Kock: Kleeberg’s Last Order

On 5 October 1939, near Kock, General Franciszek Kleeberg decided to surrender the Independent Operational Group Polesie. The decision came late in the afternoon, after four days of fighting against German forces. Polesie had been the last organized regular unit of the Polish Army still in the field. Its capitulation closed the September Campaign’s final major battle, though the fighting did not stop at the moment Kleeberg made his decision.

Kleeberg had not arrived at Kock by a direct route. After the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September, he had first moved toward the Romanian border. Cut off from his superiors, he decided on 22 September to aid Warsaw. When Warsaw capitulated on 28 September, he changed course again. He marched west, aiming for Dęblin and its military supply stores, then for the Świętokrzyskie Mountains. The plan depended on supplies Polesie did not have in sufficient quantity.

From 2 to 5 October, the group fought the German 13th Motorised Infantry Division and 29th Motorised Infantry Division around Kock, Serokomla, Adamów, Krzywda and Wola Gułowska. Polish troops pushed German forces from positions in the area and won several tactical successes. But ammunition was running low. Kleeberg could not turn those local gains into a route forward, and the group had no prospect of replenishing its stores. Negotiations over surrender followed.

The agreement did not end the battle immediately. Fighting continued into the early hours of 6 October. German forces took Kleeberg and his soldiers prisoner. The surrender marked the end of the last organized regular resistance by a Polish field force in the campaign. It did not mean that every soldier in Polesie gave himself up: some dispersed and continued guerrilla warfare. But Kleeberg’s command had ended its organized fight, not after being driven from every position, but after its ammunition shortage made further resistance untenable.