After The Battle 158 - The Siege of Warsaw 1939

after the

battle

THE SIEGE OF WARSAW 1939

No. 158

£4.25

NUMBER 158 © Copyright After the Battle 2012 Editor: Karel Margry Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey Published by Battle of Britain International Ltd., The Mews, Hobbs Cross House, Hobbs Cross, Old Harlow, Essex CM17 0NN, England Telephone: 01279 41 8833 Fax: 01279 41 9386 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.afterthebattle.com Printed in Great Britain by Warners Group Publications PLC, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH. After the Battle is published on the 15th of February, May, August and November. LONDON STOCKIST for the After the Battle range: Foyles Limited, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0EB. Telephone: 020 7437 5660. Fax: 020 7434 1574. E-mail: [email protected]. Web site: www.foyles.co.uk United Kingdom Newsagent Distribution: Warners Group Publications PLC, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH Australian Subscriptions and Back Issues: Renniks Publications Pty Limited Unit 3, 37-39 Green Street, Banksmeadow NSW 2019 Telephone: 61 2 9695 7055. Fax: 61 2 9695 7355 E-mail: [email protected]. Website: www.renniks.com Canadian Distribution and Subscriptions: Vanwell Publishing Ltd., 622 Welland Avenue, St. Catharines, Ontario Telephone: (905) 937 3100. Fax: (905) 937 1760 Toll Free: 1-800-661-6136 E-mail: [email protected] New Zealand Distribution: Dal McGuirk’s “MILITARY ARCHIVE”, PO Box 24486, Royal Oak, Auckland 1345, New Zealand Telephone: 021 627 870. Fax: 9-6252817 E-mail: [email protected] United States Distribution and Subscriptions: RZM Imports Inc, 184 North Ave., Stamford, CT 06901 Telephone: 1-203-324-5100. Fax: 1-203-324-5106 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.rzm.com Italian Distribution: Tuttostoria, PO Box 395, 1-43100 Parma Telephone: ++390521 29 27 33. Fax: ++390521 29 03 87 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.tuttostoria.it Dutch Language Edition: SI Publicaties/Quo Vadis, Postbus 188, 6860 AD Oosterbeek Telephone: 026-4462834. E-mail: [email protected]

CONTENTS THE SIEGE OF WARSAW 1939 ITALY Campo Prigionieri di Guerra 57 FROM THE EDITOR . . .

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Front Cover: The September Barricade Monument on Grojecka Street in the borough of Ochota in south-western Warsaw commemorating the heroic fight by the Polish defenders between September 8 and 27, 1939. The monument stands at the junction with Opaczewska Street, purportedly at the position of the barricade that stopped the first German armoured assaults into the city on September 8-9. In actual fact this barricade, defended by the 4th Company of the 40th Infantry Regiment, was located some 200 metres deeper into the city, at the junction with Siewierska Street. (Nikita Tiepliszczew) Back Cover: Monument to the Polish 30th Infantry Regiment, who under Major Bronislaw Kaminski defended the boroughs of Powazki and Bielany in north-western Warsaw during the September 1939 siege. It stands in Wawrzyszew Cemetery in Bielany. (Lonio17) Acknowledgements: For help with the feature on the Siege of Warsaw in 1939, the Editor would like to thank Nikita Tiepliszczew, Sylwia Kubacz and Okko Luursema. For their assistance with the Campo P.G. 57 story, he thanks Robert Loughnan and Bob Beecroft. Photo Credits: ATL — Alexander Turnbull Libary, Wellington; BA — Bundesarchiv; ECPAD — Médiathèque de la Défense, Fort d’Ivry; FP — Fotopolska; NIOD — Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, Amsterdam; USNA — US National Archives.

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The Nazi-German invasion of Poland of September 1939 — planned by the German General Staff under the code-name ‘Fall Weiss’ (Plan White) — introduced the concept of ‘Blitzkrieg’ (lightning war). The phrase was coined by Western journalists to describe the astoundingly rapid conquest of Poland in just a few weeks’ time. Hailed as a new method of warfare, it deployed a concentration of motorised force — tanks, infantry, artillery and combat engineers — and air power, to create an overwhelming superiority designed to break through enemy lines at high speed without regard to its flanks, the aim being to keep the enemy off balance and deliver a knock-out blow to the opponent before he could fully mobilise. Pioneered after World War I by warfare theorists J. C. F. Fuller and, more debatably, Basil Liddell Hart in Britain and Colonel Charles de Gaulle in France, this form of armoured warfare had been adopted and fully developed in Germany by Oberstleutnant (later General) Heinz Guderian from 1929 onwards. In Poland, it led to a plan for a giant pincer movement by two army groups striking from north and south, both aiming for Warsaw, the aim being to cut off and destroy all Polish armies, if possible inside the knee of the Vistula river west of the Polish capital, with a wider pincer manoeuvre planned east of the river to finish the job. Poland fell in just over four weeks, but the main battle was over in less than three — hence the Germans themselves referred to it as ‘the 18-day campaign’. Below: This was the German Order of Battle for its mechanised units.

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On September 8, 1939, one week into the Nazi invasion of Poland, German armoured troops reached the gates of Warsaw. The Polish government and High Command had left the city but a determined garrison awaited the enemy invader and the Poles were able to stave off two consecutive German attempts to take the capital by armoured attack. Thus began a siege that would last for three weeks and subject the Warsaw Army of over 100,000 and the civilian population of over one

million to a ruthless campaign of aerial bombardment and heavy artillery shelling, causing thousands of casualties and widespread destruction. It was a hopeless battle that could only end in defeat and on September 27 the Polish garrison capitulated. The photos of the first penetration by tanks and infantry of the 4. Panzer-Division taken on September 9 became standard repertoire of German propaganda publications on the Blitzkrieg in Poland.

THE SIEGE OF WARSAW 1939 At 4.45 a.m. on September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Inaugurated by the surprise attack on the Westerplatte fortress at Danzig (see After the Battle No. 65), five German armies streamed across the Polish frontier from three different directions — north, north-west and south-west. In the north, Heeresgruppe Nord, commanded by Generaloberst Fedor von Bock, attacked with two armies, one on each side of the ‘Polish Corridor’ to Danzig. The 3. Armee under General der Artillerie Georg von Küchler struck from East Prussia (the territory separated from the main part of the Reich by the Danzig corridor) and the 4. Armee under General der Artillerie Günther von Kluge from Pomerania in the north-west. With a strength of 630,000 men and 21 divisions — 17 infantry, two panzer and two motorised infantry — the army group’s task was to first crush the Polish forces defending the Corridor and then move rapidly south and south-east towards the Narew river and, once across there, continue along the east bank of the Vistula river in order to prevent a Polish stand along this river line. Heeresgruppe Süd under Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt, poised in Silesia in the south-west and in German-occupied Czechoslovakia in the south, unleashed three armies — the 8. Armee under General der Infanterie Johannes Blaskowitz, the 10. Armee under General der Artillerie Walter von Reichenau and the 14. Armee under Generaloberst Wilhelm List. Mounting 836,000 men in 36 divisions — 23 infantry,

three mountain, four panzer, four light and two motorised infantry — its task was defeat the Polish armies in western Poland while at the same time sending strong mobile columns towards Warsaw (250 kilometres away) and the Vistula in order to capture the capital and secure crossings over the river on a wide front. The main thrust was to be carried out by von Reichenau’s 10. Armee, which therefore had the bulk of the German armoured and mechanised divisions under its command. Together the two army groups were thus to form a giant pincer movement designed to entrap and destroy all Polish forces, if possible still west of the Vistula. Each army group was supported by a Luftwaffe air fleet — Luftflotte 1 under General der Flieger Albert Kesselring assisting Heeresgruppe Nord and Luftflotte 4 under Generalleutnant Alexander Löhr backing up Heeresgruppe Süd. In total the Germans fielded 1,450,00 troops, 1,700 tanks and over 1,900 aircraft. Opposing the German onslaught stood the Polish Army, under its commander-in-chief (and de facto leader of Poland) Marshal Edward Smigly-Rydz. It comprised 30 firstline divisions, ten reserve divisions and 11 cavalry brigades. It had only 500 tanks, many of them outdated. Against the 1,900 German aircraft, the Polish Air Force could muster only 842, half of them modern, the other half obsolescent. Defending the long Polish border stood seven first-line armies. In the north, facing East Prussia, were (from east to west) the Narew Operational Group, the Modlin

By Karel Margry Army and, defending the Polish Corridor to Danzig, the Pomorze Army. Further south along Poland’s western frontier stood the Poznan Army, the Lodz Army and the Krakow Army, while the southern sector bordering on Slovakia was defended by the Karpaty Army. Backing up these first-line formations were four reserve corps: the Wyskow Operational Group north-west of Warsaw, the Kutno Group in the north-west, the Prusy Group in the south-west and the Tarnow Group in the south. The Polish strategy of defence was based on the promise by its Western ally France that, in the event of a German invasion of Poland, the French Army would within a few days attack Germany from the west, forcing it to fight a two-front war. Hence, the Poles judged it worthwhile to try and hold up a German invasion force as close to the border as possible. Thus, rather than concentrate their forces behind the natural defensive barrier formed by the rivers Narew, Bug, Vistula and San, deep inside the Polish interior (as the French had advised), the Polish High Command chose to put all their available forces directly along its 1,200-kilometre-long western frontier, forming a cordon line of dispersed armies. To add to their difficulties, the Polish army had only started mobilising on August 30, one day before the Germans struck, and many of their units were still assembling or on their way to the front when the hatchet fell. 3

It was an uneven battle from the start. The Wehrmacht’s new tactics of mechanised warfare, soon to become universally known as Blitzkrieg, completely overwhelmed the Polish defenders. Large closed bodies of panzers and motorised troops, supported by wave after wave of screeching Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers, rapidly penetrated the Polish defensive crust and plunged deep into the countryside, enveloping large numbers of troops and throwing them in chaos and disarray. Pockets of resistance were bypassed, to be mopped up and destroyed by the footslogging infantry divisions following behind. The weather was perfect for tanks, the ground remaining dry and hard-surfaced. In the very first hours of the invasion the Luftwaffe struck at Polish airfields, railway junctions, bridges, munitions factories and mobilisation centres. The devastating air attacks destroyed many Polish aircraft on the ground and greatly hampered the Poles’ further mobilisation and supply system. France and Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, but failed to provide any meaningful support to Poland. By September 5, German forces had everywhere broken through the Polish cordon formations and the jaws of the inner pincer were closing. In the north, Von Kluge’s 4. Armee had overrun the Danzig Corridor and established contact with Küchler’s 3. Armee, which was driving westward from Right: Warsaw is one of those cities whose appearance has completely altered since pre-war days. Three times during the war there was wholesale destruction in the capital: first as a result of the German bombing and shelling in September 1939; then in May 1943 when, in the aftermath of the failed uprising in the Jewish ghetto, the Germans blew up the entire Jewish quarters in the city centre, and then finally in August-October 1944 when the Polish underground army in Warsaw rose in rebellion against the Germans, which again led to brutal retaliation and further obliteration (see After the Battle No. 143). Post-war reconstruction of the devastated city by the Communist regime was accompanied by giant building projects and led to a further upheaval of the city’s landscape. One of the victims was the distinctive tower along Marshal Street seen in the background of the wartime photo. The giant tower that has taken its place is the Palace of Culture and Science, built in 1952-55 and cynically known by the Poles as ‘Stalin’s gift to Warsaw’. The spot where the machine gun was set up is today an entrance to the Centrum Station of the Warsaw metro. 4

East Prussia and south-eastwards towards the Narew. In the south, while Blaskowitz’s 8. Armee tied down the Polish forces and protected the army group’s left flank, von Reichenau’s 10. Armee managed to trap the Lodz and Krakow Armies and the Prusy Group in a huge cauldron at Radom, on the near side of the Vistula. In the far south, List’s 14. Armee was rapidly isolating the Karpaty Army against the mountains and forcing it into surrender. The speedy advance of the German troops made the Polish strategy of defending along the border obsolete and early on the 6th the Polish High Command ordered all its armies to withdraw behind the planned second line of defence, formed by the rivers Narew, Vistula and San. By now, the armoured spearhead of the 10. Armee was ramming its way towards Warsaw. On September 6 the XVI. Armeekorps (mot.), commanded by General der Kavallerie Erich Hoepner and comprising the 1. and 4. Panzer-Division and the 14. and 31 Infanterie-Division, managed to break through positions of the Lodz Army north of Radomsko and started its drive towards the Vistula, now 200 kilometres away, the 4. Panzer-Division on the left aiming for Warsaw and the 1. Panzer-Division on the right for Gora Kalwarja 30 kilometres further south, with the two infantry divisions trailing behind.

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WARSAW UPRISING MUSEUM

Warsaw’s defences included 86 AA guns and numerous detachments of AA machine guns. Here a crew poses with their Ckm wz.30 machine gun set up on the corner of Aleja Jerozolimskie (Jerusalem Avenue) and Ulica Marszalkowska (Marshal Street) in the city centre.

THE SITUATION IN WARSAW Warsaw in 1939 was a city of 1.3 million inhabitants. From the very first hours of the campaign, this huge metropolitan area became the target of an unrestricted aerial bombardment campaign by Luftwaffe bombers and dive-bombers, mainly from Kesselring’s Luftflotte 1 supporting Heeresgruppe Nord. On September 1, a force of some 90 Heinkel He 111 bombers from Kampfgeschwader 27, protected by 36 Me 109 fighters from Jagdgeschwader 21, together with 35 He 111s from II./Lehrgeschwader 1 raided the capital. They hit military targets, such as infantry barracks, the aerodrome and the PZL aircraft factory at Okecie in the south-west and the Warsaw radio station in Fort Mokotow in the south. However, right from the start, they also freely bombed civilian facilities such as waterworks, hospitals, market places and schools, and strafed civilians with machinegun fire. The attacks came as a complete surprise. The streets were crowded and dozens died in the first few minutes. Later that week, in order to disrupt communications, the bombers and dive-bombers attacked the city’s railway stations and the Vistula bridges — the latter without success. On September 3 alone 1,500 civilians were killed. A girls’ school was hit on the 4th. Warsaw’s air defence depended mostly on the fighters of the Polish Air Force’s Pursuit Brigade (Brygada Poscigowa) under Colonel Stefan Pawlikowski. It comprised two squadrons and was equipped with 54 fighter aircraft, chiefly the PZL P.7 and PZL P.11 types. The city’s anti-aircraft artillery under Colonel Kazimierz Baran had 86 AA guns and various detachments of anti-aircraft machine guns. Initially the air defence of the capital was fairly successful. During the first six days, the Pursuit Brigade managed to shoot down 43 enemy aircraft, while the anti-aircraft artillery destroyed a similar number. In addition, there were nine unconfirmed victories and 20 damaged aircraft. However, the brigade had itself also lost 38 machines, or approximately 70 per cent of its strength. The city’s air defence began to crumble on September 5 when the military authorities ordered 11 of the AA batteries withdrawn from Warsaw towards Lublin, Brest-Litovsk and Lwow. The following day, September 6, the remnants of the Pursuit Brigade were also transferred from the Warsaw sector to Lublin. With rumours of the rout of the Polish armies reaching the capital, thousands of

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The same building still stands, its façade pockmarked by bullets marks from the 1944 uprising and dilapidated by years of neglect. The last Polish formation defending before Warsaw was the 13th Infantry Division, positioned near Koluszki in central Poland. After bitter fighting with Hoepner’s XVI. Armeekorps on September 6-7, its lines were broken by the 4. Panzer-Division, which captured the town of Tomaszow

Mazowiecki, located 115 kilometres southwest of Warsaw, During the night (September 7/8), most of the soldiers of the 13th Division panicked and deserted, enabling the 4. Panzer-Division to carry on to Rawa Mozawiecka, another 35 kilometres closer to the Polish capital.

WITOLD PIETRUSIEWICZ

inhabitants packed their belongings and fled to the east, only to meet up with other refugees heading westwards. At the same time, masses of people entered the city from the west, fleeing before the German invading forces. Stukas swooped down on the long columns of people, strafing and striking terror at leisure. On September 4, Polish President Ignacy Moscicki and his government evacuated from Warsaw, transferring their seat to Lublin, 150 kilometres to the south-east. Commander-in-Chief Marshal Smigly-Rydz and the Polish General Staff also left the capital, on the night of September 6/7, moving to Brest-Litovsk, also 150 kilometres to the rear. Their departure led to further panic and chaos in the capital. At one time, it had been the Government’s intention to declare Warsaw an ‘open city’, but this idea was now abandoned. The capital would be defended at all cost. On September 3, before he left, Smigly-Rydz ordered the creation of an improvised Warsaw Defence Command (Dowodztwo Obrony Warszawy). General Walerian Czuma, the head of the Border Guard (Straz Graniczna), was appointed its commander and Colonel Tadeusz Tomaszewski its Chiefof-Staff. Initially the forces under command of General Czuma were very limited. Most of the city authorities had withdrawn together with a large part of the police forces, firefighters and military garrison. Warsaw was left with only four battalions of infantry and one battery of artillery. Also, the spokesman of the Warsaw garrison had issued a communiqué in which he ordered all young men to leave the city. To co-ordinate civilian efforts and counter the panic that threatened to engulf the capital, Czuma appointed the President (Lord Mayor) of Warsaw, Stefan Starzynski, as the Civilian Commissar of the capital. Starzynski immediately started to organise the Civil Guard to replace the evacuated police forces and the fire-fighters. He also ordered all members of the city’s administration to return to their posts. In his daily radio broadcasts he asked all civilians to construct barricades and anti-tank barriers at the city outskirts. Defensive field fortifications were constructed mostly to the west of the city limits. Streets were blocked with barricades and overturned tram cars. Cellars of houses were turned into pillboxes. Gradually, the forces of General Czuma were reinforced with volunteers, as well as rearguard troops and various army units, primarily from the Lodz and Prusy Armies, retreating before the onslaught of German armoured units. One was a stray battalion of the 41st Infantry Regiment ‘Suwalski’ from the destroyed 29th Division. On September 7, the 40th Infantry Regiment ‘Children of Lwow’, part of the 5th Division and commanded by LieutenantColonel Jozef Kalandyk, was transiting through Warsaw towards previously assigned positions with the Pomorze Army. The unit was stopped and joined the defence of the capital. By the 8th General Czuma had gathered some 17 infantry battalions under his command, supported by 64 pieces of artillery and 33 tanks. The latter — 27 light tanks of the Vickers E, 7-TP and R-35 types and six TK-3 and TKS tankettes — were formed into the 1st and 2nd Light Tank Companies.

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Right: With German forces rapidly approaching the capital, the city authorities called upon the population to assist in constructing barricades and defensive positions. After the fall of the city, a German Propaganda-Kompanie photographer pictured what looks like an improvised pillbox or barricade on the corner of Targowa and Wilenska Streets in Praga, the part of Warsaw on the east bank of the Vistula.

The German bombing and strafing of Warsaw began right on the first day of the invasion and caused hundreds of casualties. At Warszawa Wschodni (Warsaw East) Railway Station in Praga a memorial stone marks the spot where on September 5 a group of girl scouts and school pupils serving as first-aid nurses were killed by a German bomb. 5

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On September 8 — eight days after the start of the campaign and after an amazing dash of 80 kilometres in ten hours — lead elements of the 4. Panzer-Division suddenly appeared on the outskirts of Warsaw. Taking advantage of the surprise, the Germans immediately launched an attack into the city, hoping to capture it on the run. The first attack, in the late afternoon of the 8th and by Panzer-Regiment 35 only, was quickly stopped by the fierce Polish resistance in the outer borough of Ochota. FIRST GERMAN ATTACKS ON THE CAPITAL On the morning of September 8, the 4. Panzer-Division — now well ahead of the rest of the 10. Armee — made a lightning dash towards Warsaw, 80 kilometres away. Moving out at first light from Rawa Mozawiecka, with Panzer-Regiment 35 in the lead, it brushed aside pockets of enemy resistance and reached Radziejowice, 35 kilometres on. With Polish soldiers surrendering by the thousands, the panzers rushed forward another 35 kilometres to Wolica, an outer suburb south-west of Warsaw, hoping to secure crossings over the Utrata river at Raszyn. Attacking at 1.15 p.m., the panzers destroyed two Polish light tanks and pushed back the Polish infantry but they could not prevent the Poles from blowing up two bridges right in front of them. Undaunted, the light panzers forded the brook, while attached engineers from Pionier-Bataillon 79, protected by infantry from SchützenRegiment 12, quickly repaired the crossings. Soon the lead troops were approaching Okecie, the airfield right on the south-western edge of the metropolitan area. Panzer-Regiment 35 had reached the city limits of Warsaw. Back at the divisional command post at Nadarzyn, ten kilometres to the rear, Generalleutnant Georg-Hans Reinhardt was just receiving a visit from his army and corps commanders, Generals Reichenau and Hoepner. Having heard rumours that the Poles had declared their capital an open city, the three generals did not expect serious resistance and together they worked out exact plans for the seizure of the city. The division was to advance in two columns, with Panzer-Regiment 35 and Schützen-Regiment 12 on the right and Panzer-Regiment 36 and Infanterie-Regiment 33 on the left. However, the latter three units were still moving up and it would take some time for them to reach the start line. 6

The second attempt, by the entire division and on a double axis, on the morning of the 9th penetrated deeper into the city but was again repulsed in heavy fighting in Ochota and Wola. A Propaganda-Kompanie photographer, Bildberichter Otto Lanzinger, accompanied one of the attacking columns into the city and his pictures have become classic images of the 1939 fighting for Warsaw. Here a number of PzKpfw I and IIs roll forward while supporting infantry keep close to the houses.

Up front, the commander of Panzer-Regiment 35, Oberst Heinrich Eberbach, thought he could take the city on the run. Conferring with Hoepner and Reinhardt, he recommended that the surprise of the enemy be exploited and that he be allowed to continue the advance without waiting for the rest of the division. Permission was granted. A Storch light aircraft hurriedly flew in a few street maps of Warsaw and a plan of attack

4. PANZER-DIVISION

was made. Entering from the south-west, the regiment’s II. Abteilung was to advance across Pilsudski Square and then cross the Vistula to the east bank; the I. Abteilung was to remain in the centre of the city. Aerial support for the attack was quickly arranged through Kesselring’s Luftflotte 1 (nominally in support of Heeresgruppe Nord) which sent in 35 Henschel HS 123 biplane divebombers from II./Lehrgeschwader 2.

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A PzKpfw II advances past another one. These photographs were taken on Grojecka Street, the main thoroughfare entering Warsaw from the south-east and leading into the borough of Ochota, at its intersection with Siewierska Street. At 5 p.m. Eberbach’s regiment began the assault, advancing towards the borough of Ochota. A few rounds were fired. Just beyond the Rakowiec settlement the houses momentarily stopped, an open area partly filled with suburban vegetable gardens stretching out before the tankers’ eyes. The tanks moved across a road bridge, the actual outskirts of the city being 400 metres beyond. As they entered the built-up area, the road ahead was blocked by a barricade of overturned streetcars and furniture trucks. Suddenly, a rain of fire fell on the force. From four-storied apartment buildings, ventilation openings in the rooftops, windows and basement openings, Polish soldiers of the 40th ‘Children of Lwow’ and 41st ‘Suwalski’ Regiments opened up on the tanks with everything they had. One of the few PzKpfw IV (the whole regiment had just eight of these in its 4. and 8. Kompanie) received a direct hit. It was recovered under fire but the attack was stalling. By now the sun was setting. Realising that Warsaw was not an open city and that the Poles were strongly defending it, Eberbach called off the attack and withdrew his tanks behind the bridge. For now, all by itself and well ahead of the rest of the division, the regiment needed to secure itself on all sides. At 7.15 p.m. that evening — a point in time when the panzers were still battling in Ochota — German radio already broadcast the OKW communiqué bringing the headline news that German troops had penetrated into Warsaw.

Grojecka was the axis of attack of Panzer-Regiment 35 both on the afternoon of the 8th and again during the morning of the 9th. The long shadows in Lanzinger’s photos show the sun in the east, which proves that they were taken on the 9th.

During the night, the remaining elements of the division caught up with Panzer-Regiment 35: the tanks of Panzer-Regiment 36, the infantry of Schützen-Regiment 12 and Infanterie-Regiment 33 and the divisional artillery. Thinking he was now strong enough to take the city, Generalleutnant Reinhardt ordered the attack to be repeated the following morning with all available forces. PanzerRegiment 35, supported by Schützen-Regiment 12, was to repeat its attack along the main road into Ochota. Panzer-Regiment 36, supported by Infanterie-Regiment 33 and two engineer companies, was to launch an attack from positions further to the north, along the main road leading into the borough of Wola. At 7 a.m. on September 9, following a tenminute preparatory artillery barrage on the city’s edge, the 4. Panzer-Division again moved into the assault. Dive-bombing support was once more provided by Luftflotte 1, which had dispatched the HS 123s from II./LG2 and 140 Stukas from StG77 and III./StG51.

Leading the attack into Ochota, the I. Abteilung of Panzer-Regiment 35 (Hauptmann Meinrad von Lauchert), with infantry mounted on the tanks, once again rolled across the bridge, followed by more infantry and attached engineers. The first road barricade was eliminated. Despite strong Polish resistance a second bridge was taken and the tanks reached the streets of Warsaw. Once in the built-up area, the German infantry had to take each house and clear it. The Poles resisted fiercely with burst of machine-gun fire, hand-grenades dropped from above and tossed from cellar openings, even with blocks of stones dropped from the roofs. Anti-tank mines buried in the road verges and adjoining fields disabled several panzers. The fiercest fighting in Ochota was at the barricade erected near the junction of Grojecka and Siewierska Streets and defended by the 4th Company of the 40th Regiment. The panzers attempted to continue by themselves. The lead tank, commanded by Leutnant Georg Claass of the 1. Kompanie, was hit by a well-camouflaged anti-tank gun.

NIKITA TIEPLISZCZEW

Right: Grojecka Street has changed out of all recognition since 1939 and none of the buildings visible in Lanzinger’s photos remain standing. Today, the entire length of Grojecka is lined by high-rise apartment blocks built in the Communist era. Practically the only common feature between then and now are the tracks and overhead masts of the tram line to Okecie. This is the view looking south-west and out of town, at the point where Siewierska used to connect with Grojecka. 7

Right: From his covered position in a side street, Lanzinger took this close-up of a PzKpfw I, its number ‘133’ showing that it was tank No. 3 of the 3. Zug of the 1. Kompanie of the I. Abteilung of PanzerRegiment 35. The Panzer I was the mainstay of the 1939 armoured divisions. Weighing 5.4 tons and with an armour of between 7mm and 13mm, it had a crew of two and a main armament of two 7.92 mm MG13 machine guns. 8

NIKITA TIEPLISZCZEW

Today, a new block of flats on Grojecka masks the view into Siewierska but the building seen in the latter street remains. On several occasions the Poles made up for their lack of armament by ingenuity. Colonel Zdzislaw Pacak-Kuzmirski, commander of the 8th Company of the 40th Regiment, found 100 barrels of turpentine in the Dobrolin Factory and ordered his men to position these in front of the barricade at the intersection of Wolska, Elekcyjna and Redutowa Streets. When the German armour approached, the liquid was ignited and

several tanks were destroyed without a single shot being fired. The TP-7 tanks of the Warsaw Defence Command were actively engaged in the battles. Those of the 1st Light Tank Company joined in the heavy fights around Okecie airport, but they were no match for the German panzers and suffered considerable losses. Those of the 2nd Company took part in the successful defence of Wola.

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The first round failed to knock it out but the second set the vehicle on fire. Claass and his radio operator managed to bail out but both later succumbed to their wounds. The same Polish gun immobilised the vehicle of the regimental adjutant, Oberleutnant HeinzGünther Guderian (the son of the panzer general). Dismounting and escaping through a courtyard gate, Guderian came across the tank of Leutnant Diergardt and a platoon of infantry. Taking both under his command he continued the attack. Advancing through courtyards and gardens, Leutnant Wilhelm Esser and two platoons of tanks from the 2. Kompanie were able to advance as far as the railway line, where Polish defences knocked out his radio. Oberfeldwebel Ziegler in his PzKpfw III assumed command of the remaining vehicles and managed to advance as far as the main railway station. All by himself in the middle of the capital, he eventually had to pull back. Leutnant Gerhard Lange worked his way forward to an enemy artillery position and opened fire on the guns with everything he had. The Poles attacked by throwing shaped charges against his tracks, which tore off one of the roadwheels and blocked his turret, and he too had to pull back. Throughout the battle the Stukas of StG77 and III./StG51 gave support by attacking the Polish main artillery positions which were located in Praga, on the far side of the city and east of the Vistula. In addition to divebombing the gun sites, they swooped down on the city’s main avenues and on the railways in an attempt to obstruct Polish troop movements. Around 9 a.m. Oberst Eberbach committed the II. Abteilung (Major Wilhelm Hochbaum), which had been held in reserve and was supported by another battalion of Schützen-Regiment 12, to the area one kilometre north of the main road, where the Polish defences appeared less well organised. This force initially made good progress, overrunning Fort Szczesliwice, one of the old fortifications surrounding the capital. However, as they reached the park beyond, the mounted riflemen received rifle and machine-gun fire from the high-rises on the left. Just as they deployed to engage it, Polish artillery fell among them and a few vehicles caught fire. Meanwhile, Polish anti-tank guns stopped the advance of the tanks. Oberleutnant Heinz Morgenroth, the commander of the 8. Kompanie, was fatally wounded. Of the two panzer platoons that advanced into the park, only three tanks came back. The story was much the same with PanzerRegiment 36, attacking north of the railway line and into Wola. Here too, well-placed Polish 75mm anti-tank guns firing at pointblank range, and the barricades erected on main streets, managed to repel the German assault. The civilian population took an active part in the fighting and the Germans were halted with severe losses.

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Right: Infantrymen of the supporting Schützen-Regiment 12 dash across Siewierska Street, a side street of Grojecka. Note the smoke rising in the right background, evidence of Stuka divebombing attacks on Polish positions in Wola, the adjoining borough attacked by Panzer-Regiment 36 and Infanterie-Regiment 33.

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barricade. The gun has just fired off a round and smoke is still curling from its barrel. Panzer I and IIs are waiting behind. Black smoke rises up from a disabled vehicle in the background.

Back up front, and right in front of where Lanzinger is taking cover, another gun — this one a 3.7cm Pak 36 — has been set up. Across the street is its Krupp Kfz 69 towing vehicle. Two Panzer Is roll forward. The 4. Panzer-Division had begun the

campaign with 341 tanks: 183 Panzer I, 130 Panzer II, 12 Panzer IV and 16 Panzerbefehlswagen. However, by the time it reached Warsaw, both tank regiments had suffered losses and all four tank battalions were below strength.

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Some 150 metres back along Grojecka, near its junction with Przemyska Street, Lanzinger pictured a 7.5cm le. IG 18 light infantry gun set up to engage enemy troops defending behind a

9

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Further forward, Lanzinger pictured infantrymen squatting beside ‘R05’, one of the tanks of Regimental Headquarters of Panzer-Regiment 35. The solid white cross as a national identification mark was introduced by the Wehrmacht just before the Polish campaign. However, combat experience in Poland showed that it served just as often as an easy aiming mark for enemy gunners so in April 1940 the centre of the cross was blacked out by a superimposed black cross, creating the emblem that remained the German national identification mark for the rest of the war. At 10 a.m., after three hours of fruitless attack, Generalleutnant Reinhardt saw that the fighting could not be prolonged if his division was to remain as an operational unit and ordered his men to retreat to their initial line of departure. Casualties in tanks and infantry had been very heavy. Of the 220 tanks that had taken part in the assault, some 80 had been lost. Panzer-Regiment 35 alone, which had started the assault with 120 tanks, had only 57 left operational, including a single Panzer IV. Even the command tank of Generalleutnant Max von Hartlieb-Walsporn, commander of the 5. Panzer-Brigade (which controlled the two panzer regiments), was immobilised by anti-tank fire as it made its way back. When the XVI. Armeekorps sent an order to renew the attack immediately, Reinhardt drove back to the corps command post and convinced Hoepner that this was absolutely impossible. All that could be done for now was to lay siege to the capital from the west. During the night, a large number of the disabled panzers, including some that had run over mines, were recovered by their crews, in some cases from out of the Polish lines. Additional reinforcements arrived in the form of Infanterie-Regiment Leibstandarte-SS ‘Adolf Hitler’ (mot.), the Führer’s bodyguard unit turned into a motorised infantry unit and commanded by SS-Obergruppenführer Sepp Dietrich. 10

TEMPORARY RELIEF Having warded off two consecutive ground attacks on the city, the defenders of Warsaw were now suddenly given a very welcome respite due to unexpected developments that were unfolding 100 kilometres west of the capital. That evening, September 9, the Poznan Army under Lieutenant-General Tadeusz Kutrzeba and the Pomorze Army under Lieutenant-General Wladyslaw Bortnowski launched a very strong surprise counter-attack against the left flank of the Heeresgruppe Süd forces advancing towards Warsaw. With the two German pincers moving north and south of him, Kutrzeba’s army had until then been largely unaffected by the fighting and was still completely intact. As it moved back eastwards from Poznan, German army intelligence had somehow lost track of it and mistakenly assumed it had already pulled back behind the Vistula. Joining up with Bortnowski’s Pomorze Army, Kutrzeba saw a chance to strike at the northern flank of the German southern pincer. The Polish High Command initially turned down his proposal, ordering him to continue withdrawing to the Vistula, but early on the 8th he was given the green light. It was a desperate manoeuvre to stall the German advance and buy time for the organisation of Warsaw’s defence. The attack, by eight infantry divisions and two cavalry brigades, fell on the 30. Infanterie-Division of Blaskowitz’s 8. Armee, which was holding a thin screening line along the Bzura river. The Poles inflicted considerable losses on the Germans, killing 1,500 and capturing 3,000 in the initial push. To avoid a serious reverse, Blaskowitz was compelled to completely suspend his army’s advance on Warsaw and divert all his troops to come to the rescue of the 30. Division. Nonetheless, the Germans were thrown back southwards some 20 kilometres. Von Rundstedt and his Chief-of-Staff Generalleutnant Erich von Manstein initially underestimated the Polish advance and judged it a problem the 8. Army should solve by itself. However, on 11 September, realis-

ing they had a major crisis on their hands, they changed their mind and decided to redirect the main force of the 10. Armee plus army group reserves and most of the aircraft from Luftflotte 4 towards the Bzura. Thus reinforced, the Germans managed to hold the Poles in a vicious battle on a narrow front along the river. Raging for a full ten days, it developed into the largest, longest and single most-important battle of the campaign. However, as a direct result of this Polish counter-offensive, the 4. Panzer-Division and the Leibstandarte-SS were withdrawn from Warsaw and sent westward to help stave off the threat. Their positions were taken over by the 31. Infanterie-Division (Generalleutnant Rudolf Kämpfe), one of the follow-up divisions of the XVI. Armeekorps, the lead regiment of which — Infanterie-Regiment 82 — arrived in front of Warsaw on the 11th. Its troops were fatigued by long days of marching in hot weather and already weakened by earlier battles, so they were ordered for the time being to refrain from a direct attack on the city and just maintain siege positions. In this sense the attempt to buy time for Warsaw was a success. However, the aerial attacks on the city continued. On September 10, nicknamed ‘Bloody Sunday’, there were more than 70 German bombers above Warsaw and 17 consecutive bombing raids. Meanwhile, there had been an organisational change on the Polish side. On September 8, the day of the first German assault, Marshal Smigly-Rydz had ordered the creation of an improvised Warsaw Army (Armia Warszawa) under LieutenantGeneral Juliusz Rómmel. Until then the commander of the Lodz Army on the border, Rómmel had got separated from his operational forces and had just arrived in Warsaw with his staff (some critics say he more or less abandoned his army and defected to the capital). From his headquarters at BrestLitovsk, Smigly-Rydz sent him a signed order to ‘defend the city as long as ammunition and food lasts, to hold as many of the enemy forces as possible’.

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Left and right: The main Polish monument to the fighting of September 8-9 stands at the junction of Grojecka with Opaczewska Street, some 200 metres south of the actual location of the barricade defended by Lieutenant Grzybowski’s men. Compris-

NIKITA TIEPLISZCZEW

Above: As Lanzinger turns his camera to the right, the barricade that is holding up the German advance comes into view. It consists of a tramcar and two lorries which have been drawn up on either side of the tram blocking the street and it is the one fiercely defended by the men of the 4th Company of the 40th ‘Children of Lwow’ Regiment under Lieutenant Jan Grzybowski. Four pan zers have approached the obstacle and infantry are bunching up around them. The tank standing to the left of the post supporting the tram cables is ‘I03’ denoting that it is the third of the four tanks of the I. Abteilung headquarters. Right: With Grojecka Street having seen so much change, there is virtually nothing to connect past and present but this is the exact same spot.

ing three concrete elements, the centre one forming a giant ‘1939’ and the pair on either flank the dates ‘8 IX’ and ‘27 IX’ respectively, it is adorned with unit memorial plaques. A commemorative ceremony takes place here every September. 11

With the attempts by the 4. Panzer-Division to capture Warsaw by direct attack foiled, the Germans laid siege to the enemy capital. Infantry divisions closed in from east and west, and the Luftwaffe and heavy artillery guns began a round-the-clock bombard-

ments of the Border Defence Corps (Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza — KOP), which had been dispersed by the 1. Panzer-Division at Belchatow and had been ordered to head to Warsaw. Other stray units came from the defeated Lodz Army, notably the 4th Battalion of the 30th Infantry Regiment from the 10th Division under Major Bronislaw Kaminski, which arrived on the 10th and took up defensive positions in Plackowka and Mlociny in north-western Warsaw. In addition, several new units were created in the capital itself out of reserve centres of two Warsaw-based formations. Reservists from the 8th Infantry Division formed the 360th Regiment under Lieutenant-Colonel Jakub Chmura. It comprised five battalions which would be deployed at various points in the city’s defensive lines. The rear-echelon battalion of the 36th ‘Academic Legion’

Infantry Regiment, a unit made up mostly of university students, served as a core of the 336th Regiment. Split onto two separate units, the 1st and 2nd ‘Defenders of Praga’ Regiments under Colonels Stanislaw Milian and Stefan Kotowski respectively, it helped defend the Praga sector on the east bank of the Vistula. During all this time, Stefan Starzynski, the Civilian Commissar of Warsaw, was a tower of strength in the besieged city. His daily radio speeches were crucial in keeping the morale of both soldiers and civilians high. Starzynski commanded the distribution of food, water and supplies as well as the firefighting brigades. Assisted by his Deputy, Julian Kulski, he also managed to organise shelter for almost all civilian refugees from other parts of Poland and for people whose houses had been destroyed by German bombing.

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WARSAW UPRISING MUSEUM

The newly-created army was composed of the forces defending Warsaw (under General Czuma); the garrison of Modlin Fortress — a 19th-century citadel located at the junction of the Vistula and the Narew rivers some 30 kilometres north of the capital and blocking a main approach to it (under Brigadier-General Wiktor Thommée) — as well as all Polish units defending the Narew and Vistula riverlines north-east and south of Warsaw. General Czuma continued as the commander of the Warsaw Defence Force, which he split into two sectors, one on each side of the Vistula: East (Praga) under LieutenantColonel Julian Janowski and West under Colonel Marian Porwit. Meanwhile, the defenders of the city were joined by various units of the routed Prusy Army, notably the 44th Infantry Division (Colonel Eugeniusz Zongollowicz), a halfcomplete reserve formation made up of regi-

ment that would last for three weeks. This shot of smoke billowing up from fires caused by the bombing was taken by PK-photographer Mensing from near the Okecie to Ochota road in the suburb of Wlochy on the south-western outskirts on the 24th.

With hundreds of people being killed by the German bombing and shelling, impromptu cemeteries were opened in parks and lawns. This field of fresh graves was in the small park on Plac Trzech Krzyzy (Three Crosses Square), one of the main squares in central Warsaw, across the street from St Alexander’s Church. 12

The square and most of the buildings around it were destroyed or deliberately demolished by the Germans during the 1944 uprising. St Alexander’s was rebuilt in 1949-52, however not to its neo-classicist design of 1886-95 but in a form similar to its original appearance of 1818-25.

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ALINA ZIENOWICZ

There are numerous memorials to the 1939 defence of Warsaw all across the city. On the wall of Nos. 104-106 Aleja Jerzego Waszyngtona (Washington Avenue), at the intersection with Grochow Street in Praga on the east bank of the Vistula, a plaque records that this was the location of the earthen ‘crossroads redoubt’ where the 2nd Battalion of Colonel Stanislaw Sosabowski’s 21st ‘Children of Warsaw’ Regiment prevented the enemy from reaching the Vistula bridges. The 2nd Battalion was led by Major Wislaw Radziszewski. The plaque was unveiled in September 1986.

Further south in Praga, at No. 6 Bajonska Street in the borough of Saska Kepa, is a memorial plaque to the 336th Infantry, the regiment that was born out of the 36th Academic Legion’ Regiment and which defended the streets and fields around here.

ENCIRCLEMENT AND SIEGE Meanwhile a new threat to Warsaw was developing from the north-east, this time coming from Heeresgruppe Nord. On September 10, von Küchler’s 3. Armee had broken through the Polish lines along the Narew river and started its march southwards, aiming to cut off Warsaw from the east. Its I. Armeekorps under Generalleutnant Walter Petzel crossed the Bug at Wyszkow on the 11th and was now rapidly approaching the capital. As this new menace got near, the city’s garrison again received welcome reinforcements in the form of units from the Modlin Army pushed back by the German advance. The remnants of the 5th Infantry Division under Major-General Juliusz Zulauf reached Warsaw on the 14th, re-uniting with the division’s own 40th ‘Children of Lwow’ Regiment. With Zulauf’s force came the 21st ‘Children of Warsaw’ Regiment, commanded by Colonel Stanislaw Sosabowski (of later Battle of Arnhem fame), which had got separated from its parent 8th Division on the third day of the invasion and had fought its way back from the north by itself. The battered remains of the 20th Infantry Division under Colonel Wilhelm Andrzej LawiszLiszka arrived from Mlawa on the 15th. All new arrivals were incorporated into the Warsaw Army and assigned to the defence of Praga on the east bank, General Zulauf taking over command of the East sector from Lieutenant-Colonel Janowski. They had just made it in time for on that same day — September 15 — the 61. Infanterie-Division (Generalleutnant Siegfried Hänicke), leading element of the I. Armeekorps, reached the eastern outskirts of Warsaw. The Germans must have been unaware of the exact Polish positions in this part of the city, for a large column of troops came marching into Grochow, the south-eastern working-class borough of Praga, along Aleja Jerzego Waszyngtona (Washington Avenue), straight at the positions of Sosabowski’s 21st Regiment. His 1st Battalion opened up a hurricane of fire that took the enemy column completely by surprise. Stalled, the Germans tried to deploy into assault formations, bringing direct artillery fire and tanks to bear. Polish anti-tank guns positioned

the eastern gates of Warsaw: the 11. Infanterie-Division (Generalleutnant Max Bock), the 32. Infanterie-Division (Generalleutnant Nikolaus von Falkenhorst) and the 217. Infanterie-Division (Generalmajor Richard Baltzer), the latter two both of the II. Armeekorps. Together with the 61. Division, they now formed an unbreakable cordon around Warsaw east of the Vistula. With the 31. Division of the 8. Armee enclosing much of the city on its western side, only a broad strip of land along the Vistula towards the Kampinos Forest in the north-west and the Modlin Fortress in the north now remained in Polish hands. Though not yet completely encircled, Warsaw was effectively under siege. That morning, Sosabowski’s men were surprised to see an open car flying a large white flag, followed by two tanks with the crews standing up in the open turret, slowly coming down Washington Avenue towards the barricade on Grochow Street. It was a party of truce. The German parliamentaire, Major Kiewitz, commander of the I. Bataillon of Infanterie-Regiment 151 of the 61. Division, handed Sosabowski a letter addressed ‘to the Officer Commanding Warsaw’ and containing a demand for the surrender of the city. Sosabowski sent the note to General Rómmel’s headquarters and within an hour the answer came back that the Army Commander would neither talk with, nor see, the enemy emissary. Within two hours after Major Kiewitz returned to his lines, a furious artillery bombardment fell on the Polish positions. An hour later, at 5 p.m., the 11. Infanterie-Division launched an assault against Sosabowski’s regiment. Again, the Poles waited until the attackers had approached within 100 metres of their positions before opening a withering fire with rifles, machine guns and mortars. After three hours of bitter fighting, the assault was repulsed with heavy losses to the Germans, the attacking unit — Infanterie-Regiment 23 commanded by Oberst Johann-Georg Richert — being practically annihilated. A similar thing happened when Infanterie-Regiment 96 of the 32. Division attempted to enter Brodno in northern Praga. It was met with intense artillery and mortar fire and thrown back with heavy casualties, losing 150 men.

TADEUSZ RUDZKI

down the avenue knocked out two of the panzers but the Germans nonetheless managed to gain a foothold in eastern Grochow, wiping out a platoon of Polish riflemen that was covering the withdrawal of their company. However, the German advance was held at the next street and by 7 p.m. the attack had been repulsed. Sosabowski’s command tallied a loss of 320 men killed, wounded or missing. The following day, September 16, another three of Küchler’s infantry divisions arrived at

Also in Saska Kepa, at the corner of Francuska and Zwyciezcow Streets, is a memorial to the men of the 21st and 336th Infantry Regiments and the 21st ‘Nadwislanski’ Ulan Regiment who fought here under 2nd Lieutenant Tadeusz Barszczewski and Sergeant Stefan Goss. The memorial comprises a surviving fragment of the barricade that was here and which protected the grenade launcher, ammunition dump and one of the quarters of the Saska Kepa defensive sector.

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By mid-September, most of the Polish armies had been caught in pockets surrounded by German troops. With the German 3. Armee Meanwhile the battle for Poland was continuing. Well to the east of Warsaw, on Heeresgruppe Nord’s far left wing, von Kluge’s 4. Armee was speedily moving south. Its XIX. Armeekorps, under General der Panzertruppe Heinz Guderian, dashing forward far in advance of the infantry formations, had crossed the Narew at Wizna and, moving on east of the Bug, reached BrestLitovsk on September 14, capturing the citadel on the 16th. Then, on September 17, Poland received a further shock when the Soviet Red Army, following the secret protocol of the GermanRussian non-aggression pact signed in Moscow just three weeks earlier (August 23), entered the country from the east. With the Poles having no forces other than border guard troops to oppose this move, and many of these initially even being uncertain over whether to welcome or fight the new invaders, the Soviets rapidly occupied eastern Poland. Now under attack from all sides by two different countries, Poland was fighting a losing battle. Realising that defence had become impossible, Marshal Smigly-Rydz issued orders for all Polish forces to retreat towards Romania and avoid fighting the Soviet aggressors. The Polish government and High Command crossed into Romania, where they were interned. On September 18 Guderian’s panzer corps made contact with armoured units of the 14. Armee of Heeresgruppe Süd at Wlodawa on the Bug river, 200 kilometres south-east of Warsaw, thus completing the planned giant pincer movement and the encirclement of virtually all Polish forces. The Germans soon met up with the Soviets, at Brest-Litovsk and elsewhere, beginning an uneasy alliance that 14

closing in from the north-east, Warsaw was isolated in a perimeter enclosing the Kampinos Forest and the fortress of Modlin.

would last just 22 months. (To their chagrin, they had to abandon some of the territory already won to the Russians, retiring to the pre-arranged boundary line.) Meanwhile, due west of Warsaw, the battle of attrition on the Bzura had reached its inevitable conclusion. Having halted the Polish attacks, the 8. Armee launched its own attack across the river. With the armoured and motorised troops from the 10. Armee rushing up from the south-east and east, and forces from the 4. Armee from Heeresgruppe Nord closing in from the north and north-west, the Germans soon managed to encircle the very considerable Polish forces in a large pocket around the town of Kutno. The battle of annihilation raged for a week but by September 19 it was all over and an estimated 170,000 Polish troops surrendered. However, large fragments of the Poznan and Pomorze Armies managed to break through the German encirclement. Desperately fighting their way through the Kampinos Forest, they succeeded in reaching the Warsaw–Modlin perimeter, mostly around September 19 and 20, considerably reinforcing the latter’s defensive strength. From the Poznan Army came the bulk of the 25th Infantry Division (General Franciszek Alter) and two cavalry brigades (the Wielkopolska under Brigadier-General Roman Abraham and the Podolska under Colonel Leon Strzelecki); 431 survivors of the 14th Cavalry Ulan Regiment under Colonel Edward Godlewski, plus smatterings from three more infantry divisions, the 14th, 17th and 26th. The Pomorze Army brought in 1,500 survivors from the 15th Infantry Division (General Zdzislaw Przyjalkowski), the Pomorze Cavalry Brigade

(Colonel Adam Bogoria-Zakrewski) and what little remained of the 4th and 16th Divisions. General Kutrzeba of the Poznan Army, who reached Warsaw on the 16th, was made deputy commander of Warsaw under General Rómmel. General Bortnowski of the Pomorze Army had been heavily wounded on the Bzura and was captured on the 21st. Two-thousand men of the 13th Division’s 43rd ‘Bayonne Legion’ Regiment (Lieutenant-Colonel Franciszek Zbigniew Kubicki), survivors of the rout against the XVI. Armeekorps on September 7, tried to fight their way towards besieged Warsaw, but were stopped by the 11. Infanterie-Division during a night battle in Falenica, a south-eastern suburb of Warsaw, on September 19. As a result, only a few hundred men of the division managed to reach the capital. With these reinforcements — the last to come in — the Polish forces defending Warsaw had risen to approximately 100,000 soldiers. The general disposition of troops was now as follows: Warsaw West (under Colonel Porwit) was divided into three subordinate zones: In sub-sector North were the 60th Regiment (25th Division), the 4th Battalion of the 30th Regiment (10th Division), the 59th and 61st Regiments (15th Division) and the 1st Battalion of the 144th Infantry (44th Division) defending Bielany, Mlociny, Zoliborz, Powazki and Kolo, with the 3rd Battalion of the 26th Regiment (5th Division) holding an outer position near Wawrzyszew. In sub-sector West were the 40th Regiment (5th Division) and the 2nd Battalion of the 41st Regiment (29th Division) holding Wola, Ochota and Rakowiec, with the 1st

Right: Hitler personally inspected the Warsaw front twice during the Polish campaign. His first visit occurred on September 22, when he and his headquarters entourage visited the I. Armeekorps of the 3. Armee which was encircling Praga with three infantry divisions. From the balcony of a tower overlooking that part of Warsaw, the Führer and his party observed the artillery bombardment of the enemy capital. The officer pointing out relevant sites to the Führer is probably a regimental or artillery commander from one of the infantry divisions. Visible to the right of Hitler are General Georg von Küchler, commander of the 3. Armee; Generalleutnant Walter Petzel, commanding the I. Armeekorps (with glasses) and Generaloberst Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW). Just visible behind Keitel is Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and the man seen holding the camera at rear is Oberleutnant Walter Frentz, Leni Riefenstahl’s favourite cinematographer, who covered the Polish campaign as a Luftwaffe cameraman. Note the row of SF 14 trench binoculars with telescopic lens mounted on the balustrade. and 5th Battalions of the 360th Regiment and a Volunteer Workers Battalion defending outer positions at Blizne and Gorce Okulicki. In sub-sector South, charged with the defence of Mokotow, Czernieskow and Sierkierki, were a Volunteer Workers Battalion, remnants of the 4th Battalion of the 21st Regiment, the 1st Hunters Battalion and the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 360th Regiment. Warsaw East (under General Zulauf) was divided into two zones: In sub-sector North were the 78th, 79th and 80th Regiments of the 20th Division (Colonel Lawisz-Liszka), with the 1st Battalion of the 43rd Regiment (13th Division) attached, manning positions in Brodno, Pelcowizna and Elsnerow. In sub-sector South (commanded by Colonel Zongollowicz of the 44th Division) were the 26th Regiment (5th Division) defending the easternmost borough of Utrata; Sosabowski’s 21st Regiment (8th Division) guarding Grochow in the south-east, and the two ‘Defenders of Praga’ Regiments holding Saska Kepa and Goclaw in the south. In general reserve were the 29th Regiment (25th Division), 56th and 62nd Regiments (15th Division), and the three cavalry brigades (the latter now amalgamated into a Combined Cavalry Brigade under BrigadierGeneral Graham), plus groups of light artillery and a heavy artillery group. After the battle of the Bzura had ended, several of the German divisions from that battle rushed eastwards to tighten the ring around the Warsaw–Modlin perimeter. The XI. Armeekorps — with the 18. Infanterie-Division (Generalmajor Friedrich-Carl Cranz), 24. Infanterie-Division (Generalleutnant Friedrich Olbricht) and 19. Infanterie-Division (Generalleutnant Günther Schwantes) — progressively filled the line on the left of the 31. Division. The Leibstandarte-SS returned to take up positions between Warsaw and Modlin, Hitler having ordained that his elite SS force should be present to take its share of the glory of the upcoming final victory. On the 22nd, the 3. (leichte) Division (Generalmajor Adolf Kuntzen) inserted itself to the right of the 31. Division, along the south side of the perimeter, only to be relieved two days later by two divisions from the XIII. Armeekorps, which had come marching up from the south-west and south: the 10. Infanterie-Division (Generalleutnant Conrad von Cochenhausen) and the 46. Infanterie-Division (Generalleutnant Paul von Hase).

WARSAW UNDER BOMBARDMENT By September 19 — the day Hitler made his triumphal entry into Danzig (see After the Battle No. 65) — the campaign in Poland was essentially over. The war of movement had come to an end and the bulk of the Polish armies had been destroyed. Except for a few isolated pockets of resistance remaining on the Soviet border and on the Baltic coast, only Warsaw and Modlin were still holding out. The perimeter that linked the two strongholds was completely surrounded and — as the German General Staff told Hitler — their fall was now merely a matter of time. In mid-September, Hitler had personally intervened in the conduct of the campaign, not for military but for political reasons. Knowing the Soviets would soon invade Poland from the east, and that the agreed partition line between German and Soviet territory ran along the Vistula, he wished to make absolutely sure that Warsaw would fall before the Russians reached it, which was planned to happen on October 3. He therefore told his surprised generals that he wanted the city captured by September 30 at the latest. Rather than take it by a direct assault, he now chose to lay siege to the city and blast it into submission. He ordered von Rundstedt to assemble all his army group’s heavy artillery and mortars around the city and instructed Hermann Göring, the C-in-C of the Luftwaffe, to embark on a ruthless and all-out area bombing of the metropolis (Operation ‘Wasserkante’). The renewed aerial offensive began on the 13th when 183 Stukas and He 111s from Löhr’s Luftflotte 4 dropped their loads on the north-western part of Warsaw. The Jewish quarters were especially hard hit. The attacks continued on a daily basis, reaching a new crescendo on the 17th. Although the orders instructed the pilots to concentrate on strategic and military targets, such as the city’s water, gas and electricity works, military barracks, ammunition dumps, artillery positions and command centres (specifically the Citadel, the War Ministry and the General Inspectorate of the Army) and traffic hubs, in actuality the bombers and divebombers engaged in an indiscriminate area bombing, which by necessity led to massive collateral damage and thousands of civilian casualties. At the same time, German heavy and medium artillery, drawn up all around Warsaw under overall command of Generalmajor Johannes Zuckertort, began a ceaseless bombardment of the city, which added considerably to the damage and casualties. Every move in the Polish front line brought

down a salvo of shells and mortar bombs and every crossroads was subjected to periods of concentrated fire. The heavy artillery included big railway guns, large-calibre siege guns and heavy mortars, one round of which could pulverise entire blocks of buildings. The civilian population lived permanently in a twilight of dust, acrid smoke and gloom of underground shelters. The atmosphere in the beleaguered city had now turned decidedly bleak. All the shops were closed, with windows barred. No street was without damage. Broken water mains spouted fountains into the air and the smell of bust sewage pipes pervaded every corner. Many buildings had their windows shattered and walls scarred with shrapnel. Rescue workers were digging in smoking ruins, searching for survivors. Most of the inhabitants looked shabby and tired, many of them with blood-soaked bandages and the light of desperation in their eyes. Every cellar, subway, ditch and trench had its civilian occupants. Even in the front line there were women and children who could not be sent away. The troops shared out their food and water but it was a great problem to produce enough for all. Hospitals overflowed with wounded and thousands lay on blankets on stone floors waiting for attention from overworked doctors. Drugs and other medical supplies were getting scarce. With water mains hit so often that it was impossible to get water, fires blazed throughout the night, providing markers for the enemy pilots. Buildings collapsed without warning and burning gas mains lit up the debris-littered streets. In the late afternoon of the 16th — shortly after General Rómmel had refused the German demand for surrender and Colonel Sosabowski had sent back the German parliamentaire to his own lines — 12 Heinkel He 111s from I./KG4 dropped a million leaflets over Warsaw calling upon the civilian population to evacuate the city towards the east within 12 hours ‘in order to prevent useless bloodshed and the destruction of the city’. Loudspeaker vans, from positions close to the front line, blared out the same message. The dropping of leaflets was repeated on the 18th, 19th, 22nd and 24th. The only result of the whole action was an agreement that enabled the entire diplomatic corps and all foreign nationals to leave the city. The 178 diplomats and 1,200 other foreigners crossed the lines at Marki, north-east of Warsaw, during a temporary truce on the morning of the 21st — an event that German propaganda exploited to the full to demonstrate Germany’s goodwill. 15

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Meanwhile, there were outbursts of fierce fighting, mostly at night and mainly in the sector on the east bank of the Vistula. During the day, German machine guns sprayed the forward areas; the Polish guns mostly kept silent, unless they were certain of hitting a target, and many of the men slept in order to be fresh for night-fighting. Nearly every night, the Poles launched company-sized sallies against the German lines, or even regiment-sized break-out attempts to the east. On the 20th, the 11. Infanterie-Division repulsed one such attack, taking 100 prisoners. On September 22 forces of the 18. and 24. Infanterie-Division, attacking eastwards from the Kampinos Forest, reached the Vistula between Warsaw and Modlin, thereby cutting the last remaining lines of communication between the two strongholds and splitting the Polish perimeter into two separate cauldrons. Warsaw was now truly surrounded by a continuous ring of German troops. September 22 was also notable for a curious combat incident that happened on the German front line at Praga in eastern Warsaw. It involved Generaloberst Werner von Fritsch, the former Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres (Commander-in-Chief of the Army), who was killed by a Polish sniper while openly moving about in the forward areas of the 61. Division. Fritsch had been relieved of his post by Hitler in February 1938, the victim of false accusations of homosexuality levelled against him in the so-called Blom-Fritsch Affair. Though later cleared of all blame, his reputation and honour were irretrievably stained and it is pretty certain that Fritsch chose to inspect the Warsaw front lines, where he had no real business, in order to seek death deliberately. 16

mand of an army, but instead named him Honorary Colonel of his old regiment, Artillerie-Regiment 12, part of the 12. Infanterie-Division. The affair left Fritsch’s honour fatally hurt and, as he divulged to close intimates, he felt unable to live with the blemish. As the division passed east of besieged Warsaw, he chose to personally inspect the forward area of the German front line in Praga, a very unusual activity for someone of his rank. As he walked around the German barricade on Radzyminska Street, the main road entering Warsaw from the north-east, a Polish bullet (either a machine gun or a sniper) tore an artery in his leg and he fell to the ground. His adjutant, Lieutenant Rosenhagen, rushed to his aid but Fritsch retorted: ‘Please leave it’, lost consciousness and died within a few minutes. In all probability he had sought death deliberately by exposing himself to enemy fire. Right: The following day, a German PK photographer pictured the barricade where the incident had taken place.

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On September 22 — as it happened the very same day on which Hitler observed the bombarding of Warsaw from the Praga side of the city — an unusual incident happened when Generaloberst Werner von Fritsch (left), a man to whom Hitler owed much, was killed by a Polish bullet in the very same sector of the German front. An officer of the old Prussian school and a warm supporter of the Nazi regime, Fritsch had been appointed Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres (Commanderin-Chief of the Army) by Hitler in February 1934 and was one of the chief architects of the resurrection of the German Armed Forces after 1933. However, in February 1938, he had been forced to resign after allegations of homosexuality, concocted by Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler who wanted him out of the way. The charges soon proved false but, even though he was acquitted by a Court of Honour in March, his reputation was damaged and he was never reinstated as chief of the OKH. Hitler refused to give him com-

The whole affair was glossed over by German propaganda and Fritsch was buried in Berlin with full military honours on the 26th. After the fall of Warsaw, the Germans placed a commemorative marker at the spot on Radzyminska Street (named Wilnaer Strasse during the German occupation) where he had died. The inscription read: ‘Here on September 22, 1939 fell Generaloberst Freiherr von Fritsch’. The marker was destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and no trace of it remains today. (Fritsch was the second German general to be killed in combat during the Second World War, the first being SSBrigadeführer and Generalmajor der Ordnungspolizei Wilhelm Fritz von Roettig, who fell on September 10 near Opoczno when his staff car was ambushed by Polish troops.)

‘Black Monday’ — September 25, the day the Germans launched their general air and ground offensive against Warsaw. This aerial shot taken from a German reconnaissance aircraft shows smoke rising from numerous fires caused by the massive bombGENERAL ASSAULT ON THE CITY Meanwhile, everything was being readied for the final German assault on the besieged city. By now the forces surrounding Warsaw numbered eight divisions and some 175,000 soldiers. The plan was for a concentric attack by all divisions, with the main attack to be delivered by those of the XI. and XIII. Armeekorps from the west. On September 24, all German units, including those of the I. and II. Armeekorps of the 3. Armee east of the Vistula, were put under command of Blaskowitz’s 8. Armee, this to ensure good co-ordination in the forthcoming assault. Generalmajor Wolfram von Richthofen, the Fliegerführer z.b.V. in Luftflotte 4 (responsible for co-ordinating Stuka and other closesupport operations), was put in overall command of the air formations deployed in the attack. The final assault began on September 25 — ‘Black Monday’ as it came to be known by the people of Warsaw. As part of the offensive, the Luftwaffe launched its largest bombing raid to date. Starting at 8 a.m., some 370 aircraft from Luftflotte 1 — 240 Stukas from

ing and shelling. In the foreground is Praga, the part of the city east of the Vistula, and the two bridges are the Most Gdanski railway bridge, right, and the Most Kierbedzia road bridge, left. The main city on the far side of the river is covered in smoke.

five different Geschwader (StG 51, 76 and 77, and LG1 and 2), 100 Dornier Do 17 bombers from KG77 and 30 Junkers Ju-52 transport planes from IV./Kampfgeschwader z.b.V. 1 — unloaded an endless stream of bombs and incendiaries on the city. The Stukas and Dorniers could only drop bombs, not incendiaries, and Heinkels 111 were not available, so the Ju 52s were used to drop the phosphor bombs, both from their bomb racks and with dispatchers manually shoving the ordnance out of the open cargo doors. Rotating from their bases, with each crew flying three or four sorties, the 370 aircraft dropped a total of 500 tons of high-explosive bombs and 72 tons of incendiaries on the city. Warsaw became an inferno. The entire centre was badly damaged. In parts it was hardly possible to recognise streets as all the landmarks disappeared under the rubble. Columns of black smoke rose high above the city. For the Germans the air operation was a mixed success. The few remaining Polish anti-aircraft guns, firing off their last rounds, managed to shoot down two of the slowmoving Junkers. As the day went on, smoke

from fires and large clouds of dust obscured targets and greatly reduced accuracy. As a result, a significant number of the bombs landed on German infantry positions in the north-west suburbs, leading to acrimonious discussions between Luftwaffe and Army commanders. Among those observing the bombing that day was Hitler himself. Ever since September 4, the Führer and his Führerhauptquartier retinue had been touring the Polish battleground, visiting command posts, meeting troops, inspecting destroyed Polish materiel and viewing battered fortifications. On the 22nd he had already observed besieged Warsaw from the balcony of the tower of a race and sports stadium overlooking Praga in the 3. Armee sector, but today his schedule included a visit to the 8. Armee west of the city, timed to coincide with the start of the final assault and the culmination of the aerial and artillery bombardment of the beleaguered city. Using trench binoculars, Hitler and his entourage observed the bombing and shelling, watching the columns of smoke billowing up from the built-up area.

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Right: Three days after his first inspection of the Warsaw front, Hitler returned to the sector, this time to observe the grand finale of the Luftwaffe bombing attacks and the start of the final ground offensive against the city. His venue on this occasion was the sector of the XI. and XIII. Armeekorps on the western side of the city. Earlier in the day he had visited the Leibstandarte-SS, his own bodyguard unit turned military formation, which occupied positions between Warsaw and Modlin. Among those visible in this shot by Bildberichter Kliem of Propaganda-Kompanie 637 are Martin Bormann, Hitler’s private secretary and head of the Nazi Party chancellery (behind the left-hand binoculars), Generalmajor Erwin Rommel, the commander of the Führer-Begleit-Bataillon (on Hitler’s left); General der Artillerie Walter von Reichenau, commander of the 10. Armee (at the right-hand binoculars), and Generalmajor Friedrich Paulus, the 10. Armee Chief-of-Staff (just visible behind Reichenau). 17

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Division had tried to penetrate the city a fortnight earlier, still defended by the 2nd Battalion of the 40th ‘Children of Lwow’ Regiment. On September 26, the second day of the offensive, PK-Bildberichter Mensing pictured the crew of a PAK 36 antitank gun firing at an enemy resistance nest on the city’s edge.

Although the tram lines that used to run along Opaczewska Street have been lifted since the war and modern developments make it impossible to get an exact match, a close-up

shot taken from Drawska Street shows the block of flats that was the Polish resistance nest. It is the second block from the left and stands at the western end of Opaczewska Street.

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The final offensive engaged five infantry divisions in a concentric attack on the western half of the city. Faced with fierce Polish resistance, none of them made much headway, least of all the 31. Infanterie-Division attacking the south-western borough of Ochota. This was the same area where the 4. Panzer-

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Left: Four days later — after the fall of the city — Mensing pictured the same building showing clear evidence of the heavy fighting. On the first day of the attack (September 25), Major Antoni Kassian, the Polish battalion commander, was killed and Captain Zygmunt Neugebauer took over. On the second day, attacked by two battalions of infantry supported by tanks, the

4th Company, still under Lieutenant Jan Grzybowski, lost 40 per cent of its soldiers killed or wounded. The 6th Company under Lieutenant Zygmunt Michal Ziemba was severely hit too, and remnants of both companies pulled back down Opaczewska Street. Right: The devastation to the block of flats at Nos. 38-40 Opaczewska Street has been completely repaired.

Meanwhile, the German land assault was underway. Starting at dawn, five infantry divisions assailed the western half of the city — anti-clockwise from north to south the 18. and 19. Infanterie-Division (under XI. Armeekorps) and the 31., 10. and 46. Infanterie-Division (under XIII. Armeekorps). The offensive was supported by 70 batteries of field artillery, 80 batteries of heavy artillery and the entire available Stuka and closesupport capability of Luftflotten 1 and 4. The initial attacks focused on capturing the various 19th-century forts that ringed the city and formed the outer core of the Polish

defences. Each was to be tackled by assault teams of infantry and engineers equipped with ladders, pontoons, flame-throwers and explosive charges. In the 18. Division sector, teams from Infanterie-Regiment 51 and Pionier-Bataillon 48 managed to take Fort I (Mlociny) but failed to take Fort II (Wawrzyszew). In the 19. Division zone, Infanterie-Regiment 74 succeeded in taking possession of Fort III (Blizne) but the attack against Fort IIa (Babice) by Infanterie-Regiment 73 was repulsed with heavy casualties. In the 10. Division area, after a two-hour fight, assault teams from Infanterie-Regi-

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ment 20 and Pionier-Bataillon 10 seized Fort Mokotow, one of the city’s inner ring of fortifications, taking 269 prisoners. Further to the right, in the 46. Division sector, InfanterieRegiment 42 and Pionier-Bataillon 62, after an initial setback, captured Fort Pilsudski, another of the inner forts. Although four key forts had now been captured, the Germans were unable to push on across the open ground beyond and nowhere the attacking forces made much headway. By evening all attacks were halted, to be resumed the following morning. During the night, the Polish forces counter-attacked and managed to destroy several German outposts, especially in Mokotow in the south and Praga in the east. The story was much the same on the 26th. Again three of the forts were taken. The 18. Division in its second attempt managed to capture Fort II and the 19. Division grabbed hold of Fort IIa. In the 46. Division zone, Infanterie-Regiment 72 together with assault engineers of Pionier-Bataillon 88, after a bitter and prolonged fight, took possession of Fort IX (Dabrowskiego) at Czerniakow, taking 475 prisoners. Everywhere, the Polish garrison fought back with great courage and determination, and German progress remained slow, gains being measured in just a few hundred metres. Casualties were heavy on both sides.

Just a short distance down the street, in the Roman Catholic church at No. 20, is a plaque to fallen heroes of the 40th Regiment, the defenders of Wola and Ochota. It was dedicated on September 17, 1989, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the battle. 19

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CAPITULATION Despite having held off and slowed down the first blows of the offensive, the situation for the Polish commanders in Warsaw was now clearly and utterly hopeless. Although the garrison was still sufficiently strong in manpower to defend the city for several more weeks, it was only a question of time before their ammunition, rations and supplies would run out. Worse, the plight of the capital’s civilian population had become completely intolerable. The constant bombardment had resulted in heavy and mounting casualties. The destruction of the waterworks had caused a lack of both drinking water and water with which to extinguish the many fires raging all over the city. There was a lack of food and medical supplies and the hospitals were overtaxed by thousands of wounded soldiers and civilians. Irrespective of all that, strategically, the lack of support from the Western Allies, and the Soviet Union’s entry into the war, had made any further defence of the city completely pointless. Right: Numerous photographers and cameramen were on hand to record the important moment. The factory where the surrender ceremony unrolled is generally identified as the Skoda Works but by 1939 this was not really its proper name. It had housed the Polish division of Skoda (Polskie Zaklady Skody), which mainly produced engines for the Polish state-owned aircraft manufacturing company PZL, but this had been nationalised in 1936 and been renamed PZL WS-1 (Wytwornia Silnikow — Engine Works 1). However, most people still referred to it as the Skoda Works. The factory complex was blown up the Germans before their retreat in January 1945. 20

Praglowski, Deputy Commander and Chief-of-Staff of the Warsaw Army respectively, met with General Blaskowitz, commander of the 8. Armee, at the Skoda engine factory in the Rakowiece district on the south-western edge of Warsaw. PK-photographer Koch recorded the arrival of the Polish party.

In the late afternoon of the 26th General Rómmel called a ‘council of defence’ to discuss the situation. Among those attending were Mayor Starzynski and Generals Kutrzeba, Czuma, Zulauf, Alter and Abraham. After listening to each participant’s views, Rómmel announced his decision to open surrender negotiations with the Germans. All agreed and General Kutrzeba was appointed head of the parliamentary delegation. Early on the morning of September 27 Kutrzeba and Colonel Aleksander Prag-

lowski, Rómmel’s Chief-of-Staff, crossed the German lines to begin the capitulation talks. At 9.30 a.m. they met with General Blaskowitz. Many German units, as soon as news of the surrender talks reached them, immediately stopped their attack operations. At noon a cease-fire agreement was signed and all fighting halted. The formal capitulation was signed by General Kutrzeba at 1.15 p.m. the following day (September 28) in the 8. Armee’s command bus parked at the Skoda engine works

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Faced with a hopeless military situation and in view of the rapidly worsening plight of the civilian population, the Polish command of the Warsaw garrison had no other option than to begin capitulation talks with the Germans. Early on September 27, Lieutenant-General Tadeusz Kutrzeba and Colonel Aleksander

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The preparatory talks took place in an 8. Armee headquarters command bus. Kutrzeba (right) and Colonel Praglowski (left) are in the foreground and General Blaskowitz is the centre one seated on the left.

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at Rakowiec in south-western Warsaw. The surrender terms stipulated the following: On September 29 all Polish units were to lay down their arms in specified areas; disarmed units were to gather in indicated areas; barricades, road-blocks and trenches on the main roads were to be destroyed and mines removed; units were to march out of Warsaw along certain routes according to a programme, under their own officers; privates and NCOs were to be released from prisoner of war camps and returned home after a few days; officers were to go to POW camps but to retain their sabres; officers not surrendering would, on capture, be treated as criminals and not accorded rights under the Geneva Convention; and troops were to carry enough food for three days. Several of the Polish units declined to put down their weapons and stop firing, and their commanding officers had to be visited by Generals Czuma and Rómmel personally. Many units chose to hide or destroy their heavy armament rather than surrender it. The few remaining 7-TP tanks were destroyed by their crews. (Some of the hidden war material would later be used during the Warsaw Uprising of August 1944 — see After the Battle No. 143). At 6 p.m. on September 29 the evacuation of Polish forces to German prisoner of war camps started. It continued all day on the 30th. The following day, October 1, German units entered the city. The battle for Warsaw was over.

The final signing of the surrender took place at the Skoda works shortly after 1 p.m. on September 28. Present on behalf of the Warsaw Army, in addition to Kutrzeba (here listening to General Blaskowitz with the help of an interpreter) and Colonel Praglowski, were Lieutenant-Colonel Marian Kulakowski, the chief quartermaster, and Lieutenant-Colonel Dr. Leon Strehl, the chief medical officer. The civilian delegation consisted of Stefan Starzynski, the President (Mayor) of Warsaw (fourth from left); Dr. Konrad Orzechowski, director of the city’s hospital department; Felicjan Jablonski, chief of food supply; and Dr. Stanislaw Lorentz, director of the National Museum. The Germans had demanded that Starzynski, who had been a pillar of strength to

the population and a shining light to the free world during the three-week siege, be present at the ceremony. In the final days of the battle, Starzynski had been offered to leave the city several times. On the 26th, the pilot of a PZL.46 Sum light bomber, who had flown into the beleaguered city with orders for the Warsaw Army from Marshal Rydz-Smigly, offered to evacuate him to Lithuania. He was invited to go underground and receive plastic surgery in order to escape the city. However, Starzynski refused all offers. After the Germans entered the city, he was allowed to continue as Mayor until finally arrested by the Gestapo on October 27. He died in German captivity, most probably on October 17, 1943, in Dachau concentration camp. 21

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A total of 102,000 troops surrendered in Warsaw. Their evacuation from the capital began in the evening of September 29 and continued throughout the 30th. Units marched out in companies under their own officers, surrendering their arms and ammunition at pre-arranged places in the city, and continuing on to prisoner of war camps in western Poland.

the town of Kock south-east of Warsaw, only gave up on October 6. The Polish Army had lost approximately 6,000 men killed and 16,000 wounded at Warsaw. Some 100,000 soldiers (5,000 officers and 97,000 men) were taken into captivity. The civilian population suffered 25,800

dead and approximately 50,000 wounded. The four weeks of German aerial bombardments and artillery shelling had reduced 12 per cent of the city to ruins. No official list of German casualties was published but they are estimated at 1,500 killed and 5,000 wounded.

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It was however not yet the final end of all fighting. Modlin Fortress had held out one day longer than Warsaw, capitulating on the 28th. The Hela peninsula on the Baltic coast surrendered on October 1. The last remaining Polish force, the 17,000-strong Independent Operational Group Polesie defending

Karel was lucky to find this location on Pulawska Street in Mokotow, the main road leading out of Warsaw to the south. The tower in the background stands next to the Sw. Michaila Archamiola (St Michael Archangel) Church. The old church from 1856 was destroyed by German bombardments during the August 1944 uprising. It was rebuilt to a different design in 1945-47.

The mass of rifles, machine guns, anti-tank guns, helmets and other equipment surrendered by the Polish troops on Krasinski Square in the Old Town. 22

The view is towards the corner of Miodowa and Dluga Streets. Heavily damaged in the 1944 uprising, the corner has undergone a major transformation since the war.

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Above: With the evacuation of all Polish troops completed, German forces officially entered Warsaw on October 1. To celebrate their victory, the 10. InfanterieDivision held a parade through the city — the first of a series of divisional parades that were clearly also designed to impress the people of Warsaw of German might. Here the formations line up for the march on Plac Polytechniki (Polytechnic Square) in Mokotow in southern Warsaw. Right: The main auditorium building of the Polytechnika Warszawska (Warsaw University of Technology) remains unaltered. The street passing it on the left is Nowowieska and the one on the right Stanislawa Naokowskiego. (As historical irony would have it, this square was also the site where General Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski met with the Germans to discuss the Polish surrender at the end of the Warsaw Uprising on October 3, 1944 — see After the Battle No. 143).

Left: Shortly after the start of the parade, the troops march past a horse-mounted general. Although the official wartime caption identifies him as ‘the divisional commander’, it cannot be Generalleutnant Conrad von Cochenhausen, as he was taking the salute further down the route. In all probability he is one of the corps commanders, most likely General der Kavallerie

Maximilian von Weichs of the XIII. Armeekorps under whose command the 10. Division had operated during the siege. Right: This is Ulica Marszalkowska (Marshal Street), one of the main thoroughfares of the city centre, at its viaduct crossing with the Aleja Armii Lodowej. The church is the Kosciol Zbawiciela (Church of the Holiest Saviour) on Plac Zbawiciela. 23

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their southward leg. Here they march across Plac Teatralny (Theatre Square) into Wierbowa Street, watched by silent crowds.

The neo-classical building housing the Grand Theatre and National Opera was bombed and half-destroyed during the

August 1944 fighting. Painstakingly restored to its old glory by the post-war Polish Communist regime, it was re-opened in 1965.

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Having paraded northwards along the length of Marshal Street, the men of the 10. Infanterie-Division made a right turn to begin

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Left: Continuing on to Plac Marszalka Jozefa Pilsudskiego (Pilsudski Square), the troops parade past their divisional commander, Generalleutnant Conrad von Cochenhausen. He and his staff, all mounted on horses, had taken up position in front of the Saxon Palace and the equestrian statue of Marshal of Poland Jozef Poniatowski (1763-1813). The palace was the seat of the Polish General Staff and also the site of the Tomb of the Polish Unknown Soldier. Right: The palace and the statue were both blown up by the Germans after the collapse of the 1944 uprising,

the only part left standing being the central colonnade sheltering the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The palace was never rebuilt, leaving just a large open space between the square and the Saxon Garden. The statue, by Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvadsen and dating from 1832, was recast from the original mould in 1965, but it was not restored to its old place. Instead, it was relocated to the courtyard of the Presidential Palace on Krakowskie Przedmiescie. Excavations of the palace wing sites were in progress during our visit, hence the steel fencing.

In the days following the surrender, every German corps and division involved in the final offensive held its own victory parade in Warsaw. On October 1, the 10. InfanterieDivision marched in from the south. The divisional commander, Generalleutnant von Cochenhausen, reviewed his troops mounted on a white horse in front of the Saxon Palace on Pilsudski Square in the centre of the city. The division was earmarked as occupation force for Warsaw and would remain in the area until December when it was relieved and ordered to transfer to Marburg in Germany.

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The route of the 10. Infanterie-Division’s parade. [1] Polytechnic Square. [2] Theatre Square. [3] Pilsudski Square.

Pilsudski Square is Warsaw’s largest square and the traditional venue for military parades. During the German occupation, it was named Adolf-Hitler-Platz. Then, after 1946, it became Plac Zwyciestwa (Victory Square) and today it is again Pilsudski Square.

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Buildings of modern architecture today flank either ends of the square, the five-star Victoria Hotel on its southern side dating from 1976. 25

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led across Plac Teatralny, where a saluting base had been set up for Generalmajor Friedrich-Carl Cranz (just outside of the picture to the left).

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The following day, October 2, at least four more of the divisions that had been engaged in the siege of Warsaw held their own victory parades. The route of the 18. Infanterie-Division

Time marches on. The view looking east across the empty square towards Senatorska Street over seven decades later. 26

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Right: The Divisionskapelle (divisional band) leading the march-past. The neoRenaissance building in the background is the Jablonowski Palace, also known as the Ratusz (Town Hall). The official seat of the President of Warsaw, this is where Stefan Starzynski had had his civilian defence headquarters during the siege. It was certainly no coincidence that the saluting bases for the German victory parades were located right in front of the main seats of military and civilian command of the just-vanquished enemy — the 10. Division parading past the headquarters of the Polish General Staff and the 18. Division past that of the Civilian Commissar of the capital — both venues clearly and deliberately chosen to impress the might of the new ruling regime on the Poles. Note the shrapnel marks to the walls of the Ratusz and the damage to the roof of the Blank Palace next door — results of the German bombing and shelling. The following day, October 2, elements of four different divisions — the 18., 19., 31. and 46. — made their triumphal entry. The 18. Division paraded through the city centre, with Generalmajor Cranz taking the salute on Plac Teatralny (Theatre Square). The 19. Division held its parade on the west side of the Saxon Garden, one battalion per regiment passing in front of Generalleutnant Schwantes on Bankowy Square. The 31. Division, although it had been in the line in the south-west, marched in from the east, parading down Aleja Jerozolimski (Jerusalem Avenue) with the divisional commander, Generalleutnant Kämpfe, saluting his troops from a black stallion in front of the main railway station. In yet another parade, Generalleutnant von Petzel, the I. Armeekorps commander, took the salute from an improvised stage at the eastern end of the great Poniatowski Bridge, the troops then proceeding to Pilsudski Square to pass in front of their divisional commander.

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Right: Five years later, during the 1944 uprising, this same building would become a main strongpoint of the Polish insurgents and be completely destroyed by the Germans. The ruins were cleared away in 1952-58 but the palace was rebuilt in the 1990s according to the original pre-1936 architectural plans.

Left: More troops crossing Plac Teatralny with the Grand Theatre-National Opera on the left. Note the bomb-gutted

building at the far end of the square. Right: The same view today, taken from the corner of Nowy Przejadzd Street. 27

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most modern stations in Europe, the still unfinished building had been partly destroyed in a fire on June 6, 1939 — a few weeks before the outbreak of war. Initially many people believed that it had been an act of sabotage by German or Soviet agents but the conflagration had in fact been accidentally started by a team of careless welding contractors.

The half-finished building was repaired and completed by the Germans and taken into use in 1940 but then blown up by them in January 1945. After the war, a provisional main

station was opened nearby and used until 1975 when it was superseded by the new Warsaw Central Station that exists today.

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Simultaneously with the 18. Infanterie-Division, other divisions made their triumphal entry on October 2. The 31. InfanterieDivision held its parade on Aleja Jerozolimskie, the divisional commander, Generalleutnant Rudolf Kämpfe, taking the salute from in front of the Warsaw Main Railway Station (see the plan on page 30). Begun in 1932, and planned to become one of the

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on Ochota on September 25-26. In the background is the square tower on Marshal Street, which we earlier saw on page 4.

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Included in the parade was a group of PzKpfw II belonging to the panzer detachment that had supported the division in its attacks

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All the buildings around this spot have been supplanted by modern high-rise development.

Left: After the tanks came the long columns of infantry, marching three abreast. The view is eastwards, towards Poniatowski Bridge in the far distance. Right: On this side of Jerusalem

Avenue, a few originals buildings remain. The Hotel Polonia on the right has the dubious distinction of being the only hotel in Warsaw to have emerged from the war completely unscathed. 29

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The column for yet another divisional parade entered the city from Praga, crossing the Vistula via the Poniatowski Bridge.

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Above: Taking the salute from an improvised podium at the eastern end of the bridge (the remains of the barricade that blocked access to it during the siege) was Generalleutnant Walter Petzel, commander of the I. Armeekorps. Below: The ornamental portico towers flanking the bridge make for an easy comparison.

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Although the thoroughfare across the bridge is Jerusalem Avenue and leads directly to Warsaw main railway station seen in the photos of the march-past of the 31. Division, this is undoubtedly not the same parade. As we will see further on, this one turned north before reaching the station and proceeded along Krakowskie Przedmiescie to arrive at Pilsudski Square where their divisional commander was waiting to take the salute. [1] Poniatowski Bridge. [2] Main Railway Station. [3] Pilsudski Square. [4] Aleja Ujazdowskie. 30

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Above: The standard set up behind General Petzel is the tactical sign for a corps headquarters. One can assume that these troops belonged to one of the two divisions of Petzel’s I. Armeekorps — either the 11. or the 61. Infanterie-Division — but it is not known which one, nor have we found the date on which this parade was held. The three divisions holding the eastern half of the ring around Warsaw (the 217. Infanterie-Division of the II. Armeekorps being the third) did not engage fully in the final offensive of September 25-26, limiting themselves to diversionary attacks and continuing the routine of bombarding the city with heavy artillery, so one can presume that their parades were held after those of the divisions that had done the main fighting. Right: Poniatowski Bridge is usually very busy with traffic but Karel caught a quiet moment to match up the shot looking east towards Praga.

Left: Petzel shaking hands with one of his subordinate commanders. Right: Poniatowski Bridge was blown up by the Germans on September 13, 1944. Rebuilt to a simpler design in

1945-46 and widened in 1963-66, it was only in 2004 that enough funds were available for the reconstruction of the pair of small towers at either end. 31

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Staszic Palace, the seat of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and the bronze statue of Nicolaus Copernicus in front of it (another work by Bertel Thorvadsen) is one of Warsaw’s main landmarks.

Left: Turning around, the PK-Bildberichter pictured the head of the parade passing the Kosciol Swietokrzyski (Church of the Holy Cross), one of Poland’s most-notable places of worship. Right: The Baroque church was severely damaged during the Warsaw Uprising, among others by the detonation

of two Goliath tracked mines inside the building on September 6, 1944, and then completely blown up by the Germans in January 1945. Rebuilding started immediately in 1945 and was completed in 1953, albeit in a simplified architectural form.

Left: Having turned the corner and proceeded down Krolewska Street, the troops enter Pilsudski Square. The building in the background is the Dom bez Kantów (House without Corners), a military building housing both the headquarters of the Warsaw garrison, the Central Military Library and apartment buildings

for officers and married NCOs. Left: During the German occupation the building served as the headquarters of the NSDAPGauleiter of the Warsaw district, which partly explains why it did not fall victim to German demolitions in 1944-45. Today, many of the apartments are privately owned.

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Left: Having turned north, the parade proceeds down Krakowskie Przedmiescie, one of the best-known and most-prestigious streets of Warsaw. Right: The building in the background is the

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This is most likely Generalleutnant Siegfried Hänicke of the 61. Infanterie-Division taking the salute from his horse on Pilsudski Square.

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Above: Having passed their divisional commander, the troops turn right to leave Pilsudski Square via Ossolinskich Street. Contrary to Generalleutnant von Cochenhausen the day before, this general had taken up a position not in front of the Saxon Palace but facing it, the general rule for a military parade in the Wehrmacht probably being that troops pass in front of their commander from left to right. Note the burned-out building on the left, part of the Hotel Angielski, before the war one of the most important and elegant hotels in the capital. Right: The Angielski was pulled down during the German occupation, the site remaining a car park for many years after the war. Today, the Metropolitan office centre, a creation of architect Norman Foster completed in 2003, takes up the entire northern façade of the square. 33

Left: The apotheosis of all the parades in Warsaw came on October 5 when a huge victory march-past was organised attended by the Führer himself. Hitler flew in to Okecie airport where he was received by guards of honour from army and air force and greeted by the assembled generals and representa-

Generalmajor Erwin Rommel, the newly appointed commander of the FührerBegleit-Bataillon (Führer Escort Battalion), who had flown to Warsaw on the 2nd especially to make the arrangements. Hitler flew in to Okecie airport from Berlin in the morn-

ing, where he was met by Generaloberst Walther von Brauchitsch, Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres (Commander-in-chief of the Army) and Generals Blaskowitz and von Reichenau. In his big open Mercedes he made a tour of the city, crossing Pilsudski

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The series of march-pasts culminated in the massive victory parade on Thursday, October 5, attended by Hitler, the commanders-in-chief of the three services and all the top commanders of the just-completed campaign. The spectacle had been organised by

tives of party and state. Here he shakes hands with (L-R) Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt, the commander of Heeresgruppe Süd; General Blaskowitz and General von Reichenau. Right: The Führer’s Mercedes passing the Saxon Palace on Pilsudski Square (note that Hitler is holding a street plan of the city).

soldiers awaiting the arrival of the Führer. Note the newsreel cameraman on the roof of the car. Right: The Leszczynski Palace and the adjoining Sleszynski Palace at No. 25 were both destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising later in the war, but painstakingly rebuilt in 1947-48.

Left: As the Führer’s Mercedes arrives at the saluting base, he is greeted by a sea of Nazi salutes. Right: During the German occupation of Poland, the Leszczynski Palace became the seat of the SS- und Polizeiführer (SS and Police Chief) in Warsaw.

After hostilities had ended it was taken over for use as the Yugoslavian and Serbian Embassies until 2008 when, after a long legal dispute, it was handed back to the son of the pre-war private owner.

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Left: The parade was held on Aleja Ujazdowskie, the grand avenue lined with palaces and embassies in the south of the main city. The saluting base had been set up opposite the Leszczynski Palace at No. 23 (see [4] on the plan on page 30). Bildberichter Mensing pictured the military band and mass of

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infantry troops as they march by. Standing behind him are (L-R) Generals von Küchler, Keitel and (facing the camera) Blaskowitz.

Today a bus stop marks the former location of the Führer’s saluting base. The view is looking north up Aleja Ujazdowskie.

The dome in the background is that of the St Alexander’s Church on Three Crosses Square (see page 12).

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All the divisions that had taken part in the final offensive of September 25-26 provided units and detachments to take part in the victory parade. Here the Führer salutes a column of

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so these Panzer I and IIs must have originated from the independent panzer units that had been attached to the infantry divisions for the final assaults of late September.

Looking south down Aleja Ujazdowskie today. The building on the right, just south of Frederic Chopin Street, now houses government bureaus. During the Nazi occupation, Aleja Ujazdowskie was first Germanised into Linden-Allee. Then, in October 1940,

on the first anniversary of the parade, the Germans renamed it Siegesstrasse (Victory Street). In 1953, following the death of Josef Stalin, it was renamed Aleja Stalina (Stalin Avenue). Three years later the traditional name was restored again.

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The 4. Panzer-Division, which had been the first to reach and attack Warsaw, had somehow been overlooked and not been invited to send a detachment to represent them at the parade,

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Among those standing with Hitler on the rostrum were (L-R) Generaloberst Walther von Brauchitsch, Commander-in-Chief of the Army; Generaloberst Keitel, chief of the OKW; Generaloberst von Rundstedt, commander of Heeresgruppe Süd; the three army commanders Generals von Küchler, Reichenau, and Blaskowitz; and the two air force commanders Generals Alexander Löhr and Albert Kesselring of Luftflotten 4 and 1 respectively. Standing on the pavement was Generalmajor Erwin Rommel, the commander of the Führer-Begleit-Bataillon, who had been in charge of organising the parade.

The Warsaw victory parade was one of the largest military parades ever staged by the Wehrmacht, and was certainly the largest ever held in the capital of a country conquered by the Nazi Germany. It was only superseded in magnitude by the giant parade held in Berlin on April 20, 1939, to celebrate Hitler’s 50th birthday (see After the Battle No. 64). Whereas the Warsaw march-past mustered some 20,000 troops and took two hours, the Berlin one, held on the Charlottenburger Chaussee, included 50,000 troops and lasted for four hours.

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Square, before alighting at the podium that had been erected on Aleja Ujazdowskie, the grand avenue in the diplomatic and aristocratic quarter of Warsaw. The streets along which the big parade proceeded were lined with German troops but the virtual complete absence of civilians was a clear sign by the capital’s population that to them Warsaw was a city of the dead. The massive parade lasted a full two hours as an endless procession of armoured, horse-mounted, infantry, engineer and artillery troops of all infantry divisions involved in the siege drove, marched and goose-stepped past Hitler and his generals. (The 4. Panzer-Division, which had made the initial incursion into the city, had been overlooked and did not participate.) Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s favourite film-maker, was present with her cameramen to film the whole event. Following the parade, Hitler visited the Belvedere Castle, the former seat of the late Marshal Jozef Pilsudski. Back at the airfield, there was an embarrassing incident between Hitler and his generals. Hitler had ordered a field-kitchen meal to be served on the airfield and General Blaskowitz, thinking that the occasion warranted a gala display, had extra tables and benches arranged in the hangars, complete with paper tablecloths and flower decorations. For some reason Hitler reacted furiously. Seeing the festive dinner tables, he turned around brusquely, took a few spoonfuls of soup from a field-kitchen truck outside, talked to a few soldiers standing around and, snubbing Brauchitsch’s attempts to change his mind, boarded his aircraft with his aides and flew back to Berlin, leaving the generals on the airfield decidedly discomfited and offended.

The various corps commanders present in the second row on the rostrum stood ready to introduce their subordinate units to the Führer as they approached. Here it is the turn of General der Kavallerie Maximilian von Weichs, commander of the XIII. Armeekorps.

The view looking south down Aleja Ujazdowskie from Three Crosses Square (with St Alexander’s Church on the right). The troops are marching towards the camera. Note the scarcity of spectators. We have arrowed the position of Hitler’s saluting base. 37

ROBERT LOUGHNAN

CAMPO PRIGIONIERI DI GUERRA 57

From the autumn of 1941 to September 1943 there existed near Udine, in the far north-eastern corner of upper Italy, a prisoner of war camp known as Campo Prigionieri di Guerra 57 (Campo P.G. 57 for short). Originally set up to house Yugoslav, Albanian and Greek prisoners from Italy’s war in the Balkans, it soon came to be the main camp for Australian and New Zealand NCOs and other ranks captured in North Africa. The Italian camp commandant was a strict disciplinarian, yet most inmates considered it the best camp they had experienced in Italy. Top: These Italian guards are on duty at the main gate. 38

By Jeffrey Plowman and Stefano Di Giusto CAMPO P.G. 57

NZ OFFICIAL HISTORY

The decision by the Italian authorities to build a prisoner of war camp below the Julian Alps on the Friuli plains in far northeastern Italy, close to the Yugoslav border, dates back to the closing stages of the Balkan conflict in 1941. It was near Borgo San Mauro, just outside Premariacco (east of Udine), that a number of tents to hospitalise a group of Yugoslavian POWs were set up. These were gradually replaced by wooden barracks, which were later faced with brick. The tents were removed and taken south where they were erected at another camp being developed at Gonars (later Campo Prigionieri di Guerra 89, or Campo P.G. 89) to house captured Croatian and Slovenian soldiers, as well as women and children. With the promise of more prisoners from the North African conflict, Campo P.G. 57 at Premariacco was eventually expanded to house them, the largest number being from Australia and New Zealand. To the ANZACs — and ultimately their national authorities — it became more generally known as Campo P.G. 57 Gruppignano because of a sign on a small siding, just beyond the town of Moimacco, where prisoners were unloaded prior to being marched to the camp.

Right: Another view of the main gate, now seen from the road leading past the camp. The two pillars topped by San Marco’s lions, the symbol of Venice, were added during the expansion of the facility in 1942.

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ROBERT LOUGHNAN

As initially set up the camp consisted of two compounds, each capable of holding 800 prisoners and each with its own set of huts, cookhouse, orderly room, ablutions and latrines. The latter, though considered adequate, were plagued by poor drainage, especially later on. The huts were 27.5 × 9 metres long standing on concrete foundations. Each hut had two-tier bunks in batches of eight accommodating a total of 96 men. There was only enough fuel for three to four hours heating a night, each inmate being issued with one single and one double blanket. There was also a recreation hut in each compound but around the end of 1941 these were used to house prisoners. Later on a library was established, the books coming via the Red Cross. The perimeter fence consisted of barbed wire strands, some five metres high, followed by coils of double concertina wire with further barbed wire and concertina wire. The entire length of the fence was covered by guard towers, machine-gun posts and searchlights, as well as being patrolled by sentries. The camp was commanded by an officer from the Carabinieri, Colonel Vittorio E. Calcaterra, a man noted as a stern disciplinarian. Some of his regulations were considered to be nitpicking, while his punishments could be brutal. Prisoners could be sentenced to 30 days’ solitary confinement for not standing to attention at the raising or lowering of the Italian flag; not saluting an Italian officer, or not wearing sufficient clothing near the perimeter fence! Brutality was not Right: The same view today, looking south. The present road is not named but eventually joins the Via S. Paolino that runs into the village of Borgo San Mauro about two kilometres away.

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This is a plan of the camp as it looked in its final form. We have indicated the position of the escape tunnel that was dug from Hut 5 in Compound No. 3 in September-October 1942.

(This map was modified by Jeff Plowman from one originally drafted by Bob Beecroft, to include details of the outer perimeter buildings.) 39

ROBERT LOUGHNAN

ROBERT LOUGHNAN

THE ARRIVAL OF ALLIED PRISONERS It is not clear when the first Commonwealth prisoners arrived but the first Australians came towards the end of October 1941 followed soon after by a group of 200, mainly from the 2/23rd and 2/24th Battalions. They were all NCOs and other ranks, the officers going to Campo P.G. 78 at Sulmona (see After the Battle No. 81). As the camp gradually emptied of Yugoslav and Greek prisoners, it became the main Italian prison for ANZAC NCOs and other ranks and by December 1941 it held 1,000 prisoners. There were still 30 Serbs and three Greeks but with 753 Australians and 34 New Zealanders, the ANZAC complement was now in the majority. The New Zealand representation rose sharply when a group of 400 was transferred from the transit camp (Campo P.G. 66) at Capua in January 1942. 40

The inner gate had a sentry box on one side and a guard tower on the other.

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discouraged and so beatings and handcuffing of prisoners often took place. On one occasion Colonel Calcaterra took exception to the beard on one Australian and ordered all beards be removed. When the camp leader objected to this, Calcaterra ordered all heads to be shaved as well. This brought down howls of complaints from the Australians and then open amusement, driving Calcaterra into a fit of rage. At this point he rushed out of the camp and brought back guards with fixed bayonets, a machine gun, and a cart loaded with handcuffs. Those prisoners who refused to be shaved were then fettered and led away to the cells. The Australians took it in their stride as halfway through the proceedings one of them (as described in their official history), ‘on leaving the barber’s chair, bleated like a sheep and scampered away jumping a non-existent hurdle in imitation of a sheep being released. This was taken up by the others until the compound resembled a burlesque of a sheep sheering yard.’ The matter did not end there as that night a plaintive ‘baa’ coming from one of the huts was taken up by inmates of the other huts, the racket continuing throughout the night. Worse still, when Colonel Calcaterra discovered the next day that those placed in detention had not been shaved, his anger then resounded on the guards. Apart from all this, most of the new arrivals considered P.G. 57 as one of the best camps in Italy from the point of view of the food, the neatness of the huts and its well turned out inmates.

Another picture taken near the main gate but this time looking into the camp. On the left are two more of the buildings in the Italian administrative area and vaguely visible behind the sentry box is the second gate, the one giving access to the prisoners’ section of the camp. The huts in the distance are those of compound No. 5, which was completed in late 1942, so this picture must date from after that. This is one of a series of photographs apparently taken by one of the guards.

ROBERT LOUGHNAN

Between the main gate (just out of sight to the right in this shot – note the lion pillar) and the prisoners’ compound was the Italian administrative area. The three large huts to the right of the main camp road seen here probably comprised guards’ barracks, staff offices and storage rooms. On the extreme left is one of the four pillboxes that were situated beside the outer perimeter fence. The other three were in the south-west corner and on the eastern side of the camp.

The old camp road is now just a dirt track known as the Strada Crotania. In the 1950s it led to an Italian Army ammunition dump beyond the site of the old camp. These days it provides access to a riding school in the trees in the middle distance.

ROBERT LOUGHNAN

ROBERT LOUGHNAN

Stefano found that an exact comparison was impossible due to the vegetation in the area but the ridgeline of the Eastern Alps confirms the match. came to the decision simply as a way of coping with the increasing number of prisoners. In October 1942 the first call for volunteers was made, initially for construction work. This was followed by another request in

December, the prisoners being sent to a work camp 200 kilometres away at Bussolengo, near Verona (Campo P.G. 148), where they worked on digging a canal as part of a large hydro-electric scheme using waters

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ROBERT LOUGHNAN

It was due to the arrival of these prisoners, and with the promise of more, that resulted in the camp being enlarged, work starting around November/December 1941. Compound No. 3, comprising 12 huts in three rows of four, was completed in July 1942 and Nos. 4 (four huts) and 5 (ten huts) were ready by November. A separate hospital compound with two huts and a prison compound, both located at the rear of the camp, were also added. By mid-July 1942, the camp numbered 1,609 inmates, including 976 Australians, 444 New Zealanders, 105 Cypriots, 36 Indians, 24 Palestinians, nine Rhodesians, seven Canadians, four Greeks, three English, one Irish and one Chinese. In September 1942 there was an influx of prisoners who had been captured at El Alamein, many of them survivors of the Italian troopship Nino Bixio, which had been torpedoed (but not sunk) between Benghazi and Sicily by the British submarine HMS Turbulent on August 17. (Of the 3,000 POWs aboard, 300 were killed, including 41 Australians and 116 New Zealanders.) By the end of that month, the number of inmates at Campo P.G. 57 had risen to 2,449, the Australian complement now numbering 1,234 and the New Zealanders 1,009. While the employment of NCOs and other ranks on non-military work schemes was permitted under the Geneva Convention, the Italians appeared somewhat slow to embrace this; in fact it would appear they initially

seen at the end of the row of prisoner’s huts is the kitchen block for that enclosure. Right: This shot shows the front row of huts in Compound No. 1, with Compound No. 2 in the distance.

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Left: The same guard who took the snapshot at the main gate took three more photos from the guard tower beside the secondary gate, which together form a panorama of the camp. This is the view of Compound No. 5. The prominent building

Left: Turning his camera southwards, the guard pictured the chapel under construction in the south-west corner of Compound No. 1. The foundations were laid down in early 1942 but it was not completed until just before the departure of the

POWs in September 1943. The tower in the far distance is that of the church at San Mauro. Right: Beautifully restored between 1991-95, the chapel now remains as the worthy reminder that this was once the site of a POW camp. 41

ROBERT LOUGHNAN

Right: Taken from the guard tower at the south-western corner of the prisoners’ section, this is looking in the opposite direction compared with the view on page 41. The building on the left is the POW Leader’s hut in Compound No. 5 and the huts on the right are in Compound No. 1. The chapel under construction is just outside the picture to the right, as evidenced by the piles of sand and bricks and the wheelbarrows in the foreground. Note the trip wire running along the inner side of the fence. The stony strip in between was strictly out of bounds and prisoners would be shot if caught there.

The chapel and the mountains in the distance helped Stefano to line up the match. ceal the exit. Initial tests of the soil were also encouraging as at a depth of 3-4 metres the ground was considered stable enough to support a tunnel. Work commenced in mid-September, aided by the steady influx of new prisoners to this compound, whose arrival upset the normal search routines. The tunnel was dug from Hut 5, which was within 30 metres of the perimeter fence on the north-east corner

of the compound, well away from the administrative buildings outside the wire. For digging, all the prisoners possessed was a pickaxe stolen from the Italians and a tin hat that was used as a shovel. Spoil from the tunnel face was removed by a small sledge and deposited under the hut. Even so this could not take all the excavated dirt, the rest being spread over the cricket pitch and raked in with the sand.

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BOB BEECROFT

ESCAPES The first escape attempt from the camp occurred on February 8, 1942 when Private Arthur Wright, a New Zealander from the 18th NZ Battalion, was shot and killed while attempting to crawl through the wire at night. Later, during a parade of all senior NCOs, Colonel Calcaterra boasted that during World War I no prisoner had escaped from a camp in Italy and no one would from his camp. This only seemed to provide an impetus to the inmates to prove him wrong and the completion of Compound No. 3 gave the ideal opportunity. The idea of a tunnel had first been raised in August 1942 by Sergeant Noel Ross, an Australian sapper from the 2/13th Field Company, who thought it might be possible to dig from a hut in the new compound taking advantage of its proximity to the wire. An additional plus was the presence of a millet field beyond the perimeter to con-

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of the Adige river. In the spring and summer of 1943 there were more calls for volunteers for agricultural work, some in the vicinity of Gruppignano while others were sent to the upper reaches of the Po river. Despite the work details being sent elsewhere, the camp reached its highest total in March 1943 when it held 4,460 prisoners of which 1,627 were Australian and 1,806 New Zealanders. The final surge of prisoners to the camp occurred at the end of July 1943 after the Allies started bombing southern Italy. This resulted in the evacuation of prisoners, in particular from Campo P.G. 85 at Tuturano, Campo P.G. 75 at Bari and Campo P.G. 65 at Gravina-Altamura, the officers going to Campo P.G. 47 Modena and the rest to Campo P.G. 57. Such was the haste with which these evacuations were carried out that many, like Private Ernest Plowman (Jeffrey Plowman’s father), were railed north in first class carriages.

Left: The Camp Leader’s hut was used to store Red Cross parcels and food. Prisoner Lee Hill from New Zealand, who somehow had got hold of a camera, pictured some of the prisoners’ staff outside the building: (L-R) Second Warrant Officer R. F. Thorpe of the 25th NZ Battalion; Second Warrant Officer 42

Allan Beecroft of the 2/12nd Australian Infantry Battalion, in charge of Compound No. 2, and Reverend Major Robert McDowell from New Zealand, senior padre at the camp. Right: Bob Beecroft standing in for his father on the approximate same spot during his visit to the site in May 2011.

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Private Arthur Wright from the 18th NZ Battalion was shot and killed by a guard while attempting to escape on the night of February 8/9, 1942. Today he lies buried in Udine War Cemetery in Section V, Plot E, Grave 9.

Another casualty was Australian Corporal Edward Symons from the 2/32nd Battalion, fatally shot in the chest by a guard during a soccer match brawl on May 20, 1943. He lies at Udine in Section IV, Plot G, Grave 2.

CONSTRUCTION OF THE CHAPEL Initially, a chapel was set up for prisoners in one half of a hut but this was not very satisfactory as it was only separated by a wooden partition which meant that other POWs had to sit quietly on the other side while services were conducted. Consequently, when the idea of building a chapel was put forward by Don Giovanni Cotta, it was enthusiastically supported by Reverend Captain Tom Lynch, a British Army chaplain assigned to the camp, and Bombardier Ambrose Loughnan from the 6th NZ Field Regiment. Volunteers were sought and many came forward, no doubt encouraged by the promise of extra rations. The chapel was located in the south-western corner of Compound No. 1. The foundations were laid at the beginning of 1942 but work continued very slowly and it was not finished until the late summer of the following year. Even so there were still no pews. A bell was provided and blessed by Don Cotta who gave it the name of Barbara. Unfortunately for those prisoners who had laboured so long, the only time Mass was celebrated in it was the week before the Germans arrived to evacuate the camp.

EVACUATION OF THE CAMP In the event of the collapse of Italy, the matter of how to deal with Allied prisoners was still under consideration by the Allied Chiefs-of-Staff as late as September 7, 1943. All that had been done was to order all prisoners to remain where they were until Allied troops arrived. At the same time the Italian government was instructed that the removal of Allied prisoners from Italy would have serious consequences although there was no practical way of preventing this. No attempt had been made to give POWs any alternatives and it was not until September 10 — one day after the launch of the Allied landings at Salerno (see After the Battle No. 95) — that an agreement was finally reached that all prisoners were to be advised to make their way towards the south, the east coast, or move towards Switzerland. This message reached some camps where the prisoners were released, and at some of the remote working camps where the camp leader acted on his own initiative, but this did not happen at Campo P.G. 57. If Colonel Calcaterra had been aware of the order he certainly made no mention of it to the prisoners. In fact, since the Allied landings in southern Italy, the POWs had been denied

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THE DEATH OF CORPORAL SYMONS Colonel Calcaterra became the subject of a complaint of complicity in a war crime as a result of an incident that occurred in the camp on May 20, 1943. This took place at a cricket match in Compound No. 2. The spectators had become somewhat boisterous and a carabinieri guard took offence at something said. He approached one group, singled out Corporal Edward Symons, a 41-year-old Australian from the 2/32nd Battalion, and arrested him. Symons became abusive and could not even be restrained by another prisoner, causing the guard to stand back and shoot him in the chest. He then stood over Symons for a time, preventing others from coming to his aid. Symons died later that evening. Colonel Calcaterra was away at the time but returned two days later. However, when Warrant Officer Beecroft raised the matter with him, he refused to do anything about it, telling him that the guard had since deserted and joined the partisans. At the conclusion of the discussion Beecroft made it quite clear that unless Calcaterra dealt with it, he would be listed as being implicated in the incident when the matter was eventually taken up by the International Red Cross. In the event, Colonel Calcaterra was included in the Central Register of War Criminals and Security Suspects (the ‘CROWCASS’ list) drawn up at the end of the war. However, what happened to the Italian is not clear, though in late 1944, after the inmates had been transferred to camps in Germany, rumours were received that Colonel Calcaterra had been captured and executed by partisans. Whether this was true remains unclear although there is record of the death of a Vittorio Calcaterra in Castagnole delle Lanze in the province of Piedmont on August 27, 1944.

STEFANO DI GIUSTO

One complication occurred in October when the Italians started harvesting the millet, leaving the prisoners with no cover at their proposed exit. Then they encountered a band of hard compounded earth that proved impossible to dig through. With little choice, the tunnellers therefore angled their construction upward, breaking through on October 28. To determine the exact point of exit, a stick was pushed to the surface while a watch was kept through the window of the hut but unfortunately the observer was focusing his attention in the wrong direction. The pusher below continued to poke the stick further above ground until a metre projected but fortunately the Italians did not see it waving about! The actual break-out was made on the night of October 30/31, almost without incident. One man was caught for a moment in one of the searchlights but he froze until it swung away and he was never spotted. In the end 19 men made their escape, some intending to make for Switzerland and the others for Yugoslavia. In an attempt to assist the escapers, during their morning parade the following day the warrant officer in charge of one of the compounds, WOII Allan Beecroft, complained to one of the Italian officers that a number of men were missing and asked if they had been sent to solitary confinement. This caused considerable confusion among the guards that took some time to sort out, though it did result in the Italians discovering the tunnel exit and, ultimately, its entrance. Whether all this was of much help to the escapers is debateable as all were recaptured, the last pair five days after the escape. They had managed to reach the stream along the Yugoslav border but with the weather deteriorating had sought refuge with the occupants of a nearby farmhouse who handed them over to some Alpini troops. All were returned to the camp and sentenced to 30 days solitary confinement.

On September 13, 1943 — five days after the Italian armistice, four days after the Allied landings in Italy and three days after the rapid German occupation of Italy — the Germans evacuated the inmates of Campo P.G. 57 to POW camps in Germany. Lee Hill photographed a group of fellow prisoners preparing to move out. 43

ROBERT LOUGHNAN

BOB BEECROFT

ROBERT LOUGHNAN

Left: In 1991, the Associazione Nazionale Genieri e Trasmettitori d’Italia (ANGET) began restoration of the chapel. At the time of its discovery by ANGET the building was in a bad state of decay, the roof having collapsed, the interior overgrown with weeds and scrub, and one of the front doors having fallen off. The tabernacle was covered in rust, as was one of the surviving statues. Centre: The splendidly restored interior as it looks today. The seating is not original — it was the one thing the POWs had been unable to manufacture before they were transferred to Germany.

One of the crucifixes in the chapel is an original one from the war. It was carved in the Senoner Holzbildhauer workshop at Ortisei and painted by Corrado Pitscheider from the same town. Still visible on the back are signatures of some of the POWs involved in the construction of the chapel.

access to newspapers or broadcasts for fear of an organised rebellion. Instead, on the day of the Italian armistice (which was announced on the radio on the evening of September 8 — see After the Battle No. 152), some soldiers arrived and set up camp nearby. (The official New Zealand history identified them as German, though records indicate that at that stage the Germans had only reached as far as Gemona, north of Udine.) The following morning some of the Italian guards abandoned their posts and went home but it was not until that evening that Colonel Calcaterra announced the details of the armistice to the prisoners. He assured them that there was nothing to fear from the troops stationed nearby, claiming that they

counter-orders followed to the extent that at one point the whole camp was ordered to prepare to be led to safety in small groups by their Italian guards. Finally, on the night of September 11/12 — three days after the armistice had been announced — the Germans arrived to take over the camp. According to a German report dated September 12, a POW camp near Cividale (Premariacco, where Campo P.G. 57 was located, lies between Udine and Cividale), was attacked by partisans on the evening of the previous day, precipitating the arrival of the Germans on the morning of September 12. The following day the camp was evacuated, the prisoners (which by now numbered around 2,800) being marched away in batches of 50 to Germany.

STEFANO DI GIUSTO

were preparing to leave Italy. Instead he promptly doubled the number of sentries and promised to defend the camp to the last. Some prisoners did manage to get away and by commandeering horses they managed to reach the house of Fabio Donato, a few kilometres away from the camp. He gave them something to eat and hid them in his granary for the next ten days before taking them, disguised as peasants and carrying forks and rakes, to Cosizza, near Savogna, close to the border with Yugoslavia. The rest of the prisoners awaited repatriation by the Allies. They had received assurances that this would take place, both from Colonel Calcaterra and a British chaplain who was aware of the original orders relating to prisoners in Italy. Nevertheless, orders and

On September 2, 1993, Father Ambrose Loughnan (centre), a former inmate of the camp, returned to the site to celebrate Mass. As the restoration of the chapel was still underway this took place on the front steps. 44

STEFANO DI GIUSTO

ROBERT LOUGHNAN

These two plaques in the chapel entrance acknowledge the work of ANGET (above) and commemorate the prisoners of war who first helped build it (below).

Right: Apart from the chapel, just a few other camp buildings survive today. One of them is the house of the camp commandant, Colonel Vittorio Calcaterra. Located alongside the road to the chapel, it is now a private dwelling.

The former camp prison. Extensively modified, today it is also a private residence.

Today the site of the camp is easily accessible from Udine, taking the State Highway 54 (SS54) towards Cividale del Friuli, exiting at the big roundabout about ten kilometres away. Travelling south, in less than a kilometre, just before the small village of San Mauro at the north end of Premariacco, a road sign on the left marks the site of the camp, though it actually points to the chapel, the main entrance and road through the camp being slightly further north, at what is now known as the Strada Crotania. The area just beyond the eastern camp boundary was used for a time by the Italian Army as an ammunition dump but these days a riding school occupies part of the old compound. Though the huts were pulled down after the camp was evacuated, one did survive for some years after the war. It was apparently

located along the road bordering the west side of the camp but Stefano Di Giusto could find no trace of it when he visited the area in 2012. A number of other buildings can still be seen. Just to the north of the main road to the camp is the building that served for a time as a camp prison, albeit heavily modified by its current owners. Colonel Calcaterra’s quarters stand alongside the road leading to the chapel, as does the cinema and guard’s kitchen, both serving as the residence for the custodian of the chapel. On the east side of the camp a building that served as an infirmary can also be found and near it are the foundations of two of the barrack huts in Compound No. 2. Nevertheless it is the restored chapel which is the strongest visible reminder that a prisoner of war camp once existed on this site and it remains a fitting tribute to those who built it.

STEFANO DI GIUSTO

STEFANO DI GIUSTO

STEFANO DI GIUSTO

RESTORATION OF THE CHAPEL It did not take long for the local civilians to move in to loot the camp while the huts were all dismantled by the Italian authorities so that the material could be re-used in local homes. Although the chapel was built of stone, it gradually fell into disrepair and became overgrown with weeds and scrub. At some stage the roof fell in but in 1990 members of the L’Associazione Nazionale Genieri e Trasmettitori d’Italia (ANGET) decided to undertake its restoration as a memorial to those of their number lost during the war and to the prisoners of war who had built it. Using volunteer labour, supported by donations from other branches of their association, they set to work and by 1993 repairs to the walls, roof and internal fixtures had been carried out. The bell tower was finally completed just before the New Year. September 1993 was a special month in the history of the chapel not only because it was the 50th anniversary of the evacuation of the camp but also because it saw the visit of one of the former inmates who had also been part of the group that first built it. In fact it was while in the camp that Father Ambrose Loughnan had first thought of becoming a priest, joining the Dominican order after the war. Thus on September 2, 1993, Father Ambrose returned to celebrate Mass at the chapel, albeit still not completely restored. After that, work continued apace, the restoration finally being completed in 1995.

STEFANO DI GIUSTO

STEFANO DI GIUSTO

A signpost on the road from Borgo San Mauro points to the ex-camp.

During his search around the site Stefano discovered the foundations of two barracks in what had been Compound No. 2.

We have marked them [A] (left) and [B] (right) on the plan on page 39. 45

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The grave of Hitler’s parents in Leonding cemetery — before (left) . . . and after removal of the tombstone (right).

From the Editor . . .

46

on Wednesday, March 28, by a stonemason hired by the relative. The grave itself was untouched and no remains were exhumed. All that was left at the site was a white gravel-filled square and a tree. The burial plot is now available for a new lease by another family but whether many will be interested in using this controversial gravesite remains to be seen. Back in 1985 we published the story of the friendly-fire incident at Imber Ranges near Warminster on Salisbury Plain, when a Hurricane of No. 175 Squadron accidentally strafed a crowd of military and civilian observers during a tactical air demonstration (issue 49). The 25 people killed in the tragedy are now commemorated on a memorial which was unveiled in the Garrison Church in Warminster on April 13, 2012 — the 70th anniversary of the unhappy event. The memorial plaque was provided by the

RODNEY PRIDDLE

In late March 2012 — just eight months after the grave of Rudolf Hess in Wunsiedel in Bavaria was extinguished (see issue 155, page 42) — the grave of Adolf Hitler’s parents in the Upper Austrian town of Leonding was dismantled. Thus, another site connected with the history of Nazi Germany was destroyed. However, unlike other such occasions reported by us in the past, this time it was not due to official authorities wanting to get rid of an unsavoury past but due to a decision made by a private individual with a vested interest. Austrian graves are usually leased for periods of ten years. The charter is renewable and can be willed to friends and relatives. The grave of Aloïs and Klara Hitler (see The Third Reich Then and Now, page 13) was maintained by an elderly woman distantly related to Hitler, a female descendant of Aloïs’ first wife Anna. The task of tending the grave had become harder with age, but her main reason for giving it up was the persistent misuse of the grave as a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis. In her statement, given out to the Press by Leonding parish priest Kurt Pittertschatscher, she said: ‘I am concerned that the grave of my forbears has repeatedly been abused for manifestations of sympathy. Considering all this I have decided to give up the rights.’ The matter had been prompted, not by the Austrian authorities, but by the Netzwerk gegen Faschismus (Network against Fascism), a regional organisation of anti-Fascist activists. As their spokesman Robert Eiter explained at the Press conference, it had been known for quite some time that the site was being abused by neo-Nazis from Austria and abroad. Buses full of far-right sympathisers regularly visited the site. In April 2009, a plaque commemorating Hitler’s 120th birthday was found there and in November 2011 someone had placed a vase with the inscription ‘UnvergeSSlich’ (unforgettable) — the double capitals being a clear allusion to the SS. Eiter’s organisation got in touch with the Catholic church, which contacted Hitler’s relative to talk about the problem. The mayor of Leonding, Walter Brunner; the parish and the diocese all agreed that the situation had become intolerable so the large gravestone was removed without ceremony

Wiltshire Historical Military Society and unveiled by Sarah Troughton, the Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire. We had assisted the society’s secretary Rodney Priddle in his efforts to trace relatives and friends of the army personnel killed in the incident so that they could be invited to attend the ceremony. In May 2012 Rod wrote to us: ‘I thought you might like to know that the event was a big success and that some relatives attended and as a result of the considerable publicity in the media, we received further contacts after the event. We were even contacted by the family of a Great Western Railway lorry driver based at Warminster Railway Station who had his lorry requisitioned by the army to transport some of the injured from Imber to hospital in Salisbury. There was an attendance of around 50 persons including the local MP plus retired and serving military personnel. Thank you again for your help and of course especially for all the detail in issue 49 some of which we quoted to the press and TV people during interviews, this we felt you wouldn’t object to.’

Plaque commemorating the 25 victims of the friendly-fire strafing incident at Imber Ranges on April 13, 1942, unveiled in Warminster Garrison Church on the 70th anniversary of the tragedy.

ROBERT PORTER

ROBERT PORTER

In March 2011 the Mayor of Panenske Brezany, Libor Holik, announced that Heiner Heydrich, the son of the former Reichsprotektor, who is 76 and lives in Germany, had privately visited the château and shown himself willing to participate in financing restoration of the dilapidated building. The news caused a furore in the Press and much public outrage in the Czech Republic, thousands signing an Internet petition against his offer. The whole affair soon turned out to be a misunderstanding, Heydrich Jr. explaining that he had met the mayor during his visit but only voiced his willingness to help the private owner of the house find funds for the repair of the house, for instance via the European Union. then still at Stratford in London) when he told Winston Ramsey that his photographer had been arrested and his film confiscated. Nevertheless he promptly went out and took the photos again. We had to make payment via an intermediary in Sweden. When Ivanov came to Winston’s office, Winston could sense the fear and he had to check back at

the Czech Embassy at a fixed time. We really had no idea of the conditions under which they lived then and we had no wish to see him jailed because of us. Robert kindly made available pictures from his collection that enable us to show the correct residences of both Heydrich and Frank as they are today.

ALLAN H. ADAMS

ALLAN H. ADAMS

In July 2012 we received a letter from Robert Porter from Sandiacre in Nottingham regarding the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (issue 24): ‘I have just purchased a copy of the issue and you have made a big mistake on page 5, where you say the top picture shows Heydrich’s chateau and private residence. This is not correct, the house shown is that of Karl-Hermann Frank, Heydrich’s state secretary, who became State Minister for the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia after his death and in effect succeeded Heydrich as the most powerful man in the occupied Czech lands. Heydrich’s villa is about a quarter of mile away in the same village of Paneske Brezany. The middle photo on page 5 is correct in that it shows the main entrance and driveway to Heydrich’s villa. I have been to Prague many times tracing and researching the trail of SOE’s Operation ‘Anthropoid’. I am one of only a few people who not only photographed the outside of the Heydrich villa but was also given permission to tour inside and take photos. The present owner has now forbidden anyone to see the villa or take photos. He has put a large tarpaulin across the main gates and even the two statues at the front gate have been covered up.’ We have no excuse for miscaptioning the photo of Frank’s chateau except that the feature, which was authored by Dr. Miroslav Ivanov in 1979, was produced under exceptionally difficult conditions. As we explained to Mr Porter, the photos for the story were taken by a friend of Dr. Ivanov at one of the worst times of the Cold War. Dr. Ivanov was followed on his visit to our office (which was

The ‘lower château’ in the same village, where Reinhard Heydrich lived with his family until his assassination in May 1942. This view is from the back garden.

ROBERT PORTER

The ‘upper château’ at Panenske Brezany, 14 kilometres north of Prague, that was Karl-Hermann Frank’s residence during the Nazi occupation. This is the rear view.

Allan Adams, who authored the Wolfsschanze Revisited article (issue 153), was in Normandy in October 2011 and had the rare opportunity to see the remains of the Mulberry artificial harbour at Arromanches (see D-Day Then and Now) from very

close up, having found a local fisherman who agreed to take him out in his Zodiac to have a look at the Phoenix caissons. Despite their deteriorating condition, the concrete breakwaters remain a very special and unique relic of D-Day. 47

Right: Allan also visited the village of Traves in eastern France to look for the ruins of the house where former SS-Obersturmbannführer Jochen Peiper, commander of Kampfgruppe Peiper during the Battle of the Bulge, was murdered in July 1976 (issue 40). Thirty-five years after the event, the ruins in the woods across from the town cemetery remain as they were left, albeit now overgrown with tall trees and thick undergrowth. Allan comments: ‘One certainly gets a sense of foreboding when walking around these ruins. While I sensed no hostility at all when asking for directions from the townspeople, I did not linger any longer than was necessary to take my photographs.’

In March 2012, Stewart Mclaughlin, honorary curator of the Wandsworth Prison Museum in London, sent us a series of photographs he recently took of Latchmere House, MI5’s wartime secret interrogation centre, known as ‘Camp 020’ (issue 74). Located at Ham Common in the London borough of Richmond upon Thames, this is where all of the captured German enemy agents were detained for interrogation and, if possible, turned to become a double agent. After the war Latchmere House was transferred from the Ministry of Defence to Her Majesty’s Prison Service and became a

ber of wreaths were laid, a minute’s silence followed while a Naval rating sounded The Last Post and Reveille. During lunch an expert on the attack took the assembly through the events on that night while the boat sailed over the exact locations. The following day some of the families went to Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney where flowers were laid and prayers said at the graves of the sailors killed during the attack.’

Closed down as a prison and now in danger of being pulled down: Latchmere House, MI5’s wartime secret interrogation centre, in Richmond upon Thames.

ALLAN H. ADAMS

John A. Williams, author of our story on the Japanese midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour (issue 53), wrote to inform us of a special commemorative ceremony related to that incident: ‘Thursday May 31, 2012 marked the 70th anniversary of the sinking of HMAS Kuttabul with the loss of 19 Australian and two English sailors by Japanese midget submarine M24 in Sydney Harbour. To commemorate this event 300 people were invited to attend a harbour cruise to lay wreaths at the spot where the depot ship sank. On board were not only official members of the government, interested parties and the divers who found the wreck of M24 in 2006 (see issue 136, page 47), but also 13 family members of the crewmen who were killed. After a prayer was offered, the families were invited to place a poppy on the official wreath, those with no family there had a poppy placed by cadets from the Naval Officers College. The vessel then stopped at Garden Island where a num-

STEWART MCLAUGHLIN

STEWART MCLAUGHLIN

STEWART MCLAUGHLIN

JOHN A. WILLIAMS

detention centre and prison until it was decommissioned and closed in September 2011. A private security firm was contracted to look after it until its future is determined. Richmond London Borough Council has applied for the main Victorian wing of the building to be listed as a site of special Architectural or Historic Interest and there have also been calls for the building to be reserved for use by the local community. However, the cards are that all buildings will be demolished to make way for new development. Thus another piece of Britain’s wartime history will be lost.

One of Latchmere House’s wartime cellblocks. 48

The cells where the German agents were held for interrogation.

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DMITRY LOVETSKY

Right: On November 16, 2011 a Soviet KV-1 tank that helped to defend Leningrad during its 900-day siege (issue 123) was raised from the bottom of the Neva river in the Kirov district of what is today again named St Petersburg. Military divers discovered the vehicle the previous May. The 50-ton tank apparently sank after a pontoon bridge it was traversing was hit by a German shell. Army experts believe the crew bailed out and survived. The vehicle was recovered by soldiers of the 90th Special Search Battalion of the Western Military District in co-operation with staff of the Battle for Leningrad Museum. Plans are for the vehicle to be restored and displayed in the museum.

As it happened, your Editor spent a week in St Petersburg in September 2011 and visited the very interesting State Museum to the Defence and Siege of Leningrad on Solyanoy Pereulok, two blocks away from the banks of the Neva. The museum itself has a remarkable history. First set up in April 1944, shortly after the end of the siege, it was soon suppressed by Stalin during his purge of the Leningrad party leadership: in 1949 visitors were no longer allowed into the museum under the pretext of reconstruction work being carIn our story on the 1945 Battle for Leipzig (issue 130) we were able to identify the building where war photographer Robert Capa of Life took his famous series of photos of the GI machine-gunner, fatally hit and bleeding to death in the doorway of the third-floor balcony, as being on the corner of Frankfurter Strasse (today Jahnallee) and Luppenstrasse, just west of the Zeppelin Bridge across the Weisse Elster. Then in issue 142 (page 24) we had the first-ever identification of the unfortunate soldier as being 21-year-old Pfc Raymond J. Bowman of Company D, 23rd Infantry of the 2nd Division. Thus we were somewhat dismayed to learn that the historic building at No. 28 Luppenstrasse was severely damaged by a fire on New Year’s night 2012. The conflagration had started in the roof and the Leipzig fire brigade, which was alerted at 00.25 a.m., had great difficulty reaching the blaze as the stairway to the loft was no longer passable. Forced to use a fire engine’s ladder, the 40 firemen took an hour to extinguish the flames. The fire and the amount of water expended had weakened the roof to such an extent that it caved in the following afternoon. The collapse made a definitive establishment of the fire’s cause difficult. Fire-brigade spokesmen said arson was unlikely, opiniating that the conflagration was most probably started by a piece of New Year’s firework landing on the roof. The corner block, which has a preservation order on it, had stood empty and boarded up for a number of years. The original owner, a Swiss-based real estate company, had gone into liquidation some time ago after which the Landesbank HessenThüringen sold the property to another firm

ried out on the halls, and in March 1953 it was completely liquidated in connection with the infamous ‘Leningrad Trial’. The larger exhibits were disbursed and destroyed in secret, and the rest were burnt until there was nothing left. It was not until the late 1980s, in the wake of glasnost and perestroika, that it became possible to re-establish the museum. Once again, veterans and survivors of the siege and their families provided most of the exhibits, and the museum reopened in September 1989.

in Luxembourg but they were unable to finance its restoration. Due to the cost of shoring up the roof after the fire, the whole premises (which includes Nos. 26 and 28 Luppenstrasse and No. 61 Jahnallee) were put up for forced auction on February 10. This generated considerable interest, not just from potential buyers but also from people concerned with the historic significance of the property, among them representatives of the Capa-Hause-Initiative, a local group interested in keeping the memory of Capa’s unique series alive. Winners of

the auction were Dick and Christiane Bennink, a dentist couple from Nordrhein-Westfalen, who offered 125,000 euros for the complete lot. Although it is a listed building, the purchase allows the new owners the right to pull down No. 61 Jahnallee, which is so dilapidated that it runs an acute risk of collapse. It is not known what plans the Benninks have for the building but Thomas Pantke of the Capa-Hause-Initiative is optimistic: ‘At least we now have a contact partner whom we can approach regarding the future of the building’.

Ravaged by fire on New Year 2012: the corner house at the junction of Jahnallee and Luppenstrasse in Leipzig where Robert Capa took his famous photo sequence claiming that it showed ‘the last soldier to be killed in the war’. 49

JOE POTTER

In our story on German War Graves in Britain (issue 150), we recounted how Joe Potter, through diligent research and with help from several other experts, had identified the graves of several missing German airmen buried in the Cannock Chase German War Cemetery. In May 2011, Joe informed us that the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge has now placed new gravestones on several of the identified graves. This is the one for the crew from 3./KFG106 killed on August 5, 1940 and collectively buried in Block 9, Row 8, Grave 50. 50

GEORGE SKELSKY

VIA LEON RUBIN

Since we published our story on the Lost Soldiers of Fromelles (issue 150), in which we recounted how the remains of 250 British and Australian soldiers missing after that battle of July 1916 were recovered in 2008 and interred in a newly built CWGC cemetery in 2010, a further 23 soldiers have been identified. The project’s Joint Identification Board first reconvened in London on April 4, 2011 as part of the continuing effort to identify some of the remaining 154 unknown soldiers. It considered all available evidence including anthropological, archaeological, historical and DNA information — the latter from samples acquired from additional families that have come forward since the first Identification Board in 2010. As a result, a further 14 soldiers were identified, all of them Australian (three from the 29th AIF Battalion, three from the 30th Battalion, one each from the 31st and 32nd Battalions, and two each from the 53rd, 54th and 55th Battalions). The majority of the soldiers identified had previously been placed in the category of ‘unnamed Australian’ with only four being drawn from the ‘unknown by name or Army served’. At 7 p.m. on July 19, 2011 — the 95th anniversary of the Battle of Fromelles — a ceremony was held in the Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery to dedicate the replacement headstones for the 14 soldiers who had been newly identified. The Joint Identification Board again convened in London on March 23, 2012 and, with more families having come forward to provide DNA samples, this resulted in a further nine Australians to be identified by name (two each from the 29th, 30th and 31st Battalions and one each from the 53rd, 54th and 55th Battalion). This brings the total of identified Australians to 119. Unfortunately no British soldiers have yet been identified. As of now the figures for identification are: 119 named Australians; 92 unknown Australians; two unknown British and 37 unidentified soldiers ‘Known unto God’. New headstones for the newly identified Australians were dedicated in the Fromelles Military Cemetery on July 20, 2012. The identification project is scheduled for completion in 2014 so there will be at least two more annual conventions of the Board before it is wound up.

Belgian Air Force pilot trainee LAC Charles De Wever, killed in a flying training incident at the Elementary Flying Training School at De Winton in Canada on August 24, 1944.

As a small boy George Skulsky — here pictured aged six in his airman’s uniform in 1944 — witnessed the crash of Mosquito LR503 ‘F’ for Freddie at No. 37 FSTS Calgary on May 10, 1945.

Peter Schenk, our expert on German ferrylighter operations, especially in Greece, wrote in about the ‘Return to Cephalonia’ story (issue 150), our update on the massacre of Italian troops by the Germans on this Greek island in September 1943: ‘In your article is an oft-repeated error on page 31 where you write: “On the morning of September 13, two motorised lighters full of German troops tried to enter the port of Argostoli.” The two ferry lighters in question were the F495 and the F494. The Italian artillery opened fire on them without order of the division command. F495 was sunk and F494 damaged. However, they did not have troops on board but parts for the coastal artillery. On September 9 two other lighters had been in Argostoli for the same purpose. This was already included in my article on the Battle for Leros in issue 190. This is based on the German war diary of the Kommandierender Admiral Ägäis (Commanding Admiral Aegean) kept in the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, the German Military Archives in Freiburg.’ Our story on the Empire Air Training Scheme in Canada (issue 151) prompted two very interesting letters from contemporary eyewitnesses. First, retired Belgian Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Léon Rubin wrote in from Brussels: ‘I have just received the last issue and am most interested in the EATS in Canada, having personally been trained at De Winton EFTS in May-July 1944 and later at North Battleford/Saskatchewan SFTS in October 1944-March 1945 on Harvards till receiving my “Wings”. I take the liberty to make some remarks. ‘Page 42: In addition to the various nationalities of trainees cited for De Winton there were also Belgian and Dutch pilot candidates trained there. ‘Page 47: The top caption gives LAC Charles De Wever as being killed in Cornell 14396 on May 14, 1944. However, he is in fact the unfortunate victim of the crash on Wednesday August 26, 1944 together with his instructor, Sergeant Pilot Gordon Bennett. Flight Sergeant James Fowler died in the crash of May 14. Charles was my best friend and I take the liberty to attach a short article from the RAFA Belgian Branch newsletter. He joined the resistance in 1940 and was arrested by the Gestapo, being fortunately released thanks to lack of proof. Escaping from Belgium, he was caught by Vichy militia and thrown in prison. Given the choice of joining the Foreign Legion or being returned to the Germans, he chose the former but escaped from the enlisting barracks.

Having gone underground in Marseilles he then contacted an escape line to cross the Pyrenees, only to be arrested by Franco’s police and ending up in the internment camp of Miranda. Liberated in exchange for cotton bales from Belgian Congo, he at long last reached England via Portugal after a journey of more than two years to enlist in the Belgian Section of the RAF. After physical and medical examinations at the Air Crew Receiving Centre at Abbey Lodge in Park Road, Regent’s Park, on October 4, 1943 (which he only passed thanks to a hastily organised pair of loupe-thick contact lenses), he went to Initial Training Wing at Scarborough, Grading Course at Sywell and then across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary for the real training in Canada. His aircraft crashed during an unscheduled test-flight on August 26, killing both instructor and pupil. The cause was never clarified. His remains were repatriated after the war and he now lies at the Belgian Air Force plot of honour of the Brussels Cemetery.’ The other letter regarding the Empire Air Training Scheme came from George Skulsky who lives in Edmonton, Alberta, and concerned the crash of Mosquito LR503 ‘F’ for Freddie at No. 37 FSTS: ‘I was born in Calgary in 1938, my parents lived north-east of Calgary by the airport in an area called Belfast. I was seven years old then on May 10, 1945, and witnessed ‘F’ for Freddy fly around and, not knowing what it was, then seeing it crash. I ran home and told my father who quickly drove to the airport to see the crash. He left me at home. I never forgot that day because it was spectacular at that time but also because my father left me at home . . . ‘I am retired from the oil industry. My wife and I spent 38 years in Fort McMurray, 28 with the GCOS/Suncor energy company. I have always been interested in the military and military history, always been interested in aircraft and have flown to many places in Northern Alberta and the North West Territory. I have been purchasing After the Battle magazines for many, many years. When No. 151 came out I was amazed and pleased to read about ‘F’ for Freddy as I have told many people about the day I saw it go down as a young boy. During my time at GCOS/Suncor in Fort McMurray I met a fellow supervisor, Ed Page, whose father was at the airport at the time of the crash. We talked about it and I asked him if his Dad had any pictures of it. Some time later Ed brought me a poor picture of a picture of the plane near a pole where it went down. I have it somewhere.’

The feature on the war movie Is Paris Burning? (issue 156) produced a nice reaction from Adrian Harvey of Inverness in Scotland who pointed out a stupid glitch I made in the bottom left caption on page 31: ‘Although Sergeant Warren is correctly referred to in the main text as being played by Anthony Perkins, the caption says Anthony Hopkins!’ Is Paris Burning? also brought an interesting letter from American historian Blaine Taylor of Towson, Maryland: ‘General Dietrich von Choltitz is most famous for the capture of the Black Sea port of Sevastopol in the Crimea on June 27, 1942, and then for surrendering Paris to the Allies two years later despite Hitler’s orders. After the war, he became a semi-hero in the book Is Paris Burning? and the film of the same title. However, research in recent years has discovered a quite different side to Choltitz’s wartime career. In Tapping Hitler’s Generals: Transcripts of Secret Conversations 1942-45 (London, 2007), edited by German historian Sönke Neitzel, a very different picture of him emerges. In the conversations between German generals that were secretly recorded by British technicians while they were in the POW cage at Trent Park in the north London suburb of Cockfosters (see After the Battle No. 70, page 44), von Choltitz even admitted, something not previously known, that he had systematically carried out orders for the liquidation of Jews in his area, probably in the Crimea in 1941-42 when he commanded Infanterie-Regiment 16 and later the 260. Infanterie-Division. As the book discloses, he had also been present at the address of

The scale model of B-26 Hecklin’ Hare, the bomber in which Lieutenant Commander Lyndon B. Johnson made his single combat sortie, made for presentation to the President by the Martin Aviation Company but refused by him.

BLAINE TAYLOR

In our feature on the 1944 Liberation of Rome (issue 152), we included a picture of the ‘Roma’ city sign kept at the Citadel Archives & Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, which is said to be the sign under which Lieutenant General Mark Clark and Major General Geoffrey Keyes were standing when a German sniper hit the sign just inches above the general’s head. In the caption we commented on the fact that the name plate preserved at the museum has only one bullet hole instead of the three seen in the wartime pictures, and in a different corner of the sign at that, leading to our assumption that possibly Brigadier General Robert T. Frederick of the 1st Special Service Brigade had secured another sign to donate to Clark. Imagine our surprise when in February 2012 we received an e-mail from Dwight S. Walsh, Jr., the Citadel archives supervisor: ‘I just wanted to inform you, that upon an inventory of our storage area, we came across the original ‘Roma’ sign with the three bullet holes. It happened to be stuck in the very back of the room, hiding behind a few big items. This means the museum is in possession of two Roma signs. Why we have a second sign and where the second sign came from is still unknown.’ This was quite an amazing discovery and we are indebted to Dwight for providing us with a picture of the new sign. As of now, the museum has been unable to find out more about the earlier sign’s provenance. The ‘Guarding the Golden Gate’ story, recounting the history of American coastal gun batteries Davis and Townsley (issue 152), provoked a letter from Matthew W. Kent. Based in San Francisco, Matthew is the author of Harbor Defenses of San Francisco — A Field Guide 1890 to 1950 (2007, second edition 2011) and he had several corrections to make for which we are grateful: ‘Page 51: The photo showing the arrival of a 16-inch gun by sea is actually an M1895M1 12-inch gun. The gun tube is way too short for a 16-inch gun and one can tell by the rear of the gun that it is in fact a 12-inch tube. ‘Page 52: The location of Battery Davis at Fort Funston is given as being between Lake Merod and the Pacific Ocean. There is no Lake Merod in San Francisco. The lake is named Lake Merced. ‘Page 54: The observation post listed as the battery command post at Fort Cronkhite is actually Base End Station B1S1 of Battery Townsley. The Battery Command station is located below and to the right of this. ‘Back Cover: The two dug-in facilities are identified as ammunition storage bunkers for Battery Townsley. This is incorrect. Built in the late 1930s, these two facilities were designed for Anti-Aircraft Battery No. 1 at Wolf Ridge, which provided AA protection for Battery Townsley. The building on the left is the magazine for the anti-aircraft battery, while the building on the right is its power and storeroom.’

BLAINE TAYLOR

KEVIN METZGER

The tale of two signs: the actual ‘Roma’ sign — with the three bullet holes — under which General Mark Clark posed on the Via Casilina on June 4, 1944. Compare with issue 152, pages 28-29.

Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler to assembled generals on January 26, 1944, regarding the German genocide against the Jews. He was one of those who fully understood the enormity of Himmler’s words. In a conversation tapped on August 29, 1944, von Choltitz stated to a fellow captive officer: “Hitler hates us. I saw Hitler four weeks ago, when he nabbed me for Paris. He was more worn out than anything. He has put on 17 pounds! I was really almost sorry for him because he looked horrible.” The book also states that Choltitz knew in advance of the July 20 bomb plot to kill Hitler.’ Taylor also had a comment to make on our story on the wartime career of US President Lyndon B. Johnson (issue 158): ‘In the late 1980s I was working on a book on the famed American aircraft builder Glenn L. Martin of the Martin Company of Middle River, Maryland. In the course of that I interviewed the late Francis O. ‘Fuzz’ Furman, who had held a series of jobs at Martin’s, starting in the early 1930s after service in the US Navy, including Superintendent of Manufacturing in his later career. During our meeting at his home, Fuzz showed me a small scale model of the Hecklin’ Hare that was made for presentation to President Johnson. My recollection is that Fuzz asserted that the President did not want it, and thus it was still in his possession when I photographed it, here published for the very first time.’

Dietrich von Choltitz (centre) pictured with Hermann Göring (white jacket) in July 1941, when von Choltitz was still an Oberst and in command of Infanterie-Regiment 16. This photo from the Hermann Göring Albums was first published in Blaine Taylor’s 1993 book Guarding the Fuhrer: Sepp Dietrich, Johann Rattenhuber, and the Protection of Adolf Hitler. 51

YANK RE-ENACTMENT

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Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar N. Bradley and J. Lawton Collins meeting up at the latter’s US VII Corps Headquarters in the Normandy bridgehead on July 5, 1944

By the mid-1990s, wanting to do more with their by then very sizeable collection, they hesitatingly participated in a ‘Liberation Tour’ in central Holland in May 1995 (May 5 being celebrated as Liberation Day in the Netherlands), joining other re-enactors and MV enthusiasts in a military vehicle parade through the region and camping out in military style on a sports ground in the town of Bussum. Numbering a dozen members, they initially called themselves the Texas Group, named after the US 36th Infantry Division, whose 141st Infantry Regiment they had chosen as a theme. In April 1996, travelling with a restored Jeep to the Vosges in France, they joined up with a group of 36th Division veterans at Epinal who were travelling Europe on a battlefield tour. The Americans

welcomed them in their group and they in turn, dressed in Texas Division uniform and kit, drove some of the greying men to their old battlegrounds in their Jeep. They found original foxholes and listened to the veterans’ battle stories. It was the first of many such meetings with WW2 veterans. More trips followed, again to the Vosges in July 1998 and November 1999; to San Antonio, Texas, in October 2000 to attend a 36th Division reunion; to Southern France in August of both 2001 and 2002 for the Operation ‘Anvil’ commemorations, and of course several times to Normandy. In 2004, with the number of veterans dwindling, the group decided to change the focus of their activity. Renaming themselves Yank Re-enactment, they began replicating as exactly as possible photographs of American

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YANK RE-ENACTMENT

In the past decade, re-enactment — the activity in which participants attempt to recreate aspects of a historical event or period — has found its own pride of place in the World War II heritage community alongside militaria collectors and military vehicle conservationist. A special niche within the re-enactment world is that in which the performers duplicate well-known photographs from the war. One of the more professional parties in this field is a Dutch group known as Yank Re-enactment. Driving force behind the group are Cor Geluk and Frank de Koning, who got interested in the war as youngsters in the mid-1970s. At that time, army surplus stores and flea markets in the Netherlands offered a seemingly unlimited and very affordable array of vintage wartime US Army uniforms and equipment.

A fine comparison restaged by the Yank Re-enactment group at the Château de Francquetot between Eturville and Blosville, three kilometres south-east of Ste-Mère-Eglise, in 2004.

Men of the 90th Infantry Division waiting to get some water at the village pump in Ste-Marie-du-Mont on June 12, 1944. 52

Duplicated by Yank Re-enactment with the help of French colleagues in June 2012.

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Paratroopers of the US 101st Airborne Division fraternising with Dutch boys and girls on Landing Zone ‘W’ near Son during the airborne invasion of Holland in September 1944. See Operation ‘Market -Garden Then and Now, page 130.

YANK RE-ENACTMENT

troops taken during the liberation of the Netherlands. As many of these pictures show not only GIs but also liberated civilians they joined forces with Club Interbellum, a Dutch organisation with a keen interest in the interwar years, many of whose members also engage in re-enacting scenes from that period. This has enabled Yank Re-enactment to liven up their comparisons with men and women dressed in period costume to represent the Dutch people welcoming and fraternising with their liberators. From 2009 the group has concentrated on restaging pictures showing paratroopers and glidermen of the US 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions taken during Operation ‘Market-Garden’ in September 1944. With their large and varied collection of uniforms and kit, they were just as easily able to portray airborne troops as they had been for regular infantry earlier. Re-enactment of wartime photos in the Netherlands is not always easy as the progress of time has drastically altered the landscape and limited the possibilities. The city of Eindhoven — liberated by the 506th Parachute Infantry — in particular has changed dramatically since the war, many locations having been transformed beyond recognition. However, the search for unaltered historical sites has led to some remarkable ‘then and now’ photo duplications, of which we present a few here. As is evident from many of our stories, there are still numerous names missing from the official roll of world war dead maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The so-called In From The Cold Project (IFCP) was launched in 2007 to help rectify this situation. IFCP devised a plan to undertake a systematic search for British casualties who appeared to have been missed and therefore had no official commemoration. The basic plan was to set up a group of volunteers and to systematically compare the surviving casualty lists with the CWGC online database. Unfortunately, it is not within CWGC’s remit to search for missing names. In short, if the public does not undertake this task, nobody will and these casualties will forever remain out in the cold. Funding was the big issue as obtaining hundreds of records and the necessary death certificates would be expensive. However, after protracted negotiations, IFCP obtained a grant from the MOD’s Veterans Challenge Fund and the Project’s future was secured. In May 2008 the first missing names were accepted by the MOD for commemoration by the

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YANK RE-ENACTMENT

Right: Replicated with the assistance of civilian re-enactors from Club Interbellum on the former landing zone in the Sonniuswijk quarters of Son in 2010.

A wounded paratrooper of the 82nd Airborne Division being evacuated in a Jeep in Dominicanenstraat in Nijmegen in September 1944.

The same scene recreated at exactly the same location in 2009, right down to the placing of a box of Peter Paul’s ‘Mounds’ on the Jeep’s bonnet. 53

Right: Royal Navy minesweeper HMML 154 moored alongside the former Kriegsmarine U-Boat Bunker at Heligoland in 1947 during the preparation of Operation ‘Big Bang’. One of a series of pictures taken by Sub-Lieutenant Brian Butler during his RNVR service on the fortress island.

BRIAN BUTLER

BRIAN BUTLER

BRIAN BUTLER

CWGC. At the time of writing (October 2012), IFCP has had over 1,000 men and women accepted with over 300 further cases awaiting adjudication by the authorities. These are all casualties who paid the ultimate price and whose names are now rightly appearing on CWGC headstones or memorials to the missing. The work is time consuming, repetitive, tedious and hard on the eyes but the end result is worth it. Anyone wishing to know more about IFCP’s work is welcome to make contact with Terry Denham ([email protected]) or visit the Project’s website (www.infromthecold.org).

The island seen from HMML 154 shortly before its demolition in the largest manmade non-nuclear explosion ever (left) and Brian’s comparison taken 61 years later from the ferry to nearby Düne island (right).

The island’s Flak command tower surviving erect among the debris . . .

. . . and pictured by Brian during his return visit in 2008.

BRIAN BUTLER

BRIAN BUTLER

dence, the issue number 154, his minesweeper at the time was HMML 154! ‘In 2006 I found a message posted on the Internet by a TV producer working for the German NDR broadcasting company looking for veterans of the bombing and also from around the time of ‘Big Bang’. I replied and early in 2007 Brian was interviewed and a programme was aired later that year in Germany. Since then we have kept in touch with the producer and in 2008 we were lucky enough to visit Heligoland with him and his family. It was so nostalgic for Brian to return, it had been a dream of his for many years. We were able to visit some of the sites that he had taken photos of in 1947 and, like you, to try to get an up-to-date comparison.

BRIAN BUTLER

Following our story on Heligoland (issue 154) we received an interesting letter from Pat Butler from Wimbourne in Dorset: ‘I wanted to say how much we have enjoyed reading the article on Heligoland in the recent copy of After the Battle. Yesterday our daughter gave my husband, Brian, the copy as he has always had a great interest in the island having been in the RNVR patrolling around Heligoland for some time prior to Operation ‘Big Bang’. He also witnessed and photographed it and then he continued patrolling the area for several more months. It was quite a coincidence that he was given the magazine on April 18, the 65th anniversary of ‘Big Bang’ too — our daughter was unaware of the date. Another coinci-

‘We have also visited the National Archives to do some research; it was so interesting for Brian to find so much information about that period, and even copies of messages to and from his boat, etc. ‘So, as you can see, we have a great affinity for the island, and have really enjoyed your article. We have for a long time wanted someone to record the events that have shaped Heligoland. It has such a long and fascinating history, so many people have no idea of its past and its links with Britain, which is such a shame. ‘Perhaps I must explain why I am corresponding with you. Brian has very poor sight and has been registered as blind for over 25 years, so that is why he asked me to contact you. Although his sight is so poor, he still likes taking photos as photography has been a life-long interest of his, and most of the 2008 photos were taken by him.’

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The ‘Big Bang’ explosion on April 18, 1947, seen from HMML 154.

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The beginning . . . and the end. My first photo of Roger was taken in 1974 while we were reseraching the defences on the Rhine by Neuf-Brisach in south-eastern France.

A personal obituary: Roger Bell 1945-2012 We went on our first research trip together in January 1974. I wanted to tell the story of Audie Murphy’s exploit at Holtzwihr that led to him being awarded the Medal of Honor and Roger already had much detail on file. We flew to Strasbourg and, apart from the Murphy story (see issue No. 3), we visited defences on the Rhine near NeufBrisach where I took my first picture of Roger ‘in action’. Then in June that year we joined Peter Gray on the very first Military Vehicle Conservation Group tour of Normandy. Roger was a champion of the 101st Airborne Division and he invited George Koskimaki to join us as he had been General Maxwell Taylor’s radio operator on D-Day. It was a memorable trip (reported in issue 5), and it made Roger’s day to meet General Omar Bradley at Utah Beach. Roger accompanied me on many other battlefield tours in our old Land-Rover: Cassino (issue 13); Himmler’s suicide (issue 14); the Rhine bridges and Remagen (issue 16) where we recovered a railway sleeper from the crater on the western bank; the German surrender on Victory Hill at Lüne-

burg (issue 48); Berlin just after the Wall came tumbling down . . . and so on. Roger had an obsession over taking press cuttings on a wide variety of subjects, not just the war, and he regularly sent batches to friends around the world as well as filing thousands in his archive. One only had to make a request for some incident and Roger would come up trumps. Likewise he amassed a huge collection of video and sound tapes. In recent years Roger’s health issues restricted him from joining us on overseas tours, and his latest project was the recording and analysing of every V2 incident. Nevertheless we kept in constant touch and for issue 157 he was able to source Stars and Stripes photos from one of his many contacts in the States. Behind the scenes, he helped many authors with their research yet the full extent of Roger’s contribution to World War II history will never be measured. He will be very sadly missed. Roger Bell died on June 7, 2012. He was 67 and leaves his wife Saira whom he married in 1997. WINSTON RAMSEY, JUNE 2012

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I first met Roger in June 1973 at the Imperial War Museum. I was selecting photos to take to Normandy and, although he was not employed by the IWM, Roger was the founder of The Society for the Studies of the ETO 1944-45 and he spent much of his free time in the photographic library, cataloguing and sorting US photographs. Many of the albums there today were put together by Roger. At the time I was very green behind the ears and I was in awe of this chap who was a walking bible of information on American forces. After closing time we carried on talking on the pavement, so cementing a relationship that lasted just short of 40 years. Two months after that first meeting, I published our first issue and from then on I don’t think there has been a single issue of After the Battle that Roger’s expertise has not been called on and he became our European Theater of Operations adviser. At the time he was running his silk-screen printing business in Earl Street, EC2, and old customers of our sister company, Plaistow Pictorial, may remember the range of pennants we used to sell — all designed and printed by Roger. He loved collecting books so he set up Bivouac Books in Camden Town specialising in second-hand WWII literature and I purchased many volumes from his shelves to build up my own library.

As Roger helped me with crime research — and he appeared in the chapter on Bywaters — I presented him with a copy of Scenes of Murder Then and Now when published in 2012.

Roger’s forte was the study of American forces in Europe during 1944-45. Here he stands beside the Rapido river near Cassino, where the 36th Division suffered heavy casualties.

When we visited Berlin in 1990, Roger was thrilled to find the evidence where Soviet road signs had been erected in 1945, still visible in the traffic islands in front of the Brandenburg Gate. 55

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