Flames in the Sky: Epic stories of WWII air war heroism from the author of The Big Show (Pierre Clostermann's Air War Collection Book 2) by Pierre Clostermann

Author:Pierre Clostermann [Clostermann, Pierre]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silvertail Books
Published: 2021-01-27T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

FLAMES OVER WARSAW

‘Lord God Almighty, the children of a warlike nation raise to Thee their disarmed hands. They call to Thee from the depths of the mines of Siberia and of the snows of Kamchatka. From Muscovite and Prussian servitude, Oh Lord, deliver us.’

From a poem of 1831 by Adam Mickiewicz.

At 8.15 a.m. on the 29th July 1944, Radio-Moscow broadcast in Polish the following call to the Resistance in Warsaw:

‘For Warsaw, which has never given in and has continued to fight, the hour of action has come.

‘The Germans will doubtless try and make a stand in the city, piling up more ruins and massacring thousands more victims. Your houses and gardens, your bridges and stations, your factory and office buildings will be turned into defensive positions by the enemy. They will expose the city to destruction and its inhabitants to certain death. They will pillage, and reduce to dust what they cannot take away.

‘That is why it is more than ever necessary to remember that the Hitlerite flood destroys everything. Only an active effort, and fighting in the streets, the houses, the factories and the shops of Warsaw will bring nearer the hour of liberation and save both the town's heritage and the fives of your fellow citizens.

‘Poles, the hour of liberation is at hand!

‘Poles, to arms!

‘Do not lose an instant, Praga and the industrial suburbs of Warsaw are already within range of Russian guns!’

At 5 p.m. on 1st August, a bomb went off in the Gestapo Headquarters, which unleashed the insurrection. 50,000 soldiers of the Polish underground army, helped by the entire population, seized three-quarters of the city after five hours’ bitter fighting which cost them more than 7000 killed.

The trap was set, and, in full view of the whole civilised world, was about to close mercilessly on the Polish martyrs.

As soon as the insurrection was really under way the Soviet troops withdrew six miles under orders from Moscow, thus breaking off contact with the Germans, though they were in full retreat. Rokossovsky was to remain a neutral but interested spectator, while the S.S. wiped out all those embarrassing patriots.

The Polish Prime Minister, Mikolajczyk, at once took a plane to Moscow, to try to move Stalin. Stalin replied that he would help Warsaw only on condition that Poland accepted the Lublin puppet government and also the Curzon Line.

Mikolajczyk sent a heart-rending appeal to Roosevelt, who intervened on 24th August. Stalin did not even reply to the Anglo-American request for the use of airfields to enable the R.A.F. and the U.S.A.F. to bring supplies to Warsaw by air. In the meantime the Soviet radio was claiming that ‘reactionary elements in Warsaw had risen without orders, to sabotage the operations of the victorious Red Army.’

The Russian refusal over the airfields was particularly surprising as, three months earlier, on seven separate occasions, American forces of 500 to 700 bombers and fighters from England had landed on Russian territory after raids on East Prussia. These planes had then left for North Africa, after being refueled by the Russians, bombing on their way targets in Austria and Czechoslovakia.

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