A Time of Tyrants

by Trevor Royle

  After consideration it was decided to send them to Scotland where they would re-form and be used in defensive duties on the east coast to fill the gap left by the loss of so many of Scotland’s Territorial battalions. They also needed to be re-equipped and retrained, and with an invasion expected at any moment it was essential get them to a part of the country which had a workable infrastructure and good communications.7 For many Poles this must have been anti-climactic, but those who came to Scotland were the lucky ones. Comrades who had chosen the northern route into Lithuania were apprehended by the Red Army; others, including Władysław Fila, were captured in eastern Poland and spent the next eighteen months in Siberia, while still more who were taken prisoner in the Polish Corridor found themselves conscripted into the Nazi army and sent to Vichy France. Later still, in the summer of 1941 when Hitler ordered the Soviet Union to be attacked, surviving Polish prisoners of war were released to form a new Free Polish Army, and many of these eventually made their way to Scotland having fought in the Middle East and Italy.

  For the bulk of the Free Poles of 1940 their first destination was to be Glasgow where they were housed in tented accommodation in the city’s football stadiums and other open spaces including Bellahouston Park. From that moment they quickly emerged as the largest and most easily identifiable of the many exiled groups which arrived in the country following the fall of France. With their smart uniforms and the romance of their recent fighting experiences they also became firm favourites with many Scottish families, one historian claiming that ‘many Scots, especially the ladies, were astounded by Polish good looks and by Polish courtesy’.8

  Most of the contemporary evidence supports the idea that the Poles were well received when they arrived in Scotland and that the people warmed to them ‘with a combination of intense curiosity and admiration’.9 In Glasgow, under the direction of Lord Provost Patrick Dollan (soon to be nicknamed ‘Dollanski’), the city corporation set up canteens, and local people invited Poles into their homes. As Władysław (‘Walter’) Maronski, a signaller in 8th Polish Motorised Infantry Battalion, discovered when he arrived in St Andrews, the Poles, too, were determined to make their presence felt amongst their hosts: ‘The first night at St Andrews began at nine o’clock when we had the evening prayer. Before the evening prayer we sang our national anthem [D browski’s ‘Mazurka’ or ‘Poland is not yet lost’] and this was the sound going through the whole town because before the prayer we had to go outside, there were so many of us. And in those days we prayed earnestly. When we made our prayer, “give us our daily bread”, that’s what we meant.’10

  The glimmer of the exotic also reached back into history. Scotland enjoyed age-old trading links with Poland through the Baltic, and somewhere within the national consciousness there were distant memories of Scots fighting as mercenaries in Poland’s cause in the eighteenth century.

  It was only to be expected that the enemy would learn about this new military presence in Scotland, and the Nazi propaganda machine responded by calling them ‘General Sikorski’s Tourists’, a description which the Poles adopted with self-conscious pride. However, there was much more to the arrival of the Poles than clicking heels, kissing hands and cutting a dash. The exiles had a job to do, and quickly set about creating an impressive command structure to reform their army and to begin training for the battle that lay ahead. More than anything else it is the concentration of enthusiasm, determination and endeavour that marks the arrival of the Poles in Scotland. It is right to emphasise the historical romance and glamour that attended the moment, but more impressive by far is the speed and efficiency with which the Poles organised themselves so that they quickly became a familiar military presence across central and eastern Scotland.

  On 3 August the Anglo-Polish Agreement for the Polish Armed Forces was signed, and this paved the way for the future structure for the Polish forces. Inevitably, the order of battle reflected Scotland’s pre-eminent role as the main base for the Polish forces, but as the Free Poles were allies they had to have a separate command to allow Polish forces to operate within the area which came under the jurisdiction of Scottish Command, the headquarters of the army in Scotland at Edinburgh Castle. Polish General Headquarters (GHQ) was situated at the Rubens Hotel in London, as was the exiled Ministry of National Defence, but at the same time separate headquarters were formed in Scotland as the Poles started regrouping in their new training areas in Lanarkshire in the autumn of 1940. Two infantry brigades were formed at Biggar and Douglas with a smaller all-arms group at Crawford. Apart from the vile late summer weather and the leak-prone bell tents, two things discomfited the new arrivals: they disliked the basic British Army rations and found their replacement heavy serge battle-dress uniforms uncomfortable and unfashionable, but these drawbacks were quickly addressed by employing their own cooks and tailors to remedy the situation.

  As tents were in short supply, soldiers were billeted on the local population and that helped to harmonise relations and create a feeling of fighting in common cause. Amongst those on the receiving end of Scottish hospitality in Biggar was Wiktor Tomaszewski, a young doctor, who had been returning to Poland from the US and had immediately joined the forces being formed in France: ‘We had the warmest reception there. I remember very well because it was so unusual after the stay in France and suddenly coming to Great Britain here in Scotland where everyone was so friendly everywhere, wherever one was going, either in the streets or in the shops, so there was only fresh friendly faces and friendly attitudes . . . I remember very well these times.’11

  Other Poles were less lucky because with the best will in the world the arrival of the Poles was not met with universal acclaim in every part of Scotland. Quite apart from a natural Scottish wariness of strangers, immigrant groups in Scotland in the 1930s were a distinct minority in a country whose population was in sharp decline for the first time since records began. The 1931 census shows that the population consisted of 4,842,554 people (2,325,867 males and 2,516,687 females) and that this was 39,947 lower than the previous census ten years earlier. The total number of Polish residents born in Scotland was also the lowest since 1881: 549 males and 409 females, the majority of whom lived in Lanarkshire.12 For the first time, too, the balance of outward over inward migration had changed. ‘From Returns furnished by the Board of Trade showing emigrants from Scotland and immigrants into Scotland to and from countries out of Europe, the balance of outward over inward migration overseas for the intercensal period is ascertained to be 328,764. The total loss by migration being as above stated 392,329, the difference amounting to 63,565 is apparently to be accounted for by the migration of Scottish population to countries not embraced in the Board of Trade returns referred to, i.e. to other countries of the United Kingdom and of Europe.’13

  Politics and religion also intruded. The majority of the Poles were Roman Catholics, and this caused some animus in traditional Protestant areas, especially when soldiers extended their fraternisation to the local female population. This was to be a source of tension throughout the war, particularly in the later stages when large numbers of British conscripts were fighting in faraway overseas theatres and the presence of available single men caused obvious difficulties. Another drawback was that any Scottish girl intending to marry a Pole had to surrender her British citizenship and become, in effect, an alien, a prospect that was hardly likely to encourage her father to smile kindly on the idea of accepting a Polish son-in-law. The legal anomaly did not change until 1946 but despite that, relationships did prosper and liaisons became engagements and turned into marriages. All told, between 1941 and 1946 an estimated 10,000 marriages took place between Scots women and members of the Polish forces.14

  In all probability suspicions about the religious divide were resolved in the same way that they were in any part of Scotland at that time. More serious and more bitter were the political differences, and this came into sharp focus when the Poles began to move into Fife in October when they were presented with t
heir first operational orders to take over responsibility for the eastern coastal defences from Burntisland in Fife to Montrose in Angus. The 1st Rifle Brigade moved its headquarters from Biggar to Cupar in Fife with battalion headquarters in St Andrews and at Tentsmuir, while the 2nd Brigade, soon to be renamed and re-assigned as the 10th (Polish) Mechanised Cavalry Brigade set up its headquarters in Forfar. Soon Polish soldiers were to be seen in most towns along the eastern seaboard and inland as they set up military establishments in Cupar, Leven, Milnathort, Auchtermuchty, Crawford, Biggar, Douglas, Duns, Kelso, Forres, Perth, Tayport, Lossiemouth, Arbroath, Forfar and Carnoustie.15 Much of their early work consisted of building beach defences against the threatened German invasion.

  However, in Fife, where the concrete anti-tank blocks can still be seen in the sand dunes of the coastal beaches, the situation was complicated by a clear political divide. In the wealthy farmlands of the Howe of Fife and in the fishing villages of the East Neuk, northeast Fife was solidly conservative and unionist, but in the coalmining and industrialised areas of West Fife the exact opposite prevailed. Not only was this socialist territory and a coalmining centre, but the sitting Member of Parliament for West Fife was Willie Gallacher, an active trade unionist and member of the Communist Party who had been imprisoned during the First World War while serving as president of the Clyde Workers’ Committee.

  Despite the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, there was still a lively interest in left-wing circles to promote Soviet interests, and the arrival in the area of largely nationalist and anti-Communist Poles caused considerable bad feeling in the main coalfield towns of Cowdenbeath, Kelty and Lochgelly. Those hostile feelings intensified during the summer of 1941 after Hitler’s forces invaded the Soviet Union which then became an important ally of the west. It did not take long for existing indifference to be transmuted into outright hostility towards the Free Poles who came to be regarded in west Fife not as gallant allies but as potential enemies of the Soviet Union.

  It was an endlessly complicated situation. Following the Polish defeat in 1939 the country had been divided into areas of German and Soviet influence. Of the former, existing Germanic areas were absorbed into the Reich while a ‘General Government’ under Hans Frank administered an area which included most of the main cities and twelve million Poles. To all intents and purposes it became a German labour colony, where there was a brutal and systematic attempt to eradicate all traces of Polish culture and society. The first steps were also taken to eradicate the Jewish population, with half a million of their number being concentrated in the Warsaw ghetto. Conditions in the Soviet occupation zone in the east were also harsh, and there was an equally determined attempt to eradicate anything which related to Polish culture, language and history. Tens of thousands of Poles, including members of the armed forces, were forcibly transported to prison camps and state farms in Kazakhstan and beyond the Urals where they worked under terrible conditions as slave labourers. Only with Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 was there a change of attitude. Stalin now needed the Poles as allies, and the resulting Polish–Soviet Treaty signed on 30 July 1941 permitted the creation of a new Polish Army consisting of former prisoners of war under the command of General Władysław Anders. When these moved into Persia, a British dependency and today Iran, many Polish soldiers eventually found their way to Scotland where their presence was regarded as a double betrayal by those on the left.

  There was another price to be paid by the Poles. The Soviets made territorial demands on the occupied eastern provinces, and in return supported the Union of Polish Patriots (ZPP) under the leadership of Wanda Wasilewska, a leading Polish Communist and member of the Supreme Council of the USSR, who conceded that post-war Poland would become Moscow’s ally. A novelist who had fled to the Soviet Union in 1939, Wasilewska inspired mixed emotions: Communists found her inspirational but one Polish historian described the Polish Communist leader as ‘the most servile exponent of Soviet ideology.’16

  By 1943 there were virtually two Polands-in-exile, one based in London, the other in Moscow. The rivalries between them were exacerbated that same year by Sikorski’s mysterious death in an aircraft accident at Gibraltar, and by the discovery of a Russian massacre of 4,000 Polish officers in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk. That helps to explain some of the enmity in west Fife, where sympathies were strong both for the Communist cause and for the idea of creating a Second Front in Western Europe to support Stalin. Put simply, many of the people working in the Fife coalfields supported the Red Army and its allies in the ZPP, and regarded General Sikorski’s Tourists as traitors to that cause. For Josef Mirczynski, who had come to Scotland in 1940, that bad blood was a foretaste of the more tragic territorial issues that emerged from the Yalta Agreement which carved up Eastern Europe at the end of the war (see Chapter 12).

  Places in [west] Fife were Communist and they were not very pleased about the Polish people. Maybe the younger people were all right but the older people had a different point of view and after the war was over they all told us to go back to Poland because you have your own country and jobs. Only in these places, Fife. The rest, they were very friendly – except Dundee. If you go into the streets or into the shops or so many times into the pubs because we’re not always allowed to go into the pubs they always just ignore you.17

  In spite of difficulties such as those experienced by Mirczynski and others the Poles quickly established themselves as a formidable presence in Scotland, and in so doing set up their own institutions, a process that helped to reinforce their presence throughout the country. Apart from the headquarters of I Polish Corps at Moncrieff House near Perth and the creation of the Polish Military Staff College at Eddleston near Peebles, the Polish government-in-exile moved to create training centres for rebuilding the country once the war had ended. Various courses in law, education, medicine and veterinary science were established in the four Scottish universities, but the most notable and longest-lasting of the institutions was the creation of the Polish School of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh.

  Following the arrival of the first Polish exiles, many medical students had attempted to continue their studies, but when their lack of English became a problem it was decided to address it by forming a new school where Poles would be taught by Poles in their own language and according to standards established by their government. Amongst their number was Wiktor Tomaszewsky, who joined the establishment on 22 March 1941 under the direction of Professor Antoni Jurasz and with the full support of Professor Sydney Smith, Edinburgh’s distinguished Dean of Medicine. In the depths of a war which the Germans seemed to be winning the creation of the Polish Medical School was very much seen as a beacon of hope, and it was fitting that during the inauguration service in the university’s McEwan Hall the organist took his music from the works of Elgar and Purcell as well as Chopin and Paderewski.18

  Although the Polish army contingents made the deepest impression on the people of Scotland, the Free Polish Navy and Free Polish Air Force also had visible presences across Scotland. Shortly after the outbreak of hostilities the destroyers Błyskawica (Lightning), Grom (Thunder) and Burza (Tempest) sailed into the Firth of Forth. They were escorted into Leith where they formed the Polish Destroyer Squadron, and later redeployed to the Clyde. They were subsequently joined by the submarines Wilk (Wolf) and Orzel (Eagle), and during the following year the Free Polish Navy was strengthened by the addition of British warships and by French warships which had surrendered after the fall of France. Some thirty-eight Polish merchant vessels also managed to escape from the Baltic and joined the Allied Merchant Navy Pool, many of them operating out of the Greenock assembly point.

  The Free Polish Air Force also had a presence in Scotland. Following the defeat of the homeland some 7,000 air force personnel and 90 operational aircraft had made their way to France by the summer of 1940. Following the collapse in June most managed to make good their escape, and under an agreement with the Briti
sh government were incorporated into the Allied order of battle under RAF control. Two Polish squadrons, 302 (City of Posnan) and 303 (Koscluszko) served with great distinction during the Battle of Britain, the latter destroying more German aircraft than any other Hurricane squadron. Altogether 145 Polish pilots saw service in the battle and thirty lost their lives, including Josef Frontisek, a Czech pilot who flew with 303 Squadron and who was credited as being the highest-scoring pilot in the Battle of Britain with a total of twenty-eight kills. By the end of 1943, fourteen Polish squadrons were in existence and the Free Polish Air Force numbered 11,368 personnel, making it the fourth largest Allied air force.

  The majority of the aircrew received their training in Scotland, and throughout the war there was a significant Polish presence in the country with various fighter squadrons flying out of Turnhouse and Wick. Two squadrons were more or less permanent residents throughout the war. In 1940 and 1941, 309 (Land of Czerwie) Army Cooperation Squadron operated Lysander aircraft from Dunino and Crail in Fife where I Polish Corps was responsible for coastal defences. In the summer of 1941 it transferred to Longman field near Inverness where it took part in army co-operation exercises with 51st (Highland) Division, and in the following year it started receiving Mustang I fighters to enable it to serve in the fighter-reconnaissance role. One of its pilots, a trained mechanic, believed that the new aircraft had a longer range than had been imagined and gave a practical demonstration by flying a Mustang from Crail to attack targets in Norway. For using his initiative he was first reprimanded and then thanked by his commanding officer.19 Later still the squadron transferred to Longside near Peterhead on coastal and convoy-protection duties.