Just out of curiousity, how were the UK and US supposed to help an armed rebellion which was taking place hundreds of miles behind German lines? We were already in combat on the Western Front and the Pacific Theater. Thousands of Brit and Yank airmen were already dying in the daily/nightly bomber assaults on Germany. What more was expected, on a moments notice, to happen? What are the UK and US supposed to apologize for NOT doing?
IMHO, the Polish underground initiated a premature uprising which the Soviets allowed the Germans to crush, thus ensuring there could be no Polish resistance to the Soviet occupation.
On a final note, I seem to recall a French uprising which was also initiated too soon. Allied forces were too far away to assist and lots of Frenchmen died. Can't remember the name of the place, tho.
Apologize my foot.
Unfortunately you are correct. It's sad but we can't change what was reality back then.
First, the allies had no way of knowing they would hold out as long as they did. Second, getting aircraft over the long distance would have been almost impossible. I think they would have had to use Russian airfields. Third, dropping supplies isn't like dropping bombs from high altitude. You have to drop low so the supplies aren't blown over the countryside. Fourth and this is the sad one, you have to consider the consequences of arming a lost cause. What happens to the supplies when the opposing army wins?
Personally I don't think that any apologies are necesary now, after 60 years.
But relating to Your question: "What are the UK and US supposed to apologize for NOT doing?" it might be NOT putting any pressure on Stalin about the Upraising; or NOT letting Polish 1st Parachute Brigade to fly to Poland (what it was created and trained for).
By the way - the Soviets weren't to far. The were just behind the river. So that was only a political decision not to support the Upraising. And this is the field, on which The Americans and the Brits failed.
But at that time it was probably decided already, that Poland will get to the Sovit sphere of influence.
I mentioned the incident in one of the other threads but like you, I don't recall the name of the town. It was just after D-Day and the townspeople fortified a hill anticipating the arrival of the allies. The invasion was stopped by the hedgerows and the break out took longer. The French townspeople were wiped out.
The only reason I had heard of this action was in one of the fiftieth anniversary magazines of D-Day. I haven't read anything else on it.
Most people in Poland don't want any apologize, but Warsaw Uprising is hardly known in the West.
For example look at #5.
The French uprising was in the Vercors region, on the Glières Plateau. The Resistants thought it was time to stop harras the Germans and to gather, according to Allied war plans. But they did that much too early, and got surrounded and isolated on the Plateau.
As a matter of fact, there was Allied help, in the form of supplies and ammunition paradropped. But the Germans quickly overran the drop zones, and the guys there either died or were sent to death camps, IIRC. As irregulars, they got no special treatment. In one instance, the Germans soldiers allegedly killed everybody in a cave that served as a field hospital.