Moscow. The Second Polish Army Corps is recognized by the Allied military commands. It was formed when Stalin was persuaded by Polish General Sikorski, head of the Polish government-in-exile, to free all Polish prisoners in the Gulags to contribute to the Allied war effort. After thousands of kilometers of foot marches and transport by cargo ship across the Caspian Sea, they received training from the British in Iran, before moving first to Palestine and then Egypt, and finally fighting in Italy. Ultimately, they were unable to return to Soviet Poland, and almost all ended up in Great Britain, with some in the United States, Italy, and so on. Sikorski, however, had died a few days earlier, on July 4, 1943, in a plane crash shortly after a stopover in Gibraltar.
