MARCH 26 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

MARCH 26

1938

As part of the National Defense Fund, Christian merchants of Warsaw presented to the Polish Army 40 heavy machine guns. ( There was also a National Defence Fund organization in Winnipeg, Canada in 1938. They consisted of various organizations throughout Canada which organized and collected money for Poland's re-armament.  People across Canada from Winnipeg, Hamilton, Toronto, Montreal, and many other cities became centres for fund-raising, and demonstrating Polish patriotism.  (from Ethnic Organizational Dynamics: The Polish Group in Canada by Henry Radecki

1941

The German Army High Command gave approval to RSHA and Heydrich regarding  the tasks of SS murder squads (Einsatzgruppen) in occupied Poland. The SS Special Action (Einsatz) Groups systematically rounded up and shot Polish politicians, leading citizens, professionals, aristocracy, and the clergy. Their plan was that Poland's remaining people, considered by the Nazis to be racially inferior, were to be enslaved to the German nation.

1943

Operation Arsenal as the first major operation by the Szare Szeregi in Warsaw. The plan was to free the troop leader Jan Bytnar "Rudy", who was arrested together with his father by the Gestapo. The operation was carried out by 28 scouts under the command of Stanisław Broniewski "Orsza" and Tadeusz "Zoska" Zawadzki, who was the initiator and commander of "Attack Group". They successfully rescued them in an ambush of the prison van that was taking the inmates from Pawiak Prison to Gestapo headquarters at Szucha Avenue,  but Bytnar died four days later from injuries sustained when he was subjected to German torture. (Szare Szeregi "Gray Ranks" was a Polish scouting assocation created on September 27, 1939. Many of its members fought with the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa, or AK).

1945

German submarine U-399 was depth charged and sunk off Land's End by British frigate Duckworth.