Michael Alfred Peszke (19 December 1932 – 17 May 2015) was a Polish-American psychiatrist and historian of the

Polish Armed Forces The Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland ( pl, Siły Zbrojne Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, abbreviated ''SZ RP''; popularly called ''Wojsko Polskie'' in Poland, abbreviated ''WP''—roughly, the "Polish Military") are the national armed forces of ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Life

Peszke was born in Dęblin,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, in 1932. After the outbreak of World War II and the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

and

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week af ...

, Peszke, his mother Eugenia Halina Grębocka Peszke, and his father Alfred Bartłomiej Peszke evacuated to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

and

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

. After attending school in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, Michael Alfred Peszke studied at

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

Dublin University The University of Dublin ( ga, Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately designated the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a university located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Du ...

, and the Dublin University School of Medicine, where he received his medical degree. From 1956 to 1960 he performed a psychiatric residency in

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

and

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, and in 1963 obtained his

board certification Board certification is the process by which a physician or other professional demonstrates a mastery of advanced knowledge and skills through written, practical, or simulator-based testing. Certification bodies There are more than 25 boards that ...

. Until his retirement in 1999, he combined clinical work with research, teaching, and administrative duties, chiefly on the

East Coast of the United States The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, the Atlantic Coast, and the Atlantic Seaboard, is the coastline along which the Eastern United States meets the North Atlantic Ocean. The eastern seaboard contains the coa ...

. Peszke died at his home in

Wakefield, Rhode Island Wakefield is a village in the town of South Kingstown, Rhode Island, United States, and the commercial center of South Kingstown. Together with the village of Peace Dale, it is treated by the U.S. Census as a component of the census-designated ...

, on 17 May 2015. Peszke was

professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

of the

University of Connecticut School of Medicine The University of Connecticut School of Medicine is a medical school located in Farmington, Connecticut. It was founded in 1961, enrolled students in 1968, and graduated its first class in 1972. The school is part of UConn Health, along with th ...

, Member Emeritus of the

American College of Psychiatrists The American College of Psychiatrists is an American association of psychiatrists based in Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates ...

, and Distinguished Life Fellow of the

American Psychiatric Association The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the largest psychiatric organization in the world. It has more than 37,000 members are invo ...

. He was a member of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America.

History

Through his father, a

Polish Air Force The Polish Air Force ( pl, Siły Powietrzne, , Air Forces) is the aerial warfare branch of the Polish Armed Forces. Until July 2004 it was officially known as ''Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej'' (). In 2014 it consisted of roughly 16,425 mi ...

officer who in 1944 had become head of Air Force planning as part of the Staff of the Polish Commander-in-Chief in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, Peszke the son had developed an interest in the history of

policy and collaboration with the Allies. This led him to combine his psychiatric vocation with a historical

avocation An avocation is an activity that someone engages in as a hobby outside their main occupation. There are many examples of people whose professions were the ways that they made their livings, but for whom their activities outside their workplaces ...

. Beginning in 1973, he published numerous papers and studies in English and Polish on diverse aspects of the Polish Armed Forces, particularly in the west, during

. Chief among these, are four books: * ''Battle for Warsaw, 1939-1944'', Boulder, Colorado, East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1995, 325 pp., . A study of the military and diplomatic efforts of the

Polish Government in Exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...

and Britain to restore

's sovereignty. The endeavor ended in tragedy when the Polish

Home Army The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) es ...

launched the

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led ...

(August–October 1944) against the occupying German forces, the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

denied landing rights on Soviet-controlled territory to the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

, the U.S. Army Air Corps, and the

headquartered in Britain, and the western Allies—fearing to offend the Soviets—declined to pressure

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...

to assist the Polish insurgents or at least grant landing rights. The

Polish Parachute Brigade The 1st (Polish) Independent Parachute Brigade was a parachute infantry brigade of the Polish Armed Forces in the West under the command of Major General Stanisław Sosabowski, created in September 1941 during the Second World War and based in ...

, which had been formed expressly to aid a prospective uprising in Poland, was—against Polish government and military objections—highjacked for British Field Marshal

Bernard Law Montgomery Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, (; 17 November 1887 – 24 March 1976), nicknamed "Monty", was a senior British Army officer who served in the First World War, the Irish War of Independence and th ...

's disastrous

Operation Market Garden Operation Market Garden was an Allied military operation during the Second World War fought in the Netherlands from 17 to 27 September 1944. Its objective was to create a salient into German territory with a bridgehead over the River Rhine, ...

of ''A Bridge Too Far'' infamy just as the

was running ''its'' disastrous course. * ''Poland's Navy, 1918-1945'', New York, Hippocrene Books, 1999, 222 pp., . A history, unique in the English language, of the Polish Navy before and during World War II, containing entirely original sections on the Polish

felucca A felucca ( ar, فلوكة, falawaka, possibly originally from Greek , ) is a traditional wooden sailing boat used in the eastern Mediterranean—including around Malta and Tunisia—in Egypt and Sudan (particularly along the Nile and in protect ...

s and Polish

naval aviation Naval aviation is the application of military air power by navies, whether from warships that embark aircraft, or land bases. Naval aviation is typically projected to a position nearer the target by way of an aircraft carrier. Carrier-based ...

. * ''The Polish Underground Army, the Western Allies, and the Failure of Strategic Unity in World War II'', foreword by Piotr S. Wandycz, Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland & Company, 2005, 244 pp., . A ground-breaking, densely documented study of Polish military staff efforts in World War II, with special reference to

's relations with her allies. * ''The Armed Forces of Poland in the West, 1939–46: Strategic Concepts, Planning, Limited Success but No Victory!'',

Solihull Solihull (, or ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in West Midlands County, England. The town had a population of 126,577 at the 2021 Census. Solihull is situated on the River Blyth ...

, Helion, 2013, . * ''Polskie siły zbrojne na Zachodzie, 1939–1946: Koncepcje strategiczne i realia geopolityki'' (The Polish Armed Forces in the West, 1939–1946: Strategic Concepts and Geopolitical Realities), translated by Tomasz Fiedorek,

Poznań Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint Joh ...

, Dom Wydawniczy Rebis, 2014, . (This is a Polish-language edition of Peszke's 2013 book.) Peszke's writings were characterized by a clarity and succinctness that may perhaps owe something to his training in medical diagnostics. In addition to documenting Poland's contributions to the Allied military effort in World War II—one of which, decryption of German Enigma machine

cipher In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode ...

s, was acknowledged by

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

as having been critical to the outcome of the war—Peszke's historical writings show particular strength in regard to the delicate wartime politics and diplomacy of a country tragically trapped between the aggressive

imperialism Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic powe ...

s of western and eastern Europe, a country betrayed by her own wartime European and American allies.

Christopher Kasparek Christopher Kasparek (born 1945) is a Scottish-born writer of Polish descent who has translated works by numerous authors, including Ignacy Krasicki, Bolesław Prus, Florian Znaniecki, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Marian Rejewski, and Władysław ...

, review of Michael Alfred Peszke, ''The Polish Underground Army, the Western Allies, and the Failure of Strategic Unity in World War II'', in ''

The Polish Review ''The Polish Review'' is an English-language academic journal published quarterly in New York City by the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America. ''The Polish Review'' was established in 1956. Editors-in-chief The following persons hav ...

'', vol. L, no. 2, 2005, pp. 237–41.

Bibliography

* ''Battle for Warsaw, 1939-1944'', Boulder, Colorado, East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1995, 325 pp., . * ''Poland's Navy, 1918-1945'', New York, Hippocrene Books, 1999, 222 pp., . * ''The Polish Underground Army, the Western Allies, and the Failure of Strategic Unity in World War II'', foreword by Piotr S. Wandycz, Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland & Company, 2005, 244 pp., . * "The Demise of the Polish Armed Forces in the West, 1945–1947," ''

'', vol. LV, no. 2, 2010, pp. 231–39. * Review of Arkady Fiedler, ''303 Squadron: The Legendary Battle of Britain Squadron'', translated by Jarek Garliński, Los Angeles, Aquila Polonica, 2010, , in ''

'', vol. LV, no. 4, 2010, pp. 467–68. * Michael Alfred Peszke, "The British-Polish Agreement of August 1940: Its Antecedents, Significance and Consequences," ''

Journal of Slavic Military Studies ''The Journal of Slavic Military Studies'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes articles relating to military affairs of Central and Eastern European Slavic nations, including their history and geopolitics, as well as book ...

'' (print: ; online: ),

Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in England that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, Routledge, F1000 (publisher), F1000 Research or Dovepress. It is a division of Informa ...

, no. 24, 2011, pp. 648–58. * ''The Armed Forces of Poland in the West, 1939–46: Strategic Concepts, Planning, Limited Success but No Victory!'', Helion Studies in Military History, no. 13,

, England, Helion & Company, Ltd, 2013, .

Notes

References

*"Peszke, Michael Alfred," ''Who's Who in Polish America'', 1st edition, 1996–1997, New York, Bicentennial Publishing Corp., 1996, , p. 352. *"Peszke, Michael," ''Directory fPIASA Members, 1999'', New York City,

The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

, 1999, pp. 43, 109, 119. *"Peszke, Alfred Bartłomiej," ''

Polski słownik biograficzny ''Polski Słownik Biograficzny'' (''PSB''; Polish Biographical Dictionary) is a Polish-language biographical dictionary, comprising an alphabetically arranged compilation of authoritative biographies of some 25,000 notable Poles and of foreigners ...

'' (Polish Biographical Dictionary), vol. XXV, Wrocław, Polska Akademia Nauk (

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences ( pl, Polska Akademia Nauk, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society o ...

), 1980, pp. 660–61. *

, review of Michael Alfred Peszke, ''The Polish Underground Army, the Western Allies, and the Failure of Strategic Unity in World War II'', in ''

'', vol. L, no. 2, 2005, pp. 237–41. *Jolanta W. Best, review of Michael Alfred Peszke, ''The Polish Underground Army, the Western Allies, and the Failure of Strategic Unity in World War II'', in '' The Sarmatian Review'', vol. XXVI, no. 2 (April 2006).

External links