This is the 30th instalment of #deanehistory

My grandfather was a glider pilot at Arnhem, so I have always taken an interest in paratroopers. But the first Allied parachute drop in enemy territory wasn’t by British troops.

The Cichociemni (chick-a-chem-ney) were Polish paratroopers. Cichociemni means “the silent and unseen.” They trained in exile at Audley End, a beautiful stately home in Essex perhaps best known to you because a nearby railway station is named after it.

Our heroes generally trained in secret in Audley End’s grounds, but one foray further afield involved doing a mock raid on the train station. Spare them a thought the next time you pass through it on the way to Cambridge.

They also did a fullblown attack exercise on the local post office, no doubt a treat for Mrs Goggins. Night manoeuvres led to punch-ups with both Essex police & Home Guard units, presumably surprised by these lads charging around their patch. Joined up bureaucracy fails again.

Their first drop was a raid behind enemy lines in their beloved homeland on 15-16 February 1941. They delivered funds & materiel to the resistance, became officers in the Polish Secret Army, & taught guerrilla warfare techniques they’d learned.

They also conveyed agents to be embedded in the underground movement.

The 80th anniversary of the drop was yesterday, and @ITVAnglia did them proud in a special report you can find online.

The Cichociemni were all volunteers. Britain is proud to have trained them in covert operations, cryptography, intelligence-gathering, sabotage & queueing. 316 Cichociemni were dropped into occupied Poland; 103 died in combat or were executed after being captured by the Germans.

18 more died in action in the Warsaw Uprising.

Raids stopped in 1944 after most of Poland was occupied by the Red Army. A grim sign of their country's future: in addition to those killed by Nazis, 9 further Cichociemni were executed after the war by the Polish communist regime.

Arkady Rzegocki, the Polish Ambassador to the UK, said the Chicochemni’s first mission offered a “glimmer of hope to the besieged homeland that help was coming.”

527 Poles completed their special training at Audley End House. Heroes all. Did you know that this sedate spot in Essex was (in the words of English Heritage) “the spiritual home of wartime resistance” for the Poles?

You do now.