Ukrainians in the Polish Armed Forces – several thousand Ukrainians who came to the UK during and immediately following the Second World War as members of the Polish Armed Forces (PAF) formed outside Poland to fight against Germany. In addition to Poles, the ranks of the PAF also included personnel of other nationalities who were citizens of Poland at the outbreak of the war, among them many Ukrainians from Western Ukraine.
PAF in the West
Ukrainians in the Polish Armed Forces at a general meeting of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain. Edinburgh, 1946.
The Polish Armed Forces “in the West”, including army, air force and naval units, were formed on the basis of a Franco-Polish Military Agreement following the September 1939 invasions of Poland by the German and Soviet armies. Although loyal to the Polish Government abroad, they were initially mainly under French military command and based in France and its Middle East territories. The initial recruits were predominantly Polish citizens living in France and Polish military personnel who had fled at the start of the war from Poland to Romania and Hungary, from where they were subsequently evacuated to France.
In the summer of 1940, following the German invasion of France, around 20,000 PAF personnel, together with the Polish Government, were evacuated to the UK. Here the new headquarters of the PAF were established and Polish units under British command, officially known from 1945 as the First Polish Corps, began to be created. Among those evacuated to the UK in the summer of 1940 were a number of Ukrainians. They included Serhij Nahnybida, Michael Oparenko and George Salsky who, before the war, had been assigned by the government-in-exile of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR) to serve as contract officers in the Polish air force.
The corps was subsequently strengthened by additional personnel transferred to the UK from various countries, or recruited within the UK. In particular, significant numbers were transferred from France following the June 1944 Normandy landings. These were Polish citizens, mainly forced labourers, conscripts in German military units and prisoners-of-war, who were enlisted into the PAF by the Western Allies as they gradually liberated territory previously held by Germany. About 1,000 Ukrainians were among the personnel transferred to the UK from France following the Normandy landings, arriving mainly towards the end of 1944 and early in 1945.
PAF in the East
The forces “in the East” came into being following the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union. On the basis of a Polish-Soviet Military Convention, the Polish Army in the USSR was created and placed under Soviet operational command, although it was deemed to be an integral part of the armed forces of the sovereign Polish Republic. Commanded by General Władysław Anders, it was composed of Polish citizens, mainly prisoners-of-war and deportees, who were within the Soviet Union at the time. The formation of the army began in the Orenburg Region of Russia, but at the beginning of 1942 it was transferred to Tashkent in Uzbekistan.
Later in the same year, as a result of deteriorating Polish-Soviet relations, the “Anders Army” was evacuated to Iran and Iraq. There it was brought under British command and merged with other Polish forces, which had been assembled in the Middle East from 1940, to form the Polish Army in the East. In July 1943 this became the foundation of the Second Polish Corps of the British Eighth Army. The corps was transferred to Palestine and subsequently, via Egypt, to Italy, where it took part in several Allied operations, most notably the Battle of Monte Cassino. At the end of the war the corps initially remained in Italy. Between May and November of 1946, following a decision to demobilise the PAF, the corps was transferred to the UK.
Among the members of the Second Polish Corps and its predecessors there were thousands of Ukrainians who had been exiled to Siberia during the 1939-1941 Soviet occupation of Western Ukraine. Of these, a small number were transferred to the UK at various times from 1942 to the end of the war, these being mainly volunteers for training with the Polish air force or personnel wounded in battle. The largest group arrived when the whole corps was brought to the UK from Italy in 1946. Estimates of the number of Ukrainians in this group vary from 3,000 to 6,000. In 1947 and 1948 some Ukrainians came to the UK from Palestine, where they had remained following the 1943 transfer of the corps from the Middle East to Italy.
Polish Resettlement Corps
Upon demobilisation, most of the PAF personnel, including most of the Ukrainians, enlisted in the Polish Resettlement Corps (PRC). This was an unarmed unit within the British Army established in 1946 by the British government with the aim of facilitating the orderly dispersal into civilian life of those members of the PAF who chose to remain in the UK after the war (not wishing to return to Communist-controlled Eastern Europe). Enlistment in the PRC began in September 1946 and was technically voluntary, though the British authorities strongly urged all former PAF members to join the corps. The PRC personnel were accommodated throughout the UK in military camps which were progressively re-designated as workers’ hostels. They were provided with English language tuition, vocational training and familiarisation with British institutions. At the same time, suitable civilian employment was sought for them. At the end of September 1949 the corps was disbanded.
In mid-1945, as soon as the war was over, a number of the Ukrainians in the PAF took steps towards the creation of an Association of Ukrainian Soldiers in the Polish Armed Forces, which in January 1946 became the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain (AUGB). Until the arrival of the first Ukrainian European Voluntary Workers in 1947, most members of the AUGB were Ukrainians from the PAF.
Bibliography
Sword, K. with N. Davies and J. Ciechanowski, The Formation of the Polish Community in Great Britain 1939‑50, London: School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, 1989.