Unit Profile
Grupa Reagowania Operacyjno-Manewrowego (Operational Mobile Response Group) or GROM is a special unit that depending on needs can perform typical reconnaissance and sabotage tasks. The unit was founded on July 13th, 1990 by General Slawomir Petelicki as Jednostka Wojskowa 2305 or JW 2305 (military unit 2305) and organised according to both American and British Special Forces models. The name actually stems from a special-forces commander, Gromoslaw Czempinski, who, during the first Gulf War, led a Polish unit into Western Iraq to rescue a group of CIA operatives. One of the other men on that secret mission was Slawomir Petelicki. Petelicki tried selling his idea of an elite Polish commando group much earlier but the Russians did not like to have real special forces operating in Poland. They feared the unit could start training in guerrilla warfare against them. But the need did arise in 1990, following Operation Bridge, in which Poland helped Soviet Jews enter Israel. Intelligence reports indicated that Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were planning reprisals inside the Polish border. Then Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki recognised the threat and approved of Petelicki's plan for a new counter-terror force.
Its members also have skills useful in complex rescue operations aimed at rescuing hostages from terrorists. They are also prepared for marine operations (on vessels and drilling towers). All of them undergo specialised training in anti-terrorist and special operations, as well as scuba diving, sniping and parachute jumps. In four-man teams, each soldier must be prepared to assume the respective responsibilities of his colleagues, should it become necessary. Approximately 75% of the soldiers are trained medics or paramedics. In addition, each group is supported by several professional physicians. It is assumed that all GROM operators are proficient in at least two foreign languages.
Candidates applying to serve in the GROM have to pass psychological and durability tests and the so called truth test, i.e. exhausting physically and psychologically field test during which the weakest fail.
In 1994 it participated in the mission of the allied forces on Haiti. In June 1995 they made the extraction of Polish officers captured by Serbs in Bosnia possible. In 1997, they successfully captured war criminal Slavko Dokmanovic inside the former Yugoslavia Republic. In October 2001 they participated in the war in Afghanistan. In spite of their success the unit became under criticism and was almost divided up between the Polish Army en Navy. The existence of the unit was saved when 56 commandos from the 300-member GROM took part in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Together with US Navy SEALS they helped clear the port of Umm Qasr and nearby oil terminals and also participated in the capture and holding of the Mukarayin Dam, which could have been used to flood Baghdad.
Mission
- Direct Action
- Counter Terrorism
- Unconventional Warfare
Size
- Said to be 270 to 300 men organised in squads of 4.
Raised and Disbanded
- Raised: July 8, 1990, GROM formally established as JW 2305
Headquarters
- Warsaw, Gdańsk, Poland