Selected archival and chronicle manuals of the so-called “Anders Army”

Abstract

In the first years of World War II thousands of Poles had been deported to the USSR, and they regained their freedom in the second half of 1941. Many of them joined the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR, commanded by General Władysław Anders, with whom they went the entire combat trail. Along with the process of creating and developing the army, archival service was created. It was meant to overlook creations of the military archives by issuing archival instructions and commissioning chronicle work in departments. One of the first documents regarding such work was the letter of the Chief of Staff of the Command of the Polish Armed Forces of 16th December 1941, regulating the principles of conducting chronicle work in units and the methods of conducting combat surveys regarding fights in September 1939. Two weeks later (on 30th December 1941) in 5th Infantry Division an executive order was issued, along with chronicler’s instructions for division, regiments, and battalions’ chroniclers. Another important document was the letter of General W. Anders of 20th February 1943 concerning the organization of the chronicle-historical and archival work of the Polish Armed Forces in the East, regulating the existence of the archival service and the work carried out by it. This instruction also introduced the obligation to complete war diaries by units taking part in hostilities. The principles of keeping war diaries, introduced in February 1943, were changed, due to their non-compliance, on 20th March 1945, when the Command of the 2nd Polish Corps issued the Instruction for keeping war diaries. To secure the documents and to regulate their transfer from the office to the archives, on 6th April 1945, the HQ of Polish Forces on the Middle East issued an order on the collection and storage of military records and memorabilia.