'W'-Hour, 67 years on

For my father, Bohdan Dembiński, 88, and mother-in- law, Wanda Lesisz, 86, veterans of the Warsaw Uprising.

Since the 65th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising (post here), the commemorations have become increasingly well-participated. This year, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of flags on display - not just the official ones on public buildings, buses and trams - but on private flats, on t-shirts, and held in children's hands.

The city and its people are taking increasing pride in the Uprising. The old communist line - that it was a provocation needlessly brought about by the Polish Government in Exile in London - is not something most Varsovians would accept today.

It was the product of anger - four years of the most brutal occupation (and don't let's forget the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 1943) - and the result was to hold back Stalin's steamroller advance towards Western Europe by at least three months.

Ten minutes or so before the sirens sounded for 'W'-Hour, a Polish Air Force C-130E Hercules flew the length of ul. Marszałkowska dropping leaflets, urging citizens to oddaj hołd ('pay homage', 'pay tribute') to those who gave their lives fighting to free Warsaw.

Above: the side doors are opening; the first batch of leaflets are just coming out. Like the B-24 Liberator that flew supply missions over Warsaw, the C-130 Hercules has four propeller-driven engines and is US-built (its first flight was just ten years after the Uprising started!)

Below: The leaflets filled the sky directly over our heads, but sadly the westerly wind blew them away from Marszałkowska, towards the Vistula. The air drop was a tribute to the Polish, British, South African and American aircrews who gave their lives flying over the burning city dropping supplies to the Home Army insurgents.

Below: At exactly 17:00, the time the Uprising started, all the city's air raid sirens sounded. Traffic came to a halt. People stood at attention. Quite something. And the weather. This morning started wet and dull - like most of July. By the early afternoon, the clouds had parted, the sun shone in a bright blue sky.

At 17:05, seven PZL TS-11 Iskra trainers of the Polish Air Force's Biało-Czerwone Iskry aerobatic team flew overhead, trailing red and white smoke. The Iskra, a purely Polish design, first flew in 1960 and was introduced to the Polish Air Force in 1964 and is still in service today.

Below: around the city, the numerous plaques and monuments to the Uprising were decorated with flowers, garlands and votive candles. At the power station in Powiśle, a plaque explains how 107 Home Army soldiers, employees at the power station, fought a battle lasting several hours to wrest control of the building. They held on to it from 1 August until 7 September, providing electricity to the insurgent-held parts of the city. 25 of their number died in the fighting. (Polish readers can click to enlarge photo to read text of the plaque.)

Was it all worth it? Bear this in mind. In the two months between 22 June and 19 August 1944, the Soviet Army advanced more than 300 miles between Vitebsk and the Vistula, taking Minsk, Vilnius, Lviv, Grodno, Białystok, Brest, Lublin and Przemyśl from the Germans. Between 19 August 1944 and 17 January 1945, when the Red Army captured Warsaw from the Germans, Stalin's tanks hardly budged.

Stalin let Hitler sort out the belligerent Poles, but Stalin did so at the expense of his westward expansion. Maybe the good citizens of West Germany, who lived so much better than their eastern neighbours, should give thanks every year on 1 August that they did not have to suffer 45 years of communism - because of the valiant fighters of the Warsaw Uprising.

This time two years ago:
'W'-Hour - five pm