POLISH COURAGE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20877, 1 September 1942, Page 2

POLISH COURAGE

THREE YEARS’ WAR DEATH AND DESTRUCTION PEOPLE UNITED AS EVER (P.A.) WELLINGTON, this day. “At no time in her long history of 1000 years has Poland suffered such a roll of death, suffering and destruction as during the last three years,” said the Consul-General of Poland, Count Wodzicki, on the occasion of the eve of Poland's fourth year of war. "But never has she proved herself so strong morally and physically, so united behind her soldiers and her leader, General Sikorski. The Polish campaign of 1939 was (ought without any help whatever —it turned Warsaw into ruins and Poland into a graveyard: It enabled Britain, though, to take advantage of seven months’ respite. Confronted with disaster unprecedented, with her church, education and social welfare in ruins, with hundreds of thousands of her subjects driven from their farms and workshops, with still as many facing firing squads and concentration camps and 1,1)00,000 workers sent to Germany, Poland to-day stands united as on the eve of this struggle. No Thought of Compromise

' “No party 'and no single man gave a thought to a possible political compromise with the Hun. Eor obvious reasons, one cannot give, any substantial details .of , the well-organised active resistance of the Poles at home. It can be disclosed, however, that 150 different secret papers, mostly pocket size, are published, some with an issue of 12,000 copies, notwithstanding the fact that the editors, printers and 'readers face the death penalty. In Warsaw in July, 1941, one editor and 82 other people were -’beheaded. Despite having paid heavily, with tne lives of her. soldiers, subsequently in the campaigns of a Narvik, lVlaginot Line, and Tobruk, it is interesting to note, as revealed by General Sikorski, that Poland’s army, at present on Ihree continents, ranks fifth in the strength of the Allied nations, forming also the bulk of General Sir Maitland Wilson’s Tenth Army in the Middle East. A large unit is undergoing training in South Africa and numbers of Polish officers are also instructing native troops in West Africa. Naval and Air Strength “Despite heavy convoy work and many naval engagements, the Polish navy gnd mercantile marine is maintained at its original strength by reason of United. States lend-or-lease aid. The Polish eagles of the air force have considerably increased since the Battle of Britain, 1940, when they numbered 10,000 and formed more than 10 per cent of the recent mass night bombing raiders over Germany. “The Polish-Czechoslovakian agreement in November, 1940, and the Polish-Russian agreement in July, 1941, confirmed after General Sikorski’s visit to Moscow in December, 1941, will no doubt be of paramount importance in the post-war policy of the United Nations. The establishment of a Polish medical school and faculty of law in Edinburgh and recently the Polish institute ot science and learning in New York, are the foundations of the intellectual life of the Poland of. to-morrow. “The Polish people,” concluded Count Wodzicki, "on the eve of the fourth year of war are standing unflinchingly at the side of their Allies, fully confident of eventual victory which will ensure just'retrL bution upon the Germahs and rehabilitation for, them.” ..