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Cholewczynski, George F.

A recognized expert on the history of airborne warfare and Polish military history, George F. Cholewczynski is the author of several books. Born in 1951, he now resides in Clifton, New Jersey.

POLES APART

The Polish Airborne at the Battle of Arnhem

To deal the Germans a final blow and end the war in Europe by Christmas 1944, the Allies mounted the greatest airborne battle in history, Operation MARKET GARDEN. Three airborne divisions, plus the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade, were dropped behind German lines to hold the bridges of Holland for an armored assault that would simultaneously crash across the Dutch border.

Instead of cracking the German defenses, however, the Allies were horribly bloodied in their attempt to take the "bridge too far" and Hitler achieved his last victory in the West. The story of the 1st British Airborne Division's near annihilation at the hands of two SS Panzer divisions has passed into military legend. Less celebrated is the role of the Polish Parachute Brigade, which flew into the battle on the third day, onto German-held drop zones, to fight heroically in this most dramatic of Allied failures. A subject of controversy ever since the battle, the Poles were accused by the British high command of incompetence and obstructiveness at the time. Poles Apart, through years of thorough research and interviews with participants, describes in vivid, "on the spot" detail how the Poles in fact performed with great skill and dogged courage under the most difficult of circumstances. Seldom have soldiers fought under conditions as poignant as did the Poles in MARKET GARDEN. Originally formed to support an uprising in its homeland against the Nazis, the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade was thrown into the inferno of Arnhem just as the Polish Home Army was rising against the Germans in Warsaw. As the Poles fought and died in support of their Western Allies in Holland, the citizens of burning Warsaw looked skyward for their paratroopers to save them from the Germans, as the Russian Army sat across the Vistula awaiting their own turn at occupation.

Unlike the gallant soldiers of other Allied armies, many Polish paratroopers would never see their homeland again, even after ultimate victory.

Poles Apart describes the inception of the Polish airborne force, including the career of its dynamic leader, Sosabowski, through the debacles of 1939 in Poland and 1940 in France, to the incredible gamble that was MARKET GARDEN.

Along with telling the story of airborne combat on a massive scale in one of this century's most daring failures, Poles Apart corrects the historical record by establishing the Polish airborne force once and for all as a fighting force worthy of the respect of all nations.

Publisher: SARPEDON, 166 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
ISBN 0-9627613-5-4

From: Book Jacket

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