In 1939, two weeks after Germany invaded Poland, the Soviet Union invaded from the other direction, justifying it internationally as a protective action, but in actually part of the agreement to split Poland in two that came about in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Thousands upon thousands of Polish soldiers were captured by the Soviet Union and interned. They would be treated quite terribly at first, including the infamous Katyn Massacre which saw the mass execution of thousands of Polish officers. Tens of thousands of civilians were arrested as well and sent eastward in forced relocations.

But suddenly in mid-1941, Germany invades, and the USSR finds its lot thrown in with the Allied powers... including the Polish Government-in-Exile. Describing relations between the Poles and the Soviets over the next few years as "strained" would be an understatement, but there were points when they were able to sort of, kind of get along, and this little episode is one of them. Holding Polish POWs was now somewhat awkward for the Soviets, so an agreement was struck where a Polish force was raised within the Soviet Union under General Władysław Anders (who had been wounded fighting the Soviets, captured by them and imprisoned), known as the Anders Army.

But again, things were strained. And the Anders Army felt that it was not being adequately trained or supplied - which was absolutely true, a mixture of Soviet anti-Polish sentiments exacerbated by simple logistical shortcomings which then of course, saw the Poles prioritized last, although a small, grim advantage was that many of the former prisoners were used to such meager rations. An early impression from a British officer laisoning with the Polish force noted:

Every man looked half-starved. Their faces were grey, quite a different colour from those of ordinary people. Most of them looked as if they had been frost-bitten. They were living in tents. There were no houses, no wood except that which they pulled down with their own hands, no YMCA huts, no cinemas or shops, no town or village to which they could go.

Yet when these men marched by [...] they showed a spirit which was truly remarkable. They thought themselves in heaven after two years in labour camps.

It was a complicated problem. By the beginning of 1942, now numbering 70,000 men, the Soviets were insisting the Poles go into battle immediately, while Anders was decrying that his mean remained half-starved, not to mention woefully under-equipped. After months of arguments, Anders could only get rations for half the men, and it was decided that the remainder would head to Iran - along with their families - where they would be equipped and supplied by the British, with eventual return to the USSR to fight on the Eastern Front. The Soviets and the British had just invaded Iran in August of 1941 due to a combination of factors, including opening up a critical supply-line for aid to the USSR, and as the Poles were training in Kazakstan, it was seen as the easiest route for them to take.

So in March, 1942, cramped, miserable riverine journeys to the Caspian sea saw about 30,000 soldiers, and 12,400 Polish civilians arrive in Iran that spring, but unlike what was planned, they had no desire to return and fight under Soviet leadership!

In essence, the cycle restarted, with more arguments, and pressure applied by the Soviets, including at least one which resulted in an outright murder of a Polish officer by an angry Soviet major, and the arrest of several Polish diplomats. The Polish troops who remained in the USSR by them believed they might very well need to march themselves out of the Soviet Union against hostile resistance, and of course the Soviets now had abandoned nearly any concern for the well-being of them or their dependents. finally, British intervention saved the day. Churchill sent a very cordial telegram to Stalin which allowed him to save face in letting the remaining Poles leave.

The evacuation began in early August, 1942, and the last of the Polish soldiers entered Iran by the end of the month. Polish civilians were allowed to travel with them, but not without controversy. In the end, just under 30,000 civilians were allowed to leave with the second evacuation, but it was limited generally to those with direct familiar connections to the soldiers, and the NKVD would refuse any non-ethic Pole permission to board, mainly excluding Jews, but also some ethnic Ukrainians or Belosrussians who had been Polish citizens.

Upon arrival in Iran, the Polish contingent was encamped outside Tehran, and then moved to Iraq - presumably now with a bear in tow - where the troops underwent training, and then westward to Gaza for more training, and formed into the Polish II Corps, although some were sent to Britain to help amplify the Polish forces there. Polish II Corps would eventually see action in Italy.

Mainly sourced from Halik Kochanski. *Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War.* Harvard University Press, 2012