The '''Emilia Plater Independent Women's Battalion was a unit of the SovietFirst Polish Army during the Second World War. Formed in 1943 it was intended as a front-line combat unit but was relegated mainly to police and sentry duty. It existed until the end of the war in May 1945, whereupon it comprised 500 members.
Formation
The unit was formed on 15 July 1943 as an all-female unit of the Soviet Polish Army. Its personnel were drawn from women deported from Soviet-occupied Poland and communist volunteers. There was no shortage of volunteers from among the internees, many of whom were eager to escape the poor conditions of their imprisonment. This was the first all-female Polish unit and had originally been opposed by the Soviet authorities who only relented when General Anders pointed out the widespread use of women in the Soviet Army. The battalion was named after Emilia Plater, a female Polish leader who had fought against the Russians in the 1830 November Uprising. The individual soldiers were nicknamed the Platerówski. The commanders of the unit were men but its political officers were women.
History
The unit numbered 690 women when it was formed. It originally formed part of the Polish 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division but from 19 August 1943 was transferred to the I Polish Corps. It was intended to be used as a front-line combat unit but issues with training and possibly a reluctance by its commanders to risk large-scale female combat losses meant that it was relegated largely to sentry and military police duty. It also carried out medical and communications duties and provided training to women working elsewhere in the Polish Army. Some women officers of the battalion commanded all-male combat platoons within other formations. At the war's end in May 1945 the battalion comprised around 500 women, with 70 having been killed in service. The only woman ever decorated with the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union who was not a Soviet citizen is Aniela Krzywoń, a member of this unit, after she died of injuries sustained while rescuing important military documents from a burning truck after a Luftwaffe bombing raid. Women veterans of the unit successfully sued Polish journalist and author Henryk Piecuch for slander in the 1990s after he claimed the battalion was organised solely to provide sexual services to male officers.
