21st Army Group

Col. M. Wieroński

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Colonel Marian Wieroński
3rd Rifle Brigade (Poland)

I made personnel changes to the more important positions. Current suitability for combat was the decisive factor … Colonel Wieroński was a very good infantryman, decorated by me with the Virtuti Militari Order for the Battle of Potigny on 15 August; however, he had not taken to the particular nature of combat … and thought that someone else would be better in this position.

 —General Stanisław Maczek

(Quoted in Jenny Grant, Price of Victory)

Born on 2 August 1896 in Krakow, Marian Stanisław Wieroński was a long-serving infantry officer in the Polish Army. After a series of promotions and postings, he had advanced to lieutenant-colonel by March 1937. He commanded the 3rd Rifle Battalion during the invasion of Poland in September 1939. He escaped to France where he commanded the 9th Infantry Regiment before the fall and occupation of the country to German forces.

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Col. T. Majewski

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Colonel Tadeusz Majewski
10th Armoured Cavalry Brigade (Poland)

Poland did not capitulate after the fall of France, and the Poles by various stages crossed to Great Britain, that last fortress of freedom, so that finally, together with the forces of the great British Empire, they might match themselves against those of our enemies.

(Quoted in Blairgowrie Advertiser and East Perthshire News-Review, 3 Apr 1942, 6)

Born on 26 August 1899 in Lwów, Poland, Tadeusz Adam Feliks Majewski served in the Polish Legions before being conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army on the Italian Front in 1918. At the end of the First World War, he joined the Blue Army formed by Polish soldiers in France. He advanced in the Polish Army through the interwar years, rising to lieutenant-colonel by March 1939. Six months later, he escaped to France following the invasion and occupation of Poland.

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Lt-Col. Z. Szydłowski

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Lieutenant-Colonel Zdzislaw Szydłowski
9th Flemish Rifle Battalion (Poland)

My father, who finally was in command at Maczuga, told me of the feelings of the men. They were not beaten, but they were in a serious position. I have the impression that General Maczek was surprised they hung on, but they would not give up. The Polish soldiers were happy to meet the Canadians on that hill. The biggest emotion was relief and also it was pride that the cork stayed. That was the impact of the whole action. Pride overruled fear.

(Chris Szydłowski quoted in Whitaker, Normandy, 293)

Born on 21 September 1900 in Lwów, Poland, Zdzisław Mateusz Lubicz-Szydłowski was a soldier and scientist, having received a doctorate in biology from Poznair University in 1928. After Poland’s independence in November 1918, he served in the army during the Polish-Ukrainian War then the Polish-Soviet War and took a commission in 1923. In 1929, he had a duel with fellow officer and medical doctor Alojzy Pawelek. The next year, Szydłowski shot and killed Pawelek in his office after a violent argument. Szydłowski was arrested and briefly imprisoned but resumed his military career.

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Lt-Col. W. Zgorzelski

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Lieutenant-Colonel Władysław Zgorzelski
10th Dragoons Regiment (Poland)

There’s no better mentor than Col. Zgorzelski who coached the Irish Olympic team in 1960 and who coached the Argentine team for nine years. He’s a dapper little man who is stern when sternness is needed, who seems to have a deeply rooted belief that most American instructors push their pupils too quickly … and who is man enough to diplomatically handle even the most difficult problems between pupil, horse and instructor.

(Washington Evening Star, 19 May 1963, 60)

Born on 20 February 1901, Żytomierz, Russian Empire, Władysław Zgorzelski was a member of the secret Polish Military Organization and joined the newly formed Polish Army in November 1918. He was commissioned in 1922. In addition to his military career, he was a champion equestrian and participated in competitions worldwide during the interwar period.

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Lt-Col. F.P. Barclay

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Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Barclay
4th Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment
1st Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment

It was absolutely wonderful and a thrilling feeling to experience the spirit of the chaps who are with you—it is intangible—but its the most exhilarating, potent influence. It revives you, you can never feel tired, you never feel depressed when you have a spirit round you like the spirit we enjoyed. And the whole thing was treated as a jolly-well, worthwhile job that has to be done.

(Barclay, interview, 21 May 1984) https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80007993

Born in Cromer, Norfolk, England on 8 March 1909, Francis Peter Barclay was commissioned with the Norfolk Regiment in 1929 after attending Twyford School and Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Of his decision to join the army, he explained decades later, “I thought it was a wonderful life … and I never regret it from that day to this.” After service in India, he was posted with the 2nd Battalion to Gibraltar just before the outbreak of the war. He served as company commander when the battalions went to France in September 1939. He received the Military Cross for leading a three-man patrol into enemy lines on the night on 3/4 January 1940.

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Lt-Col. D.A.D. Eykyn

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Lieutenant-Colonel D.A.D. Eykyn
11th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers

Lt-Col. Eykyn has shown outstanding leadership and enthusiasm as a commanding officer. It has been largely due to his leadership that his bn has been uniformly successful in their actions against the enemy; in fact he has never suffered a reverse.

(D.S.O. citation, 10 Feb 1945)

Born in British India on 11 August 1906, Duncan Arthur Davidson Eykyn was an officer in the Royal Scots since 1926. His father, Captain Gilbert Davidson Pitt Eykyn (1881—1915) had been commissioned a second lieutenant in 1899, served in the Boer War, and after a time with the Indian Army, joined the Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment) in 1905. He was killed in action at Second Ypres on 24 April 1915, while attached to the 4th Battalion, Alexandra Princess of Wales Own Yorkshire Regiment. A staff sergeant remarked, “Our gallant little adjutant was one of the first to fall. When the order was given to charge, the Germans ran away like cowards, and refused to face our boys’ cold steel.” The younger Eykyn followed his late father’s military career in the Royal Scots. He served as battalion adjutant and rose to captain by 1937.

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Lt-Col. A. Nowaczyński

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Lieutenant-Colonel Aleksander Nowaczyński
8th Rifle Battalion (Poland)

On the top of Hill 262 stands Lieut. Col Nowaczynski, the battalion commander, with the commander of the Canadian tanks, staring in silence at the battlefield. Over the khaki uniforms, at the emerald-blue lance pennons of the dead soldiers of the 8th Battalion, the disfigured faces, jutting jaws and teeth in deathly smiles, human parts — torsos, legs, bloodied stretchers, pieces of an anti-tank gun, and nearby a barrel of a broken mortar in the convulsive grip of a dead gunner. In the middle of a few blackened, smoking Shermans, on their turrets hangs a leaning torso, half scorched hands lying listlessly.

(Quoted in Halik Kochanski, The Eagle Unbowed, 484)

Born on 24 November 1900 in Urzędów, Aleksander Nowaczyński was active in the nationalist secret Polish Military Organization and witnessed the emergence of an independent Poland in November 1918 at the end of the First World War. He joined the newly created Polish Army and participated in the Polish–Ukrainian War then the Polish-Soviet War. He was commissioned a lieutenant in 1923 and by September 1939 was a major. He organized evacuation to Romania during the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland.

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Lt-Col. S. Koszutski

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Lieutenant-Colonel Stanislaw Koszutski
2nd Armoured Regiment (Poland)

Under hellish fire from cannons and mortars, the 3rd Armoured Squadron supports and covers the first two … The guns were hot to the extreme for all the shots they fired and the crews were all but deaf from the explosions and choking on the smoke. However, it saved the lives of dozens of its colleagues who managed to jump out from the burning tanks. It can be proud of how it performed its task.

(Quoted in Zbigniew Mieczkowski, Horizons, 89)

Born on 15 August 1903 in Kielce region of Poland, Stanislaw Paweł Koszutski was a veteran of the Polish Legion, the Third Silesian uprising, and the Polish-Soviet War. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Polish Army in 1923 and rose through the ranks of the artillery branch. He was captured by the Soviets during the invasion of September 1939 but escaped to join the Polish forces in France and then England.

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Lt-Col. A. Stefanowicz

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Lieutenant-Colonel Aleksander Stefanowicz
1st Armoured Regiment (Poland)

Gentlemen. Everything is lost. I do not believe the Canadians will manage to help us. We have only 110 men left, with 50 rounds per gun and 5 rounds per tank … Fight to the end! To surrender to the SS is senseless, you know it well. Gentlemen! Good luck – tonight, we will die for Poland and civilization. We will fight to the last platoon, to the last tank, then to the last man.

(Quoted in Roman Jarymowycz, Tank Tactics, 201)

Born on 20 December 1900 in Polewicze, Russian Empire, Aleksander Stefanowicz was a long-serving officer in the Polish Army. He joined in 1919 and fought with a cavalry regiment during the Polish-Soviet War. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1922, and after completing training courses on tank warfare, he became an instructor in the 1930s. After the German and Soviet invasions of Poland in September 1939, he went to France where he became adjutant to General Stanisław Maczek of 10th Armored Cavalry Brigade.

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21st Army Group

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More Second World War Battalion Commanders

For the past two years on this site I have profiled and caricatured nearly every Canadian infantry and armoured battalion commanding officer in the Second World War. In Normandy and North West Europe, First Canadian Army, however, was not exclusively composed of Canadian units – it included I British Corps and a Polish armoured division, and, at various times, other attached Allied troops. First Canadian Army along with British Second Army made up Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery’s 21st Army Group, meaning their are hundreds of Allied battalion commanders for me to still research, profile, and sketch.

I have created a useful index of the divisions, brigades, and battalions of 21st Army Group as a separate page, which can be found here. Lists of commanding officers for each battalion are pieced together from unit war diaries, regimental histories and many other sources. My project will now put names and faces to the lieutenant-colonels who led these British and Polish battalions during the eleven months from the landings at Normandy through to the invasion of Germany and the end of the war in Europe.

Formation badge of 21st Army Group, 1943–1945