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Cannoneer, thanks for the ping. Anonymous, mas' pravdu.

Anyone who makes jokes about Poles fighting does not know about the Second World War in depth. Polish airmen shot down Me-109s while flying PZL-11s (1940 machine downed by 1930 machine). You have all heard about the valiant cavalry charges (no, they didn't charge tanks -- that's from a German propaganda film... they charged infantry and raised hell with them. There was an incident when cavalry fought armored cars, but it was a cav unit caught in a German counterattack).

Then many Poles escaped to Britain, where they formed numerous ground units, and aerial units, including a highly decorated Wellington (bomber) squadron and the legendary 303 "Kosciuszko" squadron (of which I have a satisfyingly thick new history to read).

Then Poles in the Home Army fought against the Nazi occupation. The Soviets collaborated to help the Nazis defeat the Home Army. Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rose up against the Nazis in 1943 and the Soviet advance stopped dead, to let the Nazis take care of these rebellious souls.

Pro-Soviet sources online, like the very lefty MSN Encarta encyclopedia, claim that the Poles were "liberated" by the Red Army. Hah. They passed directly from the nightmare of Nazi slavery to the even worse nightmare of Communist slavery. (Maybe for the Jews this was an improvement -- the Communists were cruel but not bent on their extermination).

Poles had already rejected Communism and spanked Lenin badly when he thought he would extend his revolution west in 1922. Captured by the Russians, the Poles were unruly subjects; they revolted repeatedly against Communist rule. 1956, 1968, 1970, 1977, 1981, 1988. Some of these revolts were armed rebellions; some were "mere" demonstrations. All were crushed ruthlessly. The Catholic Church may have a lot to answer for elsewhere, but it helped keep the spirit of free Poland alive in these dark years.

Many Americans of Polish extraction helped also, from the famous (Paderewski) to the ordinary.

Poles may not have been the most motivated troops in the slave Warsaw Pact, but free Poles are people you definitely want on your side.

For those who are visually oriented, I recommend the movies "Battle of Britain" and "A Bridge too Far" (despite Gene Hackman's horrible attempt at a Polish accent) as screen depictions of some Polish bravery. For the airmen, the film "Dark Blue World" is about Czechs, not Poles, but the experiences were very similar.

By the way, even if not a single Pole picked up a rifle or strapped on an airplane, the Poles still won the War for the allies. A bunch of mathematicians in the Polish Army broke the German Enigma code machine and smuggled their research out to the West. This was the Rosetta Stone on which all future decipherments depended. One of the mathematicians, Marian Rejewski, wrote a great book about it (it's covered, albeit in less depth, in David Kahn's "The Codebreakers" as well).

d.o.l.

Criminal Nunber 18F