At the Battle of Monte Cassino

Chapter 4 from Hun’s Corner

The Polish Officer

As he walked through the remains of the monastery known as Abbazia di Montecassino situated in central Italy, Captain Stanislav heard an organ playing. There sat a German SS captain sending the notes through the organ's pipes which miraculously had survived.

On the ground were lying many soldiers: Germans and Poles, some men with bandages around the head from previous wounds in the battle, others holding a gun as they lay immobile where they had fallen, and one German in a seated position against a wall still holding a water flask in his hand. Captain Stanislav realised he had died while passing the flask to a wounded Polish soldier sitting next to him. But this soldier too was now slumped against the remains of the stone wall, next to the man who had offered him the last comfort in death.

The Polish officer raised his eyes and looked round as some rubble came down from an arch behind him, only to behold the ruined walls, the collapsed roof and the blue sky above, the shattered stained glass on the ground, the cross lying on the floor. His men were all dead, along with numerous German soldiers, and as Captain Stanislav looked and observed the scenes around him, a beam of sunlight coming through an open wall appeared to illuminate his thoughts, as if by a divine inspiration. Meanwhile, the organ was still playing.

He walked out and headed back down the hill. As the bewildered British and New Zealand soldiers stood to one side to let him pass - they too having suffered horrendous losses in the previous days while storming the hill - he encountered a high-ranking officer of the British Empire, some general or other.

All the men around were listening as the Polish captain said to him:

It wasn't the Germans, it was you!

You destroy the house of God, you destroy towns and cities, you work for Stalin, and I know you are going to hand over my country to the enemy.

You never were the friends of Poland, you only used us and sacrificed our people. 

It was in that same year of 1944 that Winston Churchill was travelling to the Soviet Union to visit Stalin and redefine the map of the world. In this map, Poland was to be handed over to Stalin and the boundaries changed, with many Poles forced to leave their lands through ethnic expulsion.

Captain Stanislav never saw his country again, like so many of the brave soldiers who fought under his command, including those who survived the war.

Extract from: The Betrayal of Poland, Chapter Four: The Polish Officer. Britannia Editions.

Our last chapter is: Soldiers Tales 8th May 2020.

Next up at Hun's Corner: Soldiers Tales From the Shire.

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