Polish troops in Falaise

[michael mills]

I recall the scene from the TV series "Band of Brothers".

I thought it was anachronistic, since the soldiers shown summarily executing captured Germans were wearing French uniforms dating from the start of the war, ie a tunic buttoning up to the neck, flaring trousers and puttees.

No French soldiers fighting with the Allies in 1944 would have been wearing such a uniform. Those units that had joined de Gaulle between 1940 and 1942 had been re-equipped with British uniforms and arms, with only badges to indicate their nationality.

The much larger French units stationed in North Africa which had joined the Allies at the end of 1942 had been re-equipped with United States uniforms and arms, although many of them continued to wear the traditional French Adrien helmet.

I suspect that the producers of the series wanted to make it clear to viewers that the soldiers performing the executions were French, not American, and therefore portrayed them in anachronistic uniforms rather than the GI dress that they would actually have been wearing in 1944.

Of course, even in US uniforms, they would have been recognisable to the expert as French from their badges of rank and/or unit insignia; but ordinary viewers may well have though they were American.

[Benoit Douville]

Oleg,

In Gdansk (Danzig) This great Baltic port is the scene of an amazing evacuation. Some 2 million people are being shipped to the west to escape the Red Terror being visited on the German people by the advancing Soviets.The Soviet soldiers are inflamed by the writing of the propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg, who tells them: "Break the racial pride of these Germanic women. Take them as your lawful booty. Kill. As you storm onwards, kill, you gallant soldiers of the Red Army."The slogan "Blood for blood" has been drummed into them, and as they roll through the villages of East Prussia they are exacting a terrible revenge. The men are shot, and for the women the order "Frau Komm" means certain rape and probable death. Homes are looted of everything.

Regards

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Oleg,

In Gdansk (Danzig) This great Baltic port is the scene of an amazing evacuation. Some 2 million people are being shipped to the west to escape the Red Terror being visited on the German people by the advancing Soviets.The Soviet soldiers are inflamed by the writing of the propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg, who tells them: "Break the racial pride of these Germanic women. Take them as your lawful booty. Kill. As you storm onwards, kill, you gallant soldiers of the Red Army."The slogan "Blood for blood" has been drummed into them, and as they roll through the villages of East Prussia they are exacting a terrible revenge. The men are shot, and for the women the order "Frau Komm" means certain rape and probable death. Homes are looted of everything.

Regards

Benoit Douville - the only good thing that came out of the Beevor's Berlin is the fact that he proved that Ereneburg never wrote anything like it.

[Musashi]

I have just watched Band of Brothers (Why We Fight). As you say these soldiers were French (time: 0:29 h).

[Musashi]

Well, I wanted to create another topic, but I see I can continue this one.
The information provided by Juha Hujanen is very probable, because I found the same in the topic "Polish war crimes" on a Polish historical forum.
Some members claim the soldiers of Polish 1st Armoured Division executed approx. 1000 SS POWs who had been taken by the Poles before.

[...] Polacy twierdz±, ¿e oddali Amerykanom w Chambois wszystkich swoich jeñców jednego dnia, w jednej partii i w liczbie 1906, za¶ Amerykanie maj± kwit (plus w³asn± pamiêæ i wspomnienia), ¿e Polacy oddali ok. 950 jeñców w dwóch partiach i w dwóch ró¿nych dniach.
Nie potrafimy siê „rozliczyæ” z ok. 1 tys. jeñców.

Translation:
The Poles claim they turned over all their POWs (1906) to the Americans in Chambois during a single day and the Americans have a receipt (plus memoirs) the Poles turned over 950 POWs to them in two groups and within two days. Fate of 956 POWs is unknown.


The same members claim the soldiers of this division admited after the war they had murdered a large group of SS men during the battle of Falaise.


To Joachim Chan:
I am sure you will enjoy my post, but please do not attach any smiles this time.

Regards,
Chris

[David Thompson]

Thanks for the additional information, Musashi.

[Musashi]

No problem, David. However this story is very probable, not sure. Personally I am inclined to believe in this story. Remember about circumstances - the Warsaw Uprising was lasting in those days and besides the Poles hated SS-men much more than common Wehrmacht soldiers.
As I wrote, I found this information in a topic about Polish warcrimes on all-Polish forum. It concerns not only this story. Some people tried to prove the Poles hadn't commited any war crimes and the other forumists claimed we had been normal (normal=the same like other nations and we also were commiting war crimes). The discussion was sometimes very harsh and offensive. Even a single banning took place and that topic has been locked temporarily.

[Cut by me from "Number of German POWs wounded & killed by US/UK troops" topic]

Thanks Musashi, for the links.. I think i should be a great assistance to Professor Siedler and Dr. Alfred Maurice de Zayas in their compilation of Allied war crimes

I can only hope your scientists will look for other sources and will not add for example one zero to the number of the killed SS-men.

Regards,
Chris

[David Thompson]

Musashi -- Of discussing this issue on another forum, you wrote:

Some people tried to prove the Poles hadn't commited any war crimes and the other forumists claimed we had been normal (normal=the same like other nations and we also were commiting war crimes). The discussion was sometimes very harsh and offensive. Even a single banning took place and that topic has been locked temporarily.

We see a lot of this here as well. As I'm sure you know, the real question is not whether there were crimes, but whether there were criminal policies. Every Army has its criminals, but not every Army tries to create or encourage them.

[Juha Hujanen]

Thanks Chris for new info.Very interesting.

Regards/Juha

[Warsawer]

Hello!

I've just been reading Ambrose-Citizen Soldiers and in page 105 is following:

"Over the next couple of days,Waters wrote"the Germans attacked with all the fury they they could bring to bear,fueled by their desperation to escape.""Others were trying to surrender,many of them succesfully.Too many,in fact.Neither the Poles nor the Americans had facilities to deal with them.Waters estabilished a POW pen in Chambois,but it was badly overcrowded.Still,one morning a Polish captain brought in some 200 additional POW,s to turn over to the Americans.

Polish captain:"Here are your prisoners"

Waters:"I donn't want them."

Polish captain:"But i must leave them with you.Those are my orders".

Waters:"I still don't want them.Get them out of here".(Waters orders were to accept them.but he had been told to expect 1500;in fact there were only couple of hundred.)

Polish captain: "But i must still leave them with you."

Warers:"well,you were supposed to have 1500 prisoners.Where are they?"

Polish captain:"They are dead.We shoot them.These are all that are left".

Waters: "Then why don't you shoot these too?" A paus,then Waters corrected himself:"No,you can't do that."

Polish captain:"Oh,yes we can.They shot my countryman.".He took Waters by the arm and escorted him away from the others.Then he said ,"Captain ,we can't shoot them.We are out of ammunition."

(original source:John Colby-War From the Ground...)

Has anyone heard of this?, or has addiotional info?

The story is true and well-known in Poland, France, Canada and the USA. To some extent it is described in John Colby’s "War from the Ground Up" book. Most likely more written memoirs of the US troops about it has Colby’s daughter who has full archive of this book. Several times this story has been described also in various titles of the Polish press.

I would like to emphasize that it is not a kind of the ETO sensation. The Polish troops are not the only one murderers of the German POWs in the Falaise Gap. Check please Maj. Gens. George Kitching and Harry W. Foster memoirs from the Falaise Gap. So-called "Task Force Weaver" (separated from the US 90th ID) was not taking prisoners the same as Polish troops of the 1st Armoured Div. German veterans tell loud and clear: "For us in the Falaise Gap it was impossible to become the POWs for both the US and Polish troops. They executed us at once" (quotation from Canadian historian Dr Reginald H. Roy’s materials).

What is very sad today the US veterans of the 90th tell publicly about Polish war crimes in the Falaise Gap whereas Polish veterans do not tell about US war crimes in the same place meanwhile both of them were able to observe the crimes done by their Allied partners. John Colby in his "War from the Ground Up" placed US 90th ID in a good light and simultaneously brought discredit upon the Poles.

However this story is very probable, not sure. Personally I am inclined to believe in this story. Remember about circumstances - the Warsaw Uprising was lasting in those days and besides the Poles hated SS-men much more than common Wehrmacht soldiers.

Musashi is right. On the West nobody is able to understand Polish drama and emotions of August 1944 period. Polish troops of the 1st Armoured Div. – that murdered German POWs - listened from the BBC all news from the Warsaw Uprising where the SS murdered more than a hundred thousend people. On the other hand Polish troops knew very well that they lost his country in aid of the Soviets. Somehow or other – for them there was no return to democratic Poland.

There is one more quotation from Colby's book: "We learned that the Polish troops had a simple formula in determining what to do with Polish nationals, a number of whom had been conscripted to serve in the German army. If the Polish soldier was a private, he was issued a Polish (British) uniform and incorporated into the Polish units. If the Polish soldier was serving as a non-commisioned officer or higher rank, he was immediately shot for cooperating with the enemy". The author of this memoir is the same Capt. Laughlin E. Waters of the US 90th ID. The situation description concerns Chambois as well.

But what does it show? Nothing, simply nothing. Polish 1st Armoured Div. murdered the POWs all the ETO Campaign time and what of that? "Chambois case study" repeated several more times for the Polish Division and what of that? Did they do anything special in the ETO, not to mention PTO and CBI? No. The same did for example US 45th ID and all Allied units in Europe, without any exception. This is real view of the WWII other than books, movies, reenactment, plastic modelling and whatever else.

Dear all, if I may advise -- try to know WWII not only from the books which are a kind of PR but also discuss as much as possible with the veterans. Real WWII history lives mainly in homes, not necessarily in the books.

Best regards

W.

[Musashi]

Something new from the Polish forum.
Evidence of professor Ken Tout, a former Sgt. of the British 1st Armoured Regiment Northamptonshire Yeomanry.

"The British XXII Dragoons provided flail support for the Poles and one Dragoon, Ian Hammerton witnessed something of that unique reaction. He had come across a wounded German soldier and called a Polish doctor. He agreed to send two burly stretcher-bearers to carry our prisoner to the side of the track and promised to pick him up later. When two Poles bent over the youngster to lift him onto the stretcher he caught sight of their arm flashes, 'Poland'.
- Nein! – he cried
- Nein! Nein!

I often wondered what became of him”.

Source:
Ken Tout
A Fine Night for Tanks. The Road to Falaise
Sutton Publishing Ltd.
Gloucestershire 2002
ISBN 0 7509 3189 2
page 140

According to Cattaraugus Kent Tout talks straightforwardly about the Allied war crimes in the Falaise pocket, including the Polish ones, by all his sympathy to Poles.

[Warsawer]

Hi guys,

As I can see the discussion stopped. Why? It still may be very interesting. I propose to find good answers for the following questions:

1. Why in the Falaise Gap-dedicated Western literature only the Polish troops have an image of the German POWs killers? I do not mean only the "War from the Ground Up" book written by the unprofessional historians but by the US veterans. The same goes for professional Canadian historian Dr. Donald E. Graves for instance.

2. Why Western authors of the Falaise Gap-dedicated books interviewed only the American, Canadian and British veterans to write about the Allied methods of the POWs treatment? "Allied" means in this case "the Polish methods".

3. Why nobody from the West interviewed the Polish troops of the 1st Armoured Division to write in his book what the Poles saw in the field of "Allied methods of the POWs treatment"? Just in case? Because the Polish troops may tell identical stories as well-known about them, but this time these stories would be about other Allied nations? Because the Polish memoirs may ruin positive image of the US, British and Canadian troops?

4. Why the Polish troops have no chance in the Western books to tell anything about themselves, about their emotions from the Falaise Gap period? All Allied troops have such a chance with exception of the Poles. Why? Do not mention please only Eddy Florentin's book "The Battle of the Falaise Gap" which is Hemingway-style pathetic unprofessional text.


These are amateur methods of the historic publicism done for own thesis. Such methods are neither historic nor journalistic. Interviewing selected groups of the peoples to create own visions of history is unacceptable. I assure that the Polish veterans of the Falaise Gap were the eyewitnesses of identical war crimes done by the other Allied troops. But the Poles have to be silent. Two third of the Polish 1st Armoured Division veterans live in Canada, UK and the USA but Western authors have serious problems to find and to interview them. Oh yes, it is a long, long way to Polish Falaise Gap veterans on the West...

[Musashi]

Despite it's very probable the Polish troops executed the SS-men in a Falaise pocket and I am inclined to believe in that, a group of people posted a thesis on the Polish historical forum (the same forum I mentioned before): "it's completely impossible to hide so large number of bodies and they haven't been found so far".

Regards,
Krzysiek

[rwerp]

An account of a French officer who fought by the side of the Poles on Hill 262 at Falaise:

We took prisoners. Some of those from the Wehrmacht were of Polish birth. They were asked if they would join us: anyone who accepted was given the rifle and paybook of one of the dead! They were unexpected, precious reinforcements. The S.S. and those whose paybooks showed that they had taken part in the invasion of Poland in ’39 received no mercy!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stor ... 0846.shtml

The French officer was very enthusiastic about the Poles, so one cannot discount his narrative as just being mean about the Poles. Note that he does not condemn shooting the POWs in any way. I wager that those soldiers whose countries were occupied by the Germans (the French, the Poles) saw it differently than Brits or Americans.

[Musashi]

An account of a French officer who fought by the side of the Poles on Hill 262 at Falaise:

We took prisoners. Some of those from the Wehrmacht were of Polish birth. They were asked if they would join us: anyone who accepted was given the rifle and paybook of one of the dead! They were unexpected, precious reinforcements. The S.S. and those whose paybooks showed that they had taken part in the invasion of Poland in �39 received no mercy!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stor ... 0846.shtml

The French officer was very enthusiastic about the Poles, so one cannot discount his narrative as just being mean about the Poles. Note that he does not condemn shooting the POWs in any way. I wager that those soldiers whose countries were occupied by the Germans (the French, the Poles) saw it differently than Brits or Americans.

Despite I don't consider killing SS PoWs a war crime and if I had been a Polish soldier fighting in Falaise, I would have killed any SS PoWs just if I had had a chance, there are many unclear issues posted by new moderators on the Polish historical forum:
- the bodies of allegedly murdered SS men have never been found and it's impossible to hide 1000+ (according to other sources even 1200) bodies,
- there is a testimony of just a SINGLE American officer about that (alleged) crime and there are not other OFFICIAL witnesses. A moderator cited the famous old Roman law saying "Ullus testis, nullus testis" (one witness is no witness),
- the Germans were used to do everything in the past to publicize Allied war crimes, alleged or not and they have never brought up this case. For example a German television (IIRC it was ZDF) showed a program in the 70s, claiming the Polish soldiers had killed wounded German paratroopers in Monte Cassino in 1944. It's widely known the Germans left their wounded soldiers in the monastery, when they were leaving it to be more realistic, as the wounded soldiers simulated movement to convince the Allies the position was not abandoned. Surprisingly a German paratrooper, who was taken a PoW there came to the studio after watching that program, said it is a BS, and expressed his outrage for such a claim. He said a group of German paratroopers had been taken PoWs, they had got medical treatment and nobody had been murdered. I know being a SS-man or a Fallschirmjäger was a very big difference for the Poles, when they took prisoners
My point is clear: as the German journalists brought a matter of killing of several PoWs (that turned out to be not true), thinking logically they should "gone mad" if they had a chance to bring up a matter of killing 1000+ PoWs. However no German historian has presented such a claim so far.

As I said the alleged war crime during the battle of Falaise stays unclear for me, although the possibility it was committed by the Poles is probable, as I think it would be nothing, that would be a surprise for me and if you connect words: "SS-men" + "Poles" they will always mean "problems", regardless who started them.

Regards,
Krzysiek