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During the Warsaw uprising, we had been fighting for a long time before this incident occurred. My term of full duty in the frontline was on the next day — beginning in the afternoon of Saturday 17th September. I took my hand grenades, collected the heavy, ten-shot rifle we shared between us — and went off to take up my position. In broad daylight, about 3pm, the enemy launched an attack, the mortars being used first to fire at us over the walls of the roofless building. The courtyard was soon filled with smoke. I was standing up on the low brick wall which had been the bottom of a large window frame. Unsighted by the smoke, I was shooting blindly into the corner whence the Germans would be trying to burst in to the inner courtyard before me, and then…suddenly…the Rising was over for me. A mortar shell must have burst right beside me… the blast threw me ten or twelve feet across what had been a room over to the opposite wall. Some splinters from the mortar shell must have burst right beside me… the blast threw me ten or twelve feet across what had been a room over to the opposite wall. Some splinters from the mortar shell as well as pieces of flying masonry caused various quite deep cuts in my face, two or three just missing my eyes by good fortune. But the horror that quickly dawned on me as I found myself sitting, back to the wall… my right arm seemed to be no longer there! ‘Damn and blast’ — I yelled — ‘my arm’s gone’. In a couple of minutes the reinforcements — some five or six lads led by Tadeusz himself arrived. They promptly cut off the sleeve and assured me: ‘give over, your arm’s there alright, not a trace of blood’. I looked down and then I felt my hand and arm right up to the shoulder with my left hand — and I could see they were telling the truth: my arm was there. But it was hanging quite inert and senseless, and so it has remained to this day; the damage to the brachial plexus was total.

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