End of Anglo–Polish Cooperation in Special Operations between April and December 1945

Abstract

The final months of World War II brought the end of Anglo–Polish cooperation in special operations. Intelligence aspects of this partnership were also important. The scale of wartime intelligence cooperation is shown by Secret Intelligence Service officer Commander Wilfred Dunderdale’s report and the achievements in a special operation in the history of the Polish Section of the Special Operations Executive. The British were concerned that the files of Polish intelligence and the Sixth Bureau dealing with special operations would fall into Moscow’s hands. They also did not intend to provide the authorities in Warsaw with technical achievements of Polish–British cooperation. The Foreign Office and Joint Intelligence Committee did not want to jeopardize efforts to solve the Polish question with the help from the Soviet Union, which controlled most of the prewar area of Poland. The problem was analyzed based on primary sources: archival documents and memories. Analysis shows that the British were not interested in using the resources of the Sixth Bureau and Polish resistance in Soviet-controlled Poland to prepare for a possible conflict with the Soviet Union. Polish émigrés and their agents were an obstacle in relations with Moscow.

Notes

1 The National Archives, Kew (hereafter, TNA), HS 4/145, Perkins to Berezowski, 4 April 1945; HS 8/197, FO-SOE Committee meeting, 17 April 1945; Marian Utnik, “Likwidacja Oddziału VI.” Zeszyty Historyczne 62 (1982), pp. 201–205.

2 TNA, FO 1093/183, P. Loxley to R. Makins, 2 August 1944; Philip H. J. Davies, “From Special Operations to Special Political Action: The ‘Rump SOE’ and SIS Post‐War Covert Action Capability 1945–1977,” Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 3 (2000), pp. 57–65.

3 TNA, CAB 79/33/12, COS(45) 126th Meeting, 14 May 1945; Marian Utnik, “Oddział łącznikowy Komendanta Głównego AK przy Naczelnym Wodzu na emigracji (VI Oddział Sztabu Naczelnego Wodza),” Part 1, Wojskowy Przegląd Historyczny, Vol. 3, No. 97 (1981), p. 145.

4 TNA, HS 8/197, FO-SOE Committee meeting, 23 May 1945; TNA, HS 4/145, Cavendish-Bentinck to Gubbins, 15 May 1945; Teczka specjalna J.W. Stalina. Raporty NKWD z Polski 1944–1946, edited by Tatiana Cariewskaja et al. (Warszawa: Instytut Studiów Politycznych Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 1998), pp. 224, 256–257, 266–276.

5 TNA, HS 4/291, Truszkowski to Perkins, 24 May 1945.

6 Jacek Tebinka, “Wielka Brytania dotrzyma lojalnie swojego słowa”: Winston S. Churchill a Polska (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Neriton, 2013), pp. 347–348, 351–352.

7 Armia Krajowa w dokumentach 1939–1945. Vol. 5, edited by Halina Czarnocka et al. (London: Gryf Printers, 1981), pp. 421–423; Grzegorz Motyka, Na białych Polaków obława. Wojska NKWD w walce z polskimi podziemiem 1944–1953 (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2014), pp. 190–194.

8 TNA, HS 4/145, Pickles to Keswick, 19 June 1945. Another important development was the decision to finish the work on the section’s archive, which was due to be completed in August, and to write up the section’s history. This was done by Truszkowski. SOE was also in possession of an invaluable Polish who’s who that had been compiled since the beginning of 1944.

9 TNA, HS 4/145, Pickles to Sporborg, 22 June 1945; Andrzej Paczkowski, “Jak montowano rząd jedności narodowej w Moskwie w 1945 roku,” Zeszyty Historyczne, Vol. 83 (1988), pp. 194–198. Thugutt did not return to Poland.

10 TNA, HS 4/145, Cavendish-Bentinck to Gubbins and Menzies, 26 June 1945; Zbigniew S. Siemaszko, Łączność i polityka 1941–1946: Antologia (London: Polska Fundacja Kulturalna, 1992), p. 308; Sabin Popkiewicz, “Łączność radiowa z Krajem po powstaniu warszawskim,” Zeszyty Historyczne, Vol. 18 (1970), pp. 8–9.

11 TNA, HS 4/145, Pickles to Keswick, 19 and 29 June 1945.

12 Ibid.

13 TNA, HS 4/145, Pickles to Keswick, 29 June 1945; TNA, HS 4/145, Pickles to Keswick, 19 June 1945; Frederic Boyce and Douglas Everett, SOE: The Scientific Secrets (Stroud: The History Press, 2003); for the use of Benzedrine by cichociemni paratroopers, see Alfred Paczkowski, Ankieta cichociemnego (Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, 1984), p. 123.

14 Jacek Tebinka and Anna Zapalec, Polska w brytyjskiej strategii wspierania ruchu oporu. Historia Sekcji Polskiej Kierownictwa Operacji Specjalnych (SOE) (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Neriton, 2021), p. 514.

15 TNA, HS 4/319, V.M. Cannon-Brookes to Gubbins, 6 July 1945.

16 Stanisław Mikołajczyk w dokumentach aparatu bezpieczeństwa, Vol. 1, introduction by Janusz Gmitruk, edited by Witold Bagieński et al. (Warszawa: IPN, 2010), pp. 59–62.

17 TNA, HS 7/183, Polish Section History, Chapter XII, pp. 69–70; Polsko-brytyjska współpraca wywiadowcza podczas II wojny światowej, Vol. 2: Wybór dokumentów, edited by Jan Stanisław Ciechanowski (Warszawa: Naczelna Dyrekcja Archiwów Państwowych. Wydział Wydawnictw, 2005), pp. 1012–1015.

18 TNA, HS 8/202, SOE Council, 19 June 1945.

19 TNA, FO 371/47623, N 9873/35/55, Allen’s minute, 3 August 1945.

20 TNA, HS 4/268, Perkins to Gubbins, 31 July 1945.

21 TNA, HS 4/293, Warsaw Weekly Summary, 12 August 1946; Czesław Brzoza, “Od Miechowa do Coburga. Brygada Świętokrzyska Narodowych Sił Zbrojnych w marszu na zachód,” Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość, Vol. 1 (2004), pp. 221–270. For an earlier book on the subject (first edition 1982), which includes Litauer’s article, see Zbigniew S. Siemaszko, Narodowe Siły Zbrojne (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Test, 2020), pp. 393–397. For the Czech point of view, see Jiři Friedl, Żołnierze banici. Brygada Świętokrzyska Narodowych Sił Zbrojnych w Czechach w 1945 roku. Polish translation by Grzegorz Gąsior (Gdańsk: Muzeum II Wojny Światowej, 2016).

22 TNA, HS 4/268, Pickles to J.M. Stevens, 1 August 1945.

23 TNA, HS 4/268, SOE to Warner, 2 August 1945; TNA, MPP to C/C, SPU 24, 4 August 1945; Jeffrey Bines, Poland’s SOE. A British Perspective: The Story of the Polish Country Section of the Special Operations Executive 1940–1946 including the British Military Mission Number Four to Poland 1939 (London: Jeffrey Bines, 2018), p. 286; Szewczyk returned to Poland with instructions for Rzepecki, and was arrested by the Polish security service on 4 November 1945. Krzysztof A. Tochman, Słownik biograficzny cichociemnych, Vol. 2 (Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Abres, 1996), pp. 177–181.

24 “Dwa listy płk. Jana Rzepeckiego do Stanisława Mikołajczyka z lipca 1945 r.” Zeszyty Historyczne, Vol. 95 (1991), pp. 194–206; Motyka, Na białych Polaków obława, pp. 221–225; Polskie Państwo Podziemne w walce o suwerenność 1944–1945: (w świetle dokumentów Sztabu Naczelnego Wodza), edited by Piotr Matusak (Siedlce: Instytut Historii Akademii Podlaskiej w Siedlcach, 1999), pp. 179–180.

25 TNA, HS 4/268, Klauber to Stevens, 15 August 1945; TNA, HS 4/268, Stevens to Klauber, 17 August 1945. At the end of July, Maj. Michael Pickles left his post as head of the Polish Section and was succeeded by Maj. George Klauber.

26 TNA, HS 4/268, Klauber to Stevens, 21 August 1945; on August 22, the SOE Council decided there was no sense in keeping a representative of SOE in Moscow. When the War in Europe was over, there were no more prospects of working with the NKVD on special operations. TNA, HS 8/202, SOE Council, 22 August 1945.

27 TNA, HS 4/268, inter-departmental meeting concerning the entry and exit of Poles, 31 August 31, 1945. News of what had happened to the Polish cichociemni who had fallen into the hands of the Polish or Soviet communist security services was reaching London. Of them, 34 landed in prison, and fourteen who were arrested either by the NKVD or the Polish security service managed to escape or were released. One of them was 2nd Lt. Stanisław Kujawiński, who made it to the British Isles. It was from him that the British authorities learned of the fate of cichociemny Capt. Mieczysław Szczepański, who was sentenced to death by a Lublin court in April 1945 for planning to assassinate Bierut and Osobka-Morawski in November 1944, and subsequently executed. Tebinka and Zapalec, Polska w brytyjskiej strategii wspierania ruchu oporu, p. 526.

28 TNA, FO 1093/405, Menzies to Caccia, 31 May 1946; TNA, HS 4/293, T.W. Garvey’s minute, 3 December 1946; Tochman, Vol. 1, pp. 77–78 and 127–129.

29 Teczka specjalna J.W. Stalina, pp. 429–436; Bines, Poland’s SOE, p. 287; Siemaszko, Łączność i polityka 1941–1946, pp. 308–309; Utnik, “Likwidacja Oddziału VI,” p. 202; TNA, HS 4/204, Cavendish-Bentinck to FO, 5 September 1945. Ten days later, the British ambassador received a letter from the Foreign Office with information and intercepted telegrams to show that Arciszewski’s government had still been using radio communications in August to keep in touch with the resistance movement in Poland. TNA, HS 4/204, Cavendish-Bentinck to FO, 16 September 1945.

30 TNA, HS 8/202, SOE Council, 12 September 1945; Richard J. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand. Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (London: John Murray, 2001), pp. 78–80.

31 TNA, HS 8/202, Tasks for SOE in Peace and War, 22 September 1945.

32 Ibid. For the part played by SOE and the British in the Belgrade coup, see Sue Onslow, “Britain and the Belgrade Coup of 27 March 1941 Revisited,” Electronic Journal of International History (London: Institute of Historical Research, University of London, 2005), pp. 1–57. https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/3395/1/Journal_of_International_History_2005_n8_Onslow.pdf (accessed 28 January 2022); and for their part in Romania’s transfer to the Allies, see Neville Wylie, “Ungentlemanly Warriors or Unreliable Diplomats? Special Operations Executive and ‘Irregular Political Activities’ in Europe,” Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 1 (2005), pp. 112–115.

33 TNA, HS 4/268, H. Ellis Rees to C. Warner, 26 September and 19 October 1945; TNA, HS 4/268, Klauber to Stevens, 26 October 1945; HS 4/300, Utnik to Perkins, 21 December 1945; Siemaszko, Łączność i polityka 1941–1946, p. 309; Marian Utnik, “Oddział łącznikowy Komendanta Głównego AK przy Naczelnym Wodzu na emigracji,” Part 1, pp. 146–147; Marian Utnik, “Oddział łącznikowy Komendanta Głównego AK przy Naczelnym Wodzu na emigracji: VI Oddział Sztabu Naczelnego Wodza. Zakończenie,” Wojskowy Przegląd Historyczny, Vol. 1 (1982), pp. 192–193; Daniel Koreś, “Zanim wybuchła afera TUN. Generał Stanisław Tatar, Komitet Trzech, fundusz ‘Drawa’ i operacja ‘Brzoza’ 1944–1947,” ‘Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość, Vol. 2 (2020), pp. 414–415.

34 TNA, FO 1093/405, Cavendish-Bentinck to H. Caccia, 20 February 1946; Stephen Dorril, MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations (London: Fourth Estate, 2000), pp. 27–34.

35 David Smiley, Irregular Regular (Wilby: Michael Russell Publishing, 1994), pp. 187–188.

36 TNA, FO 1093/400, Menzies to Caccia, 8 March 1946.

37 Kajetan Bieniecki, Lotnicze wsparcie Armii Krajowej (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Arcana, 1994), p. 319; $26 million in 1944 would be worth $411 million in 2022.

Additional information

Funding

Narodowe Centum Nauki, project no. 2015/19/B/HS3/01051.

Notes on contributors

Jacek Tebinka

Jacek Tebinka is Professor in Instytut Politologii at the University of Gdańsk and was a Visiting Professor, Chair of Polish History and Culture at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has written about Anglo–Polish relations in the twentieth century, the intelligence dimension in diplomacy, the Polish Question in World War II, and Cold War history. He is the coauthor of Poland in the British Strategy of Supporting the Resistance Movement and History of the Polish Section of Special Operations Management (SOE). The author can be contacted at [email protected].