Almost three hundred Polish veterans took part in a grand victory parade in London yesterday to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
This was the first time that Poles had been included in the parade, in spite of the considerable Polish contribution to the Allied War Effort.
The Poles put forward the fourth largest army in the fight against Nazism, and one in eight Polish Allied pilots in the Battle of Britain were Polish. As was revealed last month by the British goverment, 44 % of British Intelligence came from Polish sources.
All in all, over twenty percent of the Polish population died during the Second World War, including over 150, 000 during the Warsaw Rising against Nazi Occupation, the largest resistance battle in occupied Europe.
British authorities bungled in 1945 owing to their nervousness at upsetting Stalin, who was touchy over the Polish issue. The Soviets had been covertly exterminating members of Poland's officer class throughout the war.
"At this special occasion I express on behalf of the nation our admiration, our respect and our thanks to you for what you gave all those years ago for the cause of freedom and our way of life, which we will continue to defend as you did," said the Queen in her address to all the Allied veterans assembled at yesterday's parade. For the aging Poles who attended the ceremony, it was at least some small consolation for the humiliation of fifty years ago. Over two hundred of the Polish veterans present yesterday had in fact lived on British shores since 1945. The West had not succeeded in securing full sovereignty for their Polish allies, and Poland became a Soviet satellite until 1989.
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