Polish contribution to World War II

Table of contents

1 Army 2 Navy 3 Intelligence 4 Underground 5 Battles 6 Technical inventions

Army

After the defeat in the 1939 campaign, the Polish government in-exile immediately organised a new army In France. Until 1940 two divisions took part in the defense of France. Another division took part in the Battle of Narvik. A large part of personnel was either interned in Switzerland or died during the fighting; nevertheless Władysław Sikorski was able to evacuate many Polish soldiers to England. In 1941 after an agreement with Stalin, the Soviets released many former Polish citizens, from which a 75,000-strong army was formed in the Middle East under General Anders (the so-called Anders' Army).

At the end of WWII, the Polish army in the west numbered 225,000 soldiers. The Communist government organised its own army, the Polish People's army, which at the end of the war numbered close to 500,000 soldiers. In addition, the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), the Polish resistance forces in Poland itself, at their peak numbered around 200,000 regular soldiers and many more conspirators and sympathizers.

Polish Air forces fought in the Battle of France (133 pilots - they achieved 55 victories and lost 15 men). Later Polish pilots fought in the Battle of Britain; the Polish Air Force fought also in Tunisia (Skalski circus), during raids on Germany, and in China. At the end at the war there were about 12,000 Polish airmen in the RAF and USAAF.

Navy

Big chunk of Polish Navy has been destroyed during the September campaign. However, the majority of big ships Polish Navy continued to fight in alliance with British Fleet. At different stages of war It consisted of 2 cruisers and great number of smaller ships, including 3 destroyers and 2 submarines, that escaped from the Baltic Sea in 1939.

• Cruisers:
  • ORP "Dragon"
  • ORP "Conrad"
• Destroyers
  • ORP Blyskawica (Lightning)
  • ORP "Grom" (Thunder)
  • ORP "Burza" (Storm)
  • ORP "Garland"
  • ORP "Orkan"
  • ORP "Orkan II"
  • OF "Ouragan" (Hurricane)
  • ORP "Piorun" (Thunderbolt)
• Escort Destroyers
  • ORP "Krakowiak"
  • ORP "Kujawiak"
  • ORP "Ślązak"
• Submarines
  • ORP "Orzeł (Eagle)
  • ORP "Wilk" (Wolf)
  • ORP "Dzik" (Warthog)
  • ORP "Jastrząb" (Hawk)
  • ORP "Sokół" (Falcon)
• Submarine chasers
  • CH-11
  • CH-15

And several other minor ships, transport ships, merchant marine auxiliary vessels and recce boats.

The Polish navy fought alongside the allied navies, including fighting against the Bismarck.

Intelligence

Polish cryptographs were able to decrypt early version of Enigma and gave results of their work to British.

AK intelligence was vital to destroying factory at Peenemunde, and finding info about V-1 and V-2 rockets, including delivery of a complete V-2 rocket by an air bridge from occupied Poland.

Polish intelligence services cooperated with the Allies in every european country and the intelligence net in Nazi Germany was one of the biggest.

Underground

Polish Underground state (Armia Krajowa aka AK), sabotages

See also: History of Poland (1939-1945)

Battles

Famous battles and campaigns at which fought Polish regular soldiers:

• Polish September Campaign
• British campaign in Norway (Battle of Narvik)
• Campaign in France
• Battle of Britain
• Battle of the Atlantic (1940)
• Battle of Tobruk
• Battle of Monte Cassino
• Battle of Falaise
• Operation Market Garden (Battle of Arnhem)
• Battle of Ancona
• Battle of Berlin

Technical inventions

• Copy of Enigma ciphering machine was created by a group of polish matematicians (Jerzy Różycki, Marian Rejewski and Henryk Zygalski) and handed over to the allies in 1939.
• Józef Kosacki invented Polish mine detector which was used throughout the war by allied armies.
• Vickers Tank Periscope MK.IV was indeed invented by engineer Rudolf Gundlach and patented in 1936 as Gundlach Peryskop obrotowy. It was then copied by the British and used in most tanks of WWII, including soviet T-34, british Crusader, Churchill, Valentine, Cromwell and american Sherman. The main advantage of this periscope was that the tank commander did no longer have to turn his head in order to look backwards.
• Bomb hatches system was invented by Wladyslaw Swiatecki in the thirties and was used, among others, in polish PZL P.37 Elk bomber. In 1940 Swiatecki handed over the plans of his invention to the british authorities, which used it in most british bombers of WWII. In 1943 a modernized version was created by Jerzy Rudlicki for american B-17 Flying Fortress bomber.
• Rubber windscreen wiper was invented by polish pianist Jozef Hofman
• Henryk Magnuski, a polish engineer working for Motorola company, invented in 1940 the SCR-3 radio, the first small radio reciever/transmitter to have manually-set frecuency. It was used extensively in American Army and was nick-named Walkie-Talkie.