REVIEW - Royal Air Force Centre for Air Power Studies

74
(The Second World War in Perspective, RUSI,
150, No 4, 2005, pp 56-59) “… the belief that we
surrendered Eastern Europe to the Soviets in Yalta
is sheer nonsense. It was not ours to surrender.
Soviet Armies were already in occupation and
regarded these territories as the legitimate spoils of a
terrible war. Similarly, any idea that the British and
American Armies might have pushed the Russians
back from already agreed occupation zones is equally
fantastic. British and American troops, desperate
to go home would have mutinied if called on to
do anything of the kind, and done so with the full
support of electorates that had, rightly or wrongly,
learned to regard the Soviet Armed Forces with
admiration and gratitude”.
46 Michael Hope, The Abandoned Legion. A Study
of the Background and Process of the Post-War
Dissolution of Polish Forces in the West, Veritas,
London, 2005. This is the only English language text
on this sad event, but its title has to give some pause
since the Polish Armed Forces in Exile were never
called a legion.
47 Krystyna Kersten, The Establishment of
Communist Rule in Poland, 1943-1948, University of
California Press, Oxford, 1991, pp 285-344.
48 Hilary St George Sanders, Royal Air Force, 1939-
1945, Vol 3. The Fight is Won, HMSO, London, Third
Impression 1993, p 370.
49 Ibid, p 414.
50 TNA PREM 1/357, also see David E Kaiser,
Economic Diplomacy and the Origins of the Second
World War. Germany, Britain, France and Eastern
Europe, 1930-1939, Princeton U Press, Princeton, NJ,
1980, p 308.
51 TNA T 160/1399.
52 The Official Polish post war report about
the Polish Air Force, written by the Historical
Commission, chaired by Colonel Olgiered Tuskiewicz
in manuscript form promulgated in 1947. (Copy in
author’s possession); and the Franciszek Kalinowski,
Lotnictwo Polskie w Wielkiej Brytanii, 1940-1945
[Polish Air Force in Great Britain, 1940-1945], Institute
Litteraire, Paris, 1969.
53 TNA T 160/1399.