The Silent Invisible Villa Audriend, the cradle of agents parachuted into German occupied Poland

In this issue, we introduce the protagonistsJan Pivnik is one of the 316 trained Polish soldiers sent to Poland by the British SOE Division, and today we will briefly introduce their training grounds.

During World War II, Audriend's Villa, near Suffrenwalden in Essex, was used by the Polish division of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to train Polish special forces (known as "silent unseen", elite paratroopers trained in covert operations, sabotage, and intelligence gathering).

Between 1941 and 1945, 316 "silent unseen" were airdropped into German-occupied Poland. Of these brave men and women, 103 were killed in battles with the Germans or executed by the Gestapo. After the war, the Polish Communist Party purged nine more people.

After the death of Henry Neville, the 7th Baron of Breebrook, in March 1941, the family's villa, Audreyend, was requisitioned by the British Ministry of Works and converted to military use. (Note: The 8th Baron Braybrooke was a lieutenant in the Guards Grenadier Regiment who died on January 23, 1943 while serving in Tunisia).

The Poles get off at the front door of Audriend's villa.

Initially, the house was occupied by local British Army units, but in October of the same year, the Special Operations Executive Directorate (SOE), a secret organization run by the British to conduct espionage and sabotage, began using the site as a packing station for cans loaded with supplies airdropped to them ** and resistance groups behind enemy lines.

Polish officers and soldiers in Britain in 1940.

It was not until around April 1942 that the Poles arrived in Audriende from Briggens, Hertfordshire, to establish their main training base, Base 43.

Between 1943 and 1944, soldiers of the 1st Separate Paratrooper Brigade of the Polish Armed Forces conducted exercises in western England.

At any one time, though, there will only be about 60 to 80 students at Villa Audreyend. During the war, a total of 2,613 Polish Army soldiers volunteered for special operations training, but only 606 completed the rigorous training course, of which 527 were completed at Audriend's Villa.

The majority of the military personnel trained at Base 43 are officers. But both the Polish and British sides expected that when these officers parachuted into Poland, they would take up leadership positions in the Polish Zu** (Armia Krajowa), leading the troops in an underground war against the Germans occupying Poland. Normally, SOE's ** would receive orders from London to carry out reconnaissance and sabotage missions, but once parachuted into Poland, these "silent unseen" ("silent **") were ordered by the command of the ancestral ** homeland army.

When the "silent unseen" ("silent **") was in Audriend, there was always a British commander and a Polish commander. A team of British soldiers was responsible for the administration and guarding the house and the training grounds. British soldiers would sleep above the nursery suite or service area. They treated the big nursery as an orderly room, and the shadow of the map that used to hang on the wall was still clearly visible until the room was renovated in 2014.

Before the arrival of the Poles in Audrian, all the paintings and furniture that originally belonged to the house were stored in the state rooms, chapels and galleries on the first floor, while the fine interiors were covered with wooden planks to protect them.

Poles enjoying a festive dinner in the hall of Villa Audrian, on the left is Polish ** Wadi Wackiewicz Ratskiewicz, whose portrait hangs above him. On the other side of the Polish White Eagle hangs a portrait of Polish Prime Minister Władysław Sikorski.

The annex on the ground floor of the villa is an orderly room. The hall was used as a lecture room and dining room for officers;The museum room, butler's pantry, and butler's bedroom are all dining rooms. Firearms and ammunition are stored in cellars and ammunition rooms. The British commander took over the red bedroom suite on the first floor.

This villa is quite beautiful.

The bedroom in the north wing on the first floor was used by Polish officers. Lectures, language training and other courses are held on the second floor. One of the rooms was used to make the documents needed for "silent unseen" ("silent unseen") in Poland. Polish clothing for camouflage Military uniforms are tailor-made in a room in the North Tower, where the light conditions are best in winter. Most of the Polish instructors and cadets also slept on the second floor of the villa.

Base 43 was used by the SOE as a base for combat training, the detention of prisoners of war, enemy spies, and the dispatch of ** - it effectively became a refined school for special forces soldiers. Polish volunteers arriving in Scotland after passing paramilitary and fitness courses in Scotland and completing their skydiving training in Lynway, Cheshire. They would have been trained in Audreyend, behind enemy lines, in underground work and in briefing or dispatch.

Fighting behind enemy lines, the course of underground work includes specialized training in sabotage, the use of field tools, reconnaissance and photomicrography, and wireless operations. The briefing course is the final stage of the soldiers' training before they are sent out to the battlefield. They would be informed of the current situation in Poland, and their superiors would ask them to fabricate pseudonyms and false identities, as well as obtain clothes and false documents. The briefing session will last 4 to 6 weeks, during which time they will need to enter their identity.

Poles trained in wireless communication in the eastern garden of the villa.

The instructors at the base, almost all of whom were Polish, designed the course themselves with the support of the ** command of the SOE. Among them, Captain Alan Mack, codenamed Alma, was in charge of physical and shooting training;Captain Anthony Postpizarsky (Tony Currie), codenamed Luk, was in charge of radio communications and German language training.

That challenging rope that crosses the Cam River.

To keep the cadets healthy, Alan Mack set up an assault training ground in the woods northwest of the house, which included a challenging rope to cross the Cam River. There is also melee training and range training in the woods. Since activities such as wireless operations and field work are more likely to attract attention, these events are usually held in the Eastern Garden, which is away from the main road.

Captain Alfons Ma Kowiak (later known as Alan Mack) was Audreyend's coach for physical fitness, shooting, and hand-to-hand combat. He was an experienced soldier who served as an artillery officer in the Polish army in the early days of the war. He was captured by the Soviets and then the Germans, but both times escaped with his skill, wit and sheer luck.

Makoviak eventually came to England from the unoccupied areas of France and joined the Polish army formed there. In 1942, he volunteered for the "silent unseen" ("silent ** one"), but because of his combat experience, he was placed in a training position rather than on the front line.

In an interview in 2011, he said.

I teach [these people] to kill silently: shoot with different left-hand rifles and machine guns. Soldiers had to practice shooting at moving targets in the dark. I set up six or seven mechanical targets on the site and controlled them electronically. Men have to be very strong, both physically and psychologically. We are not afraid. We're just killers - everyone wants to kill XTL.

He also coached the Oxford University Sports Club for 25 years. He died in 2017 at the age of 100, had a military funeral in Warsaw, and was posthumously ordained brigadier general by Polish **Andrzej Duda.

Despite the hard training, the Poles who received training here had time for recreation to keep their morale up. The room that originally belonged to the villa's butler was transformed into a recreation room with comfortable chairs, while the 19th-century dining room was used as a billiards room. The Poles used it during the day, and the British soldiers used it at night.

They started playing football, volleyball and tennis on the grass behind the house. The archive** also shows their athletic activities in the Western Gardens, including unicycle races and other forms of athletics.

The trainees were not allowed to leave the base, but the Polish instructors socialized with their British counterparts in Saffren Walden after work, visited the troop club on King Street, as well as local bars and cafes. Officers usually frequented the Rose Crown Hotel, while other non-commissioned officers were able to spend their leisure time at the Cross Key Hotel.

Locals know very little about what happened in Audriande, although some must have noticed the occasional ** and light ** shooting in the villa's garden and a night drill by men in camouflage uniforms on a neighboring field.

Today, only a fraction of the evidence from the period of Base 43 remains. For example, there are a few lines of graffiti in the hallway, there are torn labels in the cellar showing where guns and ammunition are stored, and there are remnants of a timetable in front of the nursery on the second floor. Nails on the walls of some of the bedrooms on the second floor show that the Poles hung ** or maps in these places to remind them that their homeland was still waiting for them to be liberated. As for the evidence elsewhere, it seems that it was cleared or erased after the war.

A torn label in the hallway next to the cellar, where the ** for their training is stored.

On the ground, today we can still see that the insulator on the perimeter of the ** line is still fixed to the trunk on the left side of the stable bridge. The bridge inside the site was used to practice minelaying, so much so that in 1976 they also found some ammunition and ** when they drained the Kamm River. The management also keeps a piece of rope that the Poles used for obstacle courses on the Kam River. 。

Although the "silent unseen" have left few traces in Audriend, their presence is documented in a series of fine archives of the Polish Underground Movement Research Trust, leaving traces for posterity. These works are a true recreation of Audriander's war years and bear witness to the rigorous training that took place there.

In December 1944, the training of Polish special forces soldiers was transferred to liberated southern Italy, and the mission of Base 43 ended. A year later, the house was handed back to the ninth Lord of Breebrook. In 1948, National Lands purchased Audley End for £30,000 and opened it to the public as a tourist attraction.

In the summer of 1983, a memorial urn was set up in the western garden of the villa in memory of the 112 Polish paratroopers who lost their lives in the war and its aftermath. The unveiling ceremony was attended by Polish Prime Minister in exile Kazimierz Sabat and then British Defence Secretary Michael Hesseltine.

Every year on November 11 (World War I Armistice Day and Polish Independence Day), Audriend's staff stop work and gather in front of the monument for a brief moment of silence to ensure that the dedication and bravery of the "silent unseen" are not forgotten.

Today, Villa Audriende is no longer a training ground for Polish soldiers who went into exile and tried to return to their homeland to liberate their homeland, but it is still a place of pilgrimage for many Poles because of its important role in resisting the German occupation of Poland and establishing the modern Polish state. In recent years, the site has welcomed visits from Polish schoolchildren, Scout groups, and the descendants of many people who worked or trained here during the war.

February 2021 marks the 80th anniversary of the first mission of "silent unseen" into occupied Poland.

The 80th anniversary of the first mission of the silent unseen is an important date in the history of Poland, the Polish special operations forces, and Polish-British relations. On the night of February 15-16, 1941, the first Polish Army paratroopers (all volunteers) were airdropped into occupied Poland, the first of its kind in the rear of the German front, giving a glimmer of hope to the besieged homeland. Future.

With the skills accumulated in places such as Audliend, the seat of the Polish department of the Special Operations Executive Directorate, the "silent unseen" ("silent unseen") landed under the cover of night to support the fight against the enemy, becoming the pride of the Republic of Poland. Their brave and heroic service inspired Grom, one of Poland's premier special forces, to adopt their name and continue their legacy. Let their names and sacrifices never be forgotten. Thank you to everyone who makes Chico Chemney's memory still fresh in his mind.