Płyta Desantu 3 Dywizji Piechoty I Armii WP, Warszawa

This memorial slab beside the Vistula commemorates Polish troops who crossed the river to aid Warsaw insurgents during the uprising. Its stone setting and framed metal tablet preserve the memory of a desperate battle in Czerniaków and Solec.

Before you is Płyta Desantu 3 Dywizji Piechoty I Armii WP, a memorial slab in Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły Park, placed along the park’s principal avenue between the Vistula embankment and Wisłostrada. Its stone plinth supports a bronze tablet, framed by an ornamental band. The restrained shape marks an exceptionally violent episode of the Warsaw Uprising: Polish Army troops crossed the river here in September nineteen forty-four to reinforce the insurgents fighting in the city.

The crossing began before dawn on the sixteenth of September, when roughly sixty soldiers from the Ninth Infantry Regiment came ashore near Wilanowska Street. German fire met them, and further landing waves followed across successive nights. At that moment, the insurgents still controlled only a small enclave of Upper Czerniaków, bounded by nearby streets and the riverbank.

A commemorative tablet appeared here after the war, and the present monument was unveiled in September nineteen fifty-one, designed by Zygmunt Stępiński and Kazimierz Marczewski. The inscription records a grievous toll: two thousand fifty-six Polish and Soviet soldiers and officers died, alongside hundreds of insurgents from Czerniaków and Solec. Let the engraved border hold your attention for a moment: this compact memorial preserves the scale of a river crossing that became a battle of overwhelming odds.