Stanisław Sosabowski Stanisław Franciszek Sosabowski CBE ( ; 8 May 1892 – 25 September 1967 ) was a Polish general in World War II . He fought in the Battle of Arnhem ( Netherlands ) in 1944 as commander of the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade . Biography . Early years . Stanisław Sosabowski was born on 8 May 1892 , in Stanisławów , in a railway workers ' family . He graduated from a local gymnasium and in 1910 he was accepted as a student of the faculty of economy of the University of Kraków . However , the death of his father and poor economical situation of his family forced him to abandon the studies and return to Stanisławów . There he became a member of Drużyny Strzeleckie , a semi - clandestine Polish national paramilitary organisation . He was soon promoted to the head of all Polish Scouting groups in the area . World War I . In 1913 , Sosabowski was drafted into the Austro - Hungarian Army . After training , he was promoted to the rank of corporal , serving in the 58th Infantry Regiment . After the outbreak of World War I he fought with his unit against the Imperial Russian Army in the battles of Rzeszów , Dukla Pass and Gorlice . For his bravery , he was awarded several medals and promoted to First Lieutenant . In 1915 , he was badly wounded in action and withdrawn from the front . In November 1918 , after Poland regained its independence Sosabowski volunteered for the newly formed Polish Army , but his wounds were still not healed and he was rejected as a front - line officer . Instead , he became a staff officer in the Ministry of War Affairs in Warsaw . Inter - war years . After the Polish - Soviet War Sosabowski was promoted to Major and in 1922 he started his studies at the Higher Military School in Warsaw . After he finished his studies he was assigned to the Polish General Staff . Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel , in 1928 he was finally assigned to a front - line unit , the 75th Infantry Regiment , as commanding officer of a battalion . The following year he was assigned to the 3rd Podhale Rifles Regiment as its deputy commander . From 1930 he was also a professor of logistics at his alma mater . In 1937 Sosabowski was promoted to colonel and became the commanding officer of the 9th Polish Legions Infantry Regiment stationed in Zamość . In January 1939 he became the commander of the prestigious Warsaw - based 21st " Children of Warsaw " Infantry Regiment . Invasion of Poland . According to the Polish mobilisation scheme , Sosabowski ' s regiment was attached to the 8th Infantry Division under Col . Teodor Furgalski . Shortly before the German invasion of Poland started his unit was moved from its garrison in the Warsaw Citadel to the area of Ciechanów , where it was planned as a strategic reserve of the Modlin Army . On 2 September the division was moved towards Mława and in the early morning of the following day it entered combat in the Battle of Mława . Although the 21st Regiment managed to capture Przasnysz and its secondary objectives , the rest of the division was surrounded by the Wehrmacht and destroyed . After that Sosabowski ordered his troops to retreat towards Warsaw . On 8 September Sosabowski ' s unit reached the Modlin Fortress . The routed 8th Division was being reconstructed , but the 21st Regiment was attached to the corps led by general Juliusz Zulauf . After several days of defensive fights , the corps was moved to Warsaw , where it arrived on 15 September . Instantly upon arrival , Sosabowski was ordered to man the Grochów and the Kamionek defensive area and defend Praga , the eastern borough of Warsaw , against the German 10th Infantry Division . During the Siege of Warsaw the forces of Sosabowski were outmanned and outgunned , but managed to hold all their objectives . When the general assault on Praga started on 16 September , the 21st Infantry Regiment managed to repel the attacks of German 23rd Infantry Regiment and then successfully counter - attacked and destroyed the enemy unit . After this success , Sosabowski was assigned to command all Polish troops fighting in the area of Grochów . Despite constant bombardment and German attacks repeated every day , Sosabowski managed to hold his objectives at relatively low cost in manpower . On 26 September 1939 , the forces led by Sosabowski bloodily repelled the last German attack , but two days later Warsaw capitulated . On 29 September , shortly before the Polish forces left Warsaw for German captivity , General Juliusz Rómmel awarded Col . Sosabowski and the whole 21st Infantry Regiment with the Virtuti Militari medal . France . Following the Polish surrender , Sosabowski was a prisoner of war , and was interned at a camp near Żyrardów . However , he escaped and remained in Warsaw under a false name , where he joined the Polish resistance . He was ordered to leave Poland and reach France with important reports on the situation in occupied Poland . After a long trip through Hungary and Romania , he arrived in Paris , where the Polish government in exile assigned him to the Polish 4th Infantry Division as the commanding officer of infantry . Initially , the French authorities were very reluctant to hand over the badly needed equipment and armament for the Polish unit . The soldiers of Sosabowski had to train with pre - World War I weapons . In April 1940 , the division was moved to a training camp in Parthenay and was finally handed the weapons that were awaited since January , but it was already too late to organise the division . Out of more than 11 , 000 soldiers , only 3 , 150 were given arms . Knowing this , the commander of the division General Rudolf Dreszer ordered his unit to withdraw towards the Atlantic coast . On 19 June 1940 , Sosabowski with approximately 6 , 000 Polish soldiers arrived to La Pallice , from where they were evacuated to Great Britain . Great Britain . Upon his arrival in London , Sosabowski turned up at the Polish General Staff and was assigned to 4th Rifles Brigade that was to become a core of the future 4th Infantry Division . The unit was to be composed mainly from Polish Canadians , but it soon became apparent that there were not enough young Poles in Canada to create a division out of them . Then , Sosabowski decided to transform his brigade into a Parachute Brigade , the first such unit in the Polish Army . The volunteers came from all the formations of the Polish Army . In Largo House , a training camp was built and the parachute training was started . Sosabowski himself passed the training and , at 49 years of age , made his first parachute jumps . According to relations of Sosabowski ' s former subordinates , the colonel was a strict yet just commander . Impulsive and harsh , Sosabowski could not stand any opposition . This made the creation of a Polish parachute brigade possible , but also made contacts with his superiors problematic . In October 1942 the brigade was ready for combat and was named the 1st Independent Parachute Brigade . Since the Polish General Staff planned to use the brigade to aid the all - national uprising in Poland , the soldiers of the " 1st Polish Para " were to be the first element of the Polish Army in Exile to reach their homeland . Hence the unofficial motto of the unit : " the shortest way " ( " najkrótszą drogą " ) . In September 1943 , Lieutenant General Frederick Browning proposed that Sosabowski reform his unit into a division and fill the remaining posts with Englishmen . Sosabowski himself would be assigned to the newly formed division and promoted to general . However , Sosabowski refused . Nevertheless , on 15 June 1944 he was promoted to Brigadier General . Warsaw Uprising . In early August 1944 , news of the Warsaw Uprising arrived in Great Britain . The brigade was ready to be paradropped into Warsaw to aid their colleagues from the Home Army , who were fighting a desperate battle against overwhelming odds . However , the distance was too great for the transport aircraft to make a round trip and access to Soviet airfields was denied . The morale of the Polish troops suffered badly , and many of the units verged on mutiny . The British staff threatened its Polish counterpart with disarmament of the brigade , but Sosabowski retained control of his unit . Finally , Polish Commander in Chief Kazimierz Sosnkowski put the brigade under British command , and the plans to send it to Warsaw were abandoned . It was not until after the war that general Sosabowski learnt that his son , , a medic and member of the Kedyw , had lost his sight during the uprising . Battle of Arnhem . The Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade was included among the Allied forces taking part in Operation Market Garden . Due to a critical shortage of transport aircraft , the brigade was split into several parts before entering the battle . A small part of the brigade with Sosabowski was dropped near Driel on 19 September , but it was not until 21 September when the rest of the brigade finally arrived in the distant town of Grave , falling directly into the waiting guns of the Germans camped out around the area . The Brigade ' s artillery was dropped together with the British 1st Airborne Division and the howitzer s were to arrive by sea transport . This prevented the Polish forces from being used effectively . Three times Poles under Sosabowski tried to force the Rhine crossing in order to help the surrounded 1st Airborne . However , the ferry they planned to use to reach the British had been sunk and Poles attempted the river crossing in small rubber boats under heavy fire . Nevertheless , at least 200 men succeeded in crossing and reinforcing the embattled British . Despite the difficult situation on the front , during a 24 September staff meeting , Sosabowski suggested that the battle could have still been won . He suggested that the combined forces of 30th Corps and the Polish Brigade should start an all - out assault on the German positions and try to break through the Rhine . This plan was not accepted , and during the last phase of the battle , on 25 and 26 September , Sosabowski led his men southwards and shielded the retreat of remnants of the 1st Airborne . The rate of casualties among the Polish units that fought in the battle was high , in some cases as high as 40 % . At least in part , the heavy casualties were the result of Browning ' s decision to drop the paratroops into a position located 7 kilometres from the bridge . He was portrayed by Gene Hackman in the movie " A Bridge Too Far " . After the battle , on 5 October 1944 , Sosabowski received a letter from Montgomery , where he described Polish soldiers as fighting bravely and offered Sosabowski to award 10 of his soldiers . On 14 October 1944 , Montgomery wrote another letter , this time to British commanders , where he made Sosabowski a scapegoat for the failure of Operation Market Garden . Sosabowski was accused of criticising Field Marshal Montgomery and the Polish General Staff was forced to remove him as the commanding officer of his brigade on 27 December 1944 . He was made the commander of guard troops and in July 1948 he was demobilised . After the war . Shortly after the war Sosabowski managed to bring his only son and his wife from Poland . Like many other Polish wartime leaders and soldiers exiled from communist Poland he settled down , working in West London . He found a job as a factory worker in the CAV Electrics assembly plant in Acton . He died in London on 25 September 1967 . It has been suggested that friends and associates with whom he lived and worked in England were largely unaware of his military accomplishments until they attended his funeral , at which his full rank and achievements were read out . In 1969 his remains were interred in the Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw , Poland . In The Hague , on Wednesday 31 May 2006 , Queen Beatrix awarded the Military Order of William to the 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade . The commander of the Brigade , the late Major General Stanisław Sosabowski , despite pressure from the British diplomacy , was awarded the " Bronze Lion " posthumously . This happening was the result of a documentary on Dutch TV depicting the Brigade and its commander as having played a heroic and much more significant role in Market Garden than was acknowledged so far . In this film by Geertjan Lassche , Dutch Prince Bernhard said the Polish deserved to be honoured with at least a medal . The following day , on 1 June , a ceremony was held at Driel , the town where the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade fought . Among the speakers at the ceremony were the mayor of the municipality of Overbetuwe , as well as Sosabowski ' s grandson and great - grandson . Awards . He was awarded many military honours , including :