Stanisław Sosabowski
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Major General Stanisław Sosabowski Polish-Soviet War | |
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Awards | Knight's Cross of the Virtuti Militari Dutch Bronze Lion |
Stanisław Franciszek Sosabowski
Early military career
Early years and studies
Stanisław Sosabowski was born on 8 May 1892 in
World War I
In 1913, Sosabowski was drafted into the
In November 1918, after
Interwar period
After the
In 1937 Sosabowski was promoted to colonel and became the commanding officer of the 9th Polish Legions Infantry Regiment stationed in Zamość. In January 1939 he became the commander of the prestigious Warsaw-based 21st "Children of Warsaw" Infantry Regiment.
Invasion of Poland 1939
According to the Polish
On 2 September the division was moved towards Mława and in the early morning of the following day it entered combat in the Battle of Mława. Although the 21st Regiment managed to capture Przasnysz and its secondary objectives, the rest of the division was surrounded by the Wehrmacht and destroyed. After that Sosabowski ordered his troops to retreat towards Warsaw.
On 8 September Sosabowski's unit reached the Modlin Fortress. The routed 8th Division was being reconstructed, but the 21st Regiment was attached to the corps led by general Juliusz Zulauf. After several days of defensive fights, the corps was moved to Warsaw, where it arrived on 15 September.
Instantly upon arrival, Sosabowski was ordered to man the
After this success, Sosabowski was assigned to command all Polish troops fighting in the area of Grochów. Despite constant bombardment and German attacks repeated every day, Sosabowski managed to hold his objectives at relatively low cost in manpower. On 26 September 1939, the forces led by Sosabowski bloodily repelled the last German attack, but two days later Warsaw capitulated. On 29 September, shortly before the Polish forces left Warsaw for German captivity, General Juliusz Rómmel awarded Col. Sosabowski and the whole 21st Infantry Regiment with the Virtuti Militari medal.
France
Following the Polish surrender, Sosabowski was made a
Initially, the French authorities were very reluctant to hand over the badly needed equipment and armament for the Polish unit. Sosabowski's soldiers had to train with pre-World War I weapons. In April 1940, the division was moved to a training camp in
Great Britain
Upon his arrival in London, Sosabowski turned up at the Polish General Staff and was assigned to 4th Rifles Brigade that was to become a core of the future 4th Infantry Division. The unit was to be composed mainly of Polish Canadians, but it soon became apparent that there were not enough young Poles in Canada from which to create a division.
Then, Sosabowski decided to transform his brigade into a Parachute Brigade, the first such unit in the
In October 1942 the Brigade was ready for combat and was named the 1st Independent Parachute Brigade. Since the Polish General Staff planned to use the Brigade to assist a national uprising in Poland, the soldiers of the 1st Polish Para were to be the first element of the Polish Army in Exile to reach their homeland. Hence the unofficial motto of the unit: by the shortest road (najkrótszą drogą).
In September 1943, Lieutenant-General Frederick Browning proposed that Sosabowski reform his unit into a division and fill the remaining posts with British troops. Sosabowski himself would be assigned to the newly formed division and promoted to general. However, Sosabowski refused. Nevertheless, on 15 June 1944 he was promoted to Brigadier General.
Warsaw Uprising
In early August 1944, news of the Warsaw Uprising arrived in Great Britain. The Brigade was ready to be dropped by parachute into Warsaw to aid their comrades from the underground Polish Home Army, who were fighting a desperate battle against overwhelming odds. However, the distance was too great for the transport aircraft to make a round trip and access to Soviet airfields was denied. The morale of the Polish troops suffered badly and many of the units verged on mutiny. The British staff threatened its Polish counterpart with disarmament of the Brigade, but Sosabowski retained control of his unit. Finally, Polish Commander in Chief Kazimierz Sosnkowski put the Brigade under British command, and the plan to send it to Warsaw was abandoned. It was not until after the war that General Sosabowski learnt that his son, Stanisław "Stasinek" Sosabowski , a medic and member of the Kedyw, had lost his sight during the uprising.
Battle of Arnhem
During the planning for Operation Market Garden, Sosabowski expressed serious concerns regarding the feasibility of the mission.[2] Among Sosabowski's concerns were the poorly conceived drop zones at Arnhem, the long distances between the landing zones and Arnhem Bridge and that the area would contain a greater German presence than British intelligence believed.[3] Despite Sosabowski's concerns and warnings from the Dutch Resistance that two SS Panzer Divisions were in the operations area, Market Garden proceeded as planned.[4]
The Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade was among the
Despite the difficult situation, at a staff meeting on 24 September, Sosabowski suggested that the battle could still be won. He proposed that the combined forces of XXX Corps, under Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks, and the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade should start an all-out assault on the German positions and try to break through the Rhine. This plan was not accepted, and during the last phase of the battle, on 25 and 26 September, Sosabowski led his men southwards, shielding the retreat of the remnants of the 1st Airborne Division. Casualties among the Polish units were high, approaching 40%, and were at least in part, the result of Lieutenant-General Browning's decision to drop the paratroops 7 kilometres from the bridge at Arnhem.[citation needed]
After the battle, on 5 October 1944, Sosabowski received a letter from Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, commander of the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group, describing the Polish soldiers as having fought bravely and offering awards to ten of his soldiers.[citation needed] However, on 14 October 1944, Montgomery wrote another letter, this time to the British commanders, in which he scapegoated Sosabowski for the failure of Market Garden.[citation needed] Sosabowski was accused of criticizing Montgomery, and the Polish General Staff was forced to remove him as the commanding officer of his brigade on 27 December 1944.[citation needed]
In the opinion of historian Michael Alfred Peszke, "The worst thing that a subordinate can do is to question orders and to be proved right." Sosabowski had expressed doubts about the feasibility of the Market Garden Operation.[5]
At the
The message stated that Sosabowski's brigade performed badly. Churchill could use this claim to put more pressure on Mikołajczyk to cooperate, because it could be argued that one of his most valuable assets, Sosabowski's elite brigade, was no longer useful to the Allied war effort. Montgomery's telegram is exceptional to his behavior in that timeframe. Two days prior to the telegram he was praising the Polish contribution to the war, while six weeks later he awarded a Distinguished Service Order to General Stanisław Maczek and decorated members of the Polish 1st Armoured Division.[9] In addition, war correspondents spoke highly of the Polish contribution to Market Garden in the same period as Montgomery was expressing his negative experiences, via Field Marshal Brooke, to Prime Minister Churchill.[10][11]
Sosabowski was eventually made the commander of rearguard troops and was demobilized in July 1948. He was portrayed by Gene Hackman in the 1977 war film A Bridge Too Far.[12]
After the war
Shortly after the war Sosabowski succeeded in evacuating his wife and only son from Poland. Like many other Polish wartime officers and soldiers who were unable to return to Communist Poland he settled in West London. He found a job as a factory worker at the CAV Electrics assembly plant in Acton.[13] He died in London on 25 September 1967. In 1969, Sosabowski's remains were returned to Poland, where he was reinterred at Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw.
In The Hague, on 31 May 2006, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands awarded the Military Order of William to the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade. The brigade's commander, Sosabowski,[14] was posthumously awarded the "Bronze Lion".[15] In part this was the result of a Dutch TV documentary depicting the brigade as having played a far more significant role in Market Garden than had been hitherto acknowledged. In this film by Geertjan Lassche, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands said the Poles deserved to be honoured with at least a medal.[16]
The following day, on 1 June, a ceremony was held at Driel, the town where the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade fought. Among the speakers at the ceremony were the mayor of Overbetuwe, as well as Sosabowski's grandson and great-grandson.
In the summer of 2012 1st Airborne Major Tony Hibbert made a video appeal for Sosabowski to be pardoned and honoured.[17]
His bust was unveiled on 1 September 2013 in Kraków's Jordan Park.[18] Sosabowski is one of many Polish historical figures honoured in the Park.
Awards
He was awarded many military honours, including:
- Knight's Cross of the Virtuti Militari
- Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta (posthumously, 1988)
- Cross of Independence
- Polish Cross of Valour
- Gold Cross of Merit with Swords
- Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire
- Bronze Lion Award for Bravery (Netherlands, posthumously, 2006)
See also
- Polish contribution to World War II
- Polish Armed Forces in the West
- Cichociemni
- Stanisław Maczek
- Western betrayal
- Władysław Sikorski
Footnotes
- ^ Sosabowski Stanisław at Encyclopedia PWN.
- ^ "Market Garden 65 Years On: Reflections of a Tragedy | Armchair General | Armchair General Magazine - We Put YOU in Command!". armchairgeneral.com. Retrieved 30 September 2018.
- ISBN 9780698409408.
- ^ "Lessons Learned from Operation Market Garden" (PDF). Air War College. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 February 2017.
- ISBN 978-0-8129-9735-4.
- ^ Churchill, Winston (1959). Memoirs of The Second World War. Vol.IV Triumph and Tragedy 1943-1945. London. p. 885.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ "Sosabowski and the Polish position after Operation Market Garden". 6 January 2016.
- ^ Source document (Imperial War museum, London) Telegram from Bernard Montgomery to Sir Alan Brooke (16 October 1944)
- ^ Pictures of this event available at the archive of the city of Breda (25 November 1944). Picture shows Montgomery decorating soldiers from the Polish 1st Armoured Division.
- ^ "Sosabowski and the Polish position after Operation Market Garden". 6 January 2016.
- ^ Richard Lamb, "Polish at Arnhem", in: ""The Times"" (25 February 1984) [unknown author], "Rescue party at Arnhem", in: The Times (14 November 1944) [unknown author], "2,000 men return from Arnhem", in: The Times (28 September 1944) and [unknown author], "Work of Polish Troops in Arnhem", in: The Times (9 October 1944).
- ^ "A Bridge Too Far". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 22 October 2006.
- ^ "TracesOfWar.com". SOSABOWSKI, Stanislaw Franciscek. Retrieved 22 October 2006.
- ^ "FilmPolski.pl".
- ^ "Royal Honours – Military williams Order for Poles". Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 16 September 2009.
- ^ "The process of Polish rehabilitation in 2006". 6 January 2016.
- ^ PublicEnquiry (5 August 2012). "Market Garden 1944 - Major Tony Hibbert's call to honour Polish General Sosabowski" – via YouTube.
- ^ "Odsłonięcie pomnika gen. Sosabowskiego w Krakowie. Zobacz zdjęcia!".
References
- George F. Cholewczynski (1993). Poles Apart. Sarpedon Publishers. ISBN 1-85367-165-7.
- George F. Cholewczynski (1990). De Polen van Driel. Uitgeverij Lunet. ISBN 90-71743-10-1.
- Stanislaw Sosabowski (1982). Freely I served. Battery Press Inc. ISBN 0-89839-061-3.
- Juliusz L Englert and Krzysztof Barbarski (1996). General Sosabowski/Major Sosabowski. Caldra House. ISBN 0-85065-224-3.
- Honor Generała – documentary TV POLONIA 2008, directed by Joanna Pieciukiewicz
External links
- History of the family Sosabowski
- A Biography
- Market Garden 1944—Major Tony Hibbert’s call to honour Polish General Sosabowski Ten-minute video interview, June 2012. Major Hibbert, veteran of the Battle of Arnhem, states that, after the battle, General Sosabowski was "dismissed, and he lost also his rank in the army and his pension." Major Hibbert calls for the dismissal to be rescinded. YouTube.com
- Sosabowski's wider role in the Anglo-Polish relations versus Soviet Union
- Generals of World War II