Some 85 years ago this week, one of the largest– and simultaneously least supported by the Allies– underground resistance armies in WWII took its first key organizational steps.
The Polish military gave its all against the German blitzkrieg in September 1939 and gave a better account of themselves than historians have often alleged (read Poland 1939 by Roger Moorhouse for a more nuanced report). However, once the Red Army swept over the country’s eastern border in force two weeks into the conflict, the struggle was a moot point.
Nonetheless, even in the final days of the campaign, the groundwork was being established to continue the fight. As detailed by Moorhouse, General Juliusz Rómmel, commander of the bulk of the Polish forces enduring the siege of Warsaw, on 26 September received a courier sent from Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły, who had escaped to Bucharest.
The courier, Major Edmund Galinat, had braved a one-way flight, while lying flat in the fuselage as there was no seat, by Polish test pilot Stanislaw Riess in an experimental PZL.46/II Sum light bomber across German-held airspace. The message deemed so important? The well-known assent to Rómmel from Rydz-Śmigły to surrender Warsaw as well as a secret set of orders.
Written in the lining of Galinat’s uniform jacket, to be burned after reading, was an order for military authorities to establish an underground organization, in the tradition of Poland’s Konspiracja efforts in the 19th Century, to continue the fight.
As described by Moorhouse, “Warsaw might capitulate, but Poland would not surrender.”
This task would be passed from Rómmel’s hands to Brig. Gen. Michał Tadeusz Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz, who commanded an isolated operational group in the east composed of the remnants of the Pomeranian Army’s 15th and 27th Infantry Divisions. A 46-year-old officer who had fought with the old Polish Legions formed by Józef Piłsudski under the Austro-Hungarian flag in the Great War, Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz took on a codename (“Torwid”) and formed what he termed Service for Poland’s Victory (Służba Zwycięstwu Polski), to carry on the fight.
It turns out there were several other figures outside of the SZP’s scope at work around the same time, with something like 300 smaller groups with such exotic names as the Peasant Battalions (Bataliony Chłopskie), the People’s Guard (Gwardia Ludowa) of the WRN, the National Military Organization (Narodowa Organizacja Wojskowa), the Military Organization of the Lizard Union (Organizacja Wojskowa Związek Jaszczurczy), the Armed Confederation (Konfederacja Zbrojna), the Musketeers (Muszkieterowie), the Military Organization “Wolves” (Organizacja Wojskowa Wilki), the Sword and the Plough (Miecz i Pług), the Secret Polish Army (Tajna Armia Polska), the Secret Military Organization “Gryf Pomorski,” the Shock Cadre Battalions (Uderzeniowe Bataliony Kadrowe), the Jewish Combat Organization (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa) et. al.
Polish Army Red Cross Nurse after surrendering to German Army September 1939 LIFE Hugo Jaeger
While some 200,000 Poles were killed or severely wounded during the September 1939 campaign, and 140,000 Poles were captured by the Germans, most of the rank and file were simply disarmed and furloughed, to be used for labor, with only senior and staff officers kept as POWs for the duration– a mistake the Germans would no doubt rue. The Soviets, on the other hand, preferred to imprison almost all the 240,000 Poles that fell in their hands, eventually liquidating most of the officers.
Captured Polish troops under German eye “go to work” circa late 1939
By November 1939, General Władysław Sikorski– another former Austrian Army Polish Legion vet– had escaped to the west and been installed as the head of the Polish government in exile. He sent word back to occupied Poland that a more well-established underground shadow army would be needed.
Formed on 17 November 1939, the Union of Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej) would be country-wide whereas the SZP was largely just in the east. As such it soon absorbed most, but not all, of the other military-based resistance units.
Soon, the country would be split into West (under German occupation) and East (Soviet) zones with Brig. Gen. Stefan Rowecki (codename Grot), another Polish Legion vet and former head of the Warsaw Armored Brigade (WBPM), in Warsaw, was given command of the former and Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz kept as commander of the latter. The overall command would be the job of Lt. Gen. Kazimierz Sosnkowski– from Paris and later London.
Rowecki, who had access to more officers who had gone underground, was to establish a seven-section command staff covering intelligence, logistics, training, operations, communications, finance, and propaganda, all typically led by majors and colonels.
Each region would also be divided into 17 geographical districts, all typically commanded by field-grade officers, usually captains and majors.
The territorial structure of the ZWZ-AK in the territory of the Second Polish Republic
Three overseas stations in neighboring neutral countries (“Romek” in Hungary, “Bolek” in Romania, and “Anna” in Lithuania) were also established to help ratline supplies, correspondence, and personnel in and out of the country. Once these outlets were closed later in the war, they were replaced by the Wanda network inside Poland itself which, backed by the SOE, would eventually number 54 clandestine radio stations established by 316 British-trained Free Polish paratroopers dropped by No. 1586 (Polish Special Duties) Flight, RAF. These airborne agents are better remembered in Poland as the Cichociemnych (Silent and Unseen.)
The crew and ground staff of the 1586 Polish Special Duties Flight in front of their B-24 Liberator aircraft GR-U (BZ 860). The Flight’s CO, Squadron Leader Stanisław Król, is standing in the middle of the group, under the white and red chessboard – the Polish Air Force emblem. Note all the para drops, agents, and canisters, on the aircraft’s side. IWM (MH 1214)
By early 1940, Rowecki calculated the number of ZWW troops in the underground army at 40,000 soldiers and officers, at roughly a 3:1 ratio, with most being prior service. While many furloughed soldiers were easily recruited, thousands of Grey Ranks (Szare Szeregi), drawn from the Polish Boy Scouts and Girl’s Duides, organizations long considered a military auxiliary, also quietly joined up.
Boys of the Broom Battalion (Chłopcy z Batalionu) in the area of the sewer manhole on Warecka Street – from the left: Tadeusz Rajszczak “Maszynka”, Kazimierz Gabara “Łuk”, Mieczysław Lach “Pestka”, Warsaw uprising, 1944. It was estimated that at least 8,000 Polish Boy Scouts, aged 15 to 17, served in assault groups with the Home Army while tens of thousands of younger boys and girls served as couriers carrying dispatches and supplies.
While direct action squads were being formed, the group at this stage was primarily an intelligence-gathering organization. They ultimately sent 22,047 intel reports to London during the war, some 48 percent of the reports from all of occupied Europe! Besides troop movements (including the full battle order for Kursk) and cipher work, this would include the construction and location of the V-1 and V-2 weapon research centers, plans of the prototypes of the Panther tanks, midget submarines, data on new anti-aircraft guns, and new war gases.
The ZWW would continue to operate through liberation in late 1944-early 1945, changing its name to the simpler Home Army (Armia Krajowa) in 1942.
At its peak in late 1944, the AK numbered some 390,000 soldiers in 8,920 platoons in the field while its largest rival, the unrecognized National Armed Forces (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne, NSZ) numbered some 80,000. This didn’t count other organizations disavowed by London such as the communist People’s Army (Armia Ludowa, AL).
The amount of weapons dropped by SOE to the Home Army– 670 tons between 1941 and 1944, of which only 443 tons were received– paled against what was dropped into France (10,485 tons), Yugoslavia (76,171 tons) and Greece (5,796 tons). As such, even by 1944, it was estimated that the force only had enough small arms to equip 12 percent of its fighters.
Curiously, the main source of weapons for many Home Army units outside of Warsaw was to dig around old September 1939 battlefields to salvage lost Mausers, both Polish Kb wz.98s and German K98s, and their common 7.92mm ammo; or areas where the Soviets displaced during Barbarossa in 1941 and abandoned Mosins and SVTs in their wake.
Błyskawica sub-machine gun in Polish Home Army use 1944. Although well known today, most sources acknowledge that only 750-1,000 were ever produced. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Witold Gokieli’s improvised flame thrower in Polish Home Army use, 1944
It’s pretty clear that London looked at the Polish underground as best used for intelligence gathering rather than direct action– although post-war analysis points to some 6,243 partisan incidents recorded by the Germans in the country during the war. Polish estimates are much higher, albeit mostly in the destruction of military stores and railway disruptions/derailments.
The Home Army thrived in the country’s thick forests and swamps, where the Germans never really controlled, and often took part in the liberation of larger cities once the Allies– in their case the Soviet Red Army– were just over the hill. Their uniform and arms, Polish whenever possible, were mixed with civilian items as well as those captured from the Germans or Russians.
Every effort was made to try and be a legitimate army in the field in the unrealized hope that, if captured, they would be afforded POW protection under the Geneva Convention rather than be executed outright as Francs-tireurs. This included listing organizations as named companies, battalions, and even divisions and issuing ranks and titles to members.
AK soldiers during the Burza action in Lublin, in July 1944. Note the German web gear, flashlights, potato masher grenades, and Mausers. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
4th battalion of the 1st PSP AK on Przysłop nad Ochotnica, AK. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
AK Partisan horse patrol September 1944. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
1st Podhale Rifle Regiment on Skałka nad Ochotnica, AK. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Soldiers of the Stołpecko-Nalibocki AK group. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
1st Platoon of the 2nd Company, 1st Battalion, 1st PSP AK at a meeting on 11 November 1944, AK. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Father Władysław Gurgacz with AK unit note mix of Russian and German arms to include an StG 44. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Review of 1st Battalion of the 16th Infantry Regiment of the Home Army summer 1944. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Polish Home Army partisans. Note the German MP40 and Russian SMGs Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
AK partisans from the Suszarnia Battalion, summer 1944. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Soldiers of the 27th Volhynian Infantry Division of the Home Army 1944. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Polish partisans Surowiec battalion of the OR 23rd DP AK 1944. Note the Ręczny karabin maszynowy wz. 28, the long-barreled FN variant of the M1918 BAR/Colt Monitor. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Jan Piwnik Ponury, commander of a Home Guard partisan group operating in the forests of the Kielce region, armed with a “Polski Sten.” Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Only about 11,000 STENs made it from Britain to the Home Army.
Home Army soldiers on the streets of Vilnius in July 1944– mingling with Soviet troops. The comradery was short-lived
The Home Army is of course best known for the fiery 63-day Warsaw Uprising, which, spearheaded by 45,000 members of the AK, is described as the “single largest military effort undertaken by resistance forces to oppose German occupation during World War II.”
The soldiers of the Home Army during the Warsaw Uprising, led by Maj. Gen. Thaddeus “Bor” Komorowski, was perhaps the most motely equipped of AK units.
The Home Army in Warsaw was especially poor in terms of Polish uniforms and equipment due to frequent German police searches. This meant they had to capture weapons to fight with
Prof Witold Kieżun caught on documentary footage during the Warsaw uprising, on 23 August 1944. Note the red and white recognition stripe on his captured German helmet. He had been a 17-year-old private in 1939 and, escaping a POW detail, went underground with the Home Army for the duration. The renowned economist survived the war and recently passed, aged 99.
Polish Home Army using German uniforms and arms: Soldiers of the Zośka battalion during the Uprising. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Krawiec company of the Ryś battalion of the 7th AK District made it to Warsaw to fight Aug 1944. AK Museum. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Colt New Service in the holster of Wiesław Chrzanowski, officer Polish Home Army, Wilcza Street, Warsaw Uprising September 5, 1944. Chrzanowski later helped draft the framework of the Solidarity trade union in the 1970s.
A mix of captured German MP38s and MP-40s with Polish Home Army Members, Warsaw Uprising, August-September 1944
Polish Home Army soldier in the Warsaw uprising, using a captured German Stalhelm helmet, and dual-wielding a Radom VIS 35 and Walther P-38
Unknown member of Armia Krajowa during the early days of the Warsaw Uprising in August of 1944. His weapons include a ZB Czech Brno Bren 26 and a Luger, both likely liberated from the Germans
Soldiers from the “Parasol” battalion (note the homemade cap badge) after leaving the canal on Warecka Street (Śródmieście-Północ) during the Warsaw Uprising. In the middle stands Maria Stypułkowska-Chojecka “Kama”. On the right Krzysztof Palester “Krzych.” A force made up largely of teenage scouts, the unit had pulled off several actions such as the targeted assassinations of SS-Hauptscharführer August Kretschmann and Sipo commander Franz Bürkl in September 1943 before the Uprising. Its members included poet Józef Szczepański, who was killed in action in September 1944, aged 21.
Happy Polish Home Army troops with some parachuted British PIAT anti-tank projectors during the Warsaw uprising. Note the captured Waffen SS Splittermuster camo smocks and a French MAS-38 sub-gun.
With the Red Army finally “liberating” Poland by February 1945, the Home Army was ordered disbanded.
It was estimated that the force lost between 60,000 and 100,000 between 1939 and 1945 (records vary widely) while another 50,000 were “disappeared” by the Soviets soon after.
The final commander of the Home Army was Brig. Gen. Leopold “Niedźwiadek” Okulicki, who had fought in Warsaw in 1939 and 1944, with a stint in the Gulag in between. He was arrested by the NKVD a second time in March 1945 along with 15 other leaders of the Polish underground in recently “liberated” Poland and put on a show trial in which the verdict was predetermined. He died on December 24, 1946, in the Butyrki prison hospital.
Okulicki, the last commander of the Home Army, seen in his NKVD mugshot in 1940 as well as in Polish service and, bottom right, at his 1945 show trial in Moscow.
Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz, arrested in Poland by the Soviet NKVD in March 1940, would eventually be freed from the gulag post-Barbarossa and manage to join the Free Polish forces in the West, eventually serving as commander of the III Polish Corps in the Middle East. His Poland privileges were revoked once the Cold War started, and he died in exile in Casablanca in 1944.
Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz, seen as arrested by the NKVD in 1940 to the left, and in Polish service to the right
As for Rowecki, captured by the Gestapo in August 1944, he was murdered in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Rowecki, seen in Polish service, left, and in his circa 1943 “mufti” look
Komorowski, who surrendered to the Germans in October 1944, ended the war in Stalag XVIIIC, and, liberated by the U.S. 103rd Infantry Division, was soon cleaned up and sent to London to join the Polish exile government. Earning a living as an upholsterer in Britain post-war, he died in 1966.
“Bor” Komorowski, seen before, during and after the war.
As for the Home Army, their resistance marks, and the fighting Polish PW anchor, akin to the “V” in Western Allied countries, endured for years across Poland.
