15
On 26 May the advances of X Corps on the right and XIII Corps on the left began pinching out the Polish II Corps. That evening it was reported that Polish troops were no longer in contact with the enemy anywhere in their sector. The breaking of the Gustav and Hitler Lines successfully realized the Allies’ plan for opening the road north, and Rome was liberated on 4 June 1944. On 27 May the Polish II Corps began withdrawing towards Campobasso, the movement of units to this area commencing on 29 May and the last formation to fall back being the 5th Kresowa Division. In the Campobasso area the Corps rested and began reorganizing for the next offensive campaign up Italy’s Adriatic coastline.
The Poles suffered heavy casualties during the battle – out of the commanders of three attacking brigades, one was killed and one wounded; of the commanders of nine attacking battalions, two were killed and two wounded; casualties amongst company and platoon commanders were in proportion much heavier. In one of the attacking battalions all the company commanders were casualties. The casualty total for the Polish II Corps in the battle against the high ground of Monte Cassino, Piedimonte and Monte Cairo came to 307 officers and 3,892 other ranks, comprising 923 killed, 2,930 wounded and 345 missing.1 Enemy losses were also heavy. After the massif had been captured about 900 unburied German dead were found. The number of wounded during the first attack is not known, but it was certainly proportionally higher. The fact that this battle took place in an area measuring just over six square miles shows how fierce the fighting raged.
The high casualty figures stemmed largely from the earlier lessons of mountain warfare being learned but not applied, making the campaign a toilsome, slow business for the Allies. The mountain fighting brought forward an old truth that had been lost sight of: infantry is the decisive arm on the battlefield and there is no substitute for it. All the setbacks of the Poles at Cassino were predictable and could have been avoided by imaginative leadership. Leese’s set-piece bludgeoning offensive strategy strongly influenced all the commanders; in particular there was a lack of appreciation of the terrain for troops and its effects on communications. The rigours of the natural terrain were further exacerbated by the excellent defensive positions established by the Germans, against which the use of massed artillery proved ineffective, as did tanks. Supporting arms came more to the fore; the engineers becoming vital front-line assault troops relied upon to clear obstacles for the infantry. The tank served little practical use beyond that of a self-propelled gun. Yet the mystique and prestige which hung about armour was so great that British and Polish commanders persisted in thinking of it as a decisive attacking arm instead of seeing it for what it was in Italy, a crawling monster which produced little other than congestion, confusion and delay. Flexibility of mind and organization along with a fostering of improvisation rather than relying on doctrine would ultimately prove to be the key to success.
Concurrent with the victory at Monte Cassino breaking the Gustav Line, the Allied divisions trapped in the Anzio beachhead finally broke out and along with the American Fifth Army pushed northwards up the coast towards Rome. The American commander, General Mark Clark was then presented with two options: encircle and destroy the battered German Tenth and Fourteenth Armies or make a triumphal march into Rome. Clark chose the latter and the Fifth Army entered the vacated city on 4 June, becoming the first Allied general to occupy an enemy capital. The decision won him much publicity and resulted in minimal American casualties, although it did permit Kesselring to withdraw his armies and consolidate them further north in a series of defensive lines that held until the end of the war.
The Polish achievements at Cassino were widely praised by the British Army from rank and file to the overall commanders, Generals Leese and Alexander – the latter personally decorated Lieutenant General Anders with the Order of the Bath. Lieutenant General Sir Oliver Leese regarded Anders as one of his most successful corps commanders and the men he led as being of exceptional fighting material. He wrote to Anders prior to the Poles relocation for the next offensive, passing on his congratulations: ‘To yourself and to the whole Polish Corps for its magnificent achievements in the present battle and in particular for its capture of Monastery Hill. This notable feat will, I believe, go down in history as a major achievement of Polish arms, and it will certainly figure in our own military history as one of the outstanding successes gained by the Eighth Army.’2 The British press also heralded the victory and the prominent role the Poles played in seizing the fortress of Monte Cassino.
The military establishments of Britain and Poland felt vindicated in their struggle to raise and deploy a Polish army in exile; it was a hugely successful endeavour and the victory a rallying point for the Polish nation that has stood the test of time. Politically, it achieved nothing and the Polish Government in Exile quickly slid into oblivion as anticipated by General Sosnkowski – indeed more has been commented and written upon the demise of Polish politics than on the success of Polish soldiers, and there were a great many more soldiers than statesmen. The remainder of the war saw II Corps engaged in numerous fierce battles along the eastern seaboard of Italy, culminating in the capture of Bologna on 21 April 1945 and the subsequent surrender of all German forces in Italy on 29 April. The battle for the post-war survival of the Polish II Corps now began.
The Yalta conference in February 1945 had cemented Poland’s post-war fate: the Soviet Union would appropriate all of Eastern Poland that it had occupied in 1939, whilst German land to the west would be ceded to Poland. Churchill defended his actions during a three-day parliamentary debate commencing on 27 March, that culminated in a vote of confidence. The debate was volatile, with many MPs openly criticizing Churchill over Yalta and voicing strong loyalty to Britain’s Polish ally. The Prime Minister was not oblivious to the magnitude of the situation; the Poles had served Britain and now he had signed away their country. He lamented: ‘His Majesty’s Government will never forget the debt they owe to the Polish troops who have served them so valiantly… . I earnestly hope it may be possible to offer the citizenship and freedom of the British Empire… we should think it an honour to have such faithful and valiant warriors dwelling among us as if they were men of our own blood.’3 The debate saw twenty-five MPs risk their careers by drafting an amendment protesting against Britain’s tacit acceptance of Poland’s domination by the Soviet Union. The amendment failed and the Member of Parliament for Norwich, Henry Strauss, 1st Baron Conesford, resigned his seat in protest at Britain’s treatment of Poland.
As the vast majority of the II Corps originated from eastern Poland they now knew for certain they had no home to return to, their Poland had gone forever. The new Poland of communist subservience to the Soviet regime held no appeal for them; they had experienced the Soviet system first hand and knew they would be convicted as traitors who had abandoned the Soviet-German Front. The worst fear of these Polish soldiers now was that they would cease to be Polish at all, that the plebiscites the Soviets held following their invasion in 1939 now had international endorsement, that all the population of that region could technically be declared Soviet citizens, and the USSR was demanding repatriation of all its people displaced by war.
Fortunately neither Anders nor the British authorities were prepared to countenance such a notion. The Polish II Corps remained in Italy on garrison duty to assist the interim Allied Military Government. Churchill had wanted to deploy them on such duties in Germany as it would have quickened the demobilization of the British Army, but the political agitation it would have caused Stalin to share the occupation of Germany with Anders’ Army was deemed too inflammatory and II Corps stayed put in Italy. To determine what opinion the Corps held on repatriation to Poland, a plebiscite was conducted during September in all units of II Corps at British request. The answer was a resounding no to repatriation.
They were fortunate; no other Polish citizen had the luxury of a place to belong, even if transitory, the entire population was on the move. In the zone annexed by the USSR all Polish nationals were displaced and forced west to the new borders of Poland to make new homes and lives for themselves, whilst in the west the people took no time in expelling all Germans from their newly acquired territory and set about colonizing the area. Added to these movements, there were vast numbers of Poles who had been displaced all over Europe during the German occupation and who were now of immediate concern to all post-war authorities.
Following years of forced labour and internment, the released Polish prisoners of war from 1939, Home Army prisoners taken after the Warsaw uprising, and a multitude of forced labourers were all of the opinion that to return to Poland would be a death sentence and that joining II Corps in Italy was by far the preferable option. Almost 20,000 such persons made their way to the recruitment centres for the Polish Army in Italy, many making the journey on foot. Despite orders from General Alexander to limit numbers to 80,000, the Corps had grown to 110,000 by January 1946 and in addition there were thousands of dependent civilians and servicemen’s families throughout Italy, Africa and India. Repatriation to Poland was Britain’s preferred strategy for dealing with these numbers and in total some 14,000 soldiers from II Corps did return home. These men were almost exclusively post-war recruits and personnel of the former Independent Carpathian Brigade in North Africa, none of whom had experienced the Soviet way of life. Of those who had survived their ordeal in the USSR and followed Anders throughout exile, only 310 chose Poland. The total number of Polish military personnel serving in the West who went home numbered just over 105,000.4 The remaining soldiers of II Corps stood their ground in Italy to see what fate had in store.
By far the biggest risk Anders took to ensure the freedom of Polish soldiers who served in the German forces involved the 14th SS Grenadier Division ‘Galicia’, formed from Ukrainians of Polish nationality. This formation ended the war in northern Italy and it fell to II Corps to administer their prisoner-of-war camp. The Soviets were adamant that they wanted this division repatriated to the USSR but all knew they would be destined for the Gulag at best. Anders flatly refused to yield to Soviet pressure to hand them over and went so far as to threaten direct military action against any Soviet personnel who attempted to remove them. A Soviet contingent to assist the repatriation of Soviet citizens ‘held prisoner’ by Anders was despatched to Italy soon after VE Day – it achieved nothing but stirred up Italian communists and resulted in open streetfighting between the Poles and the socialists. It was an unpleasant but thankfully short-lived episode that did serve to convince the British that repatriation to Poland was not going to be a success, nor did it endear the new socialist government of Italy to the Polish cause. Following a screening process, 176 men of the 14th SS Division were found acceptable for service in II Corps. This decision only strengthened the Soviet notion that the exiled Poles had been in league with the Germans and that any Polish soldier returning to Poland would have to be vigorously vetted and cleansed of association with the West.
Anders’ political rationale has come under much criticism from many sources but what cannot be denied is his utter devotion to soldiering for Poland and to the men under his command; the exile government came a poor second and this system of priorities caused much friction between the Middle East command and London. His frequently confrontational stance is not surprising given his hard life and career of soldiering coupled with his position as a Corps and Army commander. He worked well with the British militarily, ticking all the boxes required for a good commander: maintaining discipline, unity, and effectively sending his men into battle. His business-like approach did afford him a degree of toleration from the British with regard to his tendency to spontaneous outbursts of passion which at times threatened to frustrate the broader Allied force, notably following Katyn.
Grave reservations over Poland’s political future were held by those Poles who had endured the Soviet regime or understood Stalin’s intentions – they had no doubt that the Soviets would rig the free elections to suit their interests. The British Government held firm to the idea that true and fair democratic elections in Poland would deliver a government chosen by the Polish people. However, the Poles were soon to be found correct. The Soviet elections in January 1947 were a farce and resulted in the installation of a puppet regime that set about arresting all members of the resistance movement that had fought the Germans, convicting its leaders of conducting unlawful military operations. They were handed life prison sentences or executed. Western embassies reported that Polish soldiers who had served in the Wehrmacht were receiving appalling treatment upon return, with hindsight a not unforeseeable scenario. Through fear or naivety Britain recognized the legitimacy of the new communist government and simultaneously ceased its recognition of the exiled government in London. The British authorities were now struggling to come to terms with the reality that the Poles had been right all along about the horrors of Stalin’s rule.
The legal status of the Polish II Corps was also unravelling; the government it served was no longer recognized, but they remained under British Army command. The situation was a total mess. It could not however, continue indefinitely and in mid-1946 a solution was found: the Polish Resettlement Corps was established in Britain. The formation was under the command of the British Army and its purpose was to retrain and educate Polish servicemen for civilian life in the UK, to repatriate those who wished to return to Poland and to aid the onward emigration of those who wished to live in the USA, Canada or Australia. Accordingly II Corps was demobilized in the summer of 1946 and shipped to the UK, along with all Polish nationals of the 14th SS Division. The formations were broken up and the men dispersed through over 200 camps around the UK. Their family dependants and numerous displaced Polish civilians were then shipped to Southampton from all over the world to join the former servicemen in the resettlement camps. With the Polish election of January 1947 installing a hostile Stalinist regime, the further repatriation of citizens to Poland was clearly the wrong thing do. The plight of these people was now taken seriously by the British Labour Government of Ernest Bevin and in recognition of their wartime service and their miserable post-war position the Polish Resettlement Act of March 1947 was passed, awarding full British citizenship to all 200,000 members of the Resettlement Corps, the first ever mass immigration legislation passed in the UK.
The Poles now had a legal home, although it was not always a very welcoming one. There was much hostility focused upon the Polish community, who were perceived as taking jobs that belonged to demobbed British servicemen and it was also thought that they were traitors to socialism for not returning to the ‘workers’ paradise’ of communist Poland. A notable case of the difficulties faced by Poles at this time was that which befell Michail Onufrejczyk, a former teacher of Polish war orphans at Barbara Camp in Palestine. Onufrejczyk was a highly decorated warrant officer who served in every twentieth-century campaign fought by Poland. He became infamous in 1947 after being convicted of the murder of a fellow Polish soldier, ostensibly to steal his £600 Resettlement Corps grant. Onufrejczyk protested his innocence, claiming the soldier had decided to return to Poland – furthermore, there was no body. Nonetheless he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, a punishment later reduced to life imprisonment. His was the first case in 300 years where the accused was convicted for a murder though no body was ever found – it set a new legal precedent and such cases are still referred to by his surname. The case was hugely controversial and widely seen as an open attack on the Polish community, contrived to bring them into disrepute. Such conflicts of interest, commonplace as they sadly were, proved short-lived as the need for workers to rebuild Britain proved vast and the reality of life behind the iron curtain became widely understood to be thoroughly miserable.
The Resettlement Corps was closed down in July 1948 as part of the postwar austerity measures, with 150,000 Polish servicemen and their dependants by then having adopted life in the UK. The final resettlement camp closed in 1970 when its last occupants moved to a specialist elderly care home created exclusively for Polish veterans, Ilford Park near Newton Abbot, South Devon, that remains in operation today under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence. By the time the camps closed the Polish II Corps had slid from public memory and the veterans lived out their lives in obscurity, their stories seldom told and even more rarely listened to. But with new generations come new mindsets and values that look at the past with a different perspective, and there is much to be rediscovered about this almost forgotten chapter in our history; a lot more could be told. Sadly but inevitably the majority of those directly involved are no longer alive to tell their own story; it is now our responsibility to make sure we appreciate and record the efforts of those who went to such extraordinary lengths to fight at Britain’s side.