Quoting: celinski
Jan Zielonka, lecturer in European politics at Oxford University, says: "Historically, Polish contribution to the war has never been sufficiently acknowledged. Poland provided the fourth largest Allied army in the war yet they were excluded from marching in the celebration because Stalin wanted it so."
Jan should stick to politics and not try to dabble in history.
The Polish army was far from the fourth largest Allied army. In the west were some 228,000 service men (of which 89,300 had previously been members of the German army
http://www.angelfire.com/ok2/polisharmy/chapter1.html). In the east were officially 396,102 Poles (http://www.angelfire.com/ok2/polisharmy/chapter1.html) but 40% of the 100,000 officers and NCOs were non-Polish Red Army (http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=ISBN0850454174&id=AAdYFeW2 fnoC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=first+polish+army&vq=counter-government&sig=q PA6i-Gms1D-8JEiRw58CNeDmvc#PPA26,M1); the question of how the Soviets managed to turn the 130,000 Polish troops they'd captured and remained in the USSR after the Anders army left is answered by the Soviet practice of putting Soviet troops of Polish 'origin' into the Polish army. A more realistic total would be in the region of 400,000 Poles fighting in WWII. Let’s see how that number compares shall we? (All figures from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participants_in_World_War_II unless otherwise noted.)
Armenia: more than 500,000 (and a fair few on the other side).
Australia: almost a million served (http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/ww2.htm).
Canada: 731,000 in army; 106,000 in navy; 250,000 in air force. (http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/chrono/1931home_e.html)
China: 5 million regular troops and 2 million rebels (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/15/content_468908.ht m)
France: 1,250,000 by May 1945 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_France_during_World_ War_II)
Georgia:700,000
India: over 2,500,000
Soviet Union: lots more than Poland
UK: lots more than Poland
US: lots more than Poland
Yugoslavia: 800,000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partisans_%28Yugoslavia%29)
Poland doesn’t even make the top ten!