FEBRUARY 14 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

FEBRUARY 14

1942

The Union of Armed Struggle was transformed into the Home Army, also called Armia Krajowa. The Home Army was the largest underground resistance movement in Poland, fighting both Nazi Germany and the Soviets. Their 1944 strength ranged between 200,000 and 600,000 soldiers,  often cited at 400,000. This latter number would make the Home Army not only the largest Polish underground resistance movement  but one of the three largest in Europe during WW2. The Home Army was disbanded on 19 January 1945, after the Soviet Red Army had largely cleared Polish territory of German forces.


Mirosław Ferić died on this day. He was a Polish fighter pilot serving under the RAF and a flying ace of World War II.  He was killed at RAF Northolt after his Spitfire (BL432) broke up at 3,000 feet (910 m). The resulting G-forces as the aircraft corkscrewed held him inside the cockpit and prevented him from bailing out.  During the Invasion of Poland in 1939, he served with Escadre No. 111, assigned to the Pursuit Brigade and defended Warsaw.  His PZL P.11c fighter was damaged in combat but he successfully bailed. He evacuated to Romania where he was arrested and interned but was able to escape and went to France. He flew Morane MS-406 fighters protecting aircraft works around Nantes. When France fell, he evacuated to English in June 1940.  He was assigned to the famous No. 303 Polish Fighter "Kosciuszko"  Squadron with the RAF  and flew Hawker Hurricanes. Feric entered service in the Battle of Britain on August 31, 1940.  He was the 11th ranked Polish fighter ace with 8 and 2/3 confirmed kills and 1 probable kill. From September 1939 he had kept a personal diary, which became No.303 Squadron's unit history. He was 27.

1946

Polish and British representatives agreed on conditions and schedule for the expulsion of Germans from territories ceded to Poland to the British occupation zone at meeting of the Combined Repatriation Executive in Berlin. In accordance with the Potsdam Agreement, at the end of 1945 according to writings by Hahn & Hahn, 4.5 million Germans who had fled or been expelled were under the control of the Allied governments. From 1946–1950 around 4.5 million people were brought to Germany in organized mass transports from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. An additional 2.6 million released POWs were listed as expellees.