Bentley Purchase, Royal Coroner, 1943

From Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, by Ben Macintyre (Crown, 2010), Kindle pp. 44-47:

UNDER ENGLISH LAW, the coroner, a post dating back to the eleventh century, is the government official responsible for investigating deaths, particularly those that occur under unusual circumstances, and determining their causes. When a death is unexpected, violent, or unnatural, the coroner is responsible for deciding whether to hold a postmortem and, if necessary, an inquest. Bentley Purchase was a friend and colleague of Spilsbury in the death business, but Purchase was as cheery as Sir Bernard was grim. Indeed, for a man who spent his life with the dead, the coroner was the life and soul of every occasion. He found death not only fascinating but extremely funny, which, of course, it is. No form of violent or mysterious mortality surprised or upset him. “A depressing job?” he once said. “Far from it. I can’t imagine it getting me down.” He would offer slightly damp chocolates to guests in his private chambers and joke: “They were found in Auntie’s bag when she was fished out of the Round Pond at Hampstead last night.” A farmer by birth, Purchase was “rugged in appearance and character,” with “an impish sense of humour” and a finely calibrated sense of the ridiculous: he loved Gilbert and Sullivan operas, toy trains, boiled eggs, and his model piggery in Ipswich. He never wore a hat and laughed loudly and often.

Montagu knew Purchase as “an old friend from my barrister days” and dropped him a note asking if they might meet to discuss a confidential matter. Purchase replied with directions to the St. Pancras Coroner’s Court and a typically jovial postscript: “An alternative means of getting here is, of course, to get run over.”

Purchase had fought in the First World War as a doctor attached to the field artillery, winning the Military Cross for “conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty” and fighting on until 1918, when a shell splinter removed most of his left hand. By the time war broke out again, he was nearly fifty, too old to wear a uniform but “aching to get into the war.” Indeed, he had already demonstrated a willingness to help the intelligence services and, if necessary, “distort the truth in the service of security.” When an Abwehr spy named William Rolph killed himself by putting his head in a gas oven in 1940, Purchase obliged with a verdict of “heart attack.” In the same month that he received Montagu’s note, Purchase had been called in to deliberate on the case of Paul Manoel, an agent of the Free French Intelligence Service who had been found hanging in a London basement following interrogation as a suspected enemy agent. Purchase’s inquest was “cursory in the extreme.”

The coroner was initially dubious when Montagu explained that he needed to find a male corpse for “a warlike operation” but “did not wish to disclose why a body was needed.”

“You can’t get bodies just for the asking, you know,” Purchase told him, grinning. “I should think bodies are the only commodities not in short supply at the moment [but] even with bodies all over the place, each one has to be accounted for.”

Montagu would say only that the scheme required a fresh cadaver that might appear to have drowned or died in an air accident. The matter, he added gravely, was “of national importance.”

Still Purchase hesitated, pointing out that if word got out that the legal system for disposing of the dead was being circumvented, “public confidence in coroners of the country would be shaken.”

“At what level has this scheme been given approval?” the coroner asked.

Montagu paused before replying, not entirely truthfully: “The prime minister’s.”

That was enough for Bentley Purchase, whose “well developed sense of comedy” was now thoroughly aroused. Chortling, he explained that, as a coroner, he had “absolute discretion” over the paperwork and that in certain circumstances a death could be concealed, and a body obtained, without getting official permission from anyone. “A coroner,” he explained, “could, in fact, always get rid of a corpse by a certificate that it was going to be buried outside the country—it would then be assumed that a relative was taking it home (i.e. to Ireland) for burial and the coroner could then do what he liked with it without let, hindrance or trace.” Bodies were pouring into London morgues at an unprecedented rate: in the previous year Purchase had dealt with 1,855 cases and held inquests into 726 sudden deaths. Many of the bodies “remained unidentified and were in the end buried as unknowns.” One of these would surely fit the bill. The St. Pancras mortuary was attached to the coroner’s court, so Purchase offered to give Montagu a tour of the bodies currently in cold storage. “After one or two possible corpses had been inspected and for various reasons rejected,” the two men shook hands and parted, with Purchase promising to keep a lookout for a suitable candidate.

The St. Pancras mortuary was without doubt the most unpleasant place Montagu had ever been; but then, his had been a life almost entirely free of unpleasant places and upsetting sights.

Royal Navy Intel Dept., 1943

From Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, by Ben Macintyre (Crown, 2010), Kindle pp. 29-31:

At thirty-eight, Ewen [Montagu] was too old for active service, but he had already volunteered for the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. With the outbreak of war, he was commissioned as lieutenant (acting lieutenant commander) and swiftly came to the attention of Admiral John Godfrey, the head of Naval Intelligence. “It is quite useless, and in fact dangerous to employ people of medium intelligence,” wrote Godfrey. “Only men with first class brains should be allowed to touch this stuff. If the right sort of people can’t be found, better keep out altogether.” In Montagu he knew he had the right sort of person.

Godfrey’s Naval Intelligence Department was an eclectic and unconventional body. In addition to Ian Fleming, his personal assistant, Godfrey employed “two stockbrokers, a schoolmaster, a journalist, a collector of books on original thought, an Oxford classical don, a barrister’s clerk, an insurance agent, two regular naval officers and several women assistants and typists.” This heterogeneous crew was crammed into Room 39, the Admiralty, which was permanently wreathed in tobacco smoke and frequently echoed with the sounds of Admiral Godfrey shouting and swearing. Fleming awarded Godfrey the heavily ironic nickname “Uncle John,” for seldom has there been a less avuncular boss. “The permanent inhabitants who finally settled in this cave,” he wrote, “were people of very different temperaments, ambitions, social status and home life, all with their particular irritabilities, hopes, fears, anguishes, loves, hates, animosities and blank spots.” Any and every item of intelligence relevant to the war at sea passed through Room 39, and though the atmosphere inside was often tense, Godfrey’s team “worked like ants, and their combined output was prodigious.” The ants under Godfrey were responsible not merely for gathering and disseminating secret intelligence but for running agents and double agents, as well as developing deception and counterespionage operations.

Godfrey had identified Montagu as a natural for this sort for work, and he was swiftly promoted. Soon, he not only represented the Naval Intelligence Department on most of the important intelligence bodies, including the Twenty Committee, but ran his own subsection of the department: the top secret Section 17M (for Montagu). Housed in Room 13, a low-ceilinged cavern twenty feet square, Section 17M was responsible for dealing with all “special intelligence” relating to naval matters, principally the “Ultra” intercepts, the enemy communications deciphered by the cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park following the breaking of the German cipher machine Enigma. In the early days of 17M, the Ultra signals came in dribbles, but gradually the volume of secret information swelled to a torrent, with more than two hundred messages arriving every day, some a few words long but others covering pages. The work of understanding, collating, and disseminating this huge volume of information was like “learning a new language,” according to Montagu, whose task it was to decide which items of intelligence should pass to other intelligence agencies and which merited inclusion in the Special Intelligence Summaries, “the cream of all intelligence,” while coordinating with MI5, Bletchley Park, the intelligence departments of the other services, and the prime minister. Montagu became fluent at reading this traffic, which, even after decoding, could be impossibly opaque. “The Germans have a passion for cross-references and for abbreviations, and they have an even greater passion (only equalled by their ineptitude in practice) for the use of code-names.”

Sugihara's List and Tadeusz Romer

A few months ago, my wife found an interesting book in a Polish bookstore here. It is titled Lista Sugihary (Sugihara's List), by Zofia Hartman, a graduate student from Krakow, the site of Schindler's List, which is now well-known throughout Poland, while Chiune Sugihara remains almost entirely unknown. The Polish edition of her book was published in 2024 by Austeria Press. An English edition titled Sugihara's List, published in 2025, can be ordered from YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City.

In looking for the English edition, I found a Youtube video of a book talk featuring Zofia Hartman in October 2025 at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York City, sponsored by the Polish Cultural Institute in New York. Hartman's presentation was followed by a talk by Jolanta Nitoslawska, granddaughter of Polish diplomat Tadeusz Romer, Polish Ambassador in Japan 1937-1941. Romer and most of the refugees ended up in the stateless Shanghai Ghetto until Romer was included in the 1942 prisoner exchange off Africa via MS Gripsholm. He and most of his descendants ended up in Canada. Several others who attended the talk were descendants of the refugees.

Another diplomat who facilitated the exodus of so many Jewish refugees through the USSR to Japan was the Dutch consul in Lithuania, Jan Zwartendijk, who was director of the Philips factories there. Sugihara granted transit visas via Japan, while Zwartendijk granted official permission for the refugees to settle in Curaçao and the Dutch West Indies, if they should ever manage to get there.

One facet of Sugihara that I had not been aware of was his role as a spy for Japan, cooperating with Poland, sharing military intelligence among other areas. There was no Japanese community in Kaunas, where he served as consul. Japan and Poland both feared the USSR, and Japan was eager for evidence that the USSR might transfer troops west to fight the Germans, allowing Japan to transfer some of its troops from Manchuria to the South Pacific. Japan had helped earlier Poles exiled to Siberia and hosted a sizable number of Polish exiles in Karafuto (southern Sakhalin). Even though Poland declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor, Poles and Japanese continued to cooperate.

In the summer of 2011, we visited the Sugihara Port of Humanity Museum in Tsuruga, Japan, and in the spring of 2025 we visited the Shanghai Ghetto Museum in China. I'm not sure we'll get a chance to visit the Sugihara House Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania.

Reading Być Jak Polak

From Być Jak Polak & Nie o takim życiu marzyłam: 2 Engaging Stories in Simplified Polish for Polish Language Learners (Polski Daily Stories), by Paulina Lipiec. The italicized items in the following excerpt are helpfully footnoted and translated in the original text. This story is pitched at people whose Polish reading is in the range of A2 and B1 (high beginner and low intermediate). I find I can read it a page or so at a time if I add my own lookups. It's not at frustration level, and it gives me more practice with past tense forms. I've finished all 30 sections of DuoLingo and now just get a round of review exercises each day.

Dopiero kiedy był studentem, poznał Kasię. Kasia studiowała razem z nim historię.
Only when he was a student, he met Kasia. Kasia studied history together with him.

Jej rodzina pochodziła z Polski, więć Kasia doskonale mówiła po polsku.
Her family came from Poland, so Kasia spoke Polish perfectly.

Pewnego dnia Kasia zaprosiła Jasona do swojego domu.
On a certain day, Kasia invited Jason to her house.

Następnego dnia mieli mieć ważny egzamin i chcieli się razem uczyć.
The next day they were to have an important exam and wanted to study together.

Kiedy Jason wszedł do mieszkania rodziców Kasi,
When Jason entered Kasia’s family residence,

przypomniał mu się jego przyjaciel z dzieciństwa.
he remembered his [Polish] friend from childhood.

W tym mieszkaniu wszystko było polskie.
In this flat everything was Polish.

W przedpokoju leżały kapcie dla gości.
In the hallway lay slippers for guests.

W salonie nad kanapą wisiał obraz Matki Boskiej z Częstochowy.
In the living room above the couch hung a picture of Our Lady of Czestochowa.

W szafce za szybą stały biało-niebieskie filiżanki i czajnicek do herbaty.
Behind glass in the cupboard stood white and blue cups and a teapot for tea.

Na stole leżał biały obrus.
On the table lay a white tablecloth.

Mieszkanie pachniało makiem, bo mama Kasi właśnie piekła makowca.
The flat smelled of poppyseeds, because Kasia’s mom was baking a poppyseed cake.

Jason był zachwycony!
Jason was amazed.

Displaced Poles in World War 2

My latest compilation from Culture.pl includes an article by Juliette Bretan on Polish refugees abroad during World War 2. Here are some excerpts.

Britain proved an early home for thousands of Poles following the invasion of Poland by Nazi and Soviet forces in September 1939. Polish civilians, and those in the armed forces, fled over the Carpathian mountains to Romania and Hungary, with around 90,000 military personnel known to have escaped by the end of September. Many of those in the armed forces reached France via then Yugoslavia and Italy, where new divisions were organised.

After France fell, thousands of Poles in the armed forces, and the Polish government-in-exile, transferred to London. In August 1940, an Anglo-Polish agreement allowed for the Polish land sea and air forces to be organised and employed under British command. Polish fighter and bomber squadrons were created, with Polish pilots destroying nearly 1000 enemy aircraft and dropping nearly 15,000 bombs and mines during the course of the war.

Persia

Following the Nazi invasion of Russia 1941, a treaty – the Sikorski-Mayski agreement – was signed between Poland and the Soviet Union, which included an ‘amnesty’ allowing for the release of many of the Poles who had been deported east. However, many Poles in labour camps were unaware of the development, and even those who were had only limited assistance from the Soviet authorities. Thousands of Poles, however, did manage to move south, joining Władysław Anders’s army as they moved through Russia and central Asia. In 1942, General Sikorski received permission to evacuate Poles into Persia (now Iran), across the Caspian Sea.

Africa

As Zdzisława Wójcik notes, more than half of the 37,000 Polish civilians who left the USSR with the Polish army found new homes in Africa, in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa. Some arrived by sea between 1942-43, and were housed in former POW camps or new settlements, whilst others were transported from refugee camps across the world:

The settlements […] operated their own businesses: farms, canteens, butcher shops, bakeries, and fabric–weaving, sewing and shoemaking shops […] the population in the Polish settlements had a specific demographic profile: about 47 percent were women, over 41.5 percent were teenagers and children, and only 11.5 percent were men. (Wójcik, in The Polish Deportees of World War II)

According to Wójcik, the Catholic Church played a prominent role in structuring Polish communities in Africa, although the number of priests varied by settlement. Support for the refugees was also provided by the Polish Red Cross and bureaus in Nairobi, with schools and orphanages established for children. However, the food available in these orphanages often left much to be desired, as Vala Lewicki – who was based in Uganda – remembers:

Meals were never elaborate affairs. The quick breakfast varied only between a plate of baked beans and a slice of bread with tea and coffee one day, and two slices of sparingly-buttered bread with cocoa or tea the next day. Occasionally we had powdered eggs which tasted like…powder. We had sandwiches for lunch, while dinner consisted of bean soup, a slice of meat and baked beans. Always baked beans! (Vala Lewicki, in The Polish Deportees of World War II)

New Zealand & Mexico

Just under 1000 Poles – 733 children and 105 adults – also found a new home in New Zealand during the war, after Prime Minister of the country accepted the refugees.

Arriving in Wellington in 1944, the refugees were settled in a Polish Children’s Camp in the town of Pahiatua, where Catholic services and Polish schooling and scouting trips were provided. Many of the Polish refugees also chose to settle in New Zealand after the war, finding ample opportunities for work as mining and logging industries expanded.

Meanwhile, a community of 1400 Poles also settled in Santa Rosa in Mexico, where they were welcomed by an orchestra playing the Polish national anthem. The settlement in Santa Rosa included living quarters and a school, where a Polish curriculum was used, as well as gardens and playing areas.

India

It is estimated that around 5000 Poles also found safe haven in India, after the wife of the Polish Consul General to Bombay, Kira Banasińska, petitioned the Maharaja of Nawanagar. The Maharaja had longstanding links to Poland – his father had been friends with pianist Ignacy Paderewski – and said that he was ‘trying to do whatever [he] can to save the children.’

Refugees settled in several camps in and around Bombay, as well as in a settlement built at the Maharaja’s summer palace. Polish culture remained an integral part of life, with Catholic teaching organised, Polish books provided, and the children also encouraged to give performances featuring traditional Polish dances and music. Sport was also encouraged: following the arrival of pre-war Lvovian footballer Antoni Maniak, a stadium and running track was built, and regular training sessions established to improve the children’s health and wellbeing. The Maharaja donated money to purchase sporting equipment – and the children proved themselves worthy foes against local teams.

The refugees dubbed the settlement camps ‘Little Poland’.

The Polish Red Cross supported the orphans who were being settled in India, although Ordonówna accompanied the first transport of children out of the Middle East, despite battling the symptoms of tuberculosis, which would later kill her.

Post-war resettlement

At the end of the war, many Poles were unable to return to their homeland. The British government recognised the contribution of Poles in the Allied forces, and established the Polish Resettlement Act, the first mass immigration legislation, in 1947, which offered British citizenship and support for hundreds of thousands of Poles. Following the act, transports were provided to enable their relatives to also reach the UK. Four thousand Poles arrived in overland transports from Italy by rail, whilst several ships carrying hundreds of displaced Poles arrived in ports in Southampton, Liverpool, Hull, London and Glasgow in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This included a transport of 66 Poles from Santa Rosa in Mexico, who travelled aboard the Empire Windrush in its historic passage to London in 1948; around 400 Poles – including many orphans – from Kilindini Mombasa in Kenya on the SS Scythia, which docked in Liverpool; and 600 displaced women, children and elderly Poles from Cape Town on the RMS Arundel Castle, which arrived in Southampton.

On board one transport from Lebanon in 1950, on the SS Oxfordshire, were also several unexpected passengers – two hives of bees, brought by one man in his 60s. The man was allowed to keep the bees, which he took to Haydon Park resettlement camp. By the early 1950s, over 100,000 Poles were registered in Great Britain. Among them were pre-war cultural figures, including Polish poet and songwriter Marian Hemar, and singers Adam Aston, Zofia Terné and Włada Majewska; as well as artists, including the Themersons and Stanisław Frenkiel. Many of these figures played a significant role in forming Polish communities in the UK post-war.

TGIF Train Talk in Poland

After we settled into our window seats in our 1st class compartment, headed for a weekend in Wrocław on our way to a conference in Szczecin, two men in their 50s settled into their seats at the other end of the 6-seat compartment, by the door to the aisle. They were roofing contractors returning home to Oława after a builders convention in Kielce. (Oława is also the name of a river that flows into the Odra at Wrocław.)

We quickly established that we spoke English but not much Polish, while they spoke Polish but not much English. But they soon proved to know quite a lot of English words, and I had also been exposed to a good bit of Polish vocabulary, even if neither of us could form many coherent sentences in our weaker languages. But we were able to explain why we were living in Kielce for a year, and they explained why they had come to Kielce and were headed home.

They had brought beers on board to enjoy 3 happy hours on their way home. They laughed and raised their beers every time they heard the announcements about the lack of a bar car on that train. We conveyed our regrets that we couldn't join them. I was still under doctor's orders. The owner was on my side of the compartment and his top assistant sat opposite him. The owner initiated most of the conversation topics, including that his son was good at math but a slacker at schoolwork and language-learning, and really needed a good English tutor.

Without cell phones, it would have been a quieter ride. But we all resorted to Google translate a good bit, and as the evening wore on, we shared photos of our families and our many travels. The boss was particularly excited when I showed him the photos my father had taken in Gdansk in 1945 (on my Flickr site). He asked for copies and we sent him links to download them. When I showed him a photo of my paternal grandparents holding me as a newborn (in 1949), he got quite wistful, regretting the scarcity of family photographs among Poles of his and earlier generations, apart from rare ceremonial events.

His coworker was an avid fisherman (in lakes, not the Odra or Oława rivers) and showed us photos of a huge pike (szczupak) he had caught and a huge carp (karp) his son had caught. (He couldn't remember the English word for 'lake', but I recognized jezioro.) He never initiated English, but recognized a lot of English words. It turned out that he had worked several years in the U.K. (in London, Manchester, and Bristol). Whenever the boss's wife would call about plans for their coming-home dinner, the boss would stand up to talk to her, and his coworker and I would smile and exchange military salutes. The coworker had to use the toaleta several times to empty his beers and he explained that his boss had stronger kidneys (nerki). (Cashew nuts are called nerkowiec in Polish.)

Despite our language hurdles, it was a warm and friendly conversation between strangers of a kind that is reputed to be rare in Poland. We all shook hands and hugged and exchanged contact information before they got off at Oława.

Polish Realia: Japanese Flowers

From Moja Japonia, by Anna Golisz (Petrus, 2010), pp. 162-193 (with Google Translations into English):

Pikniki pod kwitniącymi wiśniami 'Picnics under the blooming cherry trees'

Kwitnąca na żółto gorczyca 'Blooming on yellow mustard'

na tle różowych kwiatów wiśni 'in background pink cherry blossoms'

Kwitnące śliwy 'blooming plum trees' (as in śliwowica 'plum brandy')

Kwitnące azalie 'blooming azaleas'

Kwitnąca glicynia 'blooming wisteria'

Kwitnąca hortensja 'blooming hydrangea'

Pięknie kwitnące kamelie 'beautifully blooming camelias'

Japoński klon 'Japanese maple', followed by many pages of jesienne klony 'autumn maples'

Młode liście klonu japonskiego 'young leaves of the Japanese maple'

Miłorząb dwuklapowy ('nice-eyelash two-flap'?) Ginkgo biloba L. 'Nice eyelash' renders 'maidenhair', an earlier name for the tree from its leaves resembling those of certain maidenhair ferns.

Parajutes in Burma, 1944

From Burma '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East, by James Holland (Grove Atlantic, 2024), Kindle pp. 329-330:

Watching the ground operations at the airfields, [Gen. William] Slim was surprised by the range and flexibility of Snelling’s air supply. Rations, fuel and ammunition were, for obvious reasons, the priority, as well as mail, grain for animals and a host of other supplies. ‘The emergency and fancy demands made,’ he noted, ‘were also met with the promptitude and exactness of the postal order department of a first-class departmental store.’ These included blood plasma, instruments, drugs, spare parts for guns and other weapons, boots, clothing, the daily issue of SEAC (the new troops’ newspaper), typewriter ribbons, cooking pots and even replacement spectacles. The sheer range and logistical effort was mind-boggling.

From 2.30pm that afternoon, the first of a number of Dakotas and Commandos dropped supplies over the Admin Box. The multicoloured parachutes had been another bit of clever forward-thinking. Snelling had been unable to get enough parachutes supplied from India and there was no hope of acquiring the number needed from back home in Britain; SEAC was still bottom of the priority list for parachutes, as for everything. The answer was to make them of paper or jute instead – there were a great many paper mills in Calcutta and Bengal was the jute capital of the world. Paper parachutes, it turned out, would not work, but jute ones would. Slim now contacted the leaders of the British jute industry in Calcutta, asking for their help. He told them that to save time they were to deal with him and Snelling direct and warned them that he had no idea when exactly they would be paid. Despite this, within ten days they were experimenting with various types of ‘parajutes’, as they called them. By trial and error they soon arrived at the most efficient shape and weight of cloth, and within a month they had parajutes that were 85 per cent as reliable as normal silk parachutes. It was agreed they would be colour-coded – red, green, yellow, black, blue and orange, each denoting a different type of load. The cost of producing a parachute was around £20 at that time; the cost of a parajute was £5.

Despite this, Slim was rebuked for not going through the proper channels in securing these essential additions to the air-supply operation – not that he was bothered; some things were more important, and in South-East Asia they all had to use their initiative and think outside the box, no matter what some desk-wallahs thought. The entire war there was becoming an exercise in lateral thinking.

Polish Realia: Multigrain Bread

Chleb Wieloziarnisty 'multigrain bread'

pieczywo pszenno-żytnie na naturalnym zakwasie
'bread wheat-rye on natural sourdough'

z dodatkiem ziaren, krojone
'with added grains, sliced'

Składniki: 40% mąka pszenna, 15% zakwas żytni (9,4% mąka żytnia, woda)
'Ingredients: 40% wheat flour, 15% sourdough rye (9.4% rye flour, water)'

mieszanka nasion (2,2% siemię lniane, 2,2% ziarna pszenicy lamanej
'seed mixture (2.2% flaxseed, 2.2% cracked wheat grains,'

2,2% nasiona słonecznika, 2,2% prażone lamane ziarna soi)
'2.2% sunflower seeds, 2.2% roasted cracked soybeans)'

ekstrakt słodowy jęczmienny jasny, drożdże, sól, gluten pszenny, mąka sojowa,
'light barley malt extract, yeast, salt, wheat gluten, soy flour,'

olej rzapakowy, środek do przetwarzania mąki (kwas askorbinowy)
'rapeseed oil, flour processing agent (ascorbic acid)'

mąka słodowa jęczmienna, posypka : 4,4% nasiona sezamu, 4,4% siemię lniane.
malted barley flour, sprinkles: 4.4% sesame seeds, 4.4% flaxseed

Indian Electrical Mechanical Engineers

From Burma '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East, by James Holland (Grove Atlantic, 2024), Kindle pp. 167-169:

Ascham’s small band of brothers was one of the echelon units attached to any infantry brigade. The fighting heart of a brigade was its three 900-man-strong infantry battalions – one British, one Indian and one Gurkha – but there were also support troops, from artillery to mules to engineers and signals to Aschaml’s Indian Electrical Mechanical Engineers, who were there directly in support of the brigade’s motor transport – MT – in the field. Ascham’s team were, in essence, a mobile workshop, and here in the jungle they were absolutely essential. In this treacherous fighting terrain, Slim and others had recognized that, as far as was humanly possible, fighting units had to be as self-sufficient at the front as they could be. It was no good a number of Jeeps and trucks slogging their way down Slim’s new brick roads from Bengal, across the newly hewn Ngakyedauk Pass and down into the Kalapanzin Valley only to suffer a collapsed axle or need a new gasket and discover there was no means of rectifying the problem. This, then, was where Ascham’s seventy-five Indian Electrical Mechanical Engineers came in. Their task was to maintain the fighting capacity of the brigade’s MT.

The single most important piece in their armoury was their large, 3-ton, four-wheel-drive workshop lorry. It had a powerful winch at the front and a canvas roof over a mobile workshop behind. This was kitted out with an impressive array of equipment: there was a lathe, a vertical drilling machine, a workbench with vices, racks for heavy tools, oxy-acetylene welding equipment, battery-charging gear, a vat of sulphuric acid, hydraulic jacks, hoisting equipment to lift engines, transmission blocks and other heavy items, as well as awnings, which could be slung from the sides of the truck or between trees. This meant they could, in theory, repair pretty much anything right there, in the field. They also had five further 3-ton lorries, a large-capacity water tank, three Jeeps with trailers and a BSA motorcycle, which helped them little, but to which Ascham had become quite attached. One of the Jeep trailers had been made into a generator from the engine of a wrecked Jeep they had discovered and they used this to power their welding equipment or to provide lighting. A second trailer was used to store spare parts, while the unit also had office equipment, tents, tables, benches, cooking gear, and weapons, including rifles, a machine gun and grenades.

Ascham’s engineers were a disparate bunch of young men, drawn from all corners of India’s vast reach and including Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. Although some twenty-two different languages were used throughout the country, they had all learned to speak just one, Urdu, and were bound by a different type of language: mechanical and electrical engineering. As their officer, Ascham had made sure he learned Urdu, and fluently too, which understandably gave him a closer bond with his men. They all looked much the same too, after long months working out in the heat and sun; while trousers and shirt sleeves were religiously worn during the evenings, no one bothered much about wearing shirts during the day and so all were tanned the colour of coffee and, of course, everyone wore the same uniforms of olive-drab khaki drill, black boots and – the few Sikhs excepted – black berets.

The hierarchy was easily absorbed: Ascham was the boss, but the Indian NCOs were also held in very high esteem. A jemadar was the equivalent of a warrant officer, a havildar of a sergeant and a naik the same as a corporal, and yet Indian NCOs were accorded a level of respect and status that was higher than their British Army counterparts. ‘You were taught to look up to them,’ noted Ascham. ‘In a way, they were the Indian Army. It could not possibly have functioned without them. They advised, discreetly. They handled awkward incidents, privately. Their personal loyalty to you and the unit was essential.’ It was a system that Ascham certainly believed worked brilliantly well, and he was both proud and fond of his men, who, despite their differences of background, culture, religion and language, were all bound by what he felt was a palpable sense of honour, loyalty and, almost above all, good humour. They would undoubtedly need it in the weeks to come.

Polish Poets Explore Haiku

My latest compilation from Culture.pl includes an article by Agnieszka Warnke on Polish poets who explored Japanese haiku. Here are a couple pieces of it.

Poland, 1937, issue no. 46 of Wiadomości Literackie (Literary News) dedicated to Japanese culture. Somewhere amidst an article on the erotic life of a Japanese man, practical advice on ‘Dziudo i dziudziutsu’ (Judo and Jujitsu), and an advertisement for Mitsubishi, there are references to haiku that inform the reader that they are ‘17-syllable poems’ and that ‘from the initial stanza of renga, another variation later developed, which was called hokku or haikai’.

The Polish Haiku Association was established nearly 80 years later. In the meantime, several volumes of Japanese poems (not necessarily translated from the original) were published, as well as Antologia polskiego haiku (Anthology of the Polish Haiku), in which Ewa Tomaszewska included works inspired – sometimes unconsciously – by the poetry and aesthetics of the Far East. How did the most popular Japanese poetic form come into being, and how has it evolved?

...

Yamoto Dojū, an expert on the genre, argues that kigo [season words] is ‘the highest taste, the essence of poetry’. The most famous anthology of Japanese miniatures in Poland, translated by Żuławska-Umeda, is organised into four seasons. In 14th-century Japan, there were several indicators of the seasons, but by the 16th and 17th centuries, their number increased to 599, soon exceeding a thousand. There’s an extensive list of Polish kigo on the website of the Polish Haiku Association: spring is represented, for example, by molehills and hay fever, summer smells of chives and hay carts, the beginning of autumn is heralded by deer rutting and its end by a bent umbrella, while in winter the fur of mammals thickens and brightens, and flies become sluggish.

Numerous references to nature appear in the lyrics of Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, and the topic of Orientalism in her poems has frequently been discussed by literary scholars. The poet does not restrict herself to a careful observation of nature. She animates and personifies it: in the volume Pocałunki (Kisses), the sky can become angry, and in Surowy jedwab (Raw Silk), the firmament freezes in terror. Comparisons to the masters of the genre are inevitable when reading her works. Take, for example, the frog glorified by Bashō (in Czesław Miłosz’s translation: ‘Stara sadzawka, / Żaba – skok – / Plusk’; in R. H. Blyth’s translation: ‘The old pond / A frog jumps in – The sound of the water’).

Bengal Famine, 1943

From Burma '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East, by James Holland (Grove Atlantic, 2024), Kindle pp. 112-114:

Most Bengalis lived an extremely precarious existence. Some ten million were utterly dependent on agriculture, but of these more than half held less than 2 acres of land and many none at all. There was charity and relief but no social welfare; they had to fend for themselves. Through the first half of 1943 food prices had increased dramatically. ... This was due in part to the shortages in Bengal but also to increased demand for the feeding of troops in India, as well as demand from around the world. It was artisans who suffered first, because as poverty increased so the money available for goods dried up. Then the shortages hit the wider Bengali population, many of whom left the country for the cities. By the time Tom Grounds was on leave in Calcutta, the city was bursting with the influx of impoverished families searching for food.

Yet while the cost of food was certainly a factor, the biggest problem now facing the authorities was how to get food to Bengal and urgently. The state had already been an importer of food for over a decade and most of it had come from Burma, now closed to India. The loss of Burma had been disastrous for Bengal’s fragile economy and the subsequent cyclone had made it catastrophic. Where else could it be sourced? North America and South America were the obvious places, but the amount needed was enormous and would have required a major diversion of shipping at a time when the demands on such seaborne transport had never been greater.

That August, Churchill was not prepared suddenly to release shipping to take food to Bengal; however draconian that may seem, far away in Britain the problems of the Bengalis seemed less pressing than the urgent need to maintain supplies at a crucial moment in the war. Britain and America were fighting in Sicily – an island that could be supplied effectively only by ship; they were about to invade mainland Italy, which also required an amphibious operation and supply; they were preparing for the invasion of north-west Europe; and they were fighting the Japanese throughout the Pacific. Was Churchill really expected to interrupt the war effort, and current operations, with millions of lives at stake in theatres of war around the world? Who was to say what effect such a diversion of shipping would have on the eventual length of the war, with its implications for further loss of life? In any case, ships could not be diverted from the far side of the Atlantic, for example, at the drop of a hat. Churchill was not to blame.

Not all India was facing famine – only Bengal and the north-east. One problem was that in 1935 the government had ceded considerable central power to the provinces, where the regional governments were all democratically elected. The previous year, 1942, these had all agreed to introduce trade barriers between one another. The central government of India now announced there should be free trade in grain, but plans to send relief to Bengal had been obstructed by local government officers, police and other officials who feared their own provinces risked suffering a similar fate to that of Bengal. Wavell, in one of his first acts as Viceroy-Designate, had forced the issue by threatening legal and even military action, and by August substantial amounts of grain had finally begun to arrive in Bengal. It was, however, too little too late to bring a swift end to the humanitarian disaster rising horrifically throughout the region. Relief kitchens hastily set up in Calcutta and elsewhere were simply not enough. With malnutrition came disease; those not dying of starvation were just as likely to succumb to typhus, malaria or cholera, and there were not enough hospitals or medical care to cope.

The famine had certainly been exacerbated by the war and by the fact that the Indian government had prioritized combatting the Japanese above all other matters. Yet the authorities, although slow to react, were certainly not immune to the horrors unfolding and, of course, while the tragedy of human suffering was truly appalling, the famine was yet another massive problem for the Allied command to overcome. It stretched already overstretched lines of supply, pushed the limited medical services to breaking point, affected food supplies to the troops, further sapped the morale of those who witnessed the starving, dying and dead throughout Bengal, and damaged the reputation of the British even more, and all at a time when there was a new Viceroy and Commander-in-Chief.

V Force Intelligence in Burma

From Burma '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East, by James Holland (Grove Atlantic, 2024), Kindle pp. 86-89:

There were code-breakers too, and radio listening, but possibly the most important of all – especially to those now heading to the front – was V Force.

This extraordinary group of native Burmese under British command operated all along the front and were purely intelligence gatherers and reconnaissance – but they were mightily effective. The commanders had detailed knowledge of the local language, culture and conditions. One of them, based further to the north-east in the Naga Hills, was indicative of the unorthodox approach taken by V Force: Ursula Graham Bower was an anthropologist who had befriended the Naga head-hunters before the war, and, as her Christian name suggested, was a woman.

Another was Captain Anthony Irwin, who was operating in the Arakan, and running his own team under the overall charge of one of the V Force originals, Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Donald.

...

V Force were the eyes and ears of the British effort in the Arakan. While Irwin was dependent on his local recruits to collect intelligence, his task was to be the brains behind the operation. An inadequate brain, it seemed to him to begin with, but he learned quickly enough. On parting, Donald had told him: ‘Trust [your] men with everything you’ve got, and they will never let you down.’ Nearly a year on, Irwin knew those had been wise words indeed.

‘These men’ were Mussulmen – local Muslims who had settled in the area some two hundred years earlier. There was now an ethnic split in the Arakan between Muslim and Maugh, who were Hindu, which had led to civil war in the area as recently as 1941; like any civil conflict, it had been brutal, with entire villages decimated by the opposing factions. The result had been that the southern half of the Arakan was now predominantly Maugh, while the north was almost entirely Muslim. This local tragedy rather played into the hands of the British, however, because the Arakan had been conveniently split into two distinct spheres of influence, something they were able to exploit. Muslims hated Maughs and, because the Maughs were helping the Japanese, they hated the Japanese too. Conversely, the Maughs were willing to work for the Japanese against the Mussulmen and, by association, the British. There were two factors, however, that made this a better deal for the British than for the Japanese. The first was that most of the fighting so far had been in the north of the Arakan, where there were fewer Maughs. The second was that because the Japanese held dear the cult of racial superiority, they treated all conquered people with violent contempt, including the Maughs. Furthermore, because Japanese forces were generally so badly supplied – especially with food – they tended to loot what they could from the Burmese without paying any kind of compensation. This was not conducive to winning trust.

Irwin very quickly became an ardent Burmese Mussulman-ophile. They were tenacious, courageous and had an uncanny knack for remembering data. Details of enemy columns were recalled with accuracy; they could tell Japanese planes from Allied long before Irwin himself could ever distinguish them. They would remember with precision exactly where enemy dispositions were and be able to mark them on a map. ‘If they see a British soldier lying wounded and lost in the jungle, they will get him in somehow,’ noted Irwin. Barney Barnett of 136 Squadron, had first-hand experience of this: ‘If they see a Jap body, they will cut off the head and proudly bring it to me, demanding baksheesh’, he noted.

Once, Irwin was sent a map, beautifully drawn and with Japanese positions clearly marked. Also written on the map was a note. ‘Many Japs are looting the publics,’ had been neatly scrawled in pidgin English. ‘Please tell the bombing mans and bomb nicely. Please tell the bombing mans that there are many good publics near and only to kill the Japanese.’

Polish Realia: Imperatives

Ciągnać 'Pull' [cf. Pociąg 'train', Ger. Zug 'train' < ziehen 'pull']
Chwyć dowolne uchwyty 'Grab any handles [on the equipment]'
Mów, pisz i czytaj [po Japońsku] 'Speak, write and read [Japanese]'
Odkry ponad 70 smaków 'Discover over 70 flavors'
Otwieraj i zamykaj 'Open and close [here]'
Otwórz teraz 'Open now'
Pal tutaj 'Smoke here' [in designated area]
Pchać 'Push'
Pochyl się lekko do przodu 'Lean slightly forward'
Poczekaj tutaj 'Wait here'
Popłyń z nami do Szwecji 'Sail with us to Sweden'
Trzymaj drzwi zamknięte 'Keep door closed'
Siedź prosto 'Sit up straight'
Skontaktuje się 'Contact [us here]'
Skup/Sprzedaż 'Buying/Selling'
Stań przed urządzeniem 'Stand in front of the device'
Ustaw siedzisko 'Adjust the seat'
Wykorzystaj kupon na zakupy 'Take advantage of the coupon for shopping'
Zagłosuj tutaj 'Vote here'
Zamów/Odbierz (tutaj) 'Order/Pick up (here)'
Zeskanuj tutaj 'Scan here'
Znajdź nas 'Find us [here]

Negative imperatives
Nie hałasuj 'Don't make noise'
Nie odrywaj 'Don't tear off'
Nie skacz 'Don't jump'
Zakaz biegania 'No running'
Zakaz palenia 'No smoking'
Zakaz pływania 'No swimming'
Zakaz picia 'No drinking'
Zakaz wjazdu 'No entry'
Zakaz wstępu 'No entry/access'

Clickbait
Dowiedz się więcej 'Find out more'
Kup teraz 'Buy now'
Nowy sezon | Oglądaj teraz 'New season | Watch now'
Pobierz aplikacje 'Download app'
Przeglądaj 'Browse'
Sprawdź 'Check [it out]'
Szczegóły wydarzeń na [URL] 'Details of events at [URL]'
Więcej na [URL] 'More at [URL]'
Zagraj teraz 'Play now'
Zarejestruj się 'Register [yourself]'
Zarezerwuj 'Reserve [here]'
Znajdź sklep 'Find store'

Recruiting brochure
Zamieszkaj w USA na wakacje. 'Live in the USA on vacation.'
Poznaj ludzi z całego świata, 'Get-to-know people from the whole world,'
rozwijaj się i odkrywaj uroki Stanów 'develop and discover the charms of States'
po zakończeniu programu wymiany. 'after the end of the exchange program.'

Wyjedź na wakacje do USA! 'Go-away on vacation to the USA!'
Spędź lato w Ameryce w ośrodku kolonijnym dla dzieci
'Spend the summer in America in a [summer] camp center for kids'

RAF & USAAF Eastern Air Command

From Burma '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East, by James Holland (Grove Atlantic, 2024), Kindle pp. 145-147:

Even before Tehran, that a restructuring of the air component was urgently needed was crystal clear to Mountbatten, and the advent of his new command helped provide the impetus for sweeping changes in December 1943. At the Chiefs of Staffs talks in Cairo at the end of November he was able to win the support of General ‘Hap’ Arnold, the Chief of the United States Air Force, for the creation of Allied Air Command. Arnold, along with General George Marshall, the US Army Chief of Staff, and General Alan Brooke, the British Chief of the Imperial General Staff, agreed that Mountbatten, as Supreme Commander, should be entitled to reorganize the air forces within his command as he saw fit. This support was absolutely essential, because what Mountbatten wanted was a truly integrated and coordinated new air command.

By the time the SEAC staff and wider commanders in the theatre had returned to Delhi and Chungking, the Tehran Conference was over and the plans to outflank Burma by sea and also invade the Andamans had been cancelled. General Stilwell, needless to say, was furious, believing Mountbatten’s plans would lead to a greater air focus on the British effort and away from China, still desperately in need of Allied supplies. He told Mountbatten he was lodging a formal protest. Joining with him, as an act of solidarity with his immediate superior, was General George Stratemeyer, commander of the 10th US Army Air Force.

Mountbatten responded with decisive firmness, however, safe in the knowledge that he had Arnold’s and Marshall’s support. He told Stilwell plainly that it was, as far as he was concerned, totally unacceptable to have a subordinate commander holding independent responsibilities for combat air operations. ‘I was,’ he told Stilwell, ‘overriding the objections and publishing a directive that day integrating the British and American Air Forces.’

The day in question was Saturday, 11 December, and the Supreme Commander addressed his entire staff of some 250 men at 8.45 am in the new War Room in his New Delhi HQ. As far as he was concerned, it was a historic day. From henceforth, he announced, the RAF’s Bengal Command and the 10th US Army Air Force would become integrated as one into Eastern Air Command. Overall air commander in theatre would be the British Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Peirse, but the new commander of Eastern Air Command was to be Stratemeyer, who despite his rather half-hearted protest in support of Stilwell now readily accepted the post.

Importantly for the planned coming offensive in the Arakan, in the days that followed further reorganization was completed. On 15 December, Troop Carrier Command was formed, incorporating both a USAAF transport group and an RAF transport wing under the command of Brigadier-General William D. Old, a tough and indefatigable commander who was well known for frequently flying operationally himself. Three days later, 3rd Tactical Air Force was also formed from the US 5320th Air Defense Wing and the RAF’s 221 and 224 Groups, which included the Woodpeckers and other Spitfire squadrons. Finally, into the mix were added a number of army air-supply companies, which used special signals arrangements to connect forward HQs and delivery airfields with supply and base airfields.

Fighting Malaria in Burma, 1944

From Burma '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East, by James Holland (Grove Atlantic, 2024), Kindle pp. 54-55:

[A] pragmatic mindset was most definitely needed in the battle against endemic sickness. Slim recognized, just as the new Supreme Commander recognized, that prevention was better than cure. Mountbatten had made bringing new medical advances and research to the theatre a priority – something that was far beyond Slim’s own influence; but he could improve medical practice and discipline at the front and he was determined to do so as a major priority. Up until the autumn of 1943, if a soldier contracted malaria, for example, he was then transported, while his disease was at its height, hundreds of miles by road, rail and even sea to a hospital in India. This, on average, took him out of the line for around five months. All too often he might then be re-employed in India and never return to Burma. To get around this problem, new Malaria Forward Treatment Units – MFTUs – were now set up. These were, to all intents and purposes, tented hospitals just a few miles behind the front lines. A man with malaria would reach these within twenty-four hours and remain there for three weeks or so until he was cured. When fit, he was sent straight back to his unit.

Mepacrine anti-malaria tablets were also issued to the men, but their introduction was met with the rumour that they caused impotence. This was entirely without foundation, and Slim rigidly insisted that regimental officers make sure the men were taking their Mepacrine. He even introduced spot visits where every man was checked; if the result was less than 95 per cent positive, he summarily sacked the commanding officer. He only ever had to sack three; the message got around quickly and, equally swiftly, that autumn cases of malaria began to fall.

The regimental officers were also told to maintain strict medical discipline in other areas. Trousers were to be worn, not shorts; and shirts were to be worn with the sleeves down before sunset when insects were at their worst; minor abrasions were to be treated immediately and before, not after, they turned septic. The fight against sickness, Slim insisted, had to be a united effort: discipline, sound practice and common sense were key. And already, as the year drew to a close, the health of Fourteenth Army was showing signs of improving – not massively so just yet, but on the chart that hung on Slim’s wall in his office at Comilla the curve indicating hospital admissions was beginning to sink.

Polish Realia: Locative Plurals

From a WARS card in a PKP train.

Spotkaj się z nami: [Meet with us:]

w czasie sprzedaży mobilnej z wózka mini-bar
[during mobile sales with the minibar trolley]

w wagonach gastronomicznych
[in dining cars]

w wagonach sypialnych i w kuszetach
[in sleeping and in couchette cars]

w restauracjach stacjonarnych WARS w Warszawie
[in WARS station restaurants in Warsaw]

podczas imprez okolicznościowych (WARS CATERING)
[during special events]

How to Feed British Indian Troops

From Burma '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East, by James Holland (Grove Atlantic, 2024), Kindle pp. 50-52:

These 500,000 men had to be fed three meals every single day and, because of the castes, religions, tribes and nationalities involved, an added complication was the thirty different ration scales needed to feed the army. Fresh meat was difficult both to source and to transport, and refrigeration was limited to say the least, so for those who could eat meat the only solution was to provide them with tinned corned beef, or bully beef as it was called, although this was monotonous and lacked the nutrients of fresh meat. Hindus and Muslims, however, could not eat tinned meat, so they had to go without altogether. The trouble was, acceptable substitutes, milk and ghi – clarified butter – were not available in the right quantities either. Much of the tinned milk sent from Britain and America simply did not survive the long journey. The result was a severe shortage of food supplies. At the Assam front, [Gen. William] Slim discovered that instead of the 65,000 tons that should have been stored at the base depot in Dimapur, there were just 47,000 tons, a deficiency of nearly 30 per cent, and much of the shortfall worked against the Indian troops. ‘The supply situation was indeed so serious,’ wrote Slim, ‘that it threatened the possibility of any offensive.’

Part of the problem was bad management at Delhi, and Slim and Snelling were appalled to discover that the system of peacetime financial control was still in place when it came to procurement. Incredibly, if large quantities of dehydrated food were ordered from Indian contractors, demands for tinned supplies from Britain were then cancelled. On the face of it, that was fair enough, but it had been decreed that dehydrated vegetables were, in terms of scale of issue, a quarter that of tinned goods. In other words, for every 100 tons of dehydrated goods ordered in India, 400 tons of tinned veg orders from Britain were cancelled. This was bad enough, but made worse because there was always a massive discrepancy between the quantities ordered in India and those that were ever actually delivered. Consequently, shortages had been allowed to escalate quickly.

To try to solve this, Slim and Snelling had gone to see Auchinleck in person, who vowed to deal with the supply issues as a matter of urgency. By cutting red tape and tightening the administration of food supply, Auchinleck’s staff at Delhi were able steadily to increase the flow of rations. In fact, just acknowledging earlier shortcomings was a marked step in the right direction.

Despite this improvement, both Slim and Snelling realized they needed to adopt a very hands-on approach themselves; it was no good depending on Delhi to sort out their supply issues. As a result, other sources of meat, such as sheep and goats, were reared locally where possible. They also hired some Chinese to set up duck-rearing farms for both meat and eggs, while along the Imphal front 18,000 acres of vegetables were cultivated.

Driving Tanks into Burma, 1944

From Burma '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East, by James Holland (Grove Atlantic, 2024), Kindle pp. 10-12:

Before taking over 7th Indian Division, Messervy had been Director of Armoured Fighting Vehicles in New Delhi and had been a vociferous advocate of more tanks in theatre. It had taken much beating of drums, but eventually he had managed to prove to his superiors that medium tanks such as US-built Lees and Shermans could operate in South-East Asia. The 25th Dragoons had been the first to equip with these 30-ton machines, and it had been planned some days earlier that during the night of 4/5 February the regiment would cross over the Ngakyedauk Pass and report for duty with 7th Division to the east of the Mayu Range, ready to take part in Messervy’s planned assault on Buthidaung.

Later that night, C Squadron also crossed the pass. Among them was twenty-year-old Trooper Norman Bowdler from Dunchurch in the English Midlands. Just a week before, Bowdler had been the loader in his five-man crew, but when the driver had got sick he had taken over and now was responsible for getting their mighty Lee up and over this treacherous pass – and in the dark. He found it a terrifying experience. Above them, Allied aircraft were flying over in order to disguise the sound of the tanks, which would have easily carried to the Japanese positions in the still night air. ‘It was a bit dodgy,’ Bowdler admitted. ‘I mean, getting a thirty-ton tank round these S-bends – well, some of the bends were so severe that you had to go backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards to negotiate them.’ He was keenly aware that for all the feat of engineering the creation of the pass undoubtedly was, it was little more than a widened mule track and certainly a long way from being a proper road. In some places, parts of it were bridged by laid tree trunks and Bowdler was worried that at any moment stretches of it would simply crumble away and they would tumble down one of the sheer precipices to the ravine floor 200 feet below. ‘It was so narrow,’ he said, ‘and the tank so heavy – we were fully loaded with ammo, fuel and everything.’ At times, one of the tank’s tracks was actually overhanging the edge of the road as he slewed the beast around a corner. At best there was little more than a yard or so either side of the Lee, and the margins were especially tight around corners that offered very, very little room for manoeuvre.

As a result, it took them much of the night to cross. Bowdler found it more difficult going down the reverse side without the natural braking effect of the climb. Low gears helped, but he was very mindful that this huge weight, crunching over a road that would not pass muster in most people’s book, and being hurried by gravitational pull, could all too easily slip out of his control. The levels of concentration needed were immense, but at long last the road began to level out and in bright moonlight they emerged into an area of paddy, criss-crossed with bunds – the paddy walls – and then eventually leaguered up in an area of elephant grass. Not so very far to the south, Bowdler could hear small arms firing and even the occasional shout. He’d already been in battle before, but here, in the milky darkness of the 7th Division Administrative Area, there was a distinct air of menace.

Lunar Calendar Animal Names in Polish

From Moja Japonia, by Anna Golisz (Petrus, 2010), pp. 207-208 (with Google Translation into English):

W Japonii istnieje kilka kalendarzy, w tym od 1873 roku także gregoriański.
(There are several calendars in Japan, including the Gregorian calendar since 1873.)

Kolejnym jest kalendarz księżycowy pochodący z Chin, który w Japonii był używany przez wiele wieków. (Another is the lunar calendar originating from China, which has been used in Japan for many centuries.)

Obecnie pozosałością tego jest nazywanie kolejnych lat od nazw 12 zwierząt: (Currently, the legacy of this is to name the following years from the names of 12 animals:)

myszy, krowy, tygrysa, królika, smoka, węża, konia, owcy, małpy, koguta, psa i świni. (mouse, cow, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.) [I deleted the indefinite article Google Translate added to each animal name. J]

Wrocław: Każda podróż to opowieść

The catchphrase on a travel poster, Każda podróż to opowieść 'Every journey is a story', in our fine hotel in Wrocław caught my eye because Polish opowieść is cognate with Romanian poveste 'story, tale', an old borrowing from Slavic. The Romanian infinite verb is a povesti 'to tell a tale/story/lie, etc'. But for a polyglot traveler, podróżnik poliglotów, călător poliglot, every journey is a vocabulary lesson.

We were in Wrocław sightseeing for a few days on the way to a conference in Szczecin for my better (unretired) half and some other foreign teachers in Poland and neighboring countries. One of Wrocław's major tourist attractions is the hundreds of tiny krasnal 'gnomes' all over the city, but I found its topographical vocabulary more interesting, especially in contrast to Kielce, which was never a castle town (or a river town).

Like every old town in Poland, Wrocław has a ratusz 'town hall' in a rynek 'central market square' surrounded by its stare miasto 'old town'. Our hotel overlooked one piece of the old moat (fosa) side of the old town. The Odra river, with its many branches, islands (wyspy) and bridges (mosty) bordered the far side of the stare miasto, which is nowadays typically criss-crossed with trams and busses. The large railway stations in both Wrocław and Krakow touch the edges of each city's carefully maintained stare miasto, which is surrounded by przedmieścia 'suburbs', a bit like the Japanese jōkamachi 'castle towns' that lie outside the castle walls and moats. One such early suburb in Wrocław is Przedmieścia Świdnickie (formerly Schweidnitzer Vorstadt), which lay outside the Świdnica Gate.

By the way, every one of the (six or eight) young English-speaking staff we queried at our hotel had studied six or more years of German in school, then let that ability lapse in favor of informally acquired (often fluent) English! This seems to be the pattern throughout Polish Silesia.

Polish Diaspora in France

My latest compilation from Culture.pl has an article on the Polish diaspora in France. Here are some excerpts:

When we think of the Polish diaspora, France is rarely the first place that comes to mind – often overshadowed by the UK, the US or Germany. Yet the Polish presence in France is older, more complex and more deeply woven into the country’s cultural fabric than most realise.

Through interviews with contemporary Polish migrants and archival research into historical communities, a layered story emerges – one as much about shared histories as it is about work, struggle and identity. Beginning with 19th-century exile, expanding through interwar labour migration, and continuing into today’s cosmopolitan realities, Poles have long helped shape the life of their adopted country. And France, in turn, has shaped them.

The earliest sustained Polish presence in France took shape in the 19th century, following the failed November Uprising of 1830-1831. Thousands of officers, intellectuals and activists fled the Russian-controlled partition and sought refuge in France, launching what became known as the ‘Great Emigration’. This wave of political exiles – over 5,000 by 1833 – formed one of the most enduring diasporic communities of the era. Unlike other groups who returned after political amnesties, most remained as long as Poland's partitioned status endured.

One bold but ultimately unsuccessful plan – to form a Polish legion to fight in Portugal’s Liberal Wars in 1833 – was led by General Józef Bem and reflected the enduring ideal of transnational solidarity. It gave lasting currency to the phrase ‘For our freedom and yours’ (‘Za wolność naszą i waszą’), which became a defining expression of Poland’s internationalist military ethos throughout the 19th century.

Polish émigrés built schools, charitable institutions and political societies. Some were initially settled in places like Belle-Île-en-Mer off the coast of Brittany, while growing numbers made their way to Paris, which would soon become a central hub of Polish cultural and political life in exile.

...

Building on these early foundations, Paris evolved into what some would later call ‘Poland’s second capital’. Throughout the 19th century, the city became a vibrant centre where Polish political elites, artists and intellectuals gathered, united by a commitment to preserving national identity in exile.

Nowhere was this more visible than at the prestigious Collège de France, where Polish national poet Adam Mickiewicz was appointed the first Chair of Slavic Literature in Western Europe in 1840. His lectures, a blend of cultural commentary and political advocacy, attracted wide audiences – including figures like George Sand – and reflected diasporic longing for unity and liberation. Though ultimately dismissed for the political intensity of his teachings, Mickiewicz remained an emblematic figure in Franco-Polish cultural relations.

That same spirit of cultural continuity shaped another enduring institution: the Polish School in Paris, founded in 1842 by General Józef Dwernicki and fellow émigrés. The school aimed to raise children in Polish language and tradition, even as they grew up on foreign soil. With Mickiewicz himself serving as vice-president of its council, the institution embodied how deeply intertwined education, culture and politics were in émigré life – a place where Polish identity could be preserved and transmitted across generations born in exile.

Palauan Musical Obituary

Last October, Jim Geselbracht posted on his Palauan Music blog an obituary titled "Sorry, I Really Must Go" with his memories and also a long list of musical selections to listen to from the life of a very productive Palauan singer, composer, and educator, who began composing when Japanese enka  and evocative Japanese phrases permeated many Palauan songs.  Some of the recordings are very faint, pieced together from old tapes, but well worth a careful listen.

This week we lost another insightful voice in Palauan music: Mengesebuuch Yoichi K. Rengiil passed away at the age of 84 in Guam. Yoichi, both a singer and composer, was born in 1941 and grew up in Ngeremlengui.  In the early 1950s, he moved to Koror to attend the Palau Intermediate School and then left for Guam in 1956 to attend high school and start college.  He returned to Palau in 1963 and taught social studies at the Palau High School.  In the 1960s, he teamed up with Aichi Ngirchokebai, Hidebo Sugiyama and Julie Tatengelel to perform at Aichi’s theater in Koror and at village bais on Babeldaob.  He left Palau again in 1967 to complete his college education at the University of Guam and then obtained a Masters in Education Administration at UH Manoa in 1973.  Yoichi was an active member of the Modekngei, serving as the Principal at the Belau Modekngei School in the 1970s. His professional resume is deep, and I will leave it to others to remember that part of his life, but in this post I would like to acknowledge his contribution to Palauan music.

Yoichi and I met regularly via Zoom over the past five years to discuss Palauan music, language and stories and he was an important mentor to me in understanding the meaning behind the rich musical legacy of Palauan music. From our discussions, I learned of seven songs that he composed between 1963 and 1987:

• Did er a Sechou, 1963 or 64
• Oh! Somebody Me Keleng Saingo, 1968
• Sayonara, But I Love You, 1968 or 69
• Chellelengem ma Klungiolem, 1969 or 70
• Decheruk er a Capitol Hill, late 1960s (co-wrote with John Skebong)
• Merat el Kerrekar, 1970
• Ng Di Kmedu e ng mo Ngemeded, 1986 or 87

The first song Yoichi ever composed has become a classic: Did er a Sechou. Named for the bridge in the jetty at Ngeremlengui, the song was not autobiographical, as many people think, but rather Yoichi telling the story of a man from Ngeremlengui who was heartbroken over the end of his relationship with his wife and children. The first recording of this song is from the Ngerel Belau Radio tapes, recorded sometime between 1963 and 1967, with Yoichi singing and backed by the VOP (Voice of Palau) band consisting of Hidebo Sugiyama on mandolin and Aichi Ngirchokebai on guitar.

Cold, Cold Heart in Palau

I just discovered that I had missed the last two posts to Jim Geselbracht's wonderfully nostalgic (for me) Palauan Music blog. I heard lots of Palauan renditions of Japanese enka and American country and western music during my earliest fieldwork in Micronesia in the 1970s. In his latest post, Jim looks at the antecedents of the Palauan song Aggie Chiang from the 1980s, whose melody goes back at least to 1951 recordings by Hank Williams, Dinah Washington, and Tony Bennett. Hank Williams may have adapted it in turn from You'll Still Be in My Heart (1945) by "T" Texas Tyler and his Oklahoma Melody Boys. Jim posts links to all those renditions.

Polish Insect Terms: Ants, Ladybugs

A recent compilation from Culture.pl contains a long article on entomological etymology. Here are some excerpts on ants and ladybugs:

Mrówka (ant) is a word from the 15th century, the Polish name for an insect known to entomologists as Formica. It comes from the Proto-Slavic *morvь / *morvьjь, related to names in other Indo-European languages. Both the Polish mrówka, the Greek mýrmēks and the Spanish hormiga derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *morṷo- / *morṷĭ-. Etymologists explain the meaning of the word mrówka as ‘a biting bug’.

In the 16th century, the word mrowie (a large cluster of ants) was derived from mrówka and today means ‘a multitude, a group’ (e.g. of people), as well as ‘shivers, goosebumps’. Ants are associated with the fact that they build large anthills and can carry large objects that are much heavier than they are. These insects, like bees, are a symbol of industriousness – someone can be said to be pracowity jak mrówka (as industrious as an ant). Another important feature is their size. You can say that something is małe jak mrówka (as small as an ant). There is also a saying, włożyć kij w mrowisko (poke a stick into an anthill), that is, ‘to stir up trouble, to irritate’.

One of the most numerous families among bugs are beetles. The bug Coccinella septempunctata has been known as biedronka, the ladybug, since the 19th century. Earlier, in the 17th century, the name was biedrunka and had a number of dialectal variants, e.g. biedruszka / biedrawka / biedrzonka / biedrzynka and others. The ladybug’s characteristic appearance, regular dots on its chitinous cover, which according to a naive view of the world indicate their age, allows us to explain the connection of the Polish name biedronka with the dialectal word biedrona, the term for a spotted cow. Therefore, the derivative biedronka with the suffix -ka would mean ‘small cow’. This etymology is supported by other words, including: bierawa,the name of a cow with spots around its hips, back or belly; biedrawy, the name of an ox with patches around its hips; biedrzysty, meaning spotted. According to Wiesław Boryś, the basis was the adjective *bedrъ ‘having spots on its hips’ or ‘spotted, mottled, piebald’, from the Proto-Slavic *bedro-, Polish biodro, the hip.

The etymology of biedronka as a small cow would also find an explanation in another name for this animal, boża krówka, God’s cow, or formerly, krówka Maryi Panny, Virgin Mary’s cow. The ladybug was considered a gift sent from God and was supposed to bring people happiness, hence the children’s rhyme ‘biedroneczko, leć do nieba, przynieś mi kawałek chleba’ (ladybug, fly to heaven, bring me a piece of bread). The perception of the ladybug as a mediator between the human world and the divine world has also been established in other languages: English (ladybird, Virgin Mary’s bird), American (ladybug, Virgin Mary’s bug), German der Marienkäfer, Virgin Mary’s beetle), French la bete a bon Dieu, God’s little animal, or even in the name used in Argentina, vaquita de San Antonio, St Anthony’s cow) and in another Slavic language, Russian, божья коровка (bozh’ya korovka, God’s cow). These are just a few examples demonstrating that the dialectal names of the ladybug in many languages, which later became common terms, consist of an element related to the divine world, as well as an element naming another animal – analogously to the Polish compound boża krówka.

Grains of Poland

During the heyday of the Hanseatic League, Poland was the granary of Europe, and its diet remains very rich in grains. Hardly any of its many breads contain just one grain, and one of its many brands of yogurt calls itself 7zbóż '7cereals'. Here are the cereal grains listed in its jogurt z brzoskwinią, gruszką i ziarnami zbóż 'yogurt with peach, pear and cereal grains' variety: jęczmień, pszenica, żyto, owies, gryka, ryz, pszenica arkisz, otręby pszenne 'barley, wheat, rye, oat, buckwheat, rice, spelt wheat, wheat bran'.

Speaking of food labels, here is the breakdown of wartość odżywcza 100 g productu 'nutritional value in 100 g of product':
Wartość energetyczna 'energy value' 96 kcal
Tłuszcz 'fat' 2,5 g
w tym kwasy nasycone 'incl. saturated fatty acids' 1,8 g
Węglowodany 'carbohydrates' 14,7 g
w tym cukry 'incl. sugar' 13,5 g
Błonnik 'fiber' 0,6 g
Białko 'protein' 2,6 g
Sól 'salt' 0,07 g

Multiply by 3 for the 300 g tub of yogurt!

Polish Insect Terms: Flies, Mosquitoes

A recent compilation from Culture.pl contains a long article on entomological etymology. Here are some excerpts on flies and mosquitoes.

Remaining in the circle of bugs from the family of flies, let’s discuss one of their most popular representatives, the housefly (Latin name, Musca domestica). The word mucha has been present in Polish since the 15th century and is a general Slavic word. It comes from the Proto-Slavic *mucha, *mous-ā, ‘fly’.

Andrzej Bańkowski describes the meaning of the word mucha as ‘unclear’. For this word, he seeks the etymology in the Sanskrit root of the verb muṣ-, ‘to steal, to rob’. Wiesław Boryś, on the other hand, believes that it is a word with an onomatopoeic root, from the sound made by flying insects, based on *mū- / *mus-. This root was expanded by the suffix -sā, which then became the regular suffix -cha. Similarly, the same transformation occurred in the suffix of the word pchła (flea).

The word mucha is also used to name other bugs, e.g. a szkląca mucha (glazed [lantern] fly) is another expression for a firefly. The diminutive of the word fly (muszka) is very popular and is the source of, among other things, the common name for the diminutive fruit fly: muszka owocówka. Mucha also creates many word compounds: for example, muchomór, a toadstool is a fungus that poisons and kills flies, and a muchołówka, flytrap, is a carnivorous plant that eats flies.

For humans, a fly is not a useful animal but rather a nuisance. You can say about someone that they are as pesky as a fly: natrętny jak mucha. Flies are associated with dirt and stench, so when something is described as mucha nie siada, ‘a fly won’t land on it’, it means that it is ‘successful, perfect, impeccable’, so clean that a fly does not want to be there. When someone is lured by something, strives to achieve something, it is said that they fly to something / someone like a fly to glue / to honey: jak mucha na lep / do miodu. On the other hand, ruszać się jak mucha w mazi / smole / miodzie, to move like a fly in goo, tar, honey, means ‘to do something slowly, sluggishly, to be lazy’. Ginąć / padać jak muchy, to die / to fall like flies, means ‘en masse’. One can also have muchy w nosie, flies up your nose, ‘to be in a bad mood’.

Another useless insect that makes people’s lives miserable is komar (the mosquito). The earlier form of the name for this insect is komor; Franciszek Sławski provides the variant forms kumar, kumor. This term functioned in many local and personal names (e.g. the towns of Komorowice, Komorowo, Komorów). It was not until the 19th century that the name with the suffix -ar became popular: the mosquito, popularized by, among others, writers from the Borderlands – Adam Mickiewicz devoted a poem to this bug. In the poem ‘Komar, niewielkie licho’ (The mosquito, little devil), he described a situation that is also probably familiar to everyone today: ...

All the forms mentioned above come from the Proto-Slavic word *komarъ (or *komarь with a soft yer), which in turn comes from the Proto-Indo-European onomatopoeic root *kem- / *kom-, ‘to buzz’. Wiesław Boryś explains the original meaning of komar as ‘(persistently) buzzing bug’.

A mosquito is primarily associated with annoyance, intrusiveness – hence you can przekomarzać się z kimś (trade barbs with someone), which Brückner translates as ‘to irritate someone like a mosquito’. You can also say about someone that they ucięli komara (lit., cut a mosquito), meaning to take a short nap, usually without getting enough sleep.

Polish Insect Terms: Bees, Wasps

A recent compilation from Culture.pl contains a long article on entomological etymology. Here are some excerpts on bees and wasps.

In a survey conducted by linguist Marcin Maciołek for his doctoral thesis Kształtowanie się nazw owadów w języku polskim. Procesy nominacyjne a językowy obraz świata (The Formation of Names of Bugs in Polish: Nominative Processes and the Linguistic Image of the World) in 2012, some respondents indicated the bee as an example of a typical owad (bug). Although the astonishing diversity of this group of animals does not allow for the identification of a single, prototypical member, the bee is certainly one of its more charming representatives. Due to their usefulness, bees evoke a rather positive attitude in humans, evidenced, among other things, by the frequently used diminutive pszczółka (little bee). For centuries, they have been a symbol of industriousness, as evidenced, among other things, by citations from the Bible. The bee was also considered a divine, a sacred animal, which is why in Polish the word used for their dying is umrzeć (used for humans), not zdechnąć (used for animals). The designation of a bee was sometimes associated with a taboo: it could not be spoken of after dusk lest the evil powers of the night harm it, hence the interchangeable terms boży robak (God’s worm) / święty robak (holy worm).

The word pszczoła has Proto-Slavic origins, probably even Proto-Indo-European – if we go back that far in the language, we will discover that the Polish pszczoła and the English bee most probably come from the same Proto-Indo-European form *bhiquelā! In Proto-Slavic, the proto-word was *bьčela or *bъčela (they differ in the quality of the yer – a Proto-Slavic vowel). If we wanted to discover the etymology of Polish pszczoła (bee), we’d discover that it is an onomatopoeic word: probably the Proto-Slavic root was an onomatopoeic *bъk-, *bъč-, related to the Proto-Slavic verb *bučati, brzęczeć – to buzz (about bugs). The suffix *-ela would indicate the meaning of *bъčela as ‘that which buzzes’.

The name of this bug was initially pczoła in Poland, with the consonant š (sz) eventually inserted. Language strives for economy, also in terms of articulation, hence the consonant group pč- (pcz-) was expanded to pšč- due to the desire to avoid excessive articulatory energy input. This also explains why the spelling of the word pszczoła is an orthographic exception, since there was never any ‘r’ in this word that could become a ‘rz’.

Wasps do not enjoy as good a reputation as their ‘cousins’, the bees. They are not useful from the point of view of humans – they are considered negative, dangerous, unpleasant bugs, in contrast to the hard-working, holy bees. An important feature of wasps, one with which they are usually most associated, is their painful sting. You can also say about someone that they are as evil as a wasp or as sharp as a wasp (zły jak osa and cięty jak osa, respectively]. Due to the gender of this noun in Polish, this term is usually used in relation to women. Only a woman can have a wasp waist – this expression is associated with the characteristic narrowing of the body structure of this bug. Unlike other phraseologisms related to wasps, however, it does not have a negative connotation but is rather a compliment.

The etymology of osa is not related to its ‘character traits’, however. It has Proto-Indo-European roots, and the names of this family in other languages ​​indicate a common origin reconstructed by researchers to Proto-Indo-European *ṷobhsā, osa. Baltic, Romance and Germanic languages ​​have preserved the initial v-, so for example, in Lithuanian, osa is vapsvà; in Latin it is vespa; and in English it is ‘wasp’. As Maciołek writes, in accordance with the law of the open syllable in the Proto-Slavic languages [all syllables had to end in a vowel, ed.], the intra-word consonant group *-bs- was simplified into -s-, hence the Proto-Indo-European *ṷobhsā became the Proto-Slavic *(v)osa, and today in Polish it has the form osa.

Andrzej Bańkowski sees the meaning of the name osa in the verb *webh-, ‘to weave’, which is related to the fact that wasps weave their nests from plant fibres. Wasp nests are a very important place for them, and they defend it fiercely. Maciej Rak cites a regional saying: włożyć kij w gniazdo os (‘to put a stick in a wasps’ nest’, meaning ‘to irritate, to provoke a bad situation’; in general language, this saying is related to ants: włożyć kij w mrowisko, ‘to put a stick in an anthill’).

Dziękuję za cud!

9 stycznia 2026

Jako linguista, najbardziej obawiałem się utraty języka.

Ale,
Dzięki Bogu,
Dzięki szpitalu,
Dzięki służbom ratownictwa medycznego,
Dzięki wam wszystkim z neurologii,

Nawet po udar,
Mogę chodzić
Mogę mówić
Mogę uczyć się więcej języka polskiego!

My Stroke of Luck

I was discharged from the Cardiology Dept. of Wojewódzki Szpital Zespolony w Kielcach on December 19, after 9 days in their care, just in time for plummeting temperatures and fresh snowfall. And also in time for the arrival of our daughter's eagerly awaited visit. After 10 days of recovery at home, we took the train to Krakow, where we spent New Year's Eve (Sylwester) and part of New Year's Day before taking the train back to Kielce. Although I didn't join my wife and our visitors for any sightseeing, I must have strained my heart on the way back home, because I woke up the next morning in the throes of a stroke.

My wife dialed 112 on her Polish phone and soon got a response from an English-speaking dispatcher who sent an ambulance crew to our apartment. Very soon, two sturdy men came in, tested me for stroke symptoms, then got me dressed, tightly grabbed each arm and walked me to the elevator, then out to the ambulance. Acting quickly at the ER, they slathered me with antiseptic povidine-iodine from my thighs to my shoulders to prepare for a mechanical thrombectomy, the optimal treatment for an ischemic stroke if performed within 6 hours. Within 2 hours, the doctors located the clot in the back of my neck, made a small incision in my groin, then threaded catheters through my blood vessels to the clot. A tiny device at the catheter's tip grabbed the clot and removed it, restoring blood flow in my brain.

I woke up in an intake ward with each patient confined to bed and hooked to monitors that went off frequently for the next 24 hours, as did a few of the patients. During next morning rounds, however, my surgeon came by, tested my coordination, and told me (in English) that they had found the clot and removed it, that it was not in a position to cause lasting damage, and that I would be walking by day's end. I nearly cried in relief!

Sure enough, later that day an orderly wheeled me in my bed and with my personal effects locker (szafka) into a small room with private WC that included a shower! I had no trouble getting out of my old bedclothes, taking a long hot shower that scratched my terrible rash from the povidine-iodine antiseptic (which took daily injections to clear up), and changing into new bedclothes before anyone else came by.

My wife arrived with new supplies in time to meet the previous occupant and chat in English with his son. The father told me in Polish that he had stayed there 7 days, and added "Gut schlafen!" On my seventh day, I got to meet the next occupant. He was a workaholic builder with his own laptop and cellphone hotspot (and a hole in his heart). We traded notes in macaronic mixtures of Italian & Romanian, Polish and English. (He had a sister in Switzerland who spoke several more languages.) I also mixed some Romanian and Italian with one of the cleaning ladies (from Tuscany), and exchanged a bit of German with one of the technicians who fitted me with a portable 24-hr EKG one day, and a portable 24-hr BP-monitor a day or two later.

The Neurology Complex of Wojewódzki Szpital Zespolony w Kielcach is highly rated. The bulletin board near the nurses station displayed a certificate awarding it an ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System status for 2019 through 2028. It is no coincidence that Holy Cross Voivodship is demographically the oldest in Poland. One of their sonograph technicians thoroughly explored my carotid arteries on their high-quality equipment and said he found no abnormalities. A senior technician later ultrasonically investigated the left atrium of my heart, which used to host a thrombus in situ. He didn't find anything, so it seems that that thrombus is what broke off, lodged at the base of my neck, and caused my stroke, until it was removed by my surgical team. A miracle!