2nd Corps’s advance in Italy
In the Polish War cemetery at Monte Cassino lies Seweryn Łuksza, who was born in 1912 and died fighting for his country on 12 May 1944.
The battle left over a thousand Polish soldiers dead, the rest continued fighting in the Italian theatre until the war ended in May 1945. Whilst the fighting continued northwards through Italy, the Polish political situation deteriorated.
The end of the battle for Monte Cassino came on 18 May 1944
THE HISTORY OF THE
MIŁOSZEWSKI AND RAFALĄT FAMILIES
11. September 1939 - Invasion
In 1939 Franciszek was called up to join the Polish army at the outbreak of war with Germany. The invasion of Poland by the Germans was swift and brutal. Franciszek’s unit was unable to see action and crossed the nearby Romanian border, where the soldiers were interred.
As a young 21 year-old Franciszek was not happy to be interred in a Romanian camp and escaped to return to his home in Stryj. Unfortunately, the Soviets had by this time invaded the eastern part of Poland, including Stryj, and were brutally suppressing any resistance. Polish soldiers were arrested by the NKVD (the precursor to the KGB, or the present day's FSB) and hundreds were tortured and murdered in the prisons of Lwów and Stryj. Franciszek was badly beaten by the NKVD and was deported to a labour camp in Siberia.
The Soviets had deported thousands of Poles from the eastern ‘Kresy' (borderland) of Poland to Siberia but the Polish-Russian Sikorski-Mayski Pact, signed on 30 July 1941, granted amnesty to all Polish citizens on Soviet soil. Franciszek was released from the labour camp under the terms of the amnesty and, like the Miłoszewski family, made his way to Kermine, where a Polish army under General Anders was being formed.
Franciszek never talked much about his experiences during those terrible times. However, there was an interesting episode many years after his death. A lady phoned his wife Teresa and explained that she owed her life to Franciszek. He had helped her to survive during the period Anders' army was being formed. At that time the army was not being given sufficient food rations but, despite the brutal shortages, the soldiers still shared what little they had with civilians, especially women and children. These civilians were desperately seeking protection and help from the army to enable them to survive the horrific conditions imposed by the Soviets. General Anders was also a man who did everything he possibly could to recruit everyone - man, woman or child - to facilitate the Poles' escape from their Soviet hell. Thousands of grateful Poles, both military personnel and civilians, owe their lives to Anders' humanitarian efforts.
Franciszek joined the Polish 2nd Corps and was evacuated to firstly Iran and then to Palestine, where he served in the 3rd Carpathian Rifle Division, as did Jan Miłoszewski. The division was stationed in Iraq (Kizil Rabat) in 1942 to protect the country's strategic oilfields.
In 1943 most of the 2nd Corps, including the 3rd Carpathian Rifle Division was despatched to Italy to take part in the Gustav line offensive. The Gustav Line was a defensive line built by the Germans drawn across central Italy just south of Rome. One of the German strong points was the Abbey of Monte Cassino, which the Allies took at great human cost.
The first place that Franciszek, with the 3rd Division, saw action was in the battle for Monte Cassino. The Polish army took part in the fourth and final assault of this horrific battle, where tens of thousands of men died. The final assault started on 11 May 1944.
During the battle of Monte Cassino, Franciszek was on the front line. Jan Miłoszewski, being much older, was in the quartermaster stores providing food supplies to the troops. Seweryn (Renek) Łuksza, who was Czesława Miłoszewska’s brother, was killed in the fighting on 12 May.
During the first meeting in Tehran in December 1943 of the three leaders of the alliance - Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin - there was a demand from Stalin that the post-war borders of Poland be changed. The Curzon line (a proposal made by the British in 1918) was to be implemented by the USSR. This would mean that virtually all the soldiers and their dependents in the Polish 2nd Corps would now find their homes in the USSR. At the Yalta conference of the three leaders in February 1945 that demand was met and the Polish border was moved westwards to the Curzon Line. Poland's western border was also moved and it swallowed German territories to the north and west.