Book Reviews
23 Articles
Critical summaries and reflections on key publications exploring the Polish wartime and exile experience.
Arnhem 1944: The airborne battle
3 minute readA critical evaluation of Middlebrook's book, analysing strategic failings, logistics and overlooked Polish contributions....
A critical book review analysing Tucker-Jones's "Falaise", assessing Allied strategy, German defence and Polish battlefield contributions....
A poignant book review of Seluga's memoir, depicting childhood resilience amid Soviet deportation and global displacement....
Fighting Units in Colour: Polish Mustang Units
3 minute readA detailed book review celebrating Polish Mustang and Spitfire squadrons’ WWII service through meticulous research and rare imagery....
Kozłowski
2 minute readA moving account of a Polish survivor of the Katyn Massacre, exploring loss, exile, and post-war trauma through meticulously researched historical fiction....
Lost Between Worlds
5 minute readA remarkable first-hand wartime journal by Edward H. Herzbaum, capturing humour, hardship, and humanity from Poland’s invasion through Soviet gulags to Monte Cassino and beyond....
Market Garden: The Island
4 minute readTim Saunders’ companion volumes vividly retrace Operation Market Garden’s Nijmegen and “Island” battles, blending maps, accounts, and analysis of its failures and Polish role....
Mission Accomplished: SOE and Italy 1943 – 1945
4 minute readDavid Stafford’s Mission Accomplished offers a detailed, human account of SOE operations in Italy (1943–45), revealing the bravery, politics, and peril behind Allied and partisan resistance efforts....
Oleñka
6 minute readOleńka de Sas Kropiwnicka’s memoir recounts her resistance, imprisonment, and survival of Nazi camps—a powerful story of courage and forgiveness....
Marek Celt’s memoir offers a vivid, first-hand account of Operation Salamander, detailing Józef Retinger’s secret 1944 mission to Poland and the political intrigue, danger, and courage behind it....
Jonathan Walker’s Poland Alone reveals Poland’s courage and betrayal in 1944, charting the collapse of its resistance and Britain’s failure to defend its first ally....
Poland Betrayed: The Nazi-Soviet Invasions of 1939
2 minute readA sharp reappraisal of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet invasion, Poland Betrayed exposes the politics, failures, and myths behind Poland’s fall....
Poles in World War II as seen in British fiction
34 minute readCompiled by Andrzej Jaroszyński, lecturer of the Catholic University of Lublin, a collection of vital World War II British Fiction....
A comprehensive book review highlighting Matusiak's detailed portrayal of Polish Spitfire squadrons and their WWII operational legacy....
Press release for First to Fight, highlighting Poland’s wartime contribution, with statements from Thatcher and military leaders ahead of the 2009 memorial dedication....
Project Eagle: The Top-Secret OSS Operation That Sent Polish Spies Behind Enemy Lines in World War II.
3 minute readJohn S. Micgiel, 2024 Stackpool Books, USA. ISBN: 978-0811775410 Project Eagle: Polscy wywiadowcy w raportach i dokumentach wojennych amerykańskiego Biura Służb Strategicznych. John S. Micgiel, 2019 Universitas, Poland. ISBN: 978-8324235493…...
Bogdan Górniak, 2025 by Grayswood Press, UK. ISBN: 978-1-7396203-3-2 Z Krainy Slońca I Cieni Bogdan Górniak, 2013 by Szaron, Poland. The story is split into two sections with Part One…...
T-Force: The Forgotten Heroes of 1945
4 minute readSean Longden’s T-Force uncovers the secret Allied unit that seized Nazi technology in 1945—missions that shaped the Cold War and inspired Ian Fleming’s James Bond....
The Engineer
3 minute readJan Kasmirek’s The Engineer blends history and fiction in a tale of a Polish agent’s wartime missions, political intrigue, and survival amid betrayal and shifting alliances....
The Long Bridge: Out of the Gulags
7 minute readA powerful, compassionate memoir of survival in Stalin’s gulags—an enduring testament to faith, resilience, and humanity under oppression....- Selected chapters from First to Fight, sharing powerful personal stories of Polish veterans from the USSR, Italy, Tobruk, the RAF and the Warsaw Uprising....
Through Hitler’s Back Door: SOE Operations in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria 1939 – 1945.
3 minute readReveals the bravery of SOE agents operating in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria, exposing forgotten missions and sacrifices behind enemy lines....
V Weapons Hunt: Defeating German Secret Weapons.
3 minute readColonel Roy M. Stanley II, USAF (Ret) (2010), Pen and Sword Military.UK ISBN 978 1 84884 259 5 Roy Stanley dedicates his book to the skills of those whose war…...
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