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Secret Army

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Komorowski was commander-in-chief of the "Home Army." He tells amazing, detailed stories of secret radio transmissions, attacks by the Polish Underground, and brutal Nazi reprisals. Half the book covers the Warsaw Uprising, which he commanded. He tells a vital, detailed story, and he critiques the Allies' "wishful thinking" and "concessions to Stalin." This book is a must.

General Tadeusz "Bor" Komorowski provides his memoirs of leading the Polish underground resistance in 1943-44 in The Secret Army, published in 1951. The "Secret Army" refers to Poland's resistance forces known as the Home Army or AK, which Komorowski commanded in 1943-44. As war memoirs by senior leaders go, The Secret Army is fairly good, with plenty of detail about his wartime activities and insight into why things occurred. However, Komorowski had to write the book while in exile in England and did not have access to wartime records that might have aided the factual content of the memoirs. For example, there are several cases where the author includes inflated claims about the number of German tanks destroyed in the Warsaw Uprising that far exceeds the number available to the Wehrmacht in that part of the Eastern Front. Another factor that might influence the reader's opinion of the book or the author is that there is absolutely no mention of the author's life or career before the war and he is self-effacing to the point that he almost appears opaque at time. Komorowski survived five years of brutal German occupation by remaining out of sight and unfortunately, the real Komorowski is sometimes hard to see in this book, as well.

The Secret Army consists of only four chapters, covering the birth of the underground in Krakow, his role as deputy commander of the AK, then commander of the AK, and the Warsaw Uprising. About half the book is devoted to the uprising itself. As noted, opening chapter provides no insight into the author's pre-war career (but which the publisher provides on the back cover jacket), but starts with his avoiding German capture after the Polish military capitulation in 1939. Komorowski was soon involved in organizing anti-occupation activities in southern Poland in Krakow and it is apparent that he had a talent for organizing underground conspiracies. The author is very forthright (although not graphic as many later accounts would be) about German atrocities, and wryly notes that, "we in Poland never met the so-called `good Germans.'" The author also discusses some of the Polish sabotage operations carried out in 1941, stating that this reduced production by 30 percent in German factories in Poland. Like many claims in the book about the wider war, it is not clear how the author would know these kinds of numbers at the time, particularly since he was on the run or in hiding much of the time. At other points in the book, Komorowski introduces information about Soviet activities that he clearly learned about years later, but infers that he knew about them as they occurred. There is no doubt that the Polish resistance was able to maintain an effective intelligence network in Eastern Europe, but it is confusing for the reader to have post-war information mixed with wartime recollections.

After General Rowecki, the original head of the AK, was captured in 1943, Komorowski moved up to command the Home Army. One of the best parts of the book is the author's description of the AK's counter-terror campaign in 1943-44, culminating in the assassination of the head of the SS Police in Warsaw. The author spends considerable space detailing the planning and decisions that led to the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944. Actual combat operations in Warsaw were directed by "Monter," as Komorowski was still commander of all AK troops throughout Warsaw, not just the capital. The author shifts to a day-by-day structure in the Warsaw chapter, which provides better focus for the reader. While the author manages to convey the bitterness and anguish of the failed uprising, he manages to do so with excessive bitterness or rancor. He does clearly and deservedly point figures at the Soviets and British for failing to support the uprising, but without getting carried away. As Komorowski and his generation saw it (he died in 1966 while Poland was still under Communist occupation), the uprising was a military failure but a morale success because it demonstrated Poland's undying commitment to fight for its freedom and independence, no matter how great the odds.

The book has a couple of maps and 7 photographs, which is pretty sparse. About mid-way through the book the author provides a couple of organization charts on the structure of the resistance, but without names of who held these positions. I was also a bit disappointed about the lack of military detail about the training, structure and formation of AK combat units. Overall, this is an effective postwar memoir, but limited by the author's lack of access to more source material.

Little-known facts about guerilla warfare are described by Bor-Komorowski, the head of the Polish underground army. Learn of the heroic Polish struggle against the German conquerors and occupants of Poland. Unlearn the false stereotypes of Poles being essentially passive during the Holocaust.

Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski was, after the capture of Grot Rowecki by the Germans, the head of the entire AK guerilla movement. Bor includes a detailed account of underground life and an impressive list of Polish sabotage actions against the German occupant (pp. 152-154). The AK was careful to calculate maximum benefit from its actions for the cost in German terror reprisals, but the Communist AL had no such scruples (p. 171)

German despoiling policies had turned the Polish countryside into anarchy: "...there grew up a new category of `forest folk'. They were wild bands of all sorts of refugees living by robbery, and were a terrible plague to people in the neighborhood, who were visited nearly every night by bandits, who gradually deprived them of their last belongings...I issued orders to the regional Home Army commanders to undertake the defense of the population against the violence of disturbing elements." (pp. 171-172). It is easy to see how fugitive Jews would fall victim to these bandits and, to the extent that they themselves engaged in banditry, would be targeted by the AK.

Having been its commander, Bor gives full details of the betrayed Warsaw Uprising: the frightful German atrocities, the barricades, the child messengers, the struggle against starvation, the overwhelming German firepower (e. g., the Nebel Werfer ("roaring cow", p. 254), the improvised hospitals, the massive evacuations through sewers, etc. The Communist AL fielded 5 platoons compared with over 600 participating AK platoons (p. 259). One of the successes of the Uprising was the freeing of 350 Jews from a prison and the execution of their Nazi tormentors (p. 245)

Soviet perfidy was consistent, dooming the Uprising. First the Soviets complained that the AK wasn't interested in fighting the Germans, then they urged the Varsovians to rise up, then they denied the existence of any Warsaw Uprising, then they called the Uprising a criminal adventure, etc. They then toyed with the Poles by belatedly taking Praga, while intercepting and disarming AK units marching towards Warsaw to assist the Uprising. The Red Army positions and those of the AK came within 250 yards (230 meters) of each other (p. 341, 354); the width of the draught-shrunken Vistula. Previously, the Red Army had readily crossed the thaw-widened lower Dnieper, three times the width of the Vistula River (p. 341), but, this time, wouldn't budge until long after the fall of the Uprising and the subsequent complete destruction of Warsaw by vindictive Germans.

Token Soviet airdrops were eventually undertaken--but without parachutes so that the goods would be useless. Towards the end of the Uprising, once its doom was certain and very little of Warsaw was still held by Poles (so most airdrop supplies were certain to fall into German hands), Stalin finally allowed western airplanes to refuel on Soviet-held soil after dropping their supplies.

When Masses were said during the Warsaw Uprising, both priests and parishioners were oblivious to the bombs and shells exploding around them (p. 335). Now, if the Easter masses performed during the earlier Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had signified Polish callousness towards Jewish suffering (as portrayed in Holocaust materials), then, using the same logic, what were these Masses supposed to have signified?

Finally, Bor's own experience adds to the refutation of the silly "No Polish Quisling because the Germans never wanted one" argument. After surrendering to the Germans, Bor was repeatedly approached by German officials intent on him creating a collaborationist army (pp. 374-375, 380-381, 383, 386-387). He steadfastly refused.

Yet another example of Poland as pawn by one or another power and ultimately stabbed in the back as many times before........On that subject, read "I SAW POLAND BETRAYED" by American ambassador Lane