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Siege of Warsaw. Stefan Starzynski, mayor of Warsaw, was a demon in its defense. He rallied civilians to help the soldiery, exhorted Poland's women to fight beside their men, took to the radio to order the city's life. "Go to the slaughter house," he said, "for pigs have arrived. Help the butchers there. Go to the post office and pick up your mail yourselves. The banks are open, so do your banking. All stores must be kept open."
Such details as these sounded ludicrous amid the lethal pandemonium in which the city was living. Flights of Nazi bombers passed over the city every hour and oftener. Sometimes there were as many as 70 of them at once. They dropped 800-lb. demolition charges. Bridges, public buildings, Lazienki Gardens erupted debris.
Correspondence from behind the German lines heightened the outside world's picture of the siege. Wrote one Enrico Altavilla for the Rome Tribuna one of several newsmen taken along by Nazi pilots to see their fun:
"We saw the Vistula [at Warsaw]. Our objective was the great new bridge of nine spans over the river. We flew over it at 600 meters. It was jammed with autos, armored cars, trucks and private vehicles.
"I saw them all standing still and wondered why they did not flee. Then I perceived that in their panic they had created a jam and none could go forward or backward.
"The first bombs missed their objective by a hair's breadth. We turned and could see the bridge already full of smoke. One of the other bombers was more accurate than ours. My pilot bit his lip. He must have felt like a hunter who has missed a fine hare and sees it killed by a hunting comrade.
"The bridge was still standing, but this time our bombs were better aimed. I saw a truck full of soldiers tossed into the air and an armored car fall into the river.
"The arches of the bridge were precipitated into the river one after another, forcing up high columns of water. Some soldiers floundered in the ruins. Others succeeded in reaching the bank. Some in animate figures floated in the current. Such is war."
First Soldier. Also in the air over smoking Poland was Germany's First Soldier, Adolf Hitler. After visiting his armies in the Corridor at Chelmno (north of Toruń), where he inspected Polish prisoners, visited German wounded, he shifted his base to somewhere in Silesia and flew out to view the rich prizes his smooth-running juggernaut had taken: coal mines and steel works. Ahead of him, still bombing and blasting with machine guns (even at open towns) went his wings of death. Captured German pilots said they had orders to shoot or blow down "everything living or standing."
Flight from Warsaw. Most of the Polish Government withdrew from Warsaw in the middle of the week. They went to Naleczów, a suburb of Lublin, and one Cabinet meeting was held there under shade trees. Foreign diplomatic staffs accompanied them, but when the German radio blandly announced their whereabouts, even naming the house in which U. S. Ambassador Biddle was quartered, Government and diplomats fled again, farther east and south.