Background information - Polish Wargraves in the Netherlands

Pilots of the famous 303 squadron who died over the Netherlands

The summer of 1940 saw a massive battle for air superiority in the skies of Great Britain which became know as ‘The Battle of Britain’ starting at the 16th of June with ‘Adlertag’. In the mean time the Polish units – with already battle hardened pilot – where trained in RAF procedures. On August 2nd 303 Tadeusz Kościuszko Warsaw Fighter Squadron was formed (in Polish 303 Dywizjon Myśliwski „Warszawski im. Tadeusza Kościuszki”).

On August 30, 1940 during another training exercise Polish pilot Ludwik Paszkiewicz spotted a German Messerschmitt Bf 110 fighter in the area, and he shot it down. An event used in the epic film the Battle of Britain.

The next day, the squadron was declared operational and officially put on full duty to become the highest scoring unit in the Battle and gained lasting fame which resulted in books and films. A long read can be found on Polen in beeld (long read in Dutch but embedded clips are in English).

Few people know that later in the war the unit saw action in the skies over the Netherlands and lost three men of which details can be found on our website:

Plutonowy Stanisław Dworski, born 25-11-1919 | Killed in action on 18-09-1944 | Buried in Bergen op Zoom
Porucznik Sergiusz Szpakowicz, born 24-03-1915 | Missing in action on 25-02-1944
Plutonowy Jan Wierchowicz, born 1-04-1918 | Killed in action on 01-11-1944 | Buried in Amsterdam

Day of the Polish Army

For Catholics, August 15 represents the Assumption of Mary. In Poland, it is also Army Day. This can be traced back to the 1920 battle against the Soviet Union and the ‘Miracle on the Vistula’.

The aftermath of World War I

Whereas the general view is that World War I ended on 11 November 1918, a turbulent aftermath followed in several countries in central and eastern Europe due to the collapse of the pre-war powers. So too in Poland, which regained its independence. Something that is commemorated every year on 11 November.

For that independence, the necessary struggles had to be fought. On the western side of Poland was the ‘Greater Poland Uprising’. The only successful uprising in Polish history in which the region around Poznan separated from the German Weimar Republic and joined Poland.

Miracle on the Vistula

The biggest battle was fought with the Russians in the east. Initially, Piłsudski began the struggle to turn Belarus and Ukraine into satellite states and the Polish army was successful. They came as far as Kiev and took it. In the summer of 1920, the tide turned and the Russians entered Poland as far as near Warsaw.

As foreign diplomats began to leave the Polish capital, Piłsudski worked out a daring plan. On the night of 6-7 August 1920, he carried out his operative flank attack. It succeeded! The Soviets took themselves completely by surprise. In two successive battles, Pilsudski’s brigades destroyed two-thirds of the Red cavalry armies.

There was talk of the miracle on the River Vistula (Wisła). The remnants of the Bolshevik army sought refuge in flight. Their sluggishness, fatigue and long supply lines had killed the Soviets. In the process, they had also ignored the Communist hatred of Polish citizens and peasants.*

The Poles had managed to break the Russian codes and were therefore aware of the Russian plans. Another interesting detail is that a Russian commander left the flank of the main force uncovered because he was busy attacking Lviv / Lwów for his own profiling. The attack was in vain and the commander was Stalin.

On the occasion of the Polish victory, 15 August in Poland is not only the Catholic feast day of the Assumption of Mary but also Polish Army Day. For us, a day to remember the hundreds of Polish servicemen listed on our site for losing their lives on Dutch soil.

Painting accompanying this article is "Cud nad Wisłą" - painting Jerzy Kossak

Members of the Brigade from the Eastern Borderlands: The Ukrainian Connection

In 1944, the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade (1 SBSpad) landed near Oosterbeek and Driel as part of Operation Market Garden. The brigade’s men came from all over Poland or, to be precise, from the territory of the Second Polish Republic (image 1).

Shifting boundaries

After the invasion of Germany on September 1, 1939 and the Soviet Union on September 17, 1939, areas in the west and the east were annexed to Germany and the Soviet Union respectively. Naturally, the areas of the Soviet Union were occupied by the Germans in 1941 during the German attack on the Soviet Union. When Germany is defeated at the end of the war, the Soviet Union reclaims the territory conquered in 1939 and the areas are incorporated into the Soviet Socialist Republics of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. To compensate, areas of Germany in the west are becoming Polish (image 2). After some ‘corrections’ in the 1950s, the national borders as we know them were created.

This means that several members of the brigade come from areas that are now part of countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania or the Russian enclave around Kaliningrad to the north of Poland.

Victims from the Eastern Borderlands

In February 2023, Graham Francis published a list of the fallen Polish paratroopers who came from these areas in the newsletter of the Arnhem 1944 Fellowship. He entitled the article “The Ukrainian Connection.”

The list of 45* fallen soldiers includes the abbreviation KIA for ‘Killed in Action’, DoW for Died of Wounds, and AOWC for Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery, also known as ‘Airborne cemetery in Oosterbeek. View the list (in PDF).

Naturally, we received permission to reuse this list.

Total share in the brigade

At the end, Graham Francis makes the following observation: Of the 97 paratroopers killed, 45* are listed as coming from areas in the east that were no longer Polish after the war. 32 of them come from what is now Ukraine. He extrapolates this and concludes that of the total brigade, about 800 men come from these areas, of which about 560 come from areas in present-day Ukraine.

What remains unmentioned is that this also applies to General Sosabowski. He is originally from Stanisławów (nowadays Ivano-Frankivsk in Ukraine). An area that was part of the Austria-Hungary Empire when he was born in 1892.

Footnote

It is good to make a comment on all these analyses. The regions we are talking about were ethnically very diverse in the years before the Second World War. Only after the war, with the shifting of borders, did population movements follow, creating more homogeneous nation states. Of course, this also plays a role in the fact that the Jewish population group, which formed a substantial share of the population before the war, was largely wiped out in the Holocaust.

Illustrative of this is the map (image 3) with the various dominant ethnic groups on the territory of the Second Polish Republic. Also interesting is the article by journalist Pieter van Os who describes how people in the region when asked about their (ethnic) origin during a census in that period indicated that they did not identify with a nation state but with the region.

From the Eastern Borderlands to Arnhem

When Germany and the Soviet Union occupied Poland in October 1939, some of these paratroopers fled to Romania and Hungary. From there, many found their way to France and Great Britain to join the Polish army.

Another important part was deported by the Soviets to labourcamps deep in the Soviet Union. Those who were not killed or survived the hardships of the camps could only join the Polish army from 1941 when the Soviet Union entered the Allied camp after Germany’s attack. Some traveled a distance of 40,000 kilometers on their way to their deployment at Oosterbeek and Driel.