm really impressed TPV remembers what's written on page 299 of Anders' s book. How about page 225?

They may call Poles idiots all along but that no matter how they want me to believe it, it's easy to see he has no idea what's in that book and that he must have found that page number googling for arguments. I have come across it, too.

Playing with the facts again ;)

I presume Norman Davies is referring to the 1946 parade if you bothered to read the rest of his article. How many victory parades were in London after the war ?

A snapshot of page 299 taken on your phone would be a lot less than 100kb so shouldn't be a problem for you to upload it here. Rather surprised you're not chomping at the bit to prove your point by showing us the article but then again it's easy to make claims without backing them up.

As I have already written, your link to the Hansard article only reinforces the point against you in that some of the Poles who fought in the Battle of Britain were invited to be part of the RAF contingent. Are you reading something else ??

How many times are you going to throw lines like "if you check page 23 from the Idiot Telegraph (Bognor Regis edition) then you will clearly see that I am right and you are an idiot" ??

@Atch the point is that the free Polish Army were not invited-I am not disputing that some Poles were invited.

Perhaps you find us a source which knows which year the parade was in?


Firstly, thanks for finally agreeing that it's a myth that Poles were not invited to take part. Secondly, the official program of the event lists Poland as one of the participating air forces: naval-history.net/WW2MiscVictoryParade2.htm


Amusing to see you blaming the British for not inviting an outfit which didn't exist. Western command Poland didn't have an army. Western command Poland had armed forces: land forces, navy and air force. The only Armia Wojska Polskiego were eastern command.

Have you looked at page 505 of Rising '44 yet?

So what's the English school version ? Sounds like a good comedy.

It's a very well-established fact that all eligible countries took part and thanks for the link to the actual programme of the event - it's there in black and white.

Amazing that there are people here still trying to perpetuate the myth. It's almost as if they want something to take offence at.

Hmm... the key world here must be "eligible".

By the way. What a difference does it make were their invited or not to the parade. It doesn't change the fact that Poland had been sold down the river by the world powers and winners of the WWII. Namely USA and GB. I don't mation Sovityes for the very good reaon - it was not firetd of Poland, it didn't claim to be a champion of the free world. it hadn't used or practiced in any credible such a second rate slogans and self-determitacion, justces, democracy, freedom and so on.

It was a dirty back stage political deal that does' bring credit to any of those nations involved.
It has been sold in history as a moral crusade, a clean war and a clean victory but it was neither of those things.

In my understanding the all those hustle about an invitation is just a question of perspective.
Formally it has been issued. Realistically it hasn't been issued.
The discrepancy between those two sentences above comes from very simple fact that lies in the world of politicks.
British gov recognized Soviet puppets in the Soviet occupied Poland as the facto "Polish legal government" and send their invitation there.
Discarding Polish Gov in Exile in London that had been recognized widely in Poland as a Polish gov or a Representation of Poland and by all allied powers (by soviets too to the point) with not much as F Y.

All those soldiers and officers in the Polish Armed Forces in the west remained by the large out in the cold with no country and no place to go.

Soviet Puppets in Warsaw couldn't care less about them, or some London parades so the invitation went into the bin. After all there was a Moscow parade to attend.

Exactly, it was supposed to but didn't.

Why did we humiliate the Polish aces after their Battle of Britain heroics? How an ungrateful nation wanted to deport the men our women fell for and Hitler feared


dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3884076/Why-did-humiliate-Polish-aces-Battle-Britain-heroics-ungrateful-nation-wanted-deport-men-women-fell-Hitler-feared.html

This guy disagree:


hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1946/jun/05/foreign-affairs#S5CV0423P0_19460605_HOC_329

He's welcome to disagree, Grzegorz. Hansard is a record of opinions (mostly conflicting ones) expressed, not historical facts.

So Churchill is a part of Polish conspiracy to make England looks bad ?

Don't be silly, Grzegorz.

BTW, he was the Leader of the Opposition then.

Nor does anything make England (you mean Britain) 'look bad'.

However much you would like it to.

Actually some British people here do make Britain look bad.
Luckily, not all of them.
Britain was among those few countries that did something to Poland. But no matter how some try to present their 'truth', certain things are not as perfect as they want to believe.

Now go ahead, bullies, try to belittle and patronise me. I don't care ;)

Yes, Britain did things to Poland but never for Poland.

And because of this Poland should seek reparations from the UK and not just from Germany.

Negligence and breech of an agreement are the only two factors needed to successfully pursue a claim.

It's just me not being a native speaker.
There were few things Britain did for Poland if you want to correct my prepositions.
I'm not going to be like those British bullies here who spread nothing but hatred.

And the reason it didn't was because two governments rejected their invitations (the USSR and Yugoslavia), one accepted its invitation and then failed to send representatives (Poland) and another group rejected their invitation because they felt they should have had an even more special invitation than the one they got (the western command Poles).


The decisions to forbid Poles from taking part in the victory parade were taken by Poles. It was the Polish government which refused to allow Poles to take their place in the parade marching with their flag, and it was the western Polish command which refused to allow Poles to march with the other foreign air forces which they had been invited to march with.


How surprising to see that law is another of the things which you know the square root of feck all about. You know so little about breach of agreement that you can't even spell the word breach. By your logic Poland owes reparations to half of the countries which border it. But, given that you want to claim that the UK broke the Anglo-Polish agreement, perhaps you'd care to tell us which of the actions or omissions of the UK were, in your brilliant legal mind, in breach of said agreement? Do feel free to go into detail.

Lies. The British deliberately excluded Poles at the behest of Moscow. Otherwise Britain would have taken a stand and made sure Poles were included. After all, scores were already in Blighty having done our part to defend it (thanklessly as it turned out).


For some of us ESL is fact of life. But it's also the oldest trick in the book for the likes of you to start grading for spelling and punctuation in order to cause a distraction because you know you don't have an argument you can defend.


My how you conveniently not only have a short attention span but an even shorter short-term memory.

I gladly refer you to my posts #706 and #709 in this thread.

Of course not, it's a holy nation :))))


The commies refused as that was what their Moscow supervisors told them to do, the "western Poles" refused as only handful of pilots were invited - in order not to "provoke" Soviets. That seems to be what really happened there. Now what is your problem ? You seem to be the one obsessed with this issue. You are "on a mission" to "dispel a myth" and prove that England is always saint, only "ungrateful Poles" have a problem again, well so there's Churchill, who disagree with you :)))

Poland and Britain have always had a close relationship and long may it continue.

As for those who wish to create division, I say let them eat dirt.

Just an ordinary one. No nation is 'holy'.

Except in terms of WWII, there was one way that in relation to Poland it was far from ordinary. It got involved, it helped, despite America, Russia and pretty well everyone else preferring not to.


Spot on.

How it helped, when despite alliance it did pretty much nothing ?

It's been established that the opposite is true, so your question is as usual redundant.

It's a very unappealing habit to keep asking the same question when you've been bested in an argument.

Churchill was one of the few in the uk that really wanted to help poland, much more so than us, france, etc. Nonetheless most of the help was some airlifts esp to besieged positions esp like the ak during warsaw uprising. It was too little too late tho. He wanted to invade poland and kick the ussr back even but he was often stymied by parliament and military figures who felt that defending uk and kicking back the nazis from framce was a more immediate concern. Its understandable in a way in war its everyone for themselves. But that doesnt mean were somehow beholden to uks 'help' and breaking a defense treaty with assistance limited to supply drops and not troops and tanks on the ground

You mean this...


...and several other skirmishes ? How did that "help Poland" ?

If you need to ask...

Of course I do.

Feel free, if you really need to ask why bombing missions and supply drops were relevant.

They helped... but barely...

You can never control territory with air power alone. You need artillery, tanks, and boots on the ground. It helps if theres constant air strikes if the opposing force doesnt have any airpower or aa guns. That wasnt the case with nazi occupied poland tbough. Most of the drops air strikes and dog fights in which uk helped pl were during operation tempest. Nonetheless, they were largely ineffective and insufficient to turn the tide or even lift the seige and reestablish supply lines to ak. Britain basically sat around and waited till hitler captured half a dozen countries and attacked british positions before they did anything. They tried to appease hitler early on even when he captured czechoslovakia and aside from a declaration of war when poland was invaded there was no meaningful contribution till operation tempest and even then it was limited. Hitler even kicked them out of france and they had to commandeer fishing ships to make it across the channel. Britains priorities were more aimed at defending the island and establishing footholds in africa and france - not helping poland.

Indeed they did.


All of which were being used at the time: it's the nature of war.

Of course if the yanks had been a bit less hostile to Poland instead of selling them to the Soviet Union...

Jon - don't bother. Poles everywhere, who are unable to think for themselves, have been brainwashed into the lie that Britain somehow "left Poland to its' fate" in 1939.

It was communist teaching and nothing has changed even now. And Dirk et al get that shite from their grandfathers. Brainwashed and ignorant of the facts - and even worse - unwilling to learn.