From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
|
1st Armoured Division |
Badge of the 1st Armoured Division |
| Active |
1942-1947 |
| Country |
Poland |
| Branch |
Land forces |
| Type |
Armoured |
| Role |
Shock troops |
| Size |
16,000 soldiers, 380 tanks, 470 guns |
| Nickname |
Black Division |
| Engagements |
Battle of Falaise, Battle of Breda |
|
Commanders |
Notable
commanders |
Stanisław Maczek |
|
|
|
|
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
Map of the route of the Division during WWII
Map of the Division's participation in the Battle of Falaise
Polish self-propelled anti-aircraft guns of the 10th Mounted Rifle
Regiment near
Caen at the
beginning of the
Falaise
operation.
The Mayor of
Breda (Van
Slobbe), giving a welcome speech to the 1st Armoured Division which
liberated Breda
The
Wilhelmshaven German commander surrenders
this main German
U-boat base
to Colonel A. Grudziński
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.
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 yet it achieved
a brilliant victory against the Wehrmacht in the battles for Mont Ormel[1], Hill 262 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[2] 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, 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 Ypres, Ghent and Passchendaele. A successful outflanking
manoeuvre planned and performed by General Maczek
allowed 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 in the 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 capitulaton 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, see Haren, Germany. The majority of its
soldiers opted not to return to now Soviet occupied Poland and stayed in exile.[3]
Organization during
1944-45
- 10th
Armoured Cavalry Brigade (10 Brygada Kawalerii
Pancernej) - Col. T. Majewski
- 3rd Polish Infantry Brigade
(3 Brygada Strzelców) - 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[4]) - 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 NCOs
- 15,210 - soldiers
- 381 - tanks (mostly M4
Shermans)
- 473 - artillery pieces (mostly motorized)
- 4,050 - motor cars, trucks, utility vehicles, artillery
carriers.
See also
Notes
References
Further
reading
'Freed by the Poles', poster printed after liberation of
Breda.
- Stephen E. Ambrose, Citizen Soldiers:
The U. S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the
Surrender of Germany. Simon & Schuster, 1998 (ISBN
0684848015).
- John D. Buckley, British armour in the Normandy campaign,
1944, Routledge, 2004 (ISBN 978-0-7146-5323-5)
- Terry Copp, Fields of Fire: The Canadians in Normandy,
University of Toronto Press, 2003 (ISBN 0-8020-3780-1)
- McGilvray, Evan. The Black Devils' March: A Doomed Odyssey:
The 1st Polish Armoured Division 1939-1945. Solihull, West
Midlands, England: Helion, 2005 (ISBN 1874622426)
- Roman Johann Jarymowycz, Tank tactics: from Normandy to
Lorraine, Lynne Riener Publishers, 2001 (ISBN
978-1-55587-950-1)
- John Keegan,
Six Armies in Normandy, Penguin Books, 1982 (ISBN
0-14-005293-3)
External
links
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