They had a way with the girls. Poland had been invaded by the Germans on the night of August 31st, 1939. For Britain, the war had begun three days later. The triumphant Nazis accepted the capitulation of Warsaw on September 26th, when the city had been reduced to rubble by concentrated bombardment from the sky and by massed heavy artillery, when food had given out and the last muddy drops of water had been drunk. The Panzers of the conquerors entered what was left of the Polish capital on the first day of October, and the Polish government in exile was set up in France under General Sikorski as Prime Minister. The Polish forces who had escaped before the overwhelming tide of the German invasion were then vowed to the liberation of their country from that moment of almost-complete catastrophe. Early in 1941, the call had gone out for volunteers from the Polish bomber squadrons to drop equipment besought by the desperate, ardent Home Army in the sewers of Warsaw.
