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Before the war I lived with my family in Dwierznia, a village in Poland. When war broke out I was taken to Germany to work on a farm, I was 14 or 15 years old. It was forced labour I was put on this farm with another young chap from Poland. We escaped from the farm and went to work in Poland, near Warsaw, building roads. At this time the Germans thought they would win the war and they needed new roads to move their equipment and I was put to work breaking stones for these new roads. I also had to help make a turntable to turn the big locomotives on the railway. There was a lot of work. Soon we were transferred to France to help the German army we were still making roads so the Germans could invade France. My friend and I used to do anything not to be split up, we used to tell the Germans lies so that we could stay together. I don’t know what happened to my friend in the end.
In 1943 the US and English, Army invaded France, There was a chap asking for Polish men to make themselves known, I made myself known to the US army and was taken to England. I was split up from my friend at this time, I didn’t know what had happened to him or my brother. I didn’t know if my brother was alive or dead. Quite a few Polish fellows came to England from France and Italy. I joined the Polish Army in 1943, the 10th Polish Dragoons; we trained at Montrose in Scotland. After a few weeks I was back in France, in action mainly on machine guns although I had trained as a radio operator. I got 6 medals and I still have 2 more to come. One evening, in action in Belgium, I nearly got taken prisoner when we had to move the machine gun and the Germans cut us off. I had to leave the gun and get away and they didn’t catch me but they caught a friend of mine and he was taken prisoner. I had a two week Christmas holiday while I was in Brussels, you can imagine the difference from being in action — presents, bands playing — the Belgians looked after us very well. I was wounded on the day that the war ended at the River Rhine. I spent 7 months in hospital, first in Belgium then I was transferred to Bury St Edmunds then on to Whitchurch in Shropshire. I remember the celebrations when war ended, I was lying in bed in a hospital in Belgium and all the young nurses were celebrating and I couldn’t even laugh because it hurt too much. I wanted to go home from Belgium but the surgeon told me that I shouldn’t go back to Poland because there was nothing there, the Germans and the Russians had taken everything and I would get better treatment for my wounds in England. When I was discharged from hospital and waiting to be demobbed at the Hermitage camp that’s when I learned that my brother had been in England but he had gone back to Poland because he didn’t like the English weather. I was crying like a baby, I have always regretted missing him because I never saw him again. After my long stay in hospital I was sent to convalesce in Devon where I took a course in shoemaking and hairdressing and I got a job at the Polish camp there on the switchboard. At the time I had a lot of friends in the catering industry so I got a job in a big hotel where I worked my way up from waiter to restaurant manager through my career. I worked in some of the big hotels in London and Devon

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