motorized cavalry squadrons, one anti-tank battery and one anti-aircraft battery. It was attached to the French 4th Army near Reims and ordered to cover its left flank. However, Maczek's unit was much too weak to achieve success against German armoured divisions. Polish soldiers managed to cover only one retreating French infantry division by attacking German forces in Champaubert-Montgivroux. Later the brigade had to withdraw with the rest of the French troops and joined the French XXIII Corps. On 16 June the brigade attacked by night the town of Montbard over the Burgundy Canal. Maczek's soldiers achieved complete surprise and took many German prisoners. However, by then the brigade was fighting alone, with the French units on both flanks either routed or in retreat. There were no French forces to take advantage of that victory and the decimated Polish unit found itself surrounded and without fuel. On 18 June, Maczek decided to destroy unusable equipment and withdraw on foot. Later that day he had to split the remnants of his brigade into small groups, so they could pass through the enemy lines. Many of Maczek's men, including the general himself, found their way through Vichy France, North Africa and Portugal to the United Kingdom, where a Polish armored unit was recreated, while others joined the Polish and French resistance organizations in France and Belgium. Maczek relocated to London. Scotland Initially, the British high command wanted to use the recreated Polish Army solely for defence of the Scottish coastline between Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and the veterans of the Polish tank formations who arrived to the UK were pressed into the Polish 2nd Rifle Brigade under General Rudolf Orlicz-Dreszer. However, immediately on Maczek's arrival the idea was abandoned and General Władysław Sikorski managed to persuade the British government to create instead a Polish armoured unit. After two years of training at the Blairgowrie training ground, in February 1942 General Maczek formed the 1st Polish Armoured Division. Initially serving in defence of the Scottish coast between Montrose and the Firth of Forth, the division was equipped by the British authorities with Churchill and M4 Sherman tanks in preparation for the Normandy landings. To Germany Towards the end of July 1944 the Polish 1st Armoured Division was transferred to Normandy, where it was to prove its worth during the 1944 invasion of Normandy. Attached to the First Canadian Army, Maczek's men entered combat on 8