The Operation Arsenal is one of the most famous clashes of the Polish underground. It involved the scouts of the Grey Ranks Assault Group, an underground organisation of the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association (ZHP). Described in Aleksander Kamiński’s Stones for the Rampart book, the action remains in the memory of Poles to this day.

In March 1943, Henryk Ostrowski a.k.a “Heniek”, commander of the “Praga” Group of the Warsaw Assault Squads, was arrested. A search of his flat gave the Germans a lead to Jan Bytnar a.k.a. “Rudy”, the highly respected commander of the “South” battalion. Bytnar was arrested on 23 March 1943 and subjected to brutal torture. News of the arrest spread among the scouts. Already on the day of his arrest, Tadeusz Zawadzki a.k.a. “Zośka” assembled a group whose task was to rescue the transported underground soldier. However, the action, which was given the code name “Mexico I”, did not work out. The command’s consent was lacking.

Soldiers of the Grey Regiments decided to prepare another ambush with “Zośka” responsible for devising the plan. Twenty-nine young soldiers were involved in the action, in addition to organising the staff of a sanitary post that was to take care of “Rudy” and the potentially wounded. An informer was also engaged to report on the moment of departure.

The action “Mexico II” took place on 26 March 1943. Stanisław Broniewski a.k.a. “Orsza”, then commander of the Warsaw Scouts’ Group, was appointed as commander of the action. It began at 5:30 p.m., a moment after the first shots were fired by “Zoska” wounding a policeman reaching for a gun. The two escorts sitting under the canvas opened fire; in the meantime, the car with the disabled chauffeur’s crew managed to stop near the Arsenal. “Zoska” ran up to the prisoner with his comrades. During the exchange of fire, both escorts were killed, and accidentally one of the transported female prisoners was also killed. Twenty-one people were freed, most of whom escaped from the site. The wounded were evacuated in cars. During the withdrawal, skirmishes were fought with individual Germans and troops from a passing truck and from the Labour Office. During these encounters, “Alek” proved his skills, stopping the enemy twice with accurately thrown grenades. He was then seriously wounded.

The action was successful, but both the rescued “Rudy” and “Alek” died of wounds, in addition “Hubert” was caught, beaten and killed after the action by Germans, and 3 other Poles were wounded.