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Operation Tempest - History

Operation Tempest - History: Encyclopedia II - Operation Tempest - History

Operation Tempest - Plan. The Home Army had from its inception been preparing a national armed rising against the Germans. The basic framework of the future rising had been created in September 1942. According to the plan, the Uprising was to be ordered by the Polish Commander in Chief in Exile when the defeat of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front had become apparent. The Uprising was to begin in Central Poland: in the "General Gouvernement," Zagłębie, Kraków Voivo ...

Operation Tempest: Encyclopedia II - Operation Tempest - History

Operation Tempest - History

Operation Tempest - Plan

The Home Army had from its inception been preparing a national armed rising against the Germans. The basic framework of the future rising had been created in September 1942. According to the plan, the Uprising was to be ordered by the Polish Commander in Chief in Exile when the defeat of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front had become apparent. The Uprising was to begin in Central Poland: in the "General Gouvernement," Zagłębie, Kraków Voivodship, and the Białystok and Brześć areas.

The Uprising's basic objectives were to:

end the German occupation;
seize arms and supplies needed for a Polish regular army on Polish soil;
counter the threat from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army;
rebuild a regular Polish Army;
rebuild civil authorities, communications, and an arms industry;
maintain peace and order behind the front lines; and
begin offensive operations against Wehrmacht forces still on Polish soil.

Reconstruction of a Polish regular army was to be based on the prewar Polish order of battle. Home Army units were to be turned into regular divisions. Initially to be created were 16 infantry divisions, 3 cavalry brigades and 1 motorized brigade, to be equipped with captured weapons or with arms and supplies delivered by the Allies. The second phase was to see the re-creation of an additional 15 divisions and 5 cavalry brigades which, before the war, had been stationed in eastern and western Poland.

The plan had been partly implemented. Beginning in 1943, Home Army units were grouped into larger units bearing the names and numbers of prewar Polish divisions, brigades and regiments.

Operation Tempest - Allies' ally

In early 1943, after the German defeat at Stalingrad, it was clear that the western Allies had made relatively little progress toward an invasion of the European continent, and that the planned Polish rising would face a still powerful German army rather than units retreating to an already defeated homeland.

In February 1943, the Home Army chief, General Stefan Rowecki, amended the plan. The Uprising would take place in three stages. The first stage would be an armed rising in the east (with main centers of resistance at Lwów and Wilno) in advance of the approaching Red Army. In preparation, the "Wachlarz" organization was formed. The second stage would be an armed struggle in the zone between the Curzon Line and the Wisła River; and the third stage would be a national rising over the rest of Poland.

On April 25, 1943, Polish-Soviet diplomatic relations were broken by Stalin due to Polish inquiries about the Katyn massacres, and it became clear that the advancing Red Army might not come to Poland as a liberator but rather, as General Rowecki put it, "our allies' ally." On November 26, 1943, the Polish government in exile issued instructions that, if diplomatic relations had not resumed with the Soviet Union before the Soviets entered Poland, Home Army forces were to remain underground pending further decisions.

The Home Army's commander on the ground, however, took a different approach, and on November 30, 1943, a final version of the plan was drafted.

Operation Tempest - Operation Storm

The plan was to cooperate with the advancing Red Army on a tactical level, while Polish civil authorities came out from underground and took power in Allied-controlled Polish territory. This plan was approved by the Delegate of the Polish government in exile and by the Polish underground parliament (Krajowa Reprezentacja Polityczna).

On January 2, 1944, Red Army forces of the 2nd Belarusian Front crossed the prewar Polish border. At the same time, massacres of Poles in Volhynia reached their peak and the 27th Polish Home Army Infantry Division was formed. Thus began Operation Storm. The Division managed to contact the commanders of the advancing Red Army and began successful joint operations against the Wehrmacht. Together they retook Kowel (April 6) and Włodzimierz. The Division was, however, soon forced to retreat west, and in the Polesie area was attacked by both German and Soviet forces. Polish soldiers taken prisoner by the Soviets were given the choice of joining the Red Army or being sent to Soviet forced-labor camps. The remnants of the Division crossed the Bug River, where they were attacked by Soviet partisan units. After liberating the towns of Lubartów and Kock, the Division (reduced to some 3,200 men) was surrounded by the Red Army and taken prisoner.

Operation Tempest - Operation Ostra Brama

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In the north, on June 7, 1944, the forces of the Wilno and Nowogródek Home Army districts (some 13,000 men under Col. Aleksander Krzyżanowski) opened an armed rising in Wilno (now Vilnius), successfully liberating the city before the arrival of the Red Army. By June 14, the surrounding countryside had also been liberated by the Polish 19th Home Army Infantry Division. The Polish forces and the civil authorities were, however, captured by the Soviets and sent to Russia.

Operation Tempest - Lwów Uprising

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On July 23, Home Army forces in Lwów (now Lviv) began an armed rising in cooperation with advancing Soviet forces. In four days the city was liberated. The Polish civil and military authorities were then summoned to "a meeting with Red Army commanders" and taken prisoner by the Soviet NKVD. Col. Władysław Filipkowski's men were forcibly conscripted into the Red Army or sent to forced-labor camps, or went back underground.

Operation Tempest - Warsaw Uprising

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Seeing the fate of the Home Army forces that had taken part in Operation Storm, the Polish government in exile and the Home Army's current commander, Gen. Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, decided that the last chance for regaining Poland's independence was to open an uprising in Warsaw. On July 21, 1944, Bór-Komorowski ordered that the Warsaw Uprising begin at 17:00 hours on August 1, 1944. The political goal was to emphasize for the Allies the existence of the Polish government and Polish civil authorities. Warsaw was to be taken in order to allow the legitimate Polish government to return from exile to Poland.

At the same time, other Home Army districts were also mobilized. In the Kielce and Radom area, the 2nd Polish Home Army Division was formed and took control of the entire area except for the cities. Other units were also mustered in Kraków, Łódź and Greater Poland.

Operation Tempest - Outcome

The Germans' suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, in the absence of Soviet assistance to the insurgents, marked the end of Operation Storm. Joseph Stalin would not let the Polish government in exile return and instead created a puppet Moscow-backed government, while arresting or killing Home Army personnel and members of the civil authorities. In autumn 1944 many Home Army units were disbanded, while remaining forces returned underground.