There were many freed Polish Gulag prisoners who did not reach General Anders's army in time to join its evacuation to Iran and the Middle East in 1942. Those ex-prisoner of war soldiers left behind in the Soviet Union, together with conscripts incorporated into the army when the Soviets reached Polish territories, were formed sequentially into the 1ST, 2ND, and 3RD Polish armies. These armies fell under the command of a handful of Polish officers who agreed to cooperate with the Soviets. Unable to resurrect the fifteen thousand Polish officers they had murdered, the Soviets added Soviet Russian officers to the Polish Army who often could only speak a few words of Polish. The overall command was Soviet. The Soviets made token attempts to draw upon Polish military tradition, whenever it did not collide with their own interests. For example, the Polish army in the Soviet Union had military chaplains - something completely unheard of in the Soviet army.
From October 12 to 14, 1943, the First Polish Infantry Division made an assault on Lenino near Smolensk and sustained twenty-five percent losses. Later, the First Polish Army fought in central Poland and along the Baltic coast. The Second Polish Army fought in Czechoslovakia, and the 1ST Kosciuszko Infantry Division fought in Berlin around the Reich Chancellery and the Reichstag. At this stage of the war, the Polish role in the Soviet drive westward was fairly substantial, contributing 200,000 troops; this was approximately ten percent of the force taking part in Zhukov's and Koniev's drive on Berlin, not counting Polish auxiliary units located behind the front in Poland and eastern Germany.
