Jonathan Walker - Poland Alone: Britain, SOE and the Collapse of the Polish Resistance, 1944

For Hanna Zbirohowska-Kocia

and her mother

Halina Czarnocka

Chapter Eight Warsaw in Flames (September 1944)

1 The German Occupation of Poland

2 Relief Routes to Poland

3 The Auschwitz Camps

4 Soviet Offensives Summer 1944

5 Warsaw Rising

6 Clash on the Vistula

I wish to thank those who provided personal testimonies and who were involved in this story of Polands dark days. Particularly, Hanna Zbirohowska-Kocia (ne Czarnocka), Colonel Mieczysaw Waega and his wife Adela, together with help from Dorota and Jurek Hostyska. Also, my appreciation for the help given by Michael Saltern and Clare Thomas of Ilford Park Polish Home, Stover, Devon in securing interviews with veterans, Mieczysaw Juny, Bolesaw Majewski and Adam Wykrota. From the British side, I would especially like to thank ex-servicemen Bill Steed, Walter Davies and Brian Bishop for their testimonies and support.

I am most grateful to fellow author, Professor Donald Thomas for his help and advice on British attitudes to press censorship during the Second World War. As ever, Dr John Bourne of the University of Birmingham continues to inspire writers of military history and willingly provides help through his wide knowledge of sources and contacts. My thanks also for support from the prolific writers and historians, John and Celia Lee.

My thanks to Janek Lasocki for his deep knowledge and understanding of Poland and her relations with Eastern Europe. He has also helped me with an endless stream of Polish names and place-names, which I have endeavoured to spell correctly and consistently. Similarly Magda Mitra has been a great help in translating Polish documents and I appreciate the early assistance of Andrew Duchenski and his family.

I am fortunate to know a band of knowledgeable friends and associates who have helped with tracking down relevant sources; my sincere thanks to Rev Robin Laird, Michael Walker, Anthony Edwards, Keith Northover, Donald Richards, Peter Whicher, Richard Dennis, Ted Emerson and especially my good friends Mark and Geraldine Talbot for their generous hospitality and support. Local libraries are a splendid research tool and I thank Gill Spence and her team at Sidmouth Library; Meriel Santer, Victoria Luxton, Sylvia Werb and Joss Edwards, for tracking down endless and invariably weighty tomes.

For the testimonies of RAF Officers, I extend sincere thanks to Roger Walker and Chris and Caroline York for providing access to their family records. Simon Tidswell was again an excellent source for RAF material and Professor Peter Simkins, who has a vast knowledge of military history was, as always, most helpful and encouraging, particularly on US Army Air Force sources. I am also grateful to Nick and Paul Kingdom, who explained the techniques of take-off and landing on airstrips, an appreciation of which is so important in understanding the difficulties of bridging operations to an occupied country.

My thanks to Dr Andrzej Suchcitz, Keeper of Archives, Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, Kensington, London for making the Institutes resources available. Since 1988, the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust (PUMST) in Ealing, London has been amalgamated with the Institute, and continues to offer the researcher a particularly friendly and approachable environment. The Chairman, Dr Krysztof Stoliski, Hanna Zbirohowska-Kocia, Archivist, Krysztof Bot11ejewicz, and other volunteers have all given me the benefit of their extensive knowledge of the Armia Krajowa. The PUMSTs written and photographic archives are supplemented by a very useful and authoritative English language website.

The world of Special Forces continues to intrigue. By their very nature, theirs is a small, closed world, but I am most grateful to Ernest van Maurik for his anecdotes and glimpses into the world of SOE. Likewise my gratitude and thanks to Jeremy Chidson, whose grandfather Lieutenant-Colonel Monty Chidson was one of the more experienced hands in D Section, SIS, and removed a large quantity of diamonds from under the noses of the Germans as they entered Amsterdam in May 1940. Duncan Stuart, SOE Advisor at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office 19962002, offered friendly advice on sources for SOE material in the public domain.

I am indebted to The Countess of Avon, for permission to quote from the papers of her late husband, the Earl of Avon. I am also grateful to the following for allowing me to examine or quote from archival material within their collections: The Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives; The Trustees of the Imperial War Museum; The Trustees of the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust; The Special Collections Department, University of Birmingham. While Crown copyright still subsists in material held in the National Archives, Kew, London, since 1999 permission to publish extracts is not required in the case of documents unpublished at the time they were deposited.

An extraordinary and moving archive devoted to the Holocaust is to be found in Washington. My thanks to Caroline Waddell and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for their assistance; it should be noted that the views or opinions expressed in this book and the context in which the images are used, do not necessarily reflect the views or policy of, nor imply approval or endorsement by, the USHMM.

My thanks also to Joanna Jastrzbska and the splendid Muzeum Powatania Warszawskiego (Museum of the Warsaw Uprising), in Warsaw, for assistance and permissions. Likewise Remigiusz Kasprzycki and the Museum of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) in Krakw; the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archives) in Koblenz; the Special Forces Club, London; Andrew Renwick and the Trustees of the Royal Air Force Museum, London.

Every effort has been made to trace and obtain permission from copyright holders of material quoted or illustrations reproduced. I acknowledge permission to quote passages from the following: The Continuum International Publishing Group for The Unseen and Silent by George Iranek-Osmecki; Roman Antoszewski for Red Runs the Vistula by Ron Jeffery; Pollinger Limited and the Estate of T. Br-Komorowski for The Secret Army by Tadeusz Br-Komorowski; Orion Publishing Group for The Pianist by Wladylaw Szpilman (translated by Anthea Bell); Hippocrene Books for Fighting Warsaw by Stefan Korbonski; Vallentine Mitchell Publishers for A Warsaw Diary 19391945 by Michael Zylberberg; Tom Wood for Karski by Thomas Wood and Stanislaw Jankowski; Editions Robert Laffont and Orion Publishing for The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer; AM Heath & Co. Limited for Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent by William Shirer; Penguin Group for Speak You Also by Paul Steinberg; The Random House Group for A Writer At War edited by Anthony Beevor and Luba Vinograda and Those Who Trespass Against Us by Countess Karolina Lanckoronska and The Second World War Diary of Hugh Dalton 194045 edited by Ben Pimlott; Casemate and Greenhill Books for Blood Red Snow by Gnter Koschorrek and War on the Eastern Front by James Lucas; David Higham Associates for The Memoirs of Lord Gladwyn by Lord Gladwyn; Rolf Michaelis for Die Grenadier-Divisionen der Waffen SS Part I.