Operation Tempest  Operation Tempest (, sometimes referred in English as Operation Storm) was a series of anti-Nazi uprisings conducted during World War II by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK), the dominant force in the Polish resistance. Operation Tempest was aimed at seizing control of cities and areas occupied by the Germans while they were preparing their defenses against the advancing Soviet Red Army. Polish underground civil authorities aimed at taking power before the arrival of the Soviets. From its inception the Home Army had been preparing a national armed rising against the Germans. The basic framework of the future rising was created in September 1942. According to the plan, the Uprising was to be ordered by the Polish Commander-in-Chief in exile when the defeat of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front became apparent. The Uprising was to begin in Central Poland: in the "General Gouvernement", Zagłębie, Kraków Voivodeship, and the Białystok and Brześć areas. The Uprising's basic objectives were to: Reconstruction of a Polish regular army was to be based on the prewar Polish order of battle. Home Army units were to be turned into regular divisions. Initially to be created were 16 infantry divisions, three cavalry brigades and one motorized brigade, to be equipped with captured weapons or with arms and supplies delivered by the Allies. The second phase was to see the re-building of an additional 15 divisions and 5 cavalry brigades which, before World War II, had been stationed in eastern and western Poland. The plan was partly implemented. Beginning in 1943, Home Army units were grouped into larger units bearing the names and numbers of prewar Polish divisions, brigades and regiments. In early 1943, after the German defeat at Stalingrad, it became clear that the Soviets would be the force the Home Army would most likely have to deal with and that the planned Polish rising would face a still powerful German army rather than units retreating to an already defeated homeland. In February 1943, the Home Army chief, General Stefan Rowecki, amended the plan. The Uprising would take place in three stages. The first stage would be an armed rising in the east (with main centers of resistance at Lwów and Vilnius) in advance of the approaching Red Army. In preparation, the "Wachlarz" organization was formed. The second stage would be an armed struggle in the zone between the Curzon Line and the Vistula River; and the third stage would be a national rising over the rest of Poland.