The FReeper Foxhole Revisits Case White - The Invasion of Poland (9/1/1939) - Sept. 3rd, 2004

http://www.electricscotland.com/history/ww2/ww2-3.htm ^

[snippy_about_it]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.


...................................................................................... ...........................................

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The FReeper Foxhole Revisits

Invasion of Poland
World War Two in Europe Begins

On September 1st, 1939, 1.8 million German troops invaded Poland on three fronts; East Prussia in the north, Germany in the west and Slovakia in the south. They had 2600 tanks against the Polish 180, and over 2000 aircraft against the Polish 420. Their "Blitzkrieg" tactics, coupled with their bombing of defenseless towns and refugees, had never been seen before and, at first, caught the Poles off-guard. By September 14th. Warsaw was surrounded. At this stage the poles reacted, holding off the Germans at Kutno and regrouping behind the Wisla (Vistula) and Bzura rivers. Although Britain and france declared war on September 3rd. the Poles received no help - yet it had been agreed that the Poles should fight a defensive campaign for only 2 weeks during which time the Allies could get their forces together and attack from the west.

There are many "myths" that surround the September Campaign; the fictional Polish cavalry charges against German tanks (actually reported by the Italian press and used as propaganda by the Germans), the alleged destruction of the Polish Air Force on the ground, or claims that Polish Armour failed to achieve any success against the invaders. In reality, and despite the fact that Poland was only just beginning to modernise her armed forces and had been forced (by Britain and france) to delay mobilisation (which they claimed might be interpreted as aggressive behavior) so that, at the time of invasion, only about one-third of her total potential manpower was mobilised, Polish forces ensured that the September campaign was no "walk-over".

The Wehrmacht had so under-rated Polish anti-tank capabilities (the Polish-designed anti-tank gun was one of the best in the world at that time) that they had gone into action with white "balkankreuz", or crosses, prominently displayed in eight locations; these crosses made excellent aiming points for Polish gun-sights and forced the Germans to radically rethink their national insignia, initially overpainting them in yellow and then, for their later campaigns, adopting the modified "balkankreuz" similar to that used by the Luftwaffe. The recently-designed 7TP "czolg lekki", or light tank, the first in the world to be designed with a diesel engine, proved to be superior to German tanks of the same class (the PzKpfw I and II) inflicting serious damage to the German forces, limited only by the fact that they were not used in concentrated groups. They were absorbed by the Germans into their own Panzer divisions at the end of the campaign.


German Panzer I and Panzer II vehicles with a Hanomag to their left.
The German tanks were only lightly armed and armoured but when used in mass formations, they proved more than a match for the small number of Polish vehicles.

At 04.30 Stuka dive-bombers prematurely bombed the bridge at Tczew in the Pomeranian Corridor. SS troops dressed in Polish uniforms attacked the radio station at Gleiwitz and broadcast inflammatory statements urging Polish minorities to take up arms against Hitler. For a touch of realism, several bodies of concentration inmates dressed in Polish uniforms, were left behind as 'evidence' for journalists to report on.

The Free City of Danzig was heavily shelled and bombed, inflicting heavy casualties upon the civilian population and military coastal defences or navy flotillas. In Danzig, the defenders, particularly civilian volunteers were shot. The Army Pomorze faced the 4th Army whose tactic was to isolate them in the north from the rest of the Polish Forces and then link up with the Third Army and attack Warsaw.


JU87 Stuka

Daylong fighting produced at times, scenes of sheer heroism. The Pomorska Cavalry Brigade had been in contacts with the German 20th Motorized Infantry Division. Colonel Masterlarz had half the unit mount up and attempted a surprise attack from the rear. Catching an infantry battalion by surprise in a woodland clearing, the sabre attack wiped them out. Legends and myths were borne of cavalry units taking on armoured vehicles. However, what is forgotten, is that the cavalry units carried anti-tank weapons for rapid deployment.

On the Prussian Front the German Third Army broke through defences to the north of Warsaw. Ground attacks started at 05.00 and aimed to knock out the heavy fortifications at Mlawa. It was on this front that the Polish Mazowiecka Cavalry Brigade had a number of sabre clashes with the German First Cavalry Brigade thus marking an end to mounted warfare. The Polish Special Operational Group Narew had virtually no contacts with German forces due to the restraining action of the Polish Third Army and therefore effectively denied rapid gains on this front.



The heaviest fighting took place in the Southwest, a front covered by Army Lodz and further south, Army Krakow. Army Poznan in the centre saw little action or contact on the first day of fighting. The German Eighth and Tenth Armies pushed through the massive densely forested areas with major infantry clashes en route. The Wolynska Cavalry Brigade successfully countered attacks by the German 4th Panzer Division whose poor co-ordination in attack delayed advance and lost equipment. This front was geographicaly the most diverse and faced the largest concentration of mechanized troops. The heaviest fighting was around the industrial zone of Katowice.

In the south, the 44th and 45th Infantry Divisions attacked throught the Jablonkow Pass near Karwina and Cieszyn which were lightly defended. In the southern mountainous area, the XXII Panzer Corps attacked just below Nowy Targ at the Dunajec river which was defended by the 1st KOP Regiment and National Guard Zakopane Battalion. Army Krakow was forced to commit support to stem the attack which was temporarily held.



Outflanked and harassed by German guerrilla units, Army Krakow had to deal with a large number of armed German units set up by the Abwehr to carry out sabotage.

Once the Germans broke through the various fronts, poor communications impeded any chance of reforming on a grand scale. From the 10th until 18th September Polish units were able to reform quickly and still were able to harass and inflict serious damage. For field commanders like Anders, confusion and contradictory orders added to the pain and humiliation of the inevitable defeat. Units attempted to move south-east despite heavy co-ordinated artillery bombardments. Soldiers and civilians who were able to bear arms bravely defended and resisted for as long as possible as they moved behind the Vistula. Encirclement began and 60,000 troops were destroyed at Radom. Partisan units were organized and regular army units kept moving southeast in order to gain supplies of food and munitions and regroup to avoid annihilation once the Russians entered the war on 17th September.


Polish P11 Fighter

On September 17th. Soviet forces invaded from the east. Warsaw surrendered 2 weeks later, the garrison on the Hel peninsula surrendered on October 2nd., and the Polesie Defence group, after fighting on two fronts against both German and Soviet forces, surrendered on October 5th. The Poles had held on for twice as long as had been expected and had done more damage to the Germans than the combined British and french forces were to do in 1940. The Germans lost 50,000 men, 697 planes and 993 tanks and armoured cars.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians managed to escape to france and Britain whilst many more went "underground" . A government-in-exile was formed with Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz as President and General Wladyslaw Sikorski as Prime Minister.


German forces in the outskirts of Warsaw. In the background of the photograph, the city burns as a result of the German military assault. Warsaw, Poland, September 1939.

Field commanders moved as many of the remnants of the army to an escape route which led to Romania and Hungary . Units breached German lines on 22nd September before Soviet troops blocked all routes. Poland finally fell on the 6th October as the last organized resistance was crushed at Hel and Kock. Zaloga and Madej (1991) estimated the Germans took 587,000 prisoners and the Soviets 200,000. Anders (1949) estimated between 200 - 300,000 escaped into Romania and Hungary through the Dukla Pass. Those who were caught by the Soviets may have been far higher (Anders, 1949). Fiedotov, an NKVD general estimated it to be nearer 475,000. However, if all those arrested including White Russians, Jews and political prisoners, the number was between 1.5 and 1.6m people. Transported to the Gulags, few survived.

The Fourth Partition:



Under the German-Soviet pact Poland was divided; the Soviets took, and absorbed into the Soviet Union, the eastern half (Byelorussia and the West Ukraine), the Germans incorporated Pomerania, Posnania and Silesia into the Reich whilst the rest was designated as the General-Gouvernement (a colony ruled from Krakow by Hitler's friend, Hans Frank).


Marshal Edward Smigly-Rydz

In the Soviet zone 1.5 million Poles (including women and children) were transported to labour camps in Siberia and other areas. Many thousands of captured Polish officers were shot at several secret forest sites; the first to be discovered being Katyn, near Smolensk.

The Germans declared their intention of eliminating the Polish race (a task to be completed by 1975) alongside the Jews. This process of elimination, the "Holocaust", was carried out systematically. All members of the "intelligentsia" were hunted down in order to destroy Polish culture and leadership (many were originally exterminated at Oswiencim - better known by its German name, Auschwitz). Secret universities and schools, a "Cultural Underground", were formed (the penalty for belonging to one was death). In the General-Gouvernement there were about 100,000 secondary school pupils and over 10,000 university students involved in secret education.


Refugees, September 1939

The Polish Jews were herded into Ghettos where they were slowly starved and cruelly offered hopes of survival but, in fact, ended up being shot or gassed. In the end they were transported, alongside non-Jewish Poles, Gypsies and Soviet POWs, to extermination camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka; at Auschwitz over 4 million were exterminated. 2000 concentration camps were built in Poland, which became the major site of the extermination programme, since this was where most of the intended victims lived.

Many non-Jewish Poles were either transported to Germany and used as slave labour or simply executed. In the cities the Germans would round-up and kill indiscriminately as a punishment for any underground or anti-German or pro-Jewish activity. In the countryside they kept prominent citizens as hostages who would be executed if necessary. Sometimes they liquidated whole villages; at least 300 villages were destroyed. Hans Frank said, "If I wanted to put up a poster for every seven Poles shot, the forests of Poland would not suffice to produce the paper for such posters."


Polish 7TP light tanks

Despite such horror the Poles refused to give in or cooperate (there were no Polish collaborators as in other occupied countries). The Polish Underground or AK (Armia Krajowa or Home Army) was the largest in Europe with 400,000 men. The Jewish resistance movement was set up separately because of the problem of being imprisoned within the ghettos. Both these organisations caused great damage to the Nazi military machine. Many non-Jewish Poles saved the lives of thousands of Jews despite the fact that the penalty, if caught, was death (in fact, Poland was the only occupied nation where aiding Jews was punishable by death).

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FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links

[E.G.C.]

Nice weather here through the weekend. Slight chance of rain on Saturday. Getting ready for OU and OSU Football tommorow.

The Automatice Updates once again offered me a peice of Windows X Service Pack 2. There was a report just recently that one out of every ten XP computers may not reboot after installation. That's a chance I'm not ready to take just yet.

IF and it's a big if, I do install XP SP 2, it would most likely be by a CD. The Internet download is about 2, almost 3 hours. That's too long for me as I have only one line and it gets taken when I'm on the computer.

Anyway, we'll what happens.
How's things going for you, Snippy?

[Tax-chick]

later

[Colonel_Flagg]

Good morning, Foxhole! Falling in, without the medic today!

[SAMWolf]

That could be the book. I read it a looooong time ago. It was the only book I remember about Enigma mentioning a stolen machine.

[PsyOp]

The recently-designed 7TP "czolg lekki", or light tank, the first in the world to be designed with a diesel engine, proved to be superior to German tanks of the same class (the PzKpfw I and II) inflicting serious damage to the German forces, limited only by the fact that they were not used in concentrated groups.

Somewhere in my storage locker is book that contains official postwar Army evaluations of German and Japanese equipment. At the beginning of the war, it seems, almost everyone had light and medium tanks that were superior to what the Germans had, in particular the French, Poles (cited above), and even the Russians.

German armored success was due to tactics, not equipment. The Germans were the first mass armor into their own formations and use as traditional cavalry to create the breakthrough and get into the enemies rear. Everyone else regarded the tank as an infantry support asset and dispersed them throughout their army in insufficient numbers.

In one account from a book on operation Barbarossa, a Russian KV tank sat itself on the opposit end of a bridge deep in a wooded area. It took them (if I recall correctly) 2 or 3 days to get rid of it while it destoyed dozens of German mark IIs and IIIs and held up army group north's advance. I believe this occured in Lithuania.

[SAMWolf]

1969 Ho Chi Minh North Vietnamese president, dies

John Kerry was deeply saddened or was that Daschle?

[SAMWolf]

How's things going for you, Snippy?

Not bad, things are finally starting to really get on the fast track. First it was "hurry up and wait" now it's "we need to have what? By When?!"

[SAMWolf]

Morning tax-chick

[SAMWolf]

Morning Colonel.

Falling in, without the medic today!

Glad to hear you're feeling better.

[Tax-chick]

Morning, SAM! Busy here today, but I'll get around to reading this eventually :-).

[SAMWolf]

German armored success was due to tactics, not equipment.

Right, I got an A in my "Military History" course in College because of the paper I wrote arguing this point. :-)

I believe this occured in Lithuania.

I remember reading this account, It may have been in "Hitler Moves East: 1941"

[SAMWolf]

Busy here today

Snippy and I understand busy :-)

[Valin]

I'm thinking both. Not to mention Hanoi Jane and the rest of the "Peace" movement.

[Valin]

The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom
by Slavomir Rawicz
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1558216847/qid=1094227151/sr=ka-1/ref=pd_ka_1/104-2990703-7928726

Paperback: 256 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.60 x 8.64 x 6.10
Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1.00 edition (December 1, 1997)
ISBN: 1558216847


Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Cavalry officer Slavomir Rawicz was captured by the Red Army in 1939 during the German-Soviet partition of Poland and was sent to the Siberian Gulag along with other captive Poles, Finns, Ukranians, Czechs, Greeks, and even a few English, French, and American unfortunates who had been caught up in the fighting. A year later, he and six comrades from various countries escaped from a labor camp in Yakutsk and made their way, on foot, thousands of miles south to British India, where Rawicz reenlisted in the Polish army and fought against the Germans. The Long Walk recounts that adventure, which is surely one of the most curious treks in history. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


Review
"One of the epic treks of the human race. Shackleton, Franklin, Amundsen. . .history is filled with people who have crossed immense distances and survived despite horrific odds. None of them, however, has achieved the extraordinary feat Rawicz has recorded. He and his companions crossed an entire continent--the Siberian arctic, the Gobi desert and then the Himalayas--with nothing but an ax, a knife, and a week's worth of food. . . His account is so filled with despair and suffering it is almost unreadable. But it must be read--and re-read."

--Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm

"The long walk is a book that I absolutely could not put down and one that I will never forget. . ."--Stephen Ambrose




Ingram
In 1941, Slavomir Rawicz and six fellow prisoners escaped from a Siberian labor camp and walked across 4,000 miles of the most forbidding terrain on Earth to freedom. This is their astonishing story. 8 cassettes. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.


From the Back Cover
In 1941, the author and a small group of fellow prisoners escaped a Soviet labor camp. Their march out of Siberia, through China, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, and over the Himalayas to British India is a remarkable statement about man's desire to be free. With a new Afterword by the author, and the author's Foreword to the Polish edition, this new edition of The Long Walk is destined to outrank its classic status. (6 X 9, 256 pages, map) "One of the epic treks of the human race. Shackleton, Franklin, Amundsen...history is filled with people who have crossed immense distances and survived despite horrific odds. None of them, however, has achieved the extraordinary feat Rawicz has recorded. He and his companions crossed an entire continent--the Siberian arctic, the Gobi desert and then the Himalayas--with nothing but an ax, a knife, and a week's worth of food...His account is so filled with despair and suffering it is almost unreadable. But it must be read--and re-read." --Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm "The Long Walk is a book that I absolutely could not put down and one that I will never forget..." --Stephen Ambrose



Book Description
The harrowing true tale of escaped Soviet prisoners’ desperate march out of Siberia, through China, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, and over the Himalayas to British India.

Do yourself a HUGE favor buy and read this book!
Trust me you won't regret it.


Back tonight.

[snippy_about_it]

Hi alfa6.

[Professional Engineer]

WOW

[Professional Engineer]

Hi miss Feather

[Professional Engineer]

So President Bush visited the Hobbit Hole? ;-)

Personal 111th birthday wishes to Bilbo.

[Soaring Feather]

Happy Friday to you PE!!!

WOO HOO!!!

[PsyOp]

Right, I got an A in my "Military History" course in College because of the paper I wrote arguing this point. :-)

What a coincidence! I came accross this info doing my final paper for Military History 201 at SJSU. When I told the instructor I wanted to do it on Operation Barbarossa, he rolled is eys and said "not another one!"

Apparantly this was a popular topic in previous classes. He warned me that unless I could come up with something he hadn't heard or read on the subject before, I would likely not get an A. I Got an A+ and was told it was the best paper he had read on the subject. Sadly, this was before the age of affordable PCs and I have lost the original hard copy.

Strangely, for a professor that had published a couple of books on military history (WWII in the Pacific), he was woefully ignorant of things like basic firearms capabilites.

While studying Napoleon, the statement was made that formations of riflemen were engaging each other at ranges of 1,000 yards. Being quite familiar with black-powder firearms (having built and fired them), I challenged this. I said that if Napoleonic soldiers were engaging the enemy at 1,000 yards, it was because they were essentially using the musket as an indirect fire weapon (high angle of fire), to rain musket balls on a general area (a tactic in common practice), because no BP musket then, or even now, is accurate enough or has the muzzle velocity required to engage single targets at that range.

Well, of course, the instructor and all the military wanna-be's ganged up on me (I was then in the ROTC program and attending class in uniform). I tried to explain the difference between maximum range (which is probably what they were hung up on), and maximum-effective range using the M-16 as an example. All these guys, who have never picked up a firearm in their lives, including the "published" instructor, were having none of it.

A few days later one of the class suck-ups brings in a book showing how, during napoleonic times, they had experimented with rifled muskets that had tapered bores at the muzzle (to get the kinds of velocities needed to shoot accuratly past 500 yds). I was familiar with these (had that same book and othere as well), so I asked them why they were never widely used. They didn't know. so I had to explain that it was due to their tendency to blow up when fired. If the bullet jammed rather than exiting the muzzle, which they did more often than not, it turned the rifle into a pipe bomb.

Sadly regardless of my efforts, they refused to be educated on this issue and continued to believe that Napoleonic riflemen were taking each other out with aiimed shots at 1,000 yards.

Ever since then I have been wary of things I've read in military history books not written by people first-hand military and weapons knowledge.