1st Armoured Division (Poland)

The Polish 1st Armoured Division (Polish 1 Dywizja Pancerna) was an Allied military unit during World War II, created in February 1942 at Duns in Scotland. At its peak it numbered approximately 16,000 soldiers. It was commanded by General Stanisław Maczek.

History


The division was formed as part of the I Polish Corps. In the early stages the division was stationed in Scotland and guarded approximately 200 kilometres of British coast. In UK, it participated in war games together with the 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division, and in France, Low Countries, and Germany, both divisions followed very close paths. This might have been done to help in communication (vast majority of Poles did not speak English when they arrived in UK in 1940, 1941, and 1942).

Normandy
By the end of July 1944 the division had been transferred to Normandy. The final elements arrived on August 1 and the unit was attached to the First Canadian Army. It entered combat on August 8 during Operation Totalize. The division twice suffered serious bombings by Allied aircraft which accidentally bombed friendly troops, but yet it achieved a victory against the Wehrmacht in the battles for Mont Ormel, and the town of Chambois. This series of offensive and defensive operations came to be known as the Battle of Falaise in which a large number of German Wehrmacht and SS divisions were trapped in the Falaise pocket and subsequently destroyed. Maczek's division had the crucial role of closing the pocket at the escape route of those German divisions, hence the fighting was absolutely desperate and the 2nd Polish Armoured Regiment, 24th Polish Lancers and 10th Dragoons supported by the 8th and 9th Infantry Battalions took the brunt of German attacks trying to break free from the pocket. Surrounded and running out of ammunition they withstood incessant attacks from multiple fleeing panzer divisions for 48 hours until they were relieved.

Belgium and the Netherlands


After the Allied armies broke out from Normandy, the Polish 1st Armoured Division pursued the Germans along the coast of the English Channel. It liberated, among others, the towns of Saint-Omer, Ypres, Ghent and Passchendaele. A successful outflanking manoeuvre planned and performed by General Maczek allowed the liberation of the city of Breda without any civilian casualties (October 29, 1944). The Division spent the winter of 1944-1945 on the south bank of the river Rhine, guarding a sector around Moerdijk, Netherlands. In early 1945 it was transferred to the province of Overijssel and started to push along with the Allies along the Dutch-German border, liberating the eastern parts of the provinces of Drenthe and Groningen with towns such as Emmen, Coevorden and Stadskanaal.



Germany
In April 1945 the 1st Armoured entered Germany in the area of Emsland. On May 6 the division seized the Kriegsmarine naval base in Wilhelmshaven, where General Maczek accepted the capitulation of the fortress, naval base, East Frisian Fleet and more than 10 infantry divisions. There the Division ended the war and was joined by the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade. It undertook occupation duties until 1947, when the division was disbanded, it and the many Polish displaced persons in the Western occupied territories forming a Polish enclave at Haren in Germany which was for a while known as "Maczków". The majority of its soldiers opted not to return to now Soviet occupied Poland and stayed in exile.

Organization during 1944-45
1st Armoured Division - General Stanisław Maczek - comprising:-


 * 10th Armoured Cavalry Brigade (10 Brygada Kawalerii Pancernej) - Col. T. Majewski:
 * 1st Polish Armoured Regiment (1 pułk pancerny) - Lt.Col. Aleksander Stefanowicz
 * 2nd Polish Armoured Regiment (2 pułk pancerny) - Lt.Col. S. Koszustki
 * 24th Polish Lancers Regiment (Armoured; 24 pułk ułanów im. Hetmana Żółkiewskiego) - Lt.Col. J. Kański
 * 10th Polish Dragoons Regiment (10 pułk dragonów zmotoryzowanych) - Lt.Col. Władysław Zgorzelski


 * 3rd Polish Infantry Brigade (3 Brygada Piechoty) - Col. Marian Wieroński :
 * 1st Polish Highland Battalion (1 battalion Strzelców Podhalańskich) - Lt.Col. K. Complak
 * 8th Polish Rifle Battalion (8 battalion strzelców) - Lt.Col. Aleksander Nowaczyński
 * 9th Polish Rifle Battalion (9 battalion strzelców flandryjskich) - Lt.Col. Zygmunt Szydłowski
 * 1st Polish Independent HMG Squadron (samodzielna kompania ckm.) - Maj. M. Kochanowski
 * Divisional Artillery (Artyleria dywizyjna) - Col. B. Noel :
 * 1st Polish Motorized Artillery Regiment (1 pułk artylerii motorowej) - Lt.Col. J. Krautwald
 * 2nd Polish Motorized Artillery Regiment (2 pułk artylerii motorowej) - Lt.Col. K. Meresch
 * 1st Polish Anti-Tank Regiment (formed in 1945 from smaller units) (1 pułk artylerii przeciwpancernej) - Major R. Dowbór
 * 1st Polish Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment (1 pułk artylerii przeciwlotniczej) - Lt.Col. O. Eminowicz, later Maj. W. Berendt


 * Other Units :
 * 10th Polish Mounted Rifle Regiment (10 pułk strzelców konnych) (amoured reconnaissance equipped with Cromwell tanks ) - Maj. J. Maciejowski
 * HQ, Military Police,
 * engineers (saperzy dywizyjni) - Lt.Col. J. Dorantt
 * signals (1 batalion łączności) - Lt.Col. J. Grajkowski
 * administration, military court, chaplaincy, reserve squadrons, medical services.

Numbers

 * 885 - officers and non-commissioned officers
 * 15,210 - other ranks (other enlisted soldiers)
 * 381 - tanks (mostly M4 Shermans)
 * 473 - artillery pieces (mostly motorized)
 * 4,050 - motor cars, trucks, utility vehicles, artillery carriers.

Dramatization
The division is the subject of a 'Polish campaign' in the best-selling Call of Duty 3 video game. The PS2 version included an interview with a veteran.

Movie

 * |General Stanislaw Maczek a movie in Polish