Two Septembers: 1939 and 2001

Two Septembers: 1939 and 2001

Unleashed in the early hours of Sept. 1, 1939, Germany's "lightning war" -- the blitzkrieg -- quickly pierced Poland's border forces and sliced through the Danzig Corridor. As the German Luftwaffe hammered Poland's air force, panzer divisions smashed Poland's army, leaving its units scattered and surrounded.

Yet Poland continued to resist. Britain and France joined the war on Sept. 3. Sept. 17, however, sealed Poland's fate, as Russian forces invaded eastern Poland -- the "stab in the back" by Joseph Stalin. Poland collapsed.

The sensation, however, that Poland had succumbed to a "new kind of war" shocked a...