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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Search Search: Sign InNew User? Sign Up News Home - Help Navigation Primary Navigation Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Secondary Navigation Asia Pacific World Search Search: World War II: Where did combat start? AFP - Tuesday, August 18 WIELUN, Poland (AFP) - - World War II began when a German battleship shelled a Polish base on the Baltic coast on September 1, 1939. Right? ADVERTISEMENT Wrong, say residents of Wielun, who want the southern Polish town to win global recognition, albeit 70 years late. On the road into this community of 24,000, a "Welcome to Wielun" sign looms large. Three numbers stick out: "4:40". That was the time the Luftwaffe bombs rained down, five minutes before the battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire at a Polish garrison in Danzig (modern-day Gdansk), triggering six years of warfare around the world. "We want people to remember that the barbarity started here," Mieczyslaw Majcher, Wielun's 53-year-old mayor, told AFP. "But we have the impression people ask: 'What's Wielun?'" Eugeniusz Kolodziejczyk, 82, knows only too well. "I remember standing right by this tree. That's when I saw the planes coming in," he said, gesturing skywards to a flight-path branded into his memory. He was at the station seeing off his father, who had been called up by the army as war clouds gathered. "I can still see it clearly. I shouted to him: 'I can hear a loud noise! I can see planes!' Then the bombs started falling," said Kolodziejczyk, one of 42 remaining eyewitnesses. "They fell on the hospital, the synagogue, the church, the houses. I remember the rubble. The whole place was on fire, stinging our throats. It was like fog, you couldn't see more than five or ten metres (yards). "I'll never forget it until the end of my days. We didn't stand a chance." Further raids hit around 7:00 am, 10:00 am and 2:00 pm. Three-quarters of Wielun was destroyed. Around 1,200 of its 15,000 inhabitants were killed and many more were injured. Half of the dead were Jews, who made up around a third of the population and mostly lived in the centre. Unlike Wielun, Danzig is iconic for Poles. There, 180 soldiers at the small base on the Westerplatte peninsula held out for seven days against 3,500 Germans. "It's not a contest with Westerplatte. They were two different things. Westerplatte was the first battle, but Wielun was the first attack on defenceless civilians," said Majcher. Wielun has inched back into view in recent years. In 2004, Aleksander Kwasniewski was the first Polish president to hold a September 1 commemoration in the town. His successor, Lech Kaczynski, is expected to come this year, after ceremonies with world leaders at Westerplatte. But Wielun's story is still barely known outside Poland. It lay 21 kilometres (13 miles) from the then Polish-German border -- shifted far to the west after the Nazis' defeat in 1945. Other than proximity, however, the reason the Luftwaffe chose it as a target remains unclear. Even Nazi-era sources painted a contradictory picture. Some asserted there were troops in the town -- no Polish evidence backs that -- and others that it was undefended. "There was no military. No industry," said historian Tadeusz Olejnik, 74. "Germany had the most high-tech bombers available, capable of precision attacks. And they didn't hit targets like the railway station, the post office, the town hall, or the bridges." Nazi Germany's doctrine of "Blitzkrieg" -- lightning war -- involved hammer blows by the Luftwaffe and thrusts by motorised land forces. "Blitzkrieg wasn't just about fighting. It had a strong psychological element, aiming to sow panic and chaos on the roads when refugees fled," said Olejnik. The squadron that attacked Wielun included veterans of the notorious Condor Legion which bombed the Basque town of Guernica in 1937 during the Spanish civil war. Olejnik has a theory why Wielun was forgotten. "Even the Polish army communiques of September 1 didn't mention Wielun. It seems the town was so heavily hit that the news couldn't get out. Then that gap fed into official history after the war," he said. The bombing only marked the beginning of Wielun's suffering. When German troops arrived they herded Jews into a ghetto, forced them to clear the rubble, and later sent them to death camps. Non-Jewish Poles were also massacred, or expelled to make way for German colonists. In 1940, Kolodziejczyk was deported to Germany, where he spent the rest of the war as a farm labourer, risking his life by joining a resistance group. The air war was to mark him again. On May 6, 1945 -- two days before Germany surrendered -- he was in a field when three aircraft shot through the sky. "They were British Spitfires, roaming uncontested," he said, recalling the joy he felt that his ordeal was nearly over. Asked if he has ever forgiven, Kolodziejczyk said: "Memory is one thing. Forgiveness is another. But I don't blame innocent Germans for what happened". Email Story IM Story Printable View Blog This Sign in to recommend this article » 0 users recommend Related Articles: Entertainment & Lifestyle Auction hammer to fall on Warhol's Jackson portraitAFP - 1 hour 56 minutes ago Celine Dion pregnant again: reportReuters - 2 hours 3 minutes ago The top 10 singles and albums on iTunesAP - Wednesday, August 19 Bollywood star says he will cut back on US visitsAP - Wednesday, August 19 Emmy continues great year for female music artistsAFP - Wednesday, August 19 Enlarge Photo Eugeniusz Kolodziejczyk, 82, points out details on photos in a museum display in the Polish town of Wielun, explaining the raid by German Luftwaffe planes at the start of World War II. Kolodziejczyk was an eyewitness when the bombing began at 4:40 am on September 1, 1939, five minutes before a German battleship shelled a Polish base at Westerplatte on the Baltic coast. Most Popular – Entertainment Viewed UK UFO sightings spiked when blockbusters released Michael Jackson's 51st birthday to be his burial day: father In death, as in life, Jackson surrounded by wackiness Eternal resting spot next to Marilyn Monroe to be auctioned Millions of salmon fail to turn up in Canada View Complete List » Search: Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Southeast Asia Pte Ltd. (Co. Reg. No. 199700735D). All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy - Terms of Service - Community - Intellectual Property Rights Policy - Help

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