We passed through Napoleon Square and then Warecka Street to the intersection with our street. There was an attempt to build a barricade across our street, Nowy Swiat, with large wooden cable spools. On the other side of our street, the continuation of Warecka Street was called Ordynacka. That street sloped down towards the Vistula area held by the Germans. A short distance down Ordynacka was a barricade manned with a machine gun, and we decided to go there and once again try our luck to see if we could join as runners. We ran across our street using the unfinished barricade for cover and encountered machine gun fire from the police headquarters but it was ineffective.
We reached the barricade and still had no luck, but we did spend some time with the insurgents. They had placed several upside-down dinner plates in front of the barricade with a sign saying ‘attention mines’. I wasn’t sure if they were serious or if it was a joke. Insurgents were expecting a tank attack and were well prepared with Molotov cocktails, but this was a new, improved Polish version that self-exploded and did not require a lit wick like the original Russian version. We returned home following the same route. Late that afternoon we helped build a barricade on Chmielna Street, at the intersection with our street. There was an attempt to build a barricade on our street at that same intersection but the machine gun fire from the BGK bank made it impossible.
Throughout that day the Germans used Stuka dive-bombers. When Stukas began their dive you could hear a screeching noise made by sirens attached to the plane. We would then see the planes pull up and away from the rooftops, leaving behind an explosion and a cloud of debris flying into the air. We looked in vain for Russian fighters; they were no longer seen over Warsaw.
Day four. After breakfast we once again tried to cross Jerusalem Avenue. There was heavy fighting on parts of this major thoroughfare as the Germans were trying to gain control for their military traffic. There was no way for us to get through and reach our assembly point. When we returned we found two Polish soldiers in our courtyard. They wanted to know if there was a place in our building where they could see the intersection of Jerusalem Avenue and our street. I immediately told them that there was a clear view of the intersection from the attic. In addition to our building being four storeys high, one higher than the adjoining buildings, our street also curved, allowing for a clear view of the whole intersection. ‘Show me how to get there’, said the one with the Mauser rifle, who looked like he was in charge. I took them to the gatekeeper and told him to get the keys to the attic, a masonry chisel and a mallet. We ran ahead up the service stairs; a few minutes later the keeper arrived, opened the attic, gave us the tools and left.
The empty space was sparsely lit by a few skylights. At the end of the attic, on the wall perpendicular to the street, we chiselled out a small hole at eye level, which gave us a clear view of the intersection about 275yd away. The man in charge enlarged the hole to make a perfect embrasure for his rifle, and then each of us made his own observation holes by removing a single brick at eye level. We introduced ourselves as Boy Scouts who had been in the Underground for a year. The leader said that he was known as ‘Tadek’ (all insurgents assumed a code name) and that they were from the ‘Nałęcz’ unit. We watched the intersection for at least fifteen uneventful minutes. There was sporadic machine gun fire into our street from the BGK bank on the south-west corner of the intersection. Then a German staff car emerged from the east, the direction of the Poniatowski Bridge. Tadek fired but the car carried on and disappeared from our line of vision. After a while a motorcycle with a sidecar crossed from the same direction. Again Tadek fired and again the vehicle carried on.
There was no movement for the next half hour, until we heard the faint noise of a tank clatter coming from the same direction. The tank, a Mark IV, slowly entered our line of sight. It reached the centre of the intersection, turned right facing us, and came to a ponderous stop just before our street. I was all excited wondering what would happen next. We waited for a good ten minutes. Nothing moved. The turret hatch opened and a German wearing a black beret stuck his head out. After a few minutes he pulled himself up high enough to raise a pair of binoculars. As he brought them up to his eyes I heard a shot a few feet to my right, where Tadek was standing. I saw the German slump on the tank’s turret, binoculars still hanging from his neck. For a moment everything froze. The German’s body was pulled inside the turret. The tank’s gun barrel moved up. There was a flash at the muzzle, noise of a wall crumbling and the sound of a gun firing. A hole, about 3ft in diameter, opened up in the wall right next to me. Tadek yelled, ‘run, run!’ As we scrambled down the stairs the tank fired again and we heard the attic wall crumble behind us. Luckily, since the wall was only one brick thick, neither of the two projectiles exploded in the attic but went straight through both walls. The Germans were most likely using anti-tank ammunition. Andrzej and I had had our baptism of fire.
As we regrouped in the courtyard I told Tadek that we wanted to join his unit and asked if he would take us there. He agreed and we made our way to Chmielna Street, then across a courtyard to the Coliseum cinema, or rather where the cinema used to be. It had been bombed out in 1939 and was now a large, empty paved yard surrounded by the tall masonry walls of other burned-out buildings, with remnants of a steel roof structure. About forty soldiers were standing around and sitting on the ground. Most were in their early twenties, some in their late teens, and a few middle-aged. There were also young women with first aid bags. They all had red and white armbands and a variety of uniforms and head coverings with Polish eagles or red and white markings. I was surprised at how well armed they were. I immediately spotted two German MG34s, half a dozen submachine guns and about a dozen rifles, pistols and grenades. There was a small man in a very odd German air defence helmet carrying a Panzerfaust (an anti-tank rocket).
We followed Tadek to an officer with a bandage on his cheek standing with a young woman holding a first aid bag. They were Lt. ‘Jur’ and Tadek’s sister ‘Baśka’. As he told them our story, another officer approached. He was a tall handsome man, about 30 years old, with a dark complexion and a military bearing. He had a German helmet, Polish officer’s riding boots and breeches. A 9mm pistol with a lanyard around his neck was stuck in his belt. In his right hand he carried a Błyskawica, a submachine gun produced by the Polish Underground. He was Lt. ‘Nałęcz’, the officer commanding this unit. Tadek reported to him, describing our adventures. He gave us credit and told the lieutenant that we wanted to join. Standing at attention, I repeated our desire to join explaining that for the last year we had been training in the Grey Ranks and that we would make good runners. I answered his questions about my family and told him about Wiktor and Zygmunt’s involvement in the Underground. Lt. Nałęcz said that he would take us on as runners provided our mother personally gave her permission. He said that the battalion was going to move to 4 Boduena Street and if we got her permission, we should bring her there.
We sprinted home. ‘We found a unit that will take us as runners!’ I shouted as we entered the apartment. ‘We need your permission, and if you don’t give it we’ll run away.’ I babbled on about what a great unit it was, how well armed they were, what a great officer Lt. Nałęcz was, just like uncle Karol – he even looked like him. We followed mother into the living room. She sat down and as we stood in front of her she looked at us, silently, for a long time. Tears welled up in her eyes and slowly rolled down her cheeks. There was no sound except Zabcia excitedly jumping between us. After a while she quietly said, ‘I will take you there.’
We hugged and thanked her, then ran into our room to get ready. We put on our windbreakers. I put on a belt that uncle Karol had made for me. It was a smaller version of a Polish officer’s army belt made of brown leather with elaborate stitching and a brass buckle. I got out my shoulder bag, a Polish Army chlebak. I grabbed a couple of shirts, some underwear and socks, a torch and a toothbrush. On my head I placed my uncle’s overseas cap with a pennant of the 1st Mounted Rifles Regiment. Mo
ther came out of the kitchen with two small parcels of food.
Boduena Street was very close, just before Napoleon Square. Number 4 was a large apartment building taken over as the headquarters of the Korpus Bezpieczeństwa of the Armia Krajowa (Security Corps of the Home Army). Nałęcz Battalion was one of their units. We found and reported to Lt. Nałęcz. He introduced himself to my mother, kissing her hand as was customary. ‘Madame, do you give your permission?’ Mother replied, ‘Yes, I know I will not be able to keep them at home.’ We joined Tadek and his sister Baśka, who was talking to our mother. She realised that we were anxious for her to leave so she said goodbye with a quick hug, not wanting to embarrass us. As she left she turned and said to Baśka: ‘Will you take good care of my boys?’ ‘I will’, Baśka replied. With one last wave, mother departed.
We could not know that this was the last time my mother would see Andrzej, and that two weeks later Baśka would be with him when he was mortally wounded.
The unit we joined, 1st Assault Battalion KB ‘Nałęcz’, was part of an underground organisation formed in late 1939. In 1942, it was subordinated to the AK, maintaining a degree of internal independence. KB was the acronym for the Korpus Bezpieczeństwa or Security Corps. Its full name was abbreviated as AK KB. It was tasked by the AK with the preparation of a military unit for protection of the Polish administration that would take charge once the Germans were expelled. The KB had its own officer school commanded by Lt. Nałęcz. During the Uprising, the KB was under tactical command of the Home Army.
The outbreak of the Uprising found Lt. Nałęcz with a group of about twenty officer cadets. On 1 August at 6 p.m. the lightly armed group joined the fight for the Hala Mirowska – a large market hall used by the Germans as a food warehouse. The German defenders were defeated and the unit captured one machine gun and four rifles. Lt. Nałęcz accepted volunteers if they were armed and the unit grew to almost forty men. Lt. Jur was appointed second in command. Over the next two days, the unit moved towards the headquarters of the KB on Boduena Street. On its way it joined in several assaults on German positions and at 4 p.m. on 3 August it arrived on the south side of Marszałkowska Street. These were buildings held by Germans. As they were clearing the buildings a German vehicle arrived. It was destroyed and its crew wiped out. The unit captured a second machine gun, assorted other weapons, a Panzerfaust, boxes of grenades and ammunition.
The unit reorganised into assault groups and initiated a fight for a building which housed the Esplanade, a German-only restaurant. A large number of stranded Germans took refuge there. After a three-hour firefight, the building was taken. More weapons were captured as well as a few POWs, but at the price of one killed and several wounded, including Lt. ‘Dąbrowa’, who died two days later. Finally, at 9 p.m. Lt. Nałęcz reported to headquarters. Next morning, 4 August, Lt. Nałęcz was ordered to the corner of Nowy Swiat and Jerusalem Avenue, opposite the BGK bank building. He was later relieved by another unit and ordered to return to the headquarters. It was as the battalion was assembling in the Coloseum cinema that Tadek led us there.
Soon after mother left, Lt. Nałęcz told us to see Staff Sgt. ‘Mama’ and give him our personal data so we could be issued IDs. Andrzej decided to stay with his old code name, ‘Tarzan’, and I changed mine to my name, ‘Bohdan’. I reported back to Lt. Nałęcz, who was standing with a new officer Lt. ‘Pobóg’, appointed second in command of the battalion and commanding officer of the 1st Company. Lt. Jur was appointed commanding officer of the 2nd Company. Lt. Nałęcz told me that I would be his personal runner and I was to stick with him at all times. He told me to get to know all the officers and cadet officers. Later that afternoon our battalion, now about seventy men, moved across Marszałkowska Street to our new billets. They were in an apartment building on Sienna Street, Lt. Col. ‘Paweł’’s quarters, and we spent the night there.
On the next morning, 5 August, we woke up to a clear sunny day. After sleeping on the floor without much cover I realised that I needed to change my shorts for long trousers. Luckily, in another apartment I found a boy’s secondary school uniform slightly larger than my size. I changed into long navy blue trousers and a pair of shoes that were more practical than my sandals. That morning our battalion formed into a 1st Company of three platoons, commanded by Lt. Pobóg, and a second, much smaller reserve company commanded by Lt. Jur. At this reorganisation, provisions and uniforms were replenished. Lt. Nałęcz ordered me to follow him to the Boduena Street headquarters. Before we left he gave me a pre-war Polish assault grenade, which I hung on my belt.
After crossing Marszałkowska Street we met a war correspondent with his camera crew, who wanted to film us. After filming us walking towards them, they wanted some action shots. Lt. Nałęcz gave me his Blyskawica submachine gun and on a given signal I ran with it, darting from a building entrance to a destroyed German car and then to a barricade. I stopped a few times pretending to shoot. It was great fun. Unfortunately, this film clip did not survive the Uprising though quite a lot of footage shot during the fighting has been preserved.
Our visit to headquarters was brief. While I waited outside Lt. Nałęcz reported to Col. ‘Doliwa’, KB Chief of Staff, and received his final orders. As they emerged together I stood to attention. Lt. Nałęcz said: ‘this is Bohdan, my runner’. I saluted and the colonel returned my salute. I felt very proud and thought: ‘Now I am a soldier in the Polish Army.’
When we returned, we found the building adjoining our billets demolished by a bomb. The front of the building had taken a direct hit and crumbled onto the street. Bodies had been removed from the wreckage and were lying on the pavement: two women and a child. They lay peacefully on their backs, with no sign of blood or injury, all covered in grey dust as if somebody had sprayed rye flour over them.
For the previous two days Stukas had been bombing Warsaw at will. We had no anti-aircraft defence. Russian planes had disappeared completely from Warsaw’s skies, even though the Russian Army was only on the other side of the Vistula. The Stukas were flying very low, diving with sirens screeching; their bombs clearly visible as they fell. As the planes pulled up they were followed by an explosion that shot up a geyser of debris and clouds of dust and smoke. Fires burned in several directions.
Lt. Nałęcz summoned his officers and platoon leaders to brief them on his orders. We were to move to the Wola district. Our first objective was 13 Leszno Street, one of the KB assembly points. The seventy men of our unit assembled in the courtyard and started to move out in the early afternoon. We walked single file starting with a couple of point men, followed by a forward guard of three or four men with submachine guns, Lt. Nałęcz and I, then the rest of the battalion. At the beginning it was easy as this part of Warsaw was under Polish control. We moved from barricade to barricade gathering local intelligence. There were signs of fighting, broken windows, pockmarked walls, holes from artillery and tank fire, and bombed out buildings. We reached Krochmalna Street, which formed the Polish defence perimeter. The situation in front of us was unclear. To our right we knew the Germans were in the Saxon Gardens and we heard sporadic shooting from that direction. From Wola to the left came the sound of heavy fighting. Germans were trying to break through to connect with their positions in the Saxon Gardens. They wanted to establish a corridor to the Kierbedz Bridge in order to connect with their troops facing the Russians on the other side of the Vistula.
We moved towards two large pavilions at Hale Mirowskie, the city’s old food markets. Poles had captured them at the beginning of the Uprising but we didn’t know who held them now as they had changed hands a few times. Cautiously we entered one of the buildings, which appeared to be vacant, and moved through, shattered glass from broken skylights crunching under our feet. We emerged on the other side of the building and crossed the street. We continued on the short block of Mirowska Street, turned right on Elektoralna Street and then left on Orla Street, reaching Leszno Street. We turned left and found the KB assembly point.
; There were several soldiers from the KB, including Lt. ‘Holski’; they all joined our battalion. We learned that Polish units defending Wola were under heavy attack and were withdrawing towards the old town. Ours was the last unit that managed to move into the old town. The next day the Germans managed to break through from Wola and connect with their troops in Saxon Gardens. The old town was now surrounded and cut off from the rest of Warsaw.
Lt. Nałęcz made a decision to leave the 3rd Platoon on Leszno Street and move the rest of the battalion towards the old town to new quarters in the Spiess pharmaceutical company building behind the town hall. Later that evening Lt. Nałęcz led a detachment to the end of King Albert Street to provide security from the direction of Saxon Gardens. Having placed them in a defensive position, he and I returned and I dozed off. After midnight, Lt. Nałęcz woke me up saying, ‘Let’s go, we’re going to take a look at Brühl Palace’. The large two-storey, two-winged rococo palace faced Pilsudski Square. The south wing bordered the Saxon Gardens and the other was on Wierzbowa Street. Before the war, Brühl Palace housed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but now served as the offices and residence of Ludwig Fischer, Nazi Governor of the Warsaw district.
An assault group of about ten men was made ready and we proceeded along Wierzbowa Street, passing the Opera House on our left. It was dark, there was sporadic firing from different directions and illuminating flares were fired from the Saxon Gardens. We walked single file, hugging the wall on our right. The point man was followed by a second man watching the left side, then Lt. Nałęcz and I were followed by a sapper section, with their explosives, led by Abczyc, and at the rear was an assault group armed with submachine guns, pistols and grenades.
My Boyhood War Page 9