Jenny Grant Profile picture
Historian: The Poles in the West & Wartime Britain - Alliances and Commemoration. PhD Research at QMUL. Editor of Gen Maczek's memoirs - out 30th Nov.
Nov 13 9 tweets 3 min read
Two weeks until the launch of 'The Price of Victory' - the first English translation of the memoirs of General Stanisław Maczek.

So, who is this Maczek chap anyway?...

/1 Image A Pole, with a Croatian surname, born into the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The eldest of four brothers - and the only one to survive beyond 1921.

A cosmopolitan undergraduate, who switched from Natural Sciences to Philology.

/2 Image
Apr 25 7 tweets 2 min read
Right - the Sikorski Museum in London. You need to go.

Why?

1/

Oh, just the Polish flag which flew on the ruins of the monastery after the capture of Monte Cassino Image 2/ And the charts drawn up from memory by the crew of the Orzeł submarine on their escape from Tallinn - their charts having been confiscated by the Estonian authorities. Image
Aug 19, 2019 15 tweets 6 min read
#OTD 19th Aug '44

Day 1 of the Battle for Hill 262: #Maczuga

"There was confusion among the German columns; huge trucks filled with troops, guns drawn by six-horse teams, staff cars, recon half-tracks and two enormous assault guns.

I gave the order: "Fire!"

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#WW2
#Maczek Image 2/

Following Von Kluge's order of 16th August for a German retreat from the West, the Allied troops focused on trapping the retreating units within the 'Falaise Pocket'.

The Polish 1st Armoured Division under Maczek was crucial - "the cork in the bottle", in Monty's words. Image