Poland's role in WW2 is often both misunderstood and underestimated.
The common belief that Poland's military was obliterated in 1939 is popular, but actually quite inaccurate. Poland’s military was severely bloodied, but it was far from finished. At the conclusion of the September 1939 campaign, many Polish soldiers sailors and airmen escaped to continue the fight elsewhere. So great was Her contribution that by war’s end, Poland fielded the fourth largest army of the Allied contingent after the USSR, USA, and Great Britain. A far cry from the myth of the foolhardy Polish cavalrymen charging German tanks!

Another popular belief that Poland’s army as well as Her strategy of defense in September ’39 was antiquated and naive, is an unfair assessment. Poland’s army in those days was somewhat out-dated by German or French standards, being more akin to a WW1 force in some circumstances, but was going through a period of aggressive modernization which was a slow and painstaking process for a country with a nearly purely agricultural-based economy. In many instances Polish-designed equipment was equal to, or even superior to it’s German equivalent. There were anti-tank rifles which played hell with German armor, mortars, excellent 7TP tanks. None however, present in sufficient numbers at the time to make any difference.

The Polish strategy to defend it’s borders in a long seemingly over-extended line was not a decision based on military ineptness, but rather a decision based on the forlorn hope that Britain and France would honor their pact to come to Poland’s aide if attacked by Germany. Poland made the choice early to defend Her territory at it’s furthest Western borders in order to buy the most time possible in order to give Britain and France sufficient time to mobilize and attack Germany. As the lines were pushed back as the Poles had fully expected, the defense would have become more concentrated and the Germans would be slowed. An attack launched from the West by France and Britain would have potentially forced the Germans to either ease pressure on the Poles, or recall the invasion altogether. After the years of bogged down trench warfare of WW1, no one expected Blitzkreig. Neither did anyone but the German high command expect a treacherous back-door invasion by the Soviet Union.

Polish soldiers can arguably be called the most effective soldiers that the Allies had to offer; they truly distinguished themselves at such places as Monte Cassino, Falaise, Arnhem the skies above Britain, and even Berlin.
There is scarcely a major battle anywhere in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, or North Africa that Poles did not take part in.