The Polish Invention That Changed WW2

[Music] most people are aware that poland was a major contributor to ultimate allied victory in world war ii thousands of poles escaped when the germans overran and occupied their country and they formed themselves into highly effective military units attached to british forces polish pilots flying in the raf in 1940 made a huge though often overlooked contribution to victory in the battle of britain shooting down an astonishing 18 percent of all german planes downed over the uk polish soldiers fought valiantly in the north african campaign and it was polish soldiers that finally captured monte casino in italy after a six-month battle in 1944. in the battle of normandy in 1944 poland fielded an entire armored division in total the polish armed forces in the west consisted of 249 000 men and women of whom just over 10 percent were killed in action but have you considered that polish inventions dramatically chained course of world war ii the polish created some very important devices that are very familiar to us today but i doubt are thought of as being of polish origin in this video we look at one such invention that changed the course of world war ii there were three weapons on the world war ii battlefield that caused the greatest number of casualties amongst both soldiers and civilians the first was artillery deadly to infantry caught out in the open or in forget machine guns and rifles artillery fire was the deadliest weapon that the world war ii soldier had to contend with on all fronts a close second was the mortar the handy portable device that was used to support attacks or to bombard enemy positions and assaults [Music] combined together artillery and mortar fire accounted for the majority of casualties both killed and wounded in world war ii the figures speak for themselves the united states recorded that 53 percent of troops listed as wounded in action were the victims of artillery or mortar fire while four died of wounds casualties 62 percent were by shell or mortar fragments overall the us army recorded that 55 percent of its world war ii casualties were down to artillery and mortar fire but there was a third weapon that was both incredibly dangerous and ubiquitous to all world war ii battlefields that accounted for huge numbers of military and civilian casualties the landmine they came in many types and sizes from anti-personnel to anti-tank and were laid in tens of millions the biggest problem particularly for the advancing allies was in locating buried mines and safely diffusing them in the early stages of the war all mines were made of metal the only way to safely clear paths to enemy minefields was by the slow and laborious prodding of the ground with a bayonet or a metal rod then each mine would be carefully excavated by hand and then diffused the problem with this method was that mines were often missed resulting in casualties a machine was needed that could detect mines more quickly and with less margin for error and for such a device we have a polish army officer to thank his invention being one of world war ii's game changers the man who came up with the first practical mind detector was polish technician lieutenant joseph kosaki of the artillery branch the ministry of national defense in warsaw he secretly worked on developing electronic devices for the polish army before the german invasion in 1939. he escaped to britain where in 1941 he completed work on the portable mine detector kosaki's detector was brilliantly simple but effective it had two coils one being connected to an oscillator which generated an oscillating current of an acoustic frequency the second coil was connected to an amplifier and to a set of headphones worn by the machine's operator when the coils pass close to a buried metal object the balance between the coils was disturbed and a sound would appear in the headphones a brilliantly simple design it weighed only 30 pounds or 14 kilograms so it could be operated by a single soldier lieutenant kosaki next did an incredible thing the design could have made him very rich but he did not patent it and donated the detector to the british army for free which set about mass producing it the effect of kosaki's invention was felt almost immediately 500 polish mine detectors were used by the british eighth army the battle of el alamein in the north african desert massively speeding up the allied advance and saving a lot of soldiers from death or injury kosaki's design was hardly changed for decades and remained in british service until 1995. during the war the british used some 100 000 on all fronts and the device was also copied and manufactured by the us however the germans were not idle when they realized the allies were using metal detectors to find their minds they set about creating undetectable minds using non-magnetic materials such as wood glass and clay the most deadly and common was the shoe mine 42 with this simple little wooden box looks harmless enough doesn't it but it's just as deadly as the larger metal mine a detonator is placed through a hole in the front in the firing pin set the lid is then partially closed but prevented from closing entirely by a small twig placed under the edge when this twig is disturbed the lid falls knocking out the pin this is sure one little package that should be clearly marked handled with care nonetheless the polish mine detector remained a vital piece of allied kit as many german mines were still metal particularly anti-tank devices like the large telemine the allies went further still developing two more methods of disposing of mines quickly meanwhile at mail reoccupied by british forces in southeastern holland on 16th november the mine menace is met with a new detector it's a tube about six feet long through which is forced compressed air the effect is to blow away the earth covering to reveal the buried mines many wooden box mines and teller mines are found pool wires are fixed around the uncovered mines which are removed by sappers of a scottish division teller mines are placed in a crater in an open field where they will be exploded by gilignite the mines are set off 10 to 20 at a time the second method was the flail tank a tank with a rotating drum fitted with long chains that flayed the ground causing the mines to detonate anti-mine tanks clear a path along the western front the players detonate the mines [Music] however in both cases the area still had to be swept with polish mine detectors to ensure all mines had indeed been found josef kosaki received a personal letter of thanks from king george vi of great britain became a professor and passed away in 1990 thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also visit my audiobook channel war stories with mark felton you can also help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below you

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 480,283

Keywords: Mark Felton, Land Mine, Jozef Kosacki, Poland

Id: sy5_Ps3VyXI

Length: 9min 43sec (583 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 23 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/mud_tug]

No country in history got shafted as bad as Poland in WWII.