Read Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw Online
Authors: Norman Davies
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #War, #History
Before departing, he exercised his right to advise Gen. Boor in Warsaw. His despatch of 7 July confirmed the line of argument put to the Premier, but it contained a twist in the tail. The Red Army, he said, would soon overrun most of Poland, and the Kremlin would be reluctant ‘even to enter into talks with our Government. In such conditions, a national armed rising would be unjustifiable . . .’ However, circumstances could change, a state of readiness should be maintained, and ‘In the last moments of the German retreat and before the entry of the Red units, if the chance should arise even of the temporary occupation of [Vilno], [Lvuv], or any other important centre . . ., this should be accomplished and we should act as rightful hosts [to the Soviets].’
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Boor would have noticed that Warsaw could be seen as ‘another important centre’.
The Commanderin-Chief also briefed the courier ‘Novak’, who was setting out for Warsaw, telling him that a conflict between the West and the USSR would occur within five years. The Premier said the opposite, telling him to impress on the Underground leaders that the most urgent necessity was to reach an understanding in Moscow with the diplomatic backing of Roosevelt and Churchill.
It seems that the Comander-in-Chief’s opinions were soon reinforced by long talks with Gen. Anders. Anders had been in the claws of the NKVD only three years earlier, and he had the strongest possible view of what to expect:
[The Commanderin-Chief believed] that a general rising could not succeed without help from outside the country, and the only real possibilities for this were from the Soviet Union. But, knowing the Russians as I did, I was certain that no assistance could be counted upon from her; Russia had her own plans . . . I was of the opinion
that any action taken against the Germans could only lead to useless bloodshed . . .
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Once in Italy, the Commanderin-Chief stayed in touch by radio with his Chief-of-Staff, through whom he sought to continue to advise Gen. Boor. One directive did get through. The Underground leadership was ordered to divide itself into two sections. One section, under Boor, was to stay in being and to lead the Rising. The other section, under Boor’s deputy, Bear Cub, was to take one third of HQ staff and the top civilian echelons of the Secret State and go into deep hiding. They were to merge with the passive elements of the Capital’s population; they were to avoid all aspects of the fighting; and they were not to emerge unless their comrades in the active section were killed, captured, or otherwise disabled.
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The text of the directive leaves no doubt that the Commanderin-Chief was taking practical precautions against the expected Soviet Occupation of Warsaw.
Yet, as the Commanderin-Chief would later discover, the rest of his communications were either blocked or filtered. His despatch to Boor from Ancona on 25 July, for example, was reacting to news of the roundup of the Home Army in Vilno and the formation of the Polish Committee of National Liberation. ‘Moscow’, it said, ‘has chosen the path of violence, pressure and faits accomplis.’ It reached its destination in Warsaw with three days’ delay, and shorn of three offending passages. One of these had read: ‘In the light of the rapid advances of the Soviet Occupation, it is imperative to strive for the preservation of the biological substance of the nation, given the double threat of extermination.’ The censoring had been done by his own colleagues.
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His despatch to Boor from ‘the Italian Front’ on 28 July was reacting to the news that the Home Army had been put in a state of readiness. It contained the sentence: ‘an armed rising would be an act devoid of political sense, capable of causing needless victims.’
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It was not forwarded, because it contravened the Government’s decision taken without his paricipation three days earlier. According to the record, it was not even deciphered and read until 1 August. The culprit, without doubt, was Tabor.
Salamander’s mission to Poland in the spring of 1944, though much discussed, remains one of the most mysterious episodes in the history of the Underground. Readers of his biography are invited to believe that this
super-éminence grise
was solely responsible for the scheme to fly him
into Nazi-occupied Europe and that his sole purpose was to test political opinion in the occupied country. Any assessment must take several known facts into consideration. One: Salamander left London for Bari in Italy in January 1944, but did not get a flight until April. Two: with the exception of the Premier, he left without telling anyone in the exiled Government or their Supreme Command where he was going or what he was doing. Three: on the flight to Poland, organized by SOE, he wore a mask to conceal his identity. Four: the flight did not go to one of the more usual dropping sites. Five: when in Poland, Salamander was the object of an assassination attempt. Six: when he finally arrived back in London, his very first visitor was the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden. Seven: as revealed in official British documents many years later, he was an MI6 ‘asset’: that is, whilst not a formal employee, he was regarded as a valuable source of information. Eight: thanks to his diplomatic tour in Moscow in 1941, he was personally acquainted with the top Soviet leaders, especially Molotov. Nine: he was in favour of Polish–Soviet reconciliation.
Salamander must have been acutely aware of the political crisis that was looming at the turn of 1943–44. The Red Army was driving inexorably westwards. The frontier question remained unresolved. Moscow was schooling its own Polish clients for a possible takeover. And, as the Germans were driven back, the Polish Underground was planning a rising. Yet the Soviet Union had broken off relations. So much was public knowledge. What is more, ever since his years as Sikorski’s secretary, Salamander had made no secret of his advocacy for Polish–Soviet reconciliation. One might have thought him an excellent candidate not only for sounding out like-minded people back home, but also for preparing some sort of a solution.
When he belatedly wrote to the President to explain his sudden departure, he said that it was ‘the British’ who had insisted on keeping his mission secret. ‘The British’ almost certainly meant MI6. But what game were MI6, and their political masters in the Foreign Office, playing? One can only speculate. (Speculation is no sin.)
At the turn of 1943–44, the Foreign Office was being fed two contradictory stories about Polish–Soviet relations. The British Embassy in Moscow was passing on the Soviet line, which held that the Polish people were longing to be liberated by the Red Army, and that the only obstacle lay with the exiled Government and its reactionary policies. The exiled Government, in contrast, was telling them something completely different.
Polish circles in London were thought notorious for their tall tales about Soviet camps and Soviet mass murders and for their obstinate conviction that few of their compatriots were disposed to welcome the Soviets. So an independent figure had to go to find out where the truth really lay. And who was better qualified than Salamander? Put another way, he was being sent behind the backs of the exiled Government to report on the veracity of their statements. In particular, he would have been asked to explore three aspects: the level of popular support for the Communist and pro-Communist organizations; the chances of cooperation between the Communists and the democratic parties; and the likely reaction of the population to the outbreak of a Rising. It is a credible scenario.
Salamander waited for a flight from Bari for three months. His presence was not advertised. The delay was blamed improbably on poor weather. In the end, he boarded an SOE plane at Bari on 22 April, and six hours later, he jumped into the dawn, landing safely. He was met by a personal welcome party, who spirited him off for tasks and destinations about which his companions on the flight could not even guess. The known details of his activities in Poland do not add up to much. At some point, he took up residence in Warsaw and talked to the Underground leaders. He met Gen. Boor. He met the Government Delegate, Sable, and other political figures, who could only have repeated what they had already relayed to London. For a time, he was provided with a bodyguard by the AK security services, which saw him installed in a safe house. There is nothing in the record to show that he made contact with the Communists, though both Boleslas B. and Comrade Vyeslav were holed up in the vicinity. They would certainly have known who he was, and would certainly have had the means, through intermediaries, to arrange a meeting. Yet the Communists represented a tiny isolated minority, and they had little scope for independent action. Their first instinct would have been to refer all enquiries to Moscow.
Salamander’s personal papers, which have survived in part in London, confirm that he met Boor and Sable. They confirm the impression that the Gestapo knew of his arrival. And they confirm that he resented being thought of as a spy. ‘I have always been opposed to the idea of professional intelligence . . .’ he wrote, ‘[and] for this reason, I have encountered the hostility of the Intelligence Service or Deuxième Bureau of every country with which I have been familiar.’
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Nonetheless, there are indications that he was specially interested in the strength of the Underground, and that his assessment was not entirely favourable. ‘Poland was Polish at night’
was one comment. The role of the NSZ and the Peasant Party was noted, but not, apparently, the presence of the Communists. In comments that seem to have been recorded at a later date, he was impressed by the authority of the Secret State in civilian matters, but not to any obvious degree by the military capacity of the Home Army. He estimated that 27 per cent of British agents sent to Poland had been put out of circulation. The orders of the Home Army Command were accepted by 40 per cent of adults of military age in Warsaw, but by a mere 5 per cent of the population as a whole.
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The attempt to kill Salamander was undertaken by a young woman who was acting on the direct orders of her Home Army superiors. By her own account, she had already executed a score of Nazis and collaborators; but she was never told the exact grounds on which she was ordered to eliminate them. As she later recalled, her orders on this occasion came directly from Boor’s intelligence chief, Heller, though the point has been fiercely contested. At all events, there is little doubt that the attempt took place, and that the chosen method was poison. The would-be executioner gained entry to Salamander’s apartment, laced a bottle of medicine that she found, and withdrew to observe the effects. The would-be victim duly returned, drank his medicine, and fell violently ill. But since he recovered, he suspected nothing more than a stomach bug. Shortly afterwards, however, he was struck down with polyneuritis, an acute condition which can follow poisoning and is marked by paralysis of the arms and legs.
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His mission, whatever it was, was over. Friends deposited him under a false name in a German clinic, where he was cared for by a sympathetic Polish doctor, and where he no doubt pondered his chances of survival. After six months of desultory intelligence-gathering, MI6 was no wiser than before about what it wanted to know.
Fortune, however, grinned. It was Salamander’s good luck that in July 1944 SOE was planning a special flight to take out the V2 rocket which the Home Army had captured. Exceptionally, it was a flight where the plane would have to land. So the paralysed
eminence grise
was added to the cargo list. The conditions were strict. The crew was told that the dismantled rocket had to be taken on board at all costs. Their next priority was to bring out the Underground engineer who had supervised the technical examination of the rocket. The paralytic was given the lowest priority. He was due to be carried on the back of a young soldier, who would also travel with him, but if their disabilities were in any way to obstruct the plane’s departure, they were to be left behind.
The airfield chosen for the operation was one abandoned by the Germans in southern Poland. It had been given the codename of ‘Butterfly’, and all the passengers [had] gathered in secret quarters nearby . . . The flight could not be fixed for a definite night, because of the weather.
On 25 July, the weather report at 8 p.m. was good enough for a Dakota to take off from Brindisi . . . The crew was British, but the pilot was a New Zealander, while the co-pilot and interpreter were Poles . . .
The flight was uneventful, yet the whole operation was nearly called off. The Eastern Front now ran through the very centre of Poland, and the territory still in German hands was crowded with units retreating westward . . . Two German Storch reconnaissance planes landed on the airstrip. They took off again shortly afterwards, but there was no certainty that they would not return . . .
Twice the Dakota had to overfly the landing-ground which it lit up in the sharp glare of its twin searchlights, and when it climbed after its first unsuccessful run, the roar of its engines shattered the night silence. When it finally landed, it was surrounded by a crowd of underground soldiers and of local boys, some of them barefoot . . .
Haste was necessary. The incoming passengers climbed out and vanished into the night, and then the westbound group began to get aboard. . . . The engines roared, the aircraft vibrated, moved a few inches and stopped. . . . The wheels had sunk in and made takeoff impossible.
After discussing matters with the despatch officer, [the pilots] ordered all the passengers to get out and the baggage to be unloaded . . . The soldiers of the reception team were ordered to dig small trenches in front of the aircraft’s wheels and fill them with straw.
Once this was done, [Salamander] was again carried on board, the bag of V2 parts was loaded, the remaining passengers climbed in and the luggage was thrown in behind them. The shrieking engines rang out over the slumbering fields, and must have awakened every German for miles around . . . The plane still refused to move . . .
The crew was now faced with the prospect of following instructions to set fire to the aircraft, if takeoff was not possible. But . . .
[the officers] decided to make one more attempt. The soldiers laid boards under the wheels. For a third time, the wretched passengers were told to board . . . The short July night was beginning to brighten into dawn.This time, at last, the Dakota began to move. Its takeoff was accompanied by the joyful shouts of the soldiers who ran alongside waving their weapons and caps.
The flight to Brindisi was without incident. But, . . . on take off, believing the brakes to have jammed, they had cut the cables . . . They landed at Brindisi without brakes.
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