Commemorations have taken place to honour a Polish parachute brigade formed in Fife during the Second World War.
Two days of events took place in the Elie and Falkland areas to commemorate General Stanislaw Sosabowski and his 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade.
The unit was formed by Polish exiles on September 23 1941, to parachute into occupied Poland.
Instead, though, it entered combat on the western front, at Arnhem in September 1944, as part of the largest airborne manoeuvre in history.
Why was the 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade formed in Fife?
About 24,000 Polish troops were evacuated to the UK in May 1940 and most were sent to Scotland to defend the coastline against invasion.
Many of the men were stationed in Fife.
The 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade, led by General Sosabowski, was established with its main training base at the now-derelict Largo House in Upper Largo.
Amid serious concerns raised by Sosabowski about the feasibility of the Arnhem mission, which aimed to secure bridges and towns along the line of the Allied advance, Polish troops were among those killed after being dropped by parachute or glider into Nazi-occupied Holland.
Operation Market Garden also saw more than 6,500 soldiers captured.
Polish Parachute Brigade’s role commemorated in Fife events
Marking the 82nd anniversary of the brigade’s formation and the 79th anniversary of Arnhem, events on the first day of the Fife commemoration included Polish Scouts walking the General Sosabowski Way from Silverburn Park near Lundin Links to Kincraig Point near Elie.
Then, at Largo cemetery, a military delegation lit candles at the graves of Sosabowski’s soldiers.
A wreath laying also took place at Largo and Leven war memorials.
This was followed by an evening of lectures and presentations at Kirkcaldy Polish Club.
The programme included an introduction by the Consul General of the Republic of Poland in Edinburgh, Łukasz Lutostański.
There was also an opening speech by Gen. Michał Strzelecki, Commander of Gen. Sosabowski’s 6th Airborne Brigade, and a speech by Col James Loudoun (DComd 16X) – the deputy commanding officer of The Parachute Regiment, The 16 Air Assault Brigade Combat Team.
Presentations, delivered in Polish, then followed with a talk by Jacek Dziedzic, curator of the Museum of the 6th Airborne Brigade in Kraków.
A second Polish talk was then delivered by Krzysztof J Kwiatkowski, co-author of the book Operation Market Garden and a son of Sławomir Kwiatkowski, and the publisher Piotr Kałuża.
The second day of commemorative events featured a commemorative service for those Polish, British, American and Allied soldiers, who fought on the continent in Operation Market Garden.
This was held in the Royal Chapel of Falkland Palace.
A lecture about Gen. Stanisław Sosabowski and his 1st Independent Parachute Brigade was then delivered by Prof Hal Sosabowski – great-grandson of the general, with introduction by Gen. Michał Strzelecki.
Falkland then hosted the ‘Sosabowski Race’, which followed in the footsteps of the soldiers of Gen. Stanisław Sosabowski, who trained in Fife prior to Operation Market Garden and other battles of the Second World War.
Wreath laying also took place at Falkland Memorial.
How many Poles were stationed in Scotland during the Second World War?
Some 72,000 exiled Polish troops came to Scotland during the war.
With many unable or unwilling to go home to Communist-ruled Poland when hostilities ended, there were around 2,500 Polish-Scottish marriages as a result.
Polish military persons stationed in Cupar, for example, included the 1st Polish Rifle Brigade and an ambulance section which was billeted to 72 Bonnygate.
Soldiers were also billeted to the former Cura’s fish and chip shop at the foot of Lady Wynd – now occupied by the Caspian fast food takeaway.
It was Polish soldiers who built invasion stop defences between Newburgh and Dysart, beach defences in Tentsmuir, and guarded German prisoners of war.
‘Displaced persons’ unable to return home to Poland
Other Poles – unable to return home – came to the area after the horrors of war as “displaced persons”, with many being temporarily based at the Annsmuir Displaced Persons’ Camp, Ladybank.
Today the legacy of those exiled Polish soldiers can be seen in a mosaic on the town hall of St Andrews.
It commemorates the large number of Polish troops stationed in the area after the capitulation of Poland in September 1939, and it is remembered through the General Sikorski bust in St Andrews’ Kinburn Park.
It is recalled through the memorial sculpture created by world-renowned artist David Mach – the son of a Pole – at Leven to commemorate the 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade being stationed nearby.
It’s remembered through the Polish War Graves at the Jeanfield and Wellshill cemetery in Perth and through the remnants of the anti-tank defences constructed by Poles and still lining the east coast of Courier Country more than 80 years after fears of a Nazi invasion of Britain.
However, the Polish links also live on in our area today through the descendants of the many Poles who stayed on after the war and through the stories which are now part of Scotland’s own cultural history, including the works of St Andrews artist Jurek Putter.
Conversation