British "film tribute to the Polish Resistance" star died 5 yrs ago today
April 28 marks the 5th death anniversary of Patricia Medina (Jul. 19 1919 – Apr. 28 2012), co-star of the 1958 British film drama 'Battle of the V1', the story of the wartime Polish resistance's aid in gathering intelligence on the Nazi-German V2 flying bomb.
Medina was an English actress, the daughter of a Spanish father and an English mother. Born in Liverpool, Lancashire, she began acting as a teenager in the late 1930s, working her way up to leading roles in the mid-1940s, after which she left England for Hollywood.
'Battle of the V-1' is a 1958 British war film starring Michael Rennie, Patricia Medina, Milly Vitale, David Knight and Christopher Lee. It is based on the novel They Saved London (1955) by Bernard Newman.
It became a hit and was advertised on posters as "the Epic Film Tribute to the RAF and Polish Resistance".
The film tells the real story of a wartime Polish Home Army (AK) (see: NOTE) special unit, which in 1943 gathers intel on the manufacture of the German 'Wunderwaffe' V-2 flying bomb (the film's title erroneously refers to the V-2's predecessor, the V-1, as the story mostly concerns the former) at Peenemunde.
Intelligence gathered by the AK, mainly from Polish forced labourers in the Peenemunde plant, enabled allied bombers to destroy the factory's (V-1 and) V-2 production lines.
It is not the last time AK's intel on German production sites proves fundamental in warranting British bombing raids.
'Battle of the V1' then goes on to depict another factual AK-linked 'Wunderwaffe' thread, namely Polish AK fighters stealing with the help from local peasants a V-2 rocket that lands in a field during tests near the village Blizna in Poland. Polish intelligence arranges for V-2 transport to Britain on board Dakota plane in what became known as Operation Most (bridge) III (25/26 Jul 1944). Along with the parts of the weapon on board of the plane smuggled out of Poland are also Polish special agents, among others, Jozef Retinger (Apr. 17 1888 – June 12 1960), a Polish political adviser to later co-found EU and the Bilderberg Group (see: NOTE 2).
Home Army managed to alert the British to the dangers posed by the V-2 missiles, which resulted in their raised attention to the production of bombs and launching sites, thus helping to lessen their destructive impact. Britain's Operation Hydra bombing raid on Peenemünde, carried out on the basis of the AK's intelligence, delayed the V-2 by six to eight weeks (25/26 Jul 1944).
Another AK operation, codenamed Synteza (synthesis), enabled the location of a German fuel factory in Police (Germ. Hydrierwerke Pölitz), which manufactured synthetic fuel for the V-1 and V-2 rockets (as well as U-boats - PAP), and the depots in which it was stored. In effect the Allies successfully bombed the installations. Working with the French resistance movement, AK teams also helped locate 162 V-1 launching installation in France.
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NOTE: Founded in 1942, the Home Army was the largest underground resistance force in German-occupied Europe, with up to half a million soldiers fighting in its ranks. In his book 'God's Playground. A History of Poland', historian Norman Davies said that "the Home Army could fairly claim to be the largest of European resistance [organisations]".
Along with various combat activities, the AK was also widely involved in rescuing fellow citizens of Jewish descent, among others through the famous 1942-founded Council to Aid Jews (Rada Pomocy Zydom) codenamed 'Zegota' - the only organisation in Europe and the world established to defend and provide help to Jewish people in ghettos and outside.
After the war many Home Army soldiers refused to lay down their arms and continued fighting against Poland's Soviet-imposed communist regime, winning the name "Enduring Soldiers". They are also sometimes called the "Cursed Soldiers" for being treated as outlaws and forced into oblivion by the communist state. Jozef Franczak, known as the last Enduring Soldier, perished in an ambush as late as 1963.
NOTE 2: The Bilderberg Group which Jozef Retinger helped co-initiate, also known as the Bilderberg conference, Bilderberg meetings or Bilderberg Club, is a 1954-established annual private conference of 120 to 150 people from the European and North American political elite and experts from industry, finance, academia and the media. The first Bilderberg conference, among others, initiated by Retinger, was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, Netherlands, from May 29 to 31 1954. It has operated to date.(PAP)
