The Warsaw Commune: Betrayed by Stalin, Massacred by Hitler. Zygmunt Zaremba 1947
A few days later waves of explosions illuminated Warsaw during the night. Searchlights swept the sky with beams of light. The throb of powerful engines drowned the roar of the anti-aircraft guns. Aircraft flew skimming the roofs dropping cases of weapons into the narrow streets. Some of them, by pure accident, broke up in contact with the road. But most of them fell gently, warmly welcomed by the capital’s streets.
We had been waiting patiently for this support for several days. So from the time when the possibility of parachute drops had been signalled, we had each night lit fires in suitable spots.
In the area of the Old Town, where Krasiński Square was the best terrain for parachute drops, a vigorous signalling was undertaken right from the start. The Polish Socialist Party’s female members came forward as volunteers. They crept furtively through the streets without making the slightest noise, in order not to attract the attention of the enemy. They lined up in the middle of the Square and formed a large cross. Each of them held two pocket torches. Above them was the starlit sky. They stared upwards, impatiently listening for the noise of the wings announcing the coming of the precious gift upon which depended the liberation of their city. At a given signal the lamps were switched on and formed a luminous cross. Shivering with cold and emotion, they waited for several nights without success. But their waiting was not in vain. The Allied aircraft finally arrived. The cases dropped contained rifles, automatic pistols, ammunition and invaluable Piats that were intended for anti-tank defence. [1]
These weapons were scarcely enough to arm all the soldiers. They allowed us to fill up the widest gaps in the first line of the front. But the effect of them upon the morale of the combatants was prodigious. They were not alone, isolated in a hostile world! The atmosphere returned to what it was during the first days of the uprising. The moral support symbolised by the first parachute drops had far more value than the material aid. The painful feeling of being alone came to an end.
This material helped us to take the stores that were the German fortresses. It also allowed us to spread offensive action in all areas, which regularly brought us fresh success in the form of various types of equipment. Thus the parachuted weapons tripled their value in the hands of our soldiers.
However, aid to Warsaw cost the Allies dear. We watched with anguish aeroplanes falling in flames under German anti-aircraft fire. We witnessed their deaths like the losses of dear friends. In Miodowa Street we watched a Canadian airman manoeuvring his machine the better to accomplish his task run into a wall and crash into the street, dying along with his comrades. The machine guns that came out of the crashed aircraft helped the defenders of the Old Town for a long time. Radio broadcasts later announced that more than a third of the aircraft perished in the course of this raid. In the face of such losses, the British and American Allies estimated that they could not organise help on a large scale without having access to Russian airfields. For this would shorten the distance by half.
This proposal came up against a categorical refusal on the part of the USSR. [2]
Consequently, after massive parachute drops by British aircraft, the Allied aid was limited to sending some planes piloted by Poles at night. But the losses were always enormous, even when the High Command of the Home Army designated as dropping points places in the outskirts of the capital.
Obviously, these parachute drops reinforced the armaments of the rebels, but they were not enough to secure victory. But the fact that they took place will nonetheless remain as a splendid testimony to the goodwill and courage of the Allied and Polish airmen in the history of the uprising of August 1944. A 3000-kilometre flight did not deter them. Storms and sudden changes of temperature did not make them afraid. And the temperature was often so low that ice covered the wings, and the aircraft loaded down with munitions were sometimes obliged to retrace their steps when threatened with crashing.
Warsaw will forever keep a warm memory of the heroic sacrifice of those airmen who did not hesitate to come to its aid during the memorable days of August 1944.
1. The Piat (portable infantry anti-tank) gun was a very effective British-made anti-tank weapon. [Editor’s note]
2. Vernon Bartlett, a journalist and a member of the House of Commons, revealed in the News Chronicle on 29 August 1944 that the Russians would not allow Allied aircraft to land upon their soil. The Polish Military Attaché in Washington drew up the following memorandum on this subject: ‘The United States Ambassador Mr Harriman has applied to the government of the USSR to ask it to allow the use of Soviet airfields for Allied aircraft coming to the aid of Warsaw. He not only received a negative response, but in addition a statement that even damaged Allied aircraft would not be accepted by Russian airfields.’