Kochanski - RESISTANCE

APA: Kochanski, Halik (2022). RESISTANCE: The Underground War Against Hitler, 1939 - 1945. Liveright Publishing Company.
Link: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL42772058M/Resistance

3 The Clandestine Press

page 46:

There was a widespread rejection of the pre-war political systems. In Poland the underground government and therefore its press was run by members of the pre-war opposition parties who strove to develop programmes which would move Poland back towards a liberal democracy. ...
Not all governments-in-exile were happy that the resistance was discussing the shape of future government. Radio Free Belgium criticized La Voix des Belges for such conduct. In response a clandestine newspaper warned the government:
"When you return, you will find us older and that we have endured much. You have not been able to follow the evolution of the people for four years. You will meet men (sic) transformed by ... fighting ... who have learned to show themselves intransigent ... you have not suffered under the Nazis nor seen the traitors in action."

5 Resisters of the First Hour

page 101:

The principal challenge facing Rowecki when setting up the ZWZ [Union for Armed Struggle] was uniting under his command the over 100 underground military organizations that had emerged after Poland's defeat. He confided to his deputy Bór-Komorowski:
I have no means of enforcing such a measure. There are no steps I can take towards it. All I have is the authority of the Polish Government abroad, and this is of necessity a moral authority only, and the future alone can show whether it is sufficiently strong to overcome political differences as well as personal ambitions and unite the whole nation.

pages 102-103:

The political resistance began in Poland at the same time as the military organization. ... The importance of the Polish underground state cannot be underestimated. ... The underground state was created to take the place of the civil service. Of the fifteen departments it formed, the three most important dealt with education, justice, and civilian resistance. ... the underground government formed a secret teachers' organization in Warsaw in autumn 1939 ... eventually setting up almost 2,000 secret secondary schools. One of its leaders, Kazimierz Koźniewski, wrote after the war: 'Underground teaching on all levles of schooling was the most admirable work accomplished by Polish society. Neither tracts, nor violence, nor sabotage were as productive as this last manifestation of the national consciousness.'

page 109:

The resistance was equally divided of its level of support for de Gaulle. For Agnès Humbert, involved in the Musèe de l'Homme resistance network, de Gaulle 'was a leader of whom we know absolutely nothing ...' but whoe speech as France fell gave the early resisters something very important in their decision ot swim against the tide of collaboration and accomodation -- hope.'
... The early stages of the French resistance movements also illustrate another pitfall applicable to other countries -- that of trying to do too much.

6 Intelligence Gathering: 1939-41

page 111:

Intelligence has been defined as: ... the collection, collation and analysis of evidence to enable an effective use of scarce resources. Intelligence is not a form of power, but rather a means to guide its use. ... It involves finding true and useful secrets which avoiding false notions, and for the opposite on the foe, through security and deception.
Intelligence could be harvested from a great variety of sources: signals intelligence ... and human intelligence gathered by people in occupied countries.

7 The Origins of SOE [Special Operations Executive] and OSS [Office of Strategic Services]

page 135:

... an important letter from [Labour MP Hugh] Dalton to the foreign secretary, Lord Halifax, on 14 June 1940, in which Dalton suggested that Britain should follow the examples provided by Sinn Fein, the Chinese guerrillas currently operating against the Japanese .... (NOTE: look this up) ...
[Dalton] believed: What is needed is a new organization to co-ordinate, inspire, control, and assist the nationals of the oppressed countries, who themselves must be the direct participants. We need absolute secrecy, a certain fanatical enthusiasm, willingness to work with people of different nationalities, complete reliability.

page 140:

After the end of the war the British public was surprised to learn that women had been employed as agents by SOE, mostly in France. Both Buckmaster and the chief recruiting officer, Selwyn Jepsen, felt it necessary to justify their actions. Buckmaster argued that:

Women are as brave as and responsible as men; often more so. They are entitled to a share in the defence of their beliefs no less than are men. The war was not restricted to men. From a purely tactical point of view, women were able to move about without exciting so much suspicion as men were therefore exceedingly useful to us as couriers. I should been failing in my duty to the war effort if I had refused to employ them, and I should have beeb unfair to their abilities if I had considered them unequal to the duties which were imposed upon them.  

Jepson went further and claimed that 'in my view, women were very much better than men for the work. Women, as you must know, have a far greater capacity for cool and lonely courage than men. Men usually want a mate with them.'