One day General Anders went to see General Alexander, who was the Allies top commander in Italy.

¡°I have a problem,¡± Anders told him. ¡°It¡¯s the number of men I have.¡±

Alexander had expected as much. How could the Polish Corps keep up to strength without homeland reserves to draw on? He was amazed to hear that Anders needed more food and equipment because he now had thousands more soldiers.

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One day when I was looking out of my signal office window in Chieti [south of?Ancona?near the Adriatic Coast] onto the street below, something caught my attention--a German soldier walking along the street, hatless and rumpled. He was surrounded by about twenty Italian soldiers, their rifles held waist high with fixed bayonets. His escort looked tense, ready to shoot if he made one false step. To my surprise, they turned towards the entrance to our building. Then I heard a commotion downstairs. Moments later the tall Polish-speaking Italian Captain came to my office. He told me they'd caught a German soldier who claimed to be Polish and that was why they had brought him here.

????????????? "Fine," I said. "Show him in."?

????????????? The German soldier was terrified. He believed his escort was an execution squad marching him to his death and yet he could speak no Italian to find out what was to become of him or to plead his case. His face brightened when he found I spoke Polish and even more when the Italians with their bayonets and rifles retreated with reluctance and left him alone with me. But before they would abandon their prisoner to me they demanded assurance that I would see that Col. Izdebski signed the proper paperwork. They wanted to make sure that they got the full credit for capturing him and that we took full responsibility for what happened to him next.

????????????? The "German" prisoner turned out to be yet another Pole who had been conscripted into Hitler¡¯s army. During the guerilla-type skirmishes in the mountains, he took the first opportunity to surrender to the Allied side. The Italians had been pleased to show off their vanquished enemy to the whole town. The ancient Romans, who conquered most of the world known to them, had a penchant for victory marches into their capital displaying their captives and booty. In fairness to their twentieth century descendants, the paperwork they demanded was their security blanket to prove their loyalty to us, their new allies. If the prisoner had escaped or gone astray somehow, they could have been accused of being soft on the soldiers of their former allies, the Germans.

????????????? The soldier was tired and hungry. We fed him and he spent the night sleeping in my office on the floor--unguarded. The next day he was shipped to the main Polish Corps, where a special camp kept such Poles a few months for debriefing, evaluation and retraining. I'm sure it was no problem for that fellow because he said he'd been in the Polish Army before the war.

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From Matera I was sent back to San Basilio, the little town north of the Gulf of Taranto where, fresh off the boat from Egypt, I had spent my first night in a makeshift tent in the snow. I hardly recognized the place. It had become a fully equipped and well organized training camp and base for the new soldiers who kept arriving. Many of them were Poles who had come to us from the German army. Being experienced battle veterans, they needed little training. Some had served for two years with the Germans on the Russian front and so they knew far more about fighting than we did. But they still had to learn about the procedures of the Polish army and about the Allied weapons new to them.

????????????? Old habits die hard. And Prussian army knee-jerk reactions had been instilled in them. This led to some funny situations. One of these vets dozed off on guard duty one night. The footsteps of an officer, who happened to be going by that night, woke him up with a start.

????????????? "Wer da!?!¡± ?Who goes there!?!, he challenged the officer in German, doing his best to sound ferocious, alert and efficient. The officer was terrified. He ran back to his mates and babbled on about German parachute troops that must have landed and already controlled part of the camp.

????????????? The base also received new recruits from basic training camps in Egypt [including boys who'd also escaped from Stalin's control and were now old enough to join our fighting units]; Poles hiding in the south of France who'd been liberated by the advancing Americans; and volunteers who kept filtering south through the Balkans. And so, despite being unable to enlist recruits in our homeland, our army kept growing.

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????????????? Now, for the first time, each of our infantry divisions had three infantry brigades, the full complement, instead of two. We had enough soldiers to form our own independent Polish Army Artillery Group. Our Armoured Brigade became an Armoured Division. And our Commando Company grew into a Commando Battalion.? The 2^nd Polish Corps was gaining in strength and in experience..

????????????? Anders took the? risk of forming two infantry brigades mostly from soldiers who'd come over from the German army. Could we count on the loyalty of these soldiers who'd spent years fighting in the German army in Russia and then in Italy? Any such fears proved to be unfounded.? Anders was right. Those patriotic Poles who crossed over turned out to be plus catholique que le pape¨Cfiercely loyal.? They were well trained and cautious, yet courageous when need be. Survival after years on the Russian front had taught them caution. They also knew what would happen if they were taken prisoner and recognized as a turncoat. As the Germans retreated, we found a few such soldiers left out in full view with their throats slashed.

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Tue Mar 26, 2013 6:56 am (PDT) . Posted by: "Dan Ford"

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