Virtuti Militari - World War II

World War II

During the Polish Defensive War of 1939, the fast German and Soviet advance (Polish territory was overrun by its enemies in five weeks from the beginning of the invasion) prevented the Chapter from awarding the medals. Instead, commanders of divisions and brigades usually rewarded the bravery of their soldiers with their own crosses received before the war. This was the case of the 18th Pomeranian Uhlan Regiment, awarded the Virtuti Militari of General Stanisław Grzmot-Skotnicki after the battle of Krojanty, where elements of the regiment successfully delayed the advance of the German infantry on September 1, the first day of the Second World War.

Following the fall of Poland in 1939, much of the Polish Army was evacuated to France, where it was reconstructed under the command of General Władysław Sikorski. In January 1941, the Polish Government in Exile introduced the Virtuti Militari as the highest military decoration of the Polish Army in exile. The legal basis for the election of a new Chapter was the Act of 1933. During the Second World War, the Virtuti Militari was also often bestowed to senior military officers of allied armies, including British General Bernard Montgomery; the American Supreme Commander of the Allied forces, Dwight D. Eisenhower; French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny; and Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov.

Among the most famous recipients of the medal during this period were Tadeusz Kutrzeba, creator of the Bzura counterattack plan and participant in the defence of Warsaw during the Invasion of Poland; Władysław Anders, commander of the 2nd Polish Corps; Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, commander of the large Armia Krajowa resistance movement and leader of the Warsaw Uprising; and Stanisław Maczek, one of the best armor commanders of the war, who devised the first anti-blitzkrieg strategy as early as 1940 and was the commander of the 10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade, considered to be the only Polish unit not to have lost a single battle in 1939, and from 1942 the commander of the First Polish Armoured Division.