70 Years from the Battle of Studzianki

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Thanks to Dead_Skin_Mask for sending me the video!

Hello everyone,

recently, Poland celebrated 70 years from the Battle at Studzianki. For those who do not know what it was – a part of the Soviet units, attacking the Germans in 1944 was the Polish 1st Armored Brigade, equipped – amongst other things – with T-34/85 tanks. The Polish armored units in Soviet Union were fighting the nazis ever since late 1943 and participated in some of the toughest fighting late in the war, such as the battle of Lenino and the liberation of Poland all the way to the fall of Berlin.

The battle took place between 9th and 16th of August, 1944 near the village of Studzianki as a part of the Lublin-Brest operation of the Soviet forces. The Polish 1st Brigade was a part of those units, tasked with securing the bridgehead over the river Vistula. The Polish and the Soviets came to bear the brunt of the German “Hermann Göring” armored division. The Germans managed to capture the village of Grabnowole on 9.8. and their intent was to destroy the forward Soviet forces, holding the Vistula bridgehead. This plan was however thwarted by the attack of the 3rd Tank Company of the 1st Brigade and on 11.8., the Germans were thrown back from the village of Studzianki by the 1st Tank Company assault of 2ndLt. Świetana. That stalled the German attack, but fierce fighting in the area continued to 14.8., with the Polish forces having to fight for the village no less than 7 times. The battle finally ended on 15.8. with the Polish and Soviet forces encircling the Germans and destroying them, although sporadic fighting continued for one more day.

In the battle, the 1st Armored Division managed to destroy 10 tanks, 16 guns and mortars and captured a gun battery as well. The Polish losses were however 18 tanks destroyed and 9 damaged, making it the largest Polish-German armor clash on the eastern front. Altogether, including the infantry, the German losses were over 1000 men (killed, wounded and captured), the Polish losses were 484 men killed, 1459 wounded and 63 missing.

The battle was shown in the famous Polish TV series “4 Tankers and a Dog”, but there was recently also a re-enactment, showing no less than 6 T-34/85 tanks in motion, an amount not exactly common for any single re-enactment.

 

15 thoughts on “70 Years from the Battle of Studzianki”

  4. Well… that didn’t go too well for Polish-Russian forces. Higher loses both: in manpower and equipment. Perhaps it was a win, but really… a russia-style one.

  6. You forgot about Szarik, he singlehandedly (singlepawedly?) won that battle :P , repaired tank and rescued whole Russian batallion.
    Oh, and in the book it wasn’t /85, only regular T-34 but idk which model exactly and factory. I’m not sure which version is historical for this battle ;) , though. On day i’ll dig through the whole book again and search for clues.

  7. Silent, as a Pole I wanted to thank You for this post. Also many thanks to Dead_Skin_Mask for remembering. It’s not a popular thing in Poland right now to speak about those who fought in Polish Peoples Army. With recent generation of youths taking an ideological sharp turn to right, those brave men and women are regarded as communists and traitors. I wish my countrymen would have as much sense as Czechs. It was refreshing to see during the charity event, that You guys did not differentiate between soldiers fighting in West and in East. Unfortunately, history is being rewritten yet again.

    • “With recent generation of youths taking an ideological sharp turn to right” – well, large part of a Europe is. Seems like people are missing the “good old days” of Nazism. Or perhaps they just want whole Europe turned into aspiring corporate government akin to the direction that US is following? Anyway… politics… offtopic for FTR.