Talk:Outside support during the Warsaw Uprising

accidentally

Right. Krupo 04:56, Sep 6, 2004 (UTC)

Polish Paratroopers

I seem to recall hearing somewhere that Polish paratroopers stationed in the UK wanted to be dropped in to assist their fellow countrymen but were declined, can anyone help to back this up?--Pluke 14:14, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• warsawvoice

• "When 2,000 Polish paratroopers in England volunteered to go to Warsaw, their request was denied"

[www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1371312/posts a questionable source]

• "Gen. Komorowski, the AK CIC sent a message to London asking for supply airdrops, inquiring when the paratrooper brigade would arrive"

• "Komorowski once again turned to the London government for aid. Another request was made for the deployment of the Polish airborne brigade, as well as for more supply drops. "

princeton university I have written asking for sources

To make long thing short: the Polish Independent Parachute Brigade under Gen. Stanisław Sosabowski was created in the UK specifically for one purpose: to be dropped in Poland in the case of an all-national uprising and to help the Polish army in Poland in liberation of the country. The Brits were repeatedly asking for the Bde to be transfered under Brtish command and they finally succeeded shortly before the Operation Tempest started in Warsaw. Halibutt 15:37, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

And sent them to to Arnhem instead, while Warsaw was massacred. --Lysy ^(talk) 07:52, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

It would have been completely impractical to transport the Parachute Brigade to Warsaw in August, 1944 by the means available at the time. Slow moving transport planes (C-47) trying to fly a long distance over occupied Europe would have most likely been annihilated by the Luftwaffe, and they did not have sufficient range for the mission anyway. The mission was completely out of the question, and so the use of the brigade at Arnhem was entirely reasonable. After all, the success of Market Garden was supposed to end the war in a few weeks, and a German surrender would surely have been the best way to rescue Warsaw. The only exception to this that I can see in theory would have been to use Soviet airfields for the entire operation from start to finish. However, the chances of getting Stalin's agreement for that were essentially zero. Balcer 08:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

We can only speculate whether Stalin would allow this or not, under more pressure from the Western allies. As for Arnhem, Sosabowski was quite aware that the operation was ill-prepared and was against sending his troops there. History confirmed that he was right. --Lysy ^(talk) 08:31, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Well... "In the middle of August, the Americans plan to make a big airdrop over Warsaw. However, to carry out the plan, it is necessary to land on Soviet airfields. The U.S. ambassador in Moscow receives information that the Soviet government will not give its permission because the Rising was inspired by “enemies of the Soviet Union.” British pilot Stanley Johnson comments: “If only we could have landed there, we could have taken an additional load [...] I could never understand the Russians standing on the other side of the Vistula River.” Stalin only makes the airfields available on September 10." from here: [1]. A polish site. I feel bad about author's intentions when I see a text like that. I also want to ask several questions: 1) Why did they not make an airdrop in late July? 2) So was there any request from Allies in August, or did the ambassador just somehow happened to know Stalin is not willing to let USA use his "Private airfields"? I think we know what the Soviet army was doing this days, and for how long did Russian soldiers fight. USSR lost at least 16 millions lives by that date. So where were the Western "Allies", taking into account they started fighting two months before August 1944? FeelSunny (talk) 09:57, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

It may be also worth noting that on September 18, the same day when Polish paratroopers were dropped near Arhnem, 110 USAF bombers, escorted by 60 fighters, all operating from Britain, dropped supplies for Warsaw. Only 2 of the planes were lost which proves that such operation could be fairly feasible. --Lysy ^(talk) 08:52, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

These were B-17 Flying Fortress bombers dropping those supplies, and they were not able to carry paratroopers. These bombers were faster and much more heavily armed than transport planes were. Sending slow and defenceless C-47 transports on a long flight over Germany would likely have resulted in huge losses. At this point in the war the Germans no longer had the strength to attack in full force every single raid that the Americans sent against them and were selective in their attacks. Therefore some missions suffered almost no losses, while others endured heavy Luftwaffe attacks. I think it is extremely likely that the Germans would have concetrated all their resources on a mission containing transport planes flying across Germany (after all, maybe those paratroopers were going to drop on Wolfsschanze and capture Hitler, for all they knew).

Furthermore, in mid-September the Poles held only small sections of the city. The paratroopers would have ended up landing on German positions, just like most of the supplies dropped by the planes on that day ended up doing. Most of them would have been heavily injured on landing, trying to land in a built-up area. They would have been decimated by the German troops in Warsaw firing at them while they were drifting to the ground. Finally, the insertion of a few thousand lightly armed men, even if successful, would hardly have changed the outcome of that battle and would have been mostly of symbolic value. In short, there were many things the Western Allies could have done to provide more support to the Uprising, but dropping the Parachute Brigade on top of Warsaw was not one of them. Their key failure was not applying more pressure on Stalin to aid the Uprising (by threatening the cutoff of vital Lend-Lease aid, for example). Balcer 18:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

"the Polish Independent Parachute Brigade under Gen. Stanisław Sosabowski was created in the UK specifically for one purpose: to be dropped in Poland in the case of an all-national uprising" - so when it was created nobody thougth that would be "impractical to transport" them to Poland? These troops could be droped near Warsaw, droping them in city on fire would be very stupid. If Warsaw was in range of B-17 why they were not sent to bomb german airports and positions around Warsaw? Piotr

Whilst it's understandable to look around for people to blame the only ones really responsible were the Germans and the Soviets. The Soviets under Stalin wanted Poland to become a communist puppet state (which it subsequently did) and it was in their interest for the uprising to fail, and so they did everything they could to ensure that it did - they succeeded. By preventing proper support they ensured that the non-communists who were involved in the internal conflict with the communists inside Poland were beaten to a point where they were unable to provide any sort of opposition to Moscow's 'puppet's when Poland was finally 'liberated' from the Germans. So in discussing the fighting over Poland one needs to understand that many Poles were not just fighting the Germans, a considerable number were in-effect, looking further ahead to after the German occupiers were defeated, and fighting each other over whether Poland subsequently aligned itself with the Soviets or with the West. It is also only fair to point out that Britain had gone to war once over Poland in 1939 and was less than keen to risk getting involved in what could very well have turned into one with the Soviet Union, so the British, already bankrupted by the war, were being ultra-careful not to provoke the Soviets, so that they did as much as they did was something that should at least be acknowledged - they were risking war with Stalin, and they knew it.

And as far as the air drops are concerned, these were made much less practicable by the communist's arresting of the SOE operatives who would have organised the drop zones for the aircraft flying above. When ordering pilots and aircrew to risk their lives the people in positions of authority must be sure that every reasonable step has been taken to ensure that any lives lost are not wasted. Once liaison with the ground becomes unavailable then the aircrews are, in effect, dropping the loads blind. This invariably means that much of the dropped supplies are wasted, much falling into areas unaccessible by the people the supplies are intended-for, and some falling into the enemy's. When distances are as great as the one's involved in the Warsaw Uprising, the aircraft used must dedicate most of their useful load to carrying the fuel necessary for the great distance that will be flown, and so the useful load of supplies that can be carried becomes greatly reduced. In order to get a useful load dropped to the people on the ground it then becomes necessary to decide on the number of aircraft sorties that need to be flown, and this implies a statistical number of aircraft losses, and aircrew that won't be coming back. The planners must therefore decide whether any support they can give to the people on the ground is worth the sacrifice in aircrew lives that the operation will almost certainly cost. Then there is the aspect of navigation by night over hostile territory under conditions where the 'normal' electronic navigational aids that the RAF were then using, such as GEE, and OBOE where unavailable. Incidentally, any SOE-supplied personnel would have used beacons to mark the drop zones which would have ensured most of any supplies dropped got to the people it was intended for.

So, in conclusion, at least as far as the British and Commonwealth were concerned, the situation in Warsaw was almost a 'lost cause' and the fact that the did what little they could, and lost lives doing it, means that they did at least try and provide help, but the circumstances were very unfavourable, and they deserve credit if only for this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.58.221 (talk) 11:30, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Article title

Is there not a better title for this article?GraemeLeggett 12:54, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

What would you suggest? Balcer 12:58, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I know this question is three years old, but how about Outside support during the Warsaw Uprising? To say it was lacking requires an objective standard to measure it against, and a title like "Lack of outside support" implies a commonly accepted standard exists. This, however, is not the case. --Thorsten1 (talk) 20:08, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

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United States involvement

I added text to the airdrop section which mentions the United States based on memos that I requested from the US National Archives from the Polish Ambassador to the US. I wasn't completely sure how to cite it, but made sure the relevant pieces of info are there so anyone else can request it from NARA. Andrewmp (talk) 17:01, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

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