Many Polish WWII Espionage Achievements Stirling

Intelligence Co-operation between Poland and Great Britain during World War II: The Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee Volume 1, by Tessa Stirling (Editor). 2005

Not Only ENIGMA: The Many Polish Espionage Successes in WWII. Poland’s Reward? Betrayal

The average reader not have imagined half of the information contained in this first volume! This brief review is necessarily limited. British Prime Minister Tony Blair comments: “The Polish Intelligence Services made a unique contribution to Allied victory in the Second World War. This Report brings to light for the first time the true extent of that contribution. This is about a part of history that is not usually told.”(p. xii).

POLAND’S SUCCESS IN CRACKING ENIGMA WAS INDISPENSIBLE TO THE BRITISH

Before and during WWII, Polish mathematicians broke the “invincible” German ENIGMA code, enabling the Poles to locate 80-90% of the German forces about to attack their nation in 1939 (Ciechanowski, p. 447). Ciechanowski also addresses the fallacies of the many books which ignore or minimize this Polish breakthrough (pp. 32-34) and comments: “There is no proof that the British would have been able to break the Enigma code and to discover how the machine worked, if on the eve of the war the Poles had the same low level of knowledge in these matters as did their French and British colleagues.”(p. 34). Gill Bennett (p. 440) calls the Polish ENIGMA success an “outstanding Polish contribution” without which the war might have lasted longer. The screen character of a Polish traitor among the ENIGMA specialists is pure fantasy (Ciechanowski/Tebinka, p. 455).

POLISH INTELLIGENCE KEPT TABS ON OPERATION BARBAROSSA

Polish intelligence anticipated the German attack against its erstwhile Soviet ally at least several months before it actually happened (Andrzej Peplonski, p. 414). Subsequent information included such details as the presence of several thousand severely-frostbitten German soldiers in a hospital at Wilno (Vilnius)(ibid, p. 429). Based on the monitoring of railway traffic, Polish intelligence correctly deduced the fact that the German objective on the Russian Front in 1942 would be the Caucasus area, not Moscow (ibid, p. 425). The processing of German correspondence from the eastern front indicated that, by 1944, some 90% of German soldiers no longer believed in victory, and that depression, suicides, and attempted avoidance of duty were taking their toll. Allied bombing raids against Germany itself also sapped the morale of frontline German soldiers. (Adam Grzegorz Dabrowski, p. 533).

Direct British-Polish cooperation included the following: “Assisted by SOE supplies and training, Polish saboteurs played a major part in disrupting Nazi railway traffic on the Eastern Front, destroying or seriously damaging an estimated 6,000 locomotives. In the autumn of 1941 they came close to assassinating Hitler when he was traveling on his personal train, the Fuhrerzug, to his headquarters in East Prussia, the Wolfschanze (“Wolf’s Lair”).(Christopher Andrew, pp. 56-57).

THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE POLOKAUST

This book includes some insights into Poland’s wartime situation, including the fact that almost 40% of Poland’s wealth had been destroyed by the Germans (Daria Nalecz, p. 53).

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

Of the 1,733 German planes shot down during the Battle of Britain, 203 were shot down by Polish pilots (Christopher Andrew, p. 54).

VERY MEAGER BRITISH SUPPORT FOR POLISH GUERRILLA WARFARE

Merely 666 tons of weapons were ever dropped by the British into German-occupied Poland against 10,000 into France and 18,000 into Yugoslavia (Eugenia Maresch, p. 209)[not from “technical difficulties” as much as a Soviet-appeasing mentality].

POLISH WARNINGS ON JEWS IGNORED

Polish warnings about the extermination of Jews fell on deaf ears (Jan Ciechanowski, pp. 540-541). [But, wouldn’t you know it, Poland is blamed for “not doing enough” to rescue Jews.]

OTHER POLISH ESPIONAGE ACHIEVEMENTS

Polish intelligence regularly monitored German industry and Polish agents stole the plans of a specially-designed high muzzle velocity German antiaircraft gun (Andrzej Chmielarz, p. 410). Polish naval intelligence scored impressive successes in uncovering such things as German coastal batteries as well as the vulnerabilities of Allied shipping and port facilities (Gill Bennett, p. 165).

The Poles kept the British abreast of German progress in the development of jet aircraft (Chmielarz, p. 410). Polish intelligence played a decisive role in the unmasking of Germany’s secret rocket program. This included the discovery of the Peenemunde testing site (leading to its subsequent bombing), the identification of the new German testing site (Blizna, near Tarnow), and the pinpointing of a cave in France in which the Germans hid their V-1 rockets for subsequent attacks on London (Rafal Wnuk, p. 244). Samples of rocket and fuel were stolen and analyzed by Polish agents. In time, an entire fallen rocket was camouflaged by Polish intelligence and subsequently disassembled and (in part) flown to London (Operation WILDHORN III)(Gill Bennett, pp. 441-442).

Polish agents played a major role in deceiving the Germans as to the correct location where the D-Day landings of June 1944 would take place (Wnuk, p. 234). They also set the stage for, and subsequently monitored the results of, the Allied bombings of the important Ploiesti (Ploeste) oil fields (Tadeusz Dubicki, pp. 315-316).

Polish intelligence also worked to split the German alliance. Jan Stanislaw Ciechanowski focuses on the activities of Lt-Col. Jan Kowalewski in this regard: “Col. Kowalewski’s idée fixe was to pull Italy, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Finland away from Germany. He attempted to do this by showing their representatives various ways in which their countries might join the other side, and by building up their skepticism as to the possibility of the final victory by the Third Reich.”(p. 520). Unfortunately, Allied politics got in the way: “The formula applied to the German satellites turned out to be shortsighted. The western Allies had no concept of how to involve these countries in an anti-Hitler coalition. A more flexible policy…might have shortened the war. Lack of such a policy meant that Kowalewski’s mission was doomed to failure.”(p. 526).

General Hayes A. Kroner, Deputy Chief of Military Intelligence Division, told General Wladyslaw Sikorski that: “The Polish Army has the best intelligence in the world. Its value for us is beyond estimation.”(Ciechanowski, p. 352). In like manner: “According to Sir John Colville, Prime Minister Churchill’s trusted wartime secretary, Polish intelligence was the best among all the secret services of the countries participating in the war against Germany: ‘the Poles were possibly the best players in this intelligence game.'”(Ciechanowski, p. 145). For all this (and more) the western Allies betrayed Poland to the Soviet Union!