In my position as an independent observer who has been a witness to all these events, I try to represent all that has happened in the light of truth and with objectivity. In brief, the whole question can be summarised as follows.
The Polish-Soviet agreement of July had been completed by a military agreement on August 14 1941. The basis of this agreement was that a Polish Army was to be created in Russia, the recruitment of said army was to be made among the Polish officers and soldiers deported and imprisoned in Russia. The strength of the army had not been defined and thus the affirmation contained in the Soviet note that said army was to consist of 30 thousand men is not true. There has been no mention, either in writing or in any other form, of such a question being asked. The manpower of the army had been defined for the first time during General Sikorski’s visit to Moscow in December 1941 and had been already then been fixed as 96,000, 25,000 more were to be transferred to the British Empire and… there would have been more manpower suitable for military service; the figure of 96,000 was to be increased with a further division of 11,000 men.
Officers and soldiers started presenting themselves in September. In December about 40,000 were called and enlisted in the ranks, in March 1942 the figure of 70,000 had been reached. In February, the Army, with the aim of avoiding the consequences of the winter, had been transferred from the Samarkanda region to Uzbekistan. The soldiers were located in cells in a temperature of 45 degrees below zero. As I have already mentioned, these people were coming to the Army from prisons and penitentiary camps. They never had been treated as prisoners of war, as a consequence of which they came out of prison with damaged health.
For an army at this stage of organization, the food rations were inadequate, even for a healthy man, and so the problem of restoring the sick soldiers to health was pressing up to the last moment, until the evacuation of the Army from Russia.
A number of food rations had been sent from England through Archangelsk and were being used for supplementary feeding of the sick, of the convalescents and for those employed in heavy work. Exhaustion caused by denutrition [sic] and lack of vitamins amounted to 14%. It was a common occurrence for soldiers during night manoeuvres to be returned to their quarters because they were afflicted by nyctalopis [sic; nyctalopia, night blindness].
Armament and Equipment
In the beginning, England and the US had undertaken the task of equipping the Polish army on the condition that the troops would be transferred to a place where the said task would be convenient and easy. One thought at the time was India; the Soviet Government did not give its consent for the army to leave Russia. The Russians agreed then to equip two infantry divisions, while the English continued to attempt to equip and arm the whole of the rest of the Army.
In the spring of 1942, the Russians had partially armed one division, the 5th. Still, the armament was greatly lacking, there was a deficiency in particular of motorised vehicles, machine guns, mortars, anti aircraft batteries and tanks. The whole artillery was limited to just 16 field guns. The armament specification of the 5th Division is herewith included. The remaining divisions and the Army as a whole were, rifles excepted, quite without arms. The uniforms had been sent from England.
The Soviet Government in their note insist on the fact that the Polish Command… has not prepared to a level of readiness one division by the date of 1.X.1941. No Soviet Staff officer had ever declared seriously that it was possible to form even one division for that date. Whether this had been previously established or not, is an irrelevant question as the responsibility in this regard is borne by both parties. The Russians on their side had not furnished the armament, neither for the date of X.1941 nor six months later, but nobody can blame them for it, considering the conditions and the general situation. As to the Poles, considering the fact that the first soldiers started arriving only in September they were certainly not in a postion to organize a division for 1.X.1941. In the Soviet note pt 3, this aspect of the question is only partially acknowledged.
The fact that six months later the 5th Division was still unarmed and unprepared for the fighting, can be explained only and exclusively by the lack of armament, for which the responsibility falls upon the Soviet Government.
In February 1942 the Soviet authorities proposed to General Anders sending to the front the first two divisions when their armament was completed. The General refused to send these units to the front without previously training them to handle the arms that they were to use.
Referring again to the Soviet note:
Pt.1 underlines that the Soviet Government showed the maximum good will and energy in forming a Polish army in Russia. On the contrary, the soldiers came out of the penitentiary camps in rags and were without clothes until the uniforms arrived from England. The food rations were quite insufficient in quantity and quality. (Russia in that period was only after eight months into the war). The authorities were refusing all information concerning the locations of officers and soldiers. Considerable numbers of Polish officers have not been found. Those imprisoned in Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ostaszkowo [Ostashkov] simply disappeared without any trace (8,300 altogether). Nobody has heard of any of them since 1940 and notwithstanding the promise given personally by Stalin to General Sikorski and General Anders, the fate of these officers remained a complete mystery.
Pt.2 underlines the friendly attitude of the Soviet Government in their consenting to fix the number of the Polish soldiers at 96,000. Why this is alluded as a positive point, for the Soviets remains quite incomprehensible. It was the desire of the Poles to fight again and in consequence to organise the greatest possible army. This was to the advantage not only of Russia but also of all the Allied nations.
Pt. 3 underlines the difficulties of provisions and the measures taken to increase the rations of the fighting soldiers at the expense of the non-combatants. The Polish Army has of course been defined as being in the second category. The Note continues, stating that it has been decided to diminish the number of rations for the Polish army to to 44,000, the remaining troops, requested by the Polish Government, are to be evacuated to Persia. Nobody intends to contest the decision of the Soviet Government to consider the Polish army as non-fighting, but leaving 30,000 soldiers without food rations could have only one result, namely said detachments would have to be transferred to another place where they would be fed and equipped.
The remaining part of the said paragraph is completely false and would not convince anyone. Concerning the second evacuation to Persia, it should be remembered that for four months the Soviet Government steadily refused to accede to this evacuation, although on their part, literally nothing had been done to arm the remaining 44,000. The Soviet authorities even went so far as to inform our [No.30] Military Mission in Moscow that the evacuation bases at Pahlevi [port] in northern Persia should be shut down as no further evacuation would take place (telegram addressed to Troopers at the Military Mission in Moscow No 6132 dated 30 VI 1942).
The Soviet authorities were not able to give any justification for their refusal to transfer the Polish army to a place where the troops could have been armed and equipped. As it was becoming increasingly obvious to all the Allies that this solution was the only possible one, we decided to become involved. Quite unexpectedly, on 27 July, without any explanations, the Soviet Government consented to the evacuation.