Talk:Lack of outside support in the Warsaw Uprising

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accidentally

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

[edit] 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"

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)

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 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

[edit] 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)