Cichociemni
Cichociemni ( Polish for the quiet dark ones) were parachute agents of the Polish exile forces who operated in occupied Poland during the Second World War . The aim of the units was to offer resistance against the German occupiers and to organize and train the Polish resistance . They were also an important link between the Polish government in exile in London and the Polish underground state .
history
The Cichociemni was neither a combat unit nor an airborne battalion. The unofficial term Cichociemni originated in 1940 and referred to a group of Polish soldiers who went to Great Britain via France and volunteered for military service to fight against the occupation of their country. Your tasks should be kept secret, quietly and in the dark . At this point in time, Captain Maciej Kalenkiewicz and Jan Górski undertook great efforts to establish an air link to occupied Poland .
The unit accepted 2,213 applicants, all of whom were volunteers. Of these applicants, 605 passed the hard training, 579 were assigned to airborne missions, of which 316 jumped over Poland in the course of the war. Initially the soldiers flew from their base near London, but since 1944 the starting base has moved to Brindisi in Italy. The Cichociemni strengthened the structures of the Polish underground army , the Armia Krajowa . The special unit of the Polish Army GROM also bears the name Cichociemni .
The first jump on Polish territory took place on the night of February 15-16, 1941 in Dębowiec . The airborne operation was named Adolphus . The last jump took place on December 28, 1944. Furthermore, two operations called Most (bridge) were carried out, during which aircraft landings in occupied Poland occurred.
Of the 316 partisans of the Cichociemni who jumped off, 112 were killed: nine during the flight or the jump, 84 died in combat or were executed by the Gestapo , ten committed suicide after their capture, and nine became after the war according to judgments of the Polish communist people's courts at the time Sentenced to death by Stalinism . Of the 91 Cichociemni soldiers who took part in the Warsaw Uprising , 18 died during the fighting.
Well-known Cichociemni
- Lt. Col. Adam Borys - organizer and commander of the Agat , Pegaz and Parasol divisions , leader of the Parasol battalion in the Warsaw Uprising
- Lieutenant Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt - emissary of the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile, he was the only courier to jump twice to Poland (27/28 XII 1941 - Operation Jacket i 3/4 IV 1944 - Operation Salamander ) and came back to London, author of two reports about the Polish underground state, after the war deputy head of Radio Free Europe, last chairman of the exile PSL
- Rittmeister Andrzej Rudolf Czaykowski
- Major Hieronim Dekutowski
- First Lieutenant Zdzisław Jeziorański
- Major Eugeniusz Kaszyński - commander of the partisan group in the Radom-Kielce region
- General Tadeusz Kossakowski - landed in occupied Poland as part of Operation Most II
- Lieutenant Colonel Henryk Krajewski - Commander of Division IV of the Sabotage Department of the Polish Home Army
- Brigadier General Leopold Okulicki - Commander of the Polish Home Army
- Major January Piwnik - command of the second portion wachlarz , hereinafter commander of partisan groups in the area radome Kielecki
- Captain Bronisław Rachwał - commander of a motorized company of the 1st Special Operations Regiment, died in battle on September 2, 1944 as a result of being wounded by shrapnel
- Lieutenant Waldemar Szwiec - Commander of Partisan Units No. 2 in the Radom-Kielecki area, AK Ponury in the Kielc mountainous region
- Brigadier General Elżbieta Zawacka - professor, the only woman among the Cichociemni
- Major in the Polish Armed Forces , Lieutenant of the Narodowe Siły Zbrojne Leonard Szczęsny Zub-Zdanowicz
- Major Bolesław Kontrym - fighter in the Warsaw Uprising, sentenced to death by a People's Court after the war and executed in January 1953.
- Lieutenant Stanisław Jankowski .
