860C.24/8–644: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman)

1874. On instructions from the President of Poland83 the Polish Ambassador called on me this morning and left the following memorandum which is given in paraphrase.

“The Polish President and the Acting Premier Kwapinski sent a telegram from London to the Polish Ambassador here on August 5 depicting the situation of the Underground Army of the Polish Government which is now fighting the Germans openly inside Warsaw. The following is the message received by the Polish Ambassador:

‘Although the greater part of the city of Warsaw is now held by the Polish National Underground Army, the situation there is most serious. They have been urgently asking in vain for 4 days for assistance in the form of anti-tank guns, ammunition and have asked that there be sent from England the Polish Paratroop Brigade. The ammunition and arms which Churchill kindly promised to be sent to Warsaw by parachute have not been sent. The reason for nondelivery has been given as technical.

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‘Because of the urgency and gravity of the situation in Warsaw, the Polish President has instructed the Polish Ambassador in Washington to lay immediately before the highest American military officials the facts of the situation and to ask that authority be given urgently to General Eisenhower84 to take up the matter of supplying by parachute the Polish forces fighting in Warsaw with adequate ammunition and arms or to arrange the supply from American Air Bases in the Soviet Union of German munitions captured from the enemy by the Red Army.[’]

“The Ambassador’s memorandum adds that in the telegram he received from the Polish President the latter stressed that failure to give immediate assistance to the Polish underground forces in Warsaw would cause incalculable consequences, which might affect directly the course of the Red Army’s operations in the region of Warsaw. Moreover, in the event the Germans should be successful in overpowering and destroying the underground units in Warsaw, this would result in disorganizing the whole structure of the Polish Government Underground Army the headquarters of which are in Warsaw and the underground ramifications might reach deep into Germany. Furthermore it is possible that such a development might have a bearing on the military operations in the western part of the European Continent.”

The Ambassador asked that the foregoing be made available to Premier Mikolajczyk. Unless you perceive a serious reason why this should not be done please inform Mikolajczyk of the foregoing.

Stettinius
  1. Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz.
  2. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commanding General of Allied Forces in European Theater of Operations.