Poles apart: The Polish airborne at the Battle of Arnhem

Seldom have soldiers fought under conditions as poignant as did the Poles in MARKET GARDEN. Originally formed to support an uprising in its homeland against the Nazis, the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade was thrown into the inferno of Arnhem just as the Polish Home Army was rising against the Germans in Warsaw [Uprising]. As the Poles fought and died in support of their Western Allies in Holland, the citizens of burning Warsaw looked skyward for their paratroopers to save them from the Germans, as the Russian Army sat across the Vistula awaiting their own turn at occupation. Unlike the gallant soldiers of other Allied armies, many Polish paratroopers would never see their homeland again, even after ultimate victory.