Category: Polish Armed Forces

An excellent and well-researched brief history, badly let down by an excessive number of typesetting errors.

BUDZBON, Przemyslaw. The Polish Navy 1918-45: from the Polish-Soviet War to World War II (New Vanguard, 307).  48p., bibliog., illus., index. Oxford: Osprey, 2022. ISBN: 9781472847003.

Three destroyers and two submarines escaped to Great Britain in 1939. They commissioned more ships in the UK and were at the heart of combat in the Arctic, Atlantic and at Normandy. A good brief account.

McGILVRAY, Evan. Poland & The Second World War 1938-1948. 344p., bibliog., illus., index. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2019. ISBN: 9781473834101.

A comprehensive account of the war in Poland, the wartime resistance and the exploits of the exiled forces in all three armed services. Some naval material.

STELLA-SAWICKI, Marek, GARLINSKI, Jarek and MUCHA, Stefan (eds.). First to Fight: Poland’s Contribution to the Allied Victory in WWII. xviii, 278p., bibliog., illus. [London]: Polish Ex-Combatants Association of Great Britain, 2009. ISBN: 9780955782442.

A heavily illustrated mix of history and personal reminiscences, with a small section on the Polish Navy.

KLECZKOWSKI, Stefan. Poland's First 100,000: Story of the Rebirth of the Polish Army, Navy and Air Force after the September Campaign, Together with a Biographical Note about Its Creator, General Wl. Sikorski. 96p., illus. London: Hutchinson, [1943].

A patriotic work which includes a chapter telling of the deeds of the Polish Navy and Mercantile Marine. A revised edition of the book was published in 1945.

An album of drawings illustrating the work and play of the Polish Armed Forces in Britain, from the summer of 1940 onward. The naval sketches were made onboard the destroyer Piorun.

Blyskawica was built at Whites of Cowes in 1936. She was associated with the town throughout the war and famously provided anti-aircraft support when Cowes was bombed in 1942.

The author was a midshipman aboard Orzel during her escape. This book is mainly concerned with the tale of a war patrol off Norway during the German invasion in April 1940.

A fairly general account of the Polish forces in Britain. There are some tales of the Polish Navy.

An official or semi-official pamphlet describing the war record of the Polish Navy both before and after the German occupation, with some background detail.

Written to celebrate the eightieth anniversary of the Polish Navy. A very flat account overly rich in detail, it is nevertheless a well-researched work and the first full history in English.

A communist glorification of a fine fighting force.

Conversations and wartime anecdotes linked into the tale of the Polish Navy. Kasperek escaped a German POW camp and made his way to England and served on Kujawiak, in which he was sunk and then Garland.

A re-examination of the death of General Sikorski in a plane crash at Gibraltar in 1943. The Polish destroyer Orkan carried his body to the United Kingdom for burial.

A very personal account by a history teacher who was adopted but whose father was a Polish naval officer. A mix of history and personal reminiscence.

Seven encouraging tales of Polish merchant ships at war.

Uplifting tales of Polish gallantry. Four chapters are devoted to the Navy and cover Orzel's escape, the sinking of Grom off Norway, the sinking of the City of Benares, and the sinking of Pilsudski.

A treatise on the importance to Poland of a Baltic coastline. Each edition up to the fourth of 1944 grew in size and recorded more of the fight by the Polish Navy and Merchant Marine against the Germans. Originally published in Poland prewar, it was rewritten and translated to produce this edition after the German invasion.