Józef Olszyna-Wilczyński

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General
Józef Olszyna-Wilczyński
Polish-Soviet War
World War II

Józef Konstanty Olszyna-Wilczyński (pronounced

Invasion of Poland
of 1939.

Early life

Józef Wilczyński was born 27 November 1890 in

nom de guerre, which later became part of his surname
.

First World War

After the outbreak of the Great War he was mobilized to the Austro-Hungarian Army in the role of a platoon commanding officer, but on 6 August 1914 he was allowed to join the Polish Legions.

He served with distinction in the rank of Second Lieutenant and then First Lieutenant in most of the battles of the 1st Brigade of the Polish Legions. Initially a company commander in the 1st Regiment, in 1915 he was promoted to the rank of Captain and became a battalion commander within the 5th Regiment. After the

Polish Military Organization
.

Józef Olszyna-Wilczyński

After Poland regained its independence, on 4 November 1918, Olszyna-Wilczyński and his battalion (composed of Poles mostly) joined the

Polish-Soviet War
.

During the

Third Silesian Uprising
. A skilled organizer rather than front-line commander, between 1922 and 1923 Józef Olszyna-Wilczyński headed the engineering units of the Kraków-based 5th Military Area Command (DOK V). Then, until October 1924 he served as the head of all the engineering units of the Polish Army in the Polish Ministry of Military Affairs.

After the creation of the

Polish Defensive War
the DOK III was converted into the Grodno Operational Group.

Second World War

After the outbreak of the war, Olszyna-Wilczyński's unit was to prepare the defense of the area between

Pińsk, where he met with Marshal of Poland Edward Rydz-Śmigły. After the Soviet Union invaded Poland on 17 September, the Polish government issued orders to its military that they should avoid fighting with Soviet forces. Nonetheless both pro-Communist rebels (Skidel rebellion[1]
) and various Soviet units did not shy away from attacking Polish units.

The Soviet offensive caught much of the eastern Poland virtually undefended, as most of the Polish forces from the area had already been transferred to the German front. After breaking through overstretched defenses of the

Boy Scouts
and police forces.

Ill-equipped, undermanned and lacking any anti-tank artillery, the Polish defenders relied mostly on improvised anti-tank defences, such as

Sopoćkinie. The general and his adjutant were shot[2]
after a brief interrogation, while his wife and driver were allowed to continue the journey.

2002 Polish investigation

On 11 February 2002 the Polish

common crime
rather than a war crime, and as such their crimes were subject to expiration. Because of that, on 18 May 2004 the investigation was closed due to inability to find those responsible.

Awards

See also

References

  1. ^ Białoruskie Zeszyty Historyczne nr 7 – Powstanie skidelskie 1939 r. Archived 16 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine at kamunikat.fontel.net
  2. ISBN 0-901342-24-6
    Page 38
  3. OCLC 38884671
    .
  • PWN Encyclopedia entry on OLSZYNA-WILCZYŃSKI JÓZEF KONSTANTY online[permanent dead link] (in Polish)
  • Tomasz Zbigniew Zapert, Generałowie Września, Tygodnik Ozon, 2 February 2005 online (in Polish)
  • Alfreda Olszyna-Wilczyńska, Moje wspomnienia wojenne (My war memories), Instytut Polski i Muzeum gen. W. Sikorskiego (dalej: IPMS), B I 70/A, s. 2–3 (in Polish)
  • Mikhail Meltyukhov. Soviet-Polish Wars, Moscow, Veche, 2001. (in Russian)

External links

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