Poland in Canada

World War I and Camp Kościuszko at Niagara-on-the-Lake

On November 11th our Canadian friends honour their wartime compatriots who served and paid the ultimate price for freedom in the world. For Poles this date has significance as well. More than commemorating Armistice Day and the end of World War I, it also marks Poland’s regaining of independence after 123 years of statelessness. On that day in 1918 the dream of generations of Poles was fulfilled: Poland was reborn on the map of Europe. The heroism and dedication of its soldiers, combined with a joint effort of the entire nation, made this moment possible. Yet it would not have occurred without the aid and support of our allies. Canada was among them.

In 1917 at Niagara-on-the-Lake Canadian authorities established a military facility called Camp Kościuszko, designed to train a Polish army-in-exile consisting of volunteers keen to fight for a free Poland during World War I. Over 22,000 Polish recruits, including 700 from Canada, trained at this site. They subsequently joined General Haller’s Blue Army alongside their Polish expatriates in France. This military contingent played an important role in securing Polish independence and in shaping the borders of a newborn state. The contribution of our Canadian friends is much appreciated and shall remain so in the collective memory of Poles and Polish diaspora.

The 100th anniversary of Poland’s victory in the Battle of Warsaw. Opposing the Red Tyranny

Marshall Józef Piłsudski succeeded in forming an alliance with Symon Petliura (1879-1926), President of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. Petliura sought to preserve an independent Ukrainian state and thus formed a political and military alliance with Poland in order to defend Ukraine against its eastern aggressor. Polish and Ukrainian forces launched an attack on Kyiv, which was finally freed from Bolshevik control in early May 1920 and subsequently returned to the legitimate Ukrainian government.

During those dramatic days of mid-August 1920, the Poles succeeded not only in stopping the Red Army’s advance on Warsaw, but also in regrouping their forces in preparation for a massive counter-offensive.

The Bolshevik Army in some crucial instances outnumbered the Poles four-to-one. On 15 August 1920, the feast day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Poles attacked on the left flank; a day later they began an attack on the right wing from the Wieprz line. The enemy was completely surprised and failed to mount any significant resistance. Referred to by later historians as ‘The Miracle on the Vistula’, the ‘Manoeuvre from Wieprz’ was an operational masterpiece prepared by Marshal Piłsudski and his Chief of Staff, General Tadeusz Jordan Rozwadowski.

The elite cavalry forces of the Red Army (Budyonny’s 1st Cavalry Army) were intercepted and defeated by their Polish counterparts at the Battle of Komarów near Zamość, one of the largest cavalry battles since the Battle of Leipzig (1813), and one of the last cavalry battles in history. Though Budyonny’s army managed to avoid encirclement, it suffered heavy losses and its morale plummeted.

Distinguished historian Norman Davies gives full credit to the Polish soldiers and military leaders of the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920. In August of that year, the Red Army—sure of victory and pledged to carry the Revolution across Europe —was crushed by a devastating Polish counter-attack on the Red Army position just 15 km east of Warsaw.  

Several British and American military historians have argued that the failure of the Red Army to destroy the Polish forces in 1920 decisively put an end to Bolshevik ambitions for an international revolution in Europe. The Miracle on the Vistula remains one of the most crucial conflicts of Western civilisation against Red tyranny.

The Battle of Britain, 303 Squadron and John Kent  

In World War II the Polish-Canadian brotherhood in arms was further strengthened on several battlefields.

As the Battle of Britain wore on, the shortage of trained pilots became critical. To meet this need, Poles in exile were accepted into R.A.F. squadrons, and two Polish fighter units, nos. 302 and 303, were formed. Once committed to action, the Poles flew and fought superbly, shooting down 203 enemy aircraft with a loss of only 29 pilots. Czech Sergeant Josef Frantisek, also of Squadron 303, was the top-scoring pilot with 17 confirmed victories. No. 303 Squadron became the most successful Fighter Command unit in the battle, shooting down 126 German planes in only 42 days. Commanding the Polish R.A.F. Squadron 303 was Canadian Group Captain John Kent of Winnipeg, whom Poles affectionately called ‘Johnny Kentowski’.

On 19 August 1942, the Allies launched a major raid on the French coastal port of Dieppe. ‘Operation Jubilee’ was the first major engagement of the Canadian forces in the European theatre of the war, and was designed to test the Allies’ ability to launch amphibious assaults against Nazi forces in continental Europe.

There is important aspect of the Dieppe Raid that serves to illustrate the brotherhood in arms that existed between Canadian soldiers and Polish seamen. On 19 August 1942 the Polish Destroyer ORP Ślązak provided important support for Allied forces during the raid on the coastal city. It proved to be one of the most spectacular actions of Polish warships in the entire history of the war.

The commander of the ship, Captain Romuald Nałęcz-Tymiński, despite the fact that he lost four of his crew members and his ship was heavily damaged by German artillery, decided to disobey Royal Navy orders to stay back from shore, and in the process saved 85 Canadian soldiers by evacuating them from the roiling waters off Dieppe, many of them were members of the Royal Regiment of Canada. For his heroic behavior Captain Nałęcz-Tymiński was awarded Britain’s Distinguished Service Cross. He was hailed as a hero both in Canada and in his homeland of Poland.

The Battle of the Falaise Gap – General Stanisław Maczek and The 1st Canadian Army

Through the combined efforts of General Stanisław Maczek and the Commander- in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces General Władysław Sikorski, who was also the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile, the 10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade (originally formed in 1937) was reborn on 25 February 1942, this time as the 1st Polish Armoured Division under Maczek’s command. The division landed in Normandy on 1 August 1944, with 16,000 men and some 400 tanks.

On 5 August, Maczek’s troops were placed under the command of Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds of The II Canadian Corps with clear military objectives: to crush German resistance and reach Falaise. General Maczek and his men were now well prepared to take on the German foe. Following the Polish defeat in the  September campaign of 1939, payback time had finally arrived for the anxious Poles.

The division was a component of Lieutenant-General Guy G. Simonds’ II Canadian Army Corps of the Canadian 1st Army, under Lieutenant-General Henry D.G. Crerar. On 14 August, Simonds’ II Corps began ‘Operation Tractable’, a renewed effort to take Falaise. The Polish 1st and the Canadian 4th Armoured Divisions were given the task of breaking through German lines in order to cut off enemy supply lines and road junctions.

Poles and the Canadians were fighting together on ‘Operation Totalize’ (7-10 August) and Tractable (14-16 August). On 17 August, the British Commander-in-Chief, General Bernard Law Montgomery, ordered the Canadian 4th and Polish 1st Armoured Divisions to advance through Trun and take Chambois.

On 18 August, elements of the Polish 1st Division linked up with Americans of the 90th Infantry Division (a unit of the Third U.S. Army under the command of General George S. Patton) and were able to capture the high ground on the path of the main German SS Panzer escape route.  On 19 August 1944, the First Polish Armoured Division found itself ahead of the 1st Canadian Army as it was about to attempt its great thrust forward in order to close the Falaise Gap. By the end of the battle for Falaise, the German army in France had been decimated. Some of the German units that the Poles confronted were the same ones they had faced in 1939.

The German army in France never fully recovered from the losses it suffered at Falaise. And now, too, the road to Paris lay open to the Allies. For General Maczek and the men of his 1st Polish Armoured Division, the battles of Chambois and Hill 262 represented their greatest victory in the West and a long-overdue revenge against the Germans.

The battle had cost the Polish 1st Armoured Division 1,300 troops killed and almost 4,000 wounded. Although 30,000 to 40,000 Germans had managed to make their escape across their remaining crossing at St. Lambert before the Falaise salient had closed completely on 21 August, more than 10,000 Nazi soldiers had been killed and 50,000 were taken prisoner.

After the battle, Lieutenant-General Crerar, Commander-in-Chief of the 1st Canadian Army, sent the following telegram to General Maczek:

‘First Canadian Army is very proud because of the fact that Polish Armoured Division is a part of us. If in the future we all continue to fight as at the present time, the mutual celebration of final victory should not be much delayed.’ 

Soldiers of both countries collectively helped liberate the Netherlands and Belgium. Our troops shed their blood at the Battle of Monte Cassino. And Poles fondly remember the 26 pilots of the RCAF who perished over Poland while flying support missions, inter alia during the Warsaw Uprising.

Poland, Canada and NATO

Polish-Canadian partnership was not only forged on battlefields but through political channels and important diplomatic initiatives. Canada’s support for Poland’s accession to NATO is a prime example. Poles and Polish diaspora do not forget that Canada was the first country to accept Poland as a full member of the Alliance. 

This year, as we celebrate the 71st anniversary of the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, we also recall 21 years of Poland’s membership in NATO. International security remains the cornerstone of our bilateral and diplomatic relations.

We value Canada’s active political and military engagement in support of European security: Through both NATO’s current Enhanced Forward Presence in Latvia (which is comprised of military personnel from Albania, Canada, Czech Republic, Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain), and earlier, through deployment of Canadian troops in Drawsko Pomorskie, Poland, as part of NATO’s Operation Reassurance initiative. In Latvia current cooperation between our units, aimed at strengthening NATO’s eastern flank, is also exemplary and has yielded significant results in terms of the collective implementation of our forces. Moreover, Polish and Canadian soldiers work to strengthen NATO’s southern flank in Romania while simultaneously conducting joint NATO training and advisory missions in Iraq and Ukraine. Cooperation between the Polish and Canadian Armed Forces is remarkable and continues to develop through joint training activities involving our respective land forces.

Ceremonies to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II were hosted by Poland on 1 September 2019. Polish President Andrzej Duda, accompanied by the Governor General of Canada Julie Payette and 40 other heads of state and governments, paid tribute to the victims and heroes of this terrible conflict. The number of such prominent leaders in attendance was particularly significant given recent attempts to obscure and manipulate the reasons for the outbreak
of war. 

Conclusion

The stability of Polish democracy – one of the oldest in the world – derives to a large extent from Polish democratic, libertarian and parliamentary traditions that date back to the fifteenth century and the Jagiellonian dynasty.

Modern Poland, then, has only really enjoyed independence for just  31 years. Even so, since 1989 Poland has undergone serious structural changes which have given us free, democratic parliamentary and presidential elections, a new constitution, economic prosperity, memberships of NATO and the EU. 

Poland and Canada have always stood – and shall remain standing – shoulder to shoulder with our allies and friends in defense of our borders, security, universal values, the rule of law, and human rights.