Wizna kriget och andra händelser
51 m Hitlers blitzkrieg mot Sovjetunionen tar stopp vid Stalingrad, där ett av krigets blodigaste slag blir början till slutet för nazisternas framfart. 6. Dagen D 50 m Efter avancerat hemlighetsmakeri korsar allierade trupper Engelska kanalen och inleder den största amfibiska landstigningen någonsin, på stränderna i Normandie. 7. The Battle of Wizna was fought between September 7 and September 10, , between the forces of Poland and Germany during the initial stages of the invasion of Poland , which marked the beginning of the Second World War in Europe.
According to Polish historian Leszek Moczulski , between and Poles defended a fortified line for three days against more than 40, Germans. The last shelter surrendered around midday on September Because the battle consisted of a small force holding a piece of fortified territory against a vastly larger invasion for three days at great cost before being annihilated, Wizna is sometimes referred to as the " Polish Thermopylae ".
When the last two shelters under his command ran out of ammunition, he ordered his men to surrender their arms and committed suicide by detonating a grenade against his neck. Before the war, the area of the village of Wizna was prepared as a fortified line of defence. It was to shield the Polish positions further to the south and guard the crossing of the Narew and Biebrza rivers. The 9 kilometres 5. The line ran some 35 kilometres 22 mi from the border with East Prussia , along an elevated banks of Narew and Biebrza rivers.
They could be reached either through direct assault through the swamps or by attack along the causeway leading from the bridge in Wizna. Before September 1, , only 16 bunkers were built out of 60 planned. Four additional heavy bunkers were under construction when World War II started. In addition, the area was reinforced with trenches , anti-tank and anti-personnel obstacles, barbed wire lines and land mines. There were also plans to break the dams on the Biebrza and Narew rivers to flood the area, but the summer of was one of the driest seasons in Polish history and the water level was too low.
Although not all bunkers were ready by the beginning of the war, the Polish lines of defence were well-prepared.
Battle of Wizna
The walls of an average bunker, 1. The bunkers were situated on hills which gave good visibility of all the advancing forces. The Polish defensive line was initially manned by a single battalion from the 71st Infantry Regiment, commanded by Major Jakub Fober. However, shortly before the outbreak of World War II it was reinforced with a machine gun company from Osowiec Fortress under Captain Władysław Raginis , as well as numerous smaller detachments from a variety of units.
Altogether, the Polish defensive position was manned by men: 20 officers and NCOs and privates. Although the Polish units were almost entirely composed of conscripts mobilised in August rather than professional soldiers, their morale was very high. In his memoirs he attributes the delay to his officers "having trouble building bridges across the rivers". As his command post he chose the "GG" bunker near the village of Góra Strękowa.
The bunker was located on a hill in the exact centre of the Polish lines. His forces numbered approximately soldiers and NCOs and 20 officers armed with 6 pieces of artillery 75mm , 24 HMGs , 18 machine guns and two Kb ppanc wz. On September 3 Polish positions were spotted from the air and strafed with machine gun fire from enemy fighters. On September 7, , the reconnaissance units of the 10th Panzer Division of General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst captured the village of Wizna.
Polish mounted reconnaissance squads abandoned the village after a short fight and retreated to the southern bank of Narew. When German tanks tried to cross the bridge, it was blown up by Polish engineers. After dark, patrols of German infantry crossed the river and advanced towards Giełczyn, but were repelled with heavy casualties. By the early morning of September 9, his units reached the Wizna area and were joined with 10th Panzer Division and "Lötzen" Infantry Brigade already present in the area.
His forces numbered some 1, officers and 41, soldiers and NCOs, equipped with over tanks , howitzers , 58 pieces of artillery, anti-tank guns, mortars , grenade launchers, heavy machine guns , and machine guns. Altogether, his forces were some 60 times stronger than the Polish defenders. In the early morning, German planes dropped leaflets that urged the Poles to surrender and claimed that most of Poland was already in German hands, and that further resistance was futile.
In order to strengthen the morale of his troops, Władysław Raginis and Lieutenant Brykalski swore that they would not leave their post alive and that resistance would continue. After preparation, the Germans attacked the northern flank of the Polish forces.
Battle of Wizna - Wikipedia
Two platoons defending several bunkers located to the north of Narew were attacked from three sides by German tanks and infantry. Initially the losses among German infantry were high, but after heavy artillery fire, the commander of the Giełczyn area, First Lieutenant Kiewlicz, was ordered to burn the wooden bridge over Narew and withdraw to Białystok.
The remnants of his forces broke through the German encirclement and reached Białystok, where they joined the forces of General Franciszek Kleeberg. At the same time, an assault on the southern part of Polish fortifications became a stalemate. The Polish bunkers lacked adequate anti-tank armament, but were able to rake the German infantry with machine gun fire. However, at 6 o'clock in the evening, the Polish infantry was forced to abandon the trenches and field fortifications and retreat into the bunkers.
The German tanks could finally cross the Polish lines and advance towards Tykocin and Zambrów. However, the German infantry was still under heavy fire and was pinned down in the swampy fields in front of the Polish bunkers. Although Raginis was subordinate to Lieutenant Colonel Tadeusz Tabaczyński, commander of the Osowiec fortified area located some 30 kilometres to the north, he could not expect any reinforcements.