page_title: Tanks of the Polish Armoured Forces
section_title: The Polish 1st Armoured Division in the United Kingdom
hierarchical_section_title: Tanks of the Polish Armoured Forces / The Polish 1st Armoured Division in the United Kingdom
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Zerstörte deutsche Panzer in der Nähe von Mont Ormel English: German equipment destroyed in the Mont Ormel area, waiting to be scrapped near the Dives River-Valley
context_section_description: The Polish 1st Armoured Division (Polish 1 Dywizja Pancerna) was an Allied military unit during World War II, created in February 1942 at Duns in Scotland. At its peak it numbered approximately 16,000 soldiers. It was commanded by General Stanisław Maczek. 
  The division was formed as part of the I Polish Corps. In the early stages the division was stationed in Scotland and guarded approximately 200 kilometres of British coast. In the UK, it participated in war games together with the 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division. When the 1st Armoured had been transferred to Normandy and in later fighting in France, the Low Countries and Germany, the Poles and Canadians followed very close paths. Its final elements arrived on August 1 and the unit was attached to the First Canadian Army and it joined combat during Operation Totalize and fought in one of the first memorable actions in Normandy, one fought at Saint-Aignan on 8 August 1944. The division twice suffered serious casualties from Allied aircraft which accidentally bombed friendly troops, but yet it achieved a victory against the Wehrmacht in the battles for Mont Ormel, and the town of Chambois. 
  This series of offensive and defensive operations came to be known as the Battle of Falaise in which a large number of German army and SS divisions were trapped in the Falaise pocket and subsequently destroyed. Maczek's division had the crucial role of closing the pocket at the escape route of those German divisions, hence the fighting was absolutely desperate and the 2nd Polish Armoured Regiment, 24th Polish Lancers and 10th Dragoons supported by the 8th and 9th Infantry Battalions took the brunt of German attacks trying to break free from the pocket. Surrounded and running out of ammunition they withstood incessant attacks from multiple fleeing panzer divisions for 48 hours until they were relieved.
  Following the Normandy campaign the unit saw action in Belgium, the Netherlands and in April 1945 the 1st Armoured entered Germany in the area of Emsland. On May 6 the division seized the Kriegsmarine naval base in Wilhelmshaven, where General Maczek accepted the capitulation of the fortress, naval base, East Frisian Fleet and more than 10 infantry divisions. There the Division ended the war and was joined by the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade. The cease-fire in May 1945 found them in northwestern Germany.
caption: German equipment destroyed in the Falaise operation.
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