Wellshill Cemetery was chosen as a Polish war grave cemetery during the Second World War. Some 380 Polish war graves are situated there (about 50 per cent of all Polish war graves in Scotland) of which 354 Polish casualties are recorded by the Register of Commonwealth War Graves:
Army (339)
Airforce (9).
Navy (4)
Nursing (1)
Civilian (1)
British casualties (26) (Polish Resettlement Corps)
Headstones – pointed tip and the crowned eagle of Poland. The gravestones are ‘predominantly laid out in three rows with graves on both sides of the row. In most cases each grave contains the remains of two members of the Polish forces.’
The war graves and memorial are at the south end of the cemetery near the Jeanfield Road entrance of Wellshill Cemetery which has a substantial memorial monument that provides a lasting testament to their contribution and sacrifice. The inscription on the large granite stone, states – Eternal Glory to the Polish Soldiers who died in 1939 – 1945, For our Freedom and Yours.
The next section of graves includes Poles who died after the war but are commemorated as ‘Late Polish Forces’ – plus those whose families requested that they be buried near their comrades. For example:
Stanislaw Trobala Lt. Polish forces b. 7/11/05 of Cieszyn (Silesia) d. 6/1/77 Stirling Founder Dunblane Light Engineering “Fortiter in Re” Sursum Corba.
Scotland’s long history of friendship and trade with Poland
The history of the long Scottish friendship with Poland stretches over 600 years. During the late 1440’s between 30,000 and 40,000 Scots migrated to Poland. That number represents between 3% and 4% of the population of Scotland at that time. Many trading links were forged over the next 250 years, established between mainly Aberdeen and the Polish seaport of Danzig (now Gdańsk).
Robert Gordon, as in Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University amassed vast riches. Aberdeen’s Marischal College came from collections held by Scottish merchants. Toruń, Gdańsk, Kraków, Warsaw and Lublin all had Scottish brotherhoods. The traveller William Lithgow claimed that “thirty thousand Scots families” were living in Poland in the early 17th Century.
The Polish King Stephen Bathory’s Siege of Danzig in 1577 was opposed by a 5000-strong Danzig army that included a Scottish regiment. James Murray was made Chief Engineer of the Polish Navy, which would 7 years later overcome the Swedes at the battle of Oliva in 1627. George Guthrie at his own expense raised a regiment of Hussars and took part in a famous Polish victory against the Turks at Vienna in 1683. He was made a Noble by King Jan III Sobieski.
William Forbes also known as Danzig Willie, bought, and completed Craigiever Castle in Alford. Alexander Chambers (Aleksander Czamer) was mayor of Warsaw four times between 1691 and 1703.
In the English Parliament of 1606, the example of Scots in Poland had been used as an argument against the Union of Scotland and England. ‘If we admit them into our liberties, we shall be overrun with them…witness the multiplicities of the Scots in Polonia.’
The mother of Charles Edward Stuart was Maria Clementina Sobieska (1702 – 1735) (granddaughter of King Jan III Sobieski). She is buried in the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome. King Jan III Sobieski was king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1674 to 1696.
In Pomorze (Pomerania) the word Szot was used to mean a commercial traveller. There is a village in north-east Poland called Szkocja and Gdańsk has districts called Nowe Szkoty and Stare Szkoty (New and Old Scots).
Many Poles migrated to Scotland in the late 1860’s and many found employment in the Lanarkshire mines.
Some ‘Polonised’ versions of Scottish surnames: Czochrans, Djiaksens, Forseits, Fraiters, Kietzs, Losons, Ramzes, Szynklers, Moreys, Machayskis, Machlajd or Machlejd, Makolyroys
World War Two
Many Poles answered Churchill’s call to arms of “blood, sweat and tears” by continuing the fight against Nazi tyranny under Allied command. Notably, the call was fulfilled by the pilots of No. 303 Squadron RAF, who shot down the highest tally of German aircraft in the Battle of Britain; and the troops of General Anders 2nd Corps who were heavily involved in the liberation of Monte Cassino. Polish mathematicians and scientists were critical to cracking the German Ultra codes and providing intelligence on the V1 and V2 rocket programme threatening the British population on the Home Front.
On the 1st of September 1939 the German pre-dreadnought battleship Schleswig-Holstein under the pretext of making a courtesy call sailed into Danzig harbour (now Gdańsk). It anchored 150 metres off the peninsula of Westerplatte. On board were 225 Marinestosstruppkompanie (marine shock-troop company). At 04.48am it fired a broadside at the Polish Garrison which started the German invasion of Poland. The brave defence of Westerplatte was an inspiration for the Polish Army and its people, it is still regarded as a symbol of resistance in modern day Poland.
One week earlier on 23 August 1939 the Germans and the USSR had signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that had a secret protocol which partitioned Central and Eastern Europe between them. It was publicly announced to the world as a non-aggression pact between the two parties. The rumoured existence of the Secret Protocol to divide Poland between Germany and the USSR was only proven when it was made public during the Nuremberg trials after the war. Just over two weeks after the German invasion, on 17 September 1939, Joseph Stalin ordered the Soviet invasion of Poland under the pretext of concern for ethnic Ukrainians and Belarusians. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was terminated on 22 June 1941 when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.
Additional Note: In May 1942, Vyacheslav Molotov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union landed at RAF Tealing just to the north of Dundee. He was on his way to meet Winston Churchill. Included in the official party greeting Molotov at Tealing was John Manson Craig, VC (Vitoria Cross) who was born at Innergeldie near Comrie. Craig during the Second World War was Deputy Assistant Provost Marshal, RAF Police, based in Dundee.
The Fall of Poland
Following the Fall of Poland, General Sikorski became the Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces in exile. Sikorski rebuilt the Polish Army first in France and then in Scotland. He led the Polish resistance effort in Britain at the time desperately needed allies and support. Sikorski met with Winston Churchill after the Fall of France May 1940 and requested that the Polish General Staff and Polish army be evacuated to the UK.
Polish Troops were all over Scotland during the Second World War, e.g. in East Lothian, Lanarkshire, Fife, Angus, Perthshire, Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders. The Polish troops in this area were also stationed here for our defence, should the Germans invade the northeast coast of Scotland via Norway and Denmark which they occupied in April 1940.
Arriving in the UK after a long journey via the Middle East in May and June 1942 were Polish soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the Red Army following their invasion of Poland in1939. They had been taken to prison camps beyond the Urals. Following the launch of Operation Barbarossa, the German Invasion of the Soviet Union, they found themselves on the same side as their captors. Those who were willing and politically suitable were taken into Polish units in the Red Army and eventually formed the Polish People’s Army. The remainder were put under the command of also released from Soviet captivity, General Władysław Albert Anders and then not exactly sent, more informally permitted to leave the USSR, across the Caspian Sea into Persia, from where they travelled to Egypt and joined the British 8th Army. These Polish troops fought in the Western Desert and subsequently in Italy, at Monte Cassino and beyond.
General Władysław Albert Anders died in London on 12 May 1970, where his body lay in state at St Andrew Bobola Church, and many of his former soldiers and their families came to pay their last respects. He was buried, in accordance with his wishes, amongst his fallen soldiers from the 2nd Polish Corps at the Polish War Cemetery at Monte Cassino in Italy. After the collapse of communist rule in Poland in 1989, his citizenship and military rank were posthumously reinstated.
Additional Note: General Sikorski was killed in an air crash at Gibraltar 4 July 1943 which some say may or may not have been an accident.
Additional Note: Wojtek (Voytek) a young Syrian bear whose mother had been shot by hunters, was bought by Polish II Corps soldiers in the mountains of Iran was adopted by the 22 Artillery Support Company (Army Service Corps, Polish II Corps). In order to provide his rations and permission for transportation he was enlisted with the rank of private, subsequently he was promoted to corporal. During the Battle of Monte Casino, he helped carry crates of ammunition to the guns for the 22nd Artillery Supply Company. Wojtek was often rewarded with beer, enjoyed coffee and enjoyed smoking (or eating) cigarettes. When the war ended, he was mustered out of the army and lived out the rest of his life in Edinburgh Zoo. The name Wojtek is the nickname, diminutive form, or hypocorism of “Wojciech” (Happy Warrior), an old Slavic name still common in Poland. There is a memorial statue to Wojtek in West Princess Street Gardens in Edinburgh and in Duns in the Borders.
Polish Army Forces in & Around Perth during the Second World War
Despite being the first to bear the brunt of Hitler’s Blitzkrieg, Poland’s martial resistance lasted longer than that of France, Norway, Holland, and Belgium. After the fall of Poland and France, surviving elements of the Polish military were reconstituted in the west under Western Allied command and in the east under the command of the Soviet Union.
There was an escape route through then neutral Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia from where the Poles could travel west towards France. The southeast corner of Poland adjacent to the mountainous area of Romanian border (South) was some 200km deep and some 80km wide, it was called a “Romanian Bridgehead”. The Romanians in particular were sympathetic and sometimes even provided practical help, despite German protests. Italy did not enter the war on the side of the Germans until 10 June 1940. The Romania/Hungary/Yugoslavia/ Italy/Greece and through the Mediterranean Sea route was reasonably safe.
The Italian minister of Foreign Affairs, Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari was a good friend of Polish ambassador, and he agreed to treat transit of Polish soldiers as strictly civil matter of “workers transfer”. Italy even provided direct trains from Postumia (Postojna)-Milan-Modane, and Polish “workers” were able to buy tickets on credit. This allowed to evacuate 73-75% of soldiers from Romania and 52% from Hungary. The new Polish army in France was partially recruited from Polish army personnel who escaped from occupied Poland and émigrés volunteers. By May 1940, they numbered about 80,000 personnel; about 45,000 of them were army escapees or former refugees, and the rest came from the Polish minority in France. Most of the troops and airmen who took the escape from Poland route ended up in France then the UK. Some managed to cross the sea, including via Lithuania, Latvia and Finland to neutral Sweden and Norway.
After evacuation from France and deployment to Scotland, which was chosen as the place to regroup its ground forces, a section of the former Polish army was recreated as the 1st Polish Army Corps (28 September 1940). It was under the command of Generals Stanisław Maczek and Marian Kukiel. Under the authority of the British Army’s Scottish (district) Command, the Corps was headquartered at Moncrieffe House, near Bridge of Earn. It comprised 3,498 officers and 10,884 soldiers. Polish troops formed the fourth largest contingent among the Allied forces after the USSR, the USA, and the UK.
- Polish 1st Armoured Division. (The division was the largest armoured formation among the Western Allies.)
- Polish Independent Parachute Brigade. (The 1st (Polish) Independent Parachute Brigade, which fought in the Battle of Arnhem (1944), was trained mainly in the grounds of Largo House near Upper Largo in Fife.) Polish 4th Infantry Division.
- Polish 16th Independent Armoured Brigade.
On the wall of Perth & Kinross council offices at 1-5 High Street, Perth, is a plaque acknowledging the friendship received by personnel of the 1st Polish Army Corps.
“Presented by the General commanding officer and men of the 1st Polish Army Corps in grateful appreciation of the friendship extended to them in the city and county of Perth. Whose Polish troops after undergoing trial and hardships, were able to rally and continue, with their allies, the fight for freedom and liberty 1940-1942.”
Additional Note: Moncrieffe House built in 1679 was burned down in 1957 and rebuilt in 1962.
The original Moncrieffe House
General Marian Kukiel, the Commander of the 1st Polish Corps, greeting Polish soldiers who just arrived in Britain after months long journey from occupied Poland and France, at Bridge of Earn, 11 November 1940. German propaganda nicknamed them ‘Sikorski’s Tourists’. The tall officer on the far right is Colonel Konstanty Skąpski, the CO of the 1st Corps Engineers.
Additional Note: At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Emergency Medical Service was established to try and cope with the large numbers of expected war casualties. Seven ‘temporary’ hospitals were built in Scotland for this purpose, Bridge of Earn Hospital at Oudenarde was built in 1939 and in 1946 the Rehabilitation Unit which had been at Gleneagles Hotel, was moved to Bridge of Earn. Then in 1947 the Orthopaedic Unit was transferred from Larbert. This allowed Bridge of Earn Hospital to continue after the War and it was only in 1992 that it closed. Oundenarde was named after a 1708 victory by the Duke of Marlborough during the War of the Spanish Succession.
Additional Note: During World War One an army training camp was established at Oudenarde. During 1915 it is known that the third line of the 4th Black Watch (Dundee Territorials) left Tay Bridge Station in Dundee in two special trains in June to join the second line of the regiment, who are under camp training at Oudenarde, Bridge of Earn.
Additional Note: Postojna is now in modern day Slovenia. Britain and Poland sign a Mutual Assistance Treaty 25 August 1939. German troops occupied the Sudetenland 15 October 1938, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia March 15/16 1939. German troops entered Romania 7 October 1940. Hungary joined the Axis Powers 20 November 1940.
Additional Note: Gian Galeazzo Ciano’s father-in-law was Benito Mussolini. He was widely seen as Mussolini’s most probable successor as head of the Italian government.
Polish Navy
Some of the hopelessly outnumbered Polish Navy – just a handful of destroyers had been sent out of the Baltic for safety before war broke out, to prevent them from being destroyed in a closed Baltic Sea (the Peking Plan or Operation Peking). They ended up joining the Allied war effort alongside the Royal Navy.
On 30 August 1939, three destroyers, ORP Błyskawica, ORP Grom, and ORP Burza of the Polish Destroyer Division (Dywizjon Kontrtorpedowców) sailed to the British naval base at Leith in Scotland. Two Polish submarines also managed to flee from the Baltic Sea through the Danish straits to Great Britain. Submarine ORP Orzeł, made a daring escape from internment in Tallinn, Estonia, and travelled without charts to Scotland. On 14 October 1939 at 11.00am, 30 nautical miles from the Isle of May, “Orzeł” met the destroyer HMS “Valorous” which took her to the port of Rosyth. After a short stay in Rosyth, the ship was sent to the Caledon Shipyard in Dundee, where it was docked and renovated together with the Polish submarine ORP “Wilk“.
The crews of ORP “Orzeł” and ORP “Wilk” were given hospitality by the Dundee Municipal Board, which allowed them free use of public transport, film screenings, an ice rink and a swimming pool. In Dundee on 16 November 1939, the crews of both ships were visited by General Sikorski, who honoured Captain Jan Grudziński of the ORP “Orzeł” with the Virtuti Militari Cross, 5th class, and also four officers and sixteen non-commissioned officers and sailors with the Cross of Valor.
Three other submarines were interned in Sweden, and any remaining surface vessels were sunk by German aircraft.
The Polish Navy fought valiantly alongside the other Allied navies in Norway, the North Sea, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, in the landings at Normandy and the Malay Peninsula, in the sinking of the Bismarck and aided the escort of Atlantic and Arctic convoys
Additional Note: Captain Jan Grudziński was the only officer in the history of the Polish Navy to receive the Order of Virtuti Militari twice. Orzeł departed on her seventh patrol on 23 May 1940 and disappeared without a trace. No radio signals were received from her after departure. It is likely that she hit a mine.
Additional Note: The traditional ship prefix in the Polish Navy is ORP (Okręt Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, “Warship of the Republic of Poland”)
1st Polish Armoured Division in Perth
Many Scottish cities, towns, and villages became very accustomed to seeing Polish soldiers with their distinctive ‘POLAND’ shoulder flash. Several of the Polish Army units based in Scotland adopted unit badges which included a Scottish motif and some Scottish towns presented standards to Polish units.
Some troops from the 1st Polish Armoured Division were billeted in Pullars of Perth’s Tulloch (dye) Works, which had been requisitioned by the Secretary of War.
Universal Carriers (Bren Gun Carriers) on exercise on ground, which is now Cairns Crescent, Perth. Tulloch Terrace in the background. Image from the Imperial war Museum ©IWM
In November 1940, Polish President Władysław Raczkiewicz visited his country’s troops at the Tulloch Works.
Perthshire Advertiser Wednesday 13 November 1940. The houses in the background are on the Crieff Road, near the entrance to Goodlyburn Primary School.
Polish Military Units Located in and Around Perth During the Second World War
- HQ 1st Polish Army Corps – near Bridge of Earn.
- Armoured Train Group – Perth.
- Corps Recce Group – Perth.
- Signals Unit – Bridge of Earn.
- Central Training Camp HQ – Alyth.
- Specialist Troops Centres – Blairgowrie, Dundee, Dunfermline, Alyth/Meigle, Alyth, and Coupar Angus.
- Tank/A-Tk Units Training Battalion – Crieff.
- 1st Grenadier Brigade – Coupar Angus.
- 1st Polish Armoured Division – Blairgowrie, Perth.
Troops of the 1st Polish Corps moving through a spinney to a forward position during an infiltration exercise near Glenfarg, Perthshire 24 March 1942. ©IWM
An infantry unit of the 1st Polish Corps waiting to advance during a training exercise in Perth, 22 November 1940. ©IWM
Troops of the 10th Armoured Cavalry Brigade (1st Polish Corps) in French made Renault Chenillette UE2 light armoured carriers during a training exercise in Perth, 22 November 1940. The Renault’s were evacuated by the Poles from German occupied France. Note hemispherical armoured hoods, so called calottes, to protect crews’ heads. ©IWM.
The Polish 1st and 2nd Grenadier infantry divisions was established in France in 1939 and were issued with UE2’s. The seventeen units were left over from the Polish Independent Highland Brigade’s cancelled mission as part of the Allied expeditionary corps to help Finland repel the Soviet invasion, The Russo-Finnish (The Winter War) on 30 November 1939. The Polish Independent Highland Brigade later took part in the battle of Narvik, Norway, 9 April to 8 June 1940.
The 17 Chenillette’s ended up being used by the Reconnaissance Battalion in Perth and later for driver training by the Polish 3/16th Tank Brigade.
Notable Graves in Wellshill
The first Polish war casualty who was buried in Wellshill Cemetery was Officer Cadet Janusz Ulrych-Uleneski (37) who died in Bridge of Earn Hospital.
Father Karol BiK. Father Bik served with the 14th Jazlowiecki Lancers Regiment and loved to take to the hills for each free moment he had. One day on one of his walks, near Newtyle he did not return. He was aged 54 and most likely suffered a heart attack. A second related tragedy for the regiment was the death 24 hours later of Aspirant Ignacy Brak who had served Father Karol at Mass, in a motorcycle accident in Perth. Both are buried in Wellshill.
Ludwik Zasada was born in Potok Złoty, Poland on 7 October 1907 of parents Franciszka (railway employee – switchman) and Wiktoria née Jakubiak (until 1952 the name Potok Złoty was used). His large family lived in difficult financial conditions.
He graduated from primary school in 1922, with breaks in 1914-1915 due to World War One. He moved with his family to Kowel, where his father got a job on the railway and there, in 1922-1927, he attended the State Junior High School. Juliusz Słowacki, which he graduated with a humanities secondary school leaving exam in 1927.
In 1927, he entered the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Warsaw University of Technology, where he studied until 1934, with a break in 1932-1933 for military service in the Pchor Company. Res. Piech, in the 27th Infantry Division (Luck), which he graduated as a platoon cadet. He probably obtained the title of engineer, which he used, but his diploma has not survived. Until September 1939, he worked at the State Aviation Works in Okęcie (Warsaw).
Zasada was evacuated alongside other Polish Air Force personnel based at Warsaw-Okecie air base to the rear of the German advance. At the start of October, Zasada took part in the Battle of Kock as part of the Polesie Independent Operational Group, an army corps created but a few weeks earlier and commanded by General Franciszek Kleeberg. The battle ended in a victory for the German 14th Motorised Corps. After the capitulation, he escaped captivity and got to Hungary, from where he escaped to France and joined the Polish Air Force. Then evacuated after the capitulation of France, he found himself in the UK, where he served in the Polish Armed Forces (Polskie Sily Zbrojne) or PSZ (Polish Army and Polish Navy), as a Lieutenant, to begin the fight anew. He died of natural causes on 17 November 1941 and is buried in Wellshill Cemetery.
Lieutenant Colonel Gwido Karol Langer, OOP (Grand Cross), was the Chief of the Polish General Staff’s Intelligence Bureau from 1929 and later the Cipher Bureau in 1931. The Polish Cypher Bureau made a breakthrough into the German military ‘Enigma’ code in December 1932. Guido Langer’s Cipher Bureau decrypted the German Enigma cipher code long before anyone else.
Five weeks before the invasion of Poland by the Germans, on 25 July 1939, the Polish Intelligence agency shared its knowledge at Kabaty Woods, south of Warsaw with the British and French Intelligence its work in unlocking the secret Enigma code.
Langer arrived in France in October 1939, where the Cipher Bureau and AVA Radio Company personnel who also made it their continued their collaboration with their French and British allies. Codenamed “Bruno” it operated just outside Paris under French command. Langer and his team assisted the French to read German Enigma code during the German invasion of France in May 1940. (AVA designed and built radio equipment for the Polish Cipher Bureau)
On 13 March 1943, Lieutenant Colonel Gwido Karol Langer his deputy, Major Maksymilian Ciężki, the head of the prewar B.S.-4 (the Bureau’s German section), along with Lieutenant Antoni Palluth and civilians Edward Fokczyński and Kazimierz Gaca, attempted to cross into Spain. They were betrayed by their French guide and arrested near Perpignan by the Gestapo.
Langer and Ciężki were sent to an SS concentration camp where they were interrogated about work on Enigma. They managed to protect the secret of the Enigma decryption, Langer “decided [to] mix truth with lies, and […] present my lies in such a way that they had the veneer of truth.” Langer admitted to the Germans that before the war the Polish Cypher Bureau had sporadically solved Enigma ciphers, but that during the war they had no longer been able to. Langer advised his interrogators that, since Major Ciężki knew more about the subject than he, they should summon Ciężki. “They agreed, and Ciężki managed to convince them that the changes [that the Germans had] made [to the machine and its operating procedures] before the war made decryption during the war impossible.” The two Polish officers thus succeeded in protecting the secret of Enigma decryption, thereby enabling Bletchley Park to continue doing its vital work for Allied victory.
In mid-1945, when liberated, Langer and Ciężki arrived in London where they were badly received by Colonel Gano, chief of the Polish Section II in Britain. Gano had believed a distorted account by the French Lieutenant Colonel Gustave Bertrand that the failure to evacuate Langer’s group from France was due to Langer’s hesitation and lack of nerve. Bertrand (code name Bolek) was the chief of French military intelligence officer who ran the French Intelligence Bureau’s Bruno, outside Paris, and Cadix in southern France’s Vichy “Free Zone.” Langer was crushed to find himself blamed for his men’s capture in France by the Germans.
Lieutenant Colonel Gwido Karol Langer and Major Maksymilian Ciężki were sent to a Polish Resettlement Camp at Turfhills near Kinross. Langer, bitter, disappointed, and convinced that he had been betrayed by the French when they no longer had need of him, died on 30 March 1948.
Lieutenant Colonel Gwido Karol Langer was buried in Wellshill Cemetery in Perth, Scotland, specifically to be next to his Polish countrymen. His grave was marked by a standard Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone.
At Wellshill on 1 December 2010 Langer’s remains were exhumed, following a request by his daughter Hanna Kublicka-Piottuch. On 10 December 2010 Langer’s remains received a funeral with full military honours and were interred at the communal cemetery in Cieszyn, Poland. His new gravestone is of black granite and describes his role in the breaking of the German Enigma ciphers. Lieutenant Colonel Gwido Karol Langer was posthumously awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
Major Maksymilian Ciężki died on 9 November 1951, he lived in poverty in exile. His body was buried in the cemetery in Tywardreath, England. In 2008, the urn with Ciężki’s ashes were brought back to Poland. The official ceremony took place on 23 November 2008 at the cemetery in his hometown of Szamotuły, where the lieutenant colonel was symbolically reinterred.
Additional Note: The Polish Cryptanalysts who later escaped the Fall of France included Marion Rejewski (see Polish Cypher Bureau). Rejewski continued the work at the British Government’s Code & Cypher School, Bletchley Park.
Additional Note: Lieutenant Antoni Palluth was a founder of the AVA Radio Company. The company manufactured communications equipment for the Polish military, which included not only radios but also cryptographic equipment. Edward Fokczyński was one of the four directors of the AVA Radio Company. In June 1940 Fokczyński and his colleagues were transported by their French host, Colonel Gustave Bertrand, to a post codenamed Cadix, outside Uzès, in southern, Vichy France.
Palluth, Fokczyński and Kazimierz Gaca were sent as slave labour to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, near Berlin, where Palluth and Fokczyński died before war’s end. Palluth died in April 1945 when the Heinkel aircraft factory, where he was forced to work as a concentration camp prisoner, was partially destroyed by an Allied bombing raid. At the same time a piece of bomb shrapnel fatally injured Palluth, Kazimierz Gaca was standing just fifty meters away, he survived. Edward Fokczyński died from exhaustion in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1944.
Kazimierz Gaca (alias Jean Jacquin) was born in 1920 in Bydgoszcz, he lived after the war in southern France. Gaca outlived all of his friends and colleagues and witnessed the fall of communism in his home country of Poland in 1989, to which he never returned. Before the war, AVA produced the Cipher Bureau-designed Lacida rotor cipher machine. Lacida was an electromechanical cipher machine developed around 1938 by Biuro Szyfrów – the Polish Cipher Bureau – and built by the AVA Radio Company in Warsaw (Poland). The name LACIDA was derived from the first letters of the surnames of the developers: Gwido Langer, Maksymilian Ciezki and Ludomir Danilewicz.
Ludomir Danilewicz got to Britain and settled in the London district of Ruislip. In 1964, together with his brother Leonard Stanislaw Danilewicz, he obtained an American patent (US3143290A) for a device called a rotary converter, used to convert currency rates and other values. Ludomir Danilewicz died 25 February 1971 in London.
Additional Note: Lieutenant Colonel Gustave Bertrand intelligence bureau had purchased in 1932, which was fundemental to the Enigma code breaking, documents from Hans-Thilo Schmidt (codenamed “Asché” by the French), an employee at the German Armed Forces’ Cryptographic Agency. Bertrand was captured by the Germans in December on 5 January 1944 as he waited at the famous Church of Sacré Cœur, in Paris’ Montmartre district for a courier from London. The Germans suggested that he work for them. Pretending to agree, Bertrand was allowed to return with his wife Mary to Vichy to contact British intelligence. There he sent his underground comrades into hiding and went into hiding himself until the following year. On 2 June 1944, four days before the D-Day Normandy landings, at an improvised airstrip in France’s Massif Central, Lieutenant Colonel Gustave Bertrand his wife and a Jesuit priest who served as a courier of the Polish Resistance climbed into a small, unarmed Lysander III aircraft that flew them to southern England. Bertrand and his wife then lived in the village of Boxmoor (Hemel Hempstead), a short walk from the Polish radio-intercept station and cipher office at the nearby village of Felden where Marian Rejewski and Henryk Zygalski were working.
Additional Note: Over 120,000 Polish veterans settled in Britain after the war, unable to return home due to political circumstance.
Additional Note: Turfhills is just north of the A977, just west of the M90 roundabout junction. Nowadays Kinross Services occupies part of the area.
Polish Cypher Bureau
If it were not for the work of the team of the Polish mathematicians at the Polish Cypher Bureau, Alan Turing and his team at Bletchley Park would have faced a far more daunting task in deciphering the German Enigma code. The Poles knew 95% of the Germans’ order of battle thanks to the efforts of their Cypher Bureau before the invasion of Poland on the 1st of September 1939.
Marion Rejewski was one if not the most important code breakers at Bletchley Park. The Polish Cypher reverse engineered the Germans Military Enigma machine and cracked the Enigma code as early as in 1932, the Germans subsequently added a fourth rotor (January 1941) to the machine to make it more secure. The Poles shared their code breaking secrets with their Allies, France and the UK. This intelligence significantly aided the Allies in their efforts to intercept and decipher German communications, ultimately contributing to their victory. It gave the Alan Turing team at Bletchley Park a massive boost in cracking the German coded messages. It is widely thought that without the Polish contribution, the code would have taken much longer to crack. Churchill said (no record of Churchill saying this but widely stated since the 1990’s) that Alan Turing made “made the single biggest contribution to Allied victory in the war against Nazi Germany.”
Additional Note: Rejewski was born 16 August 1905 in Bromberg in the Prussian Province of Posen (now Bydgoszcz, Poland).
Additional Note: Bombe, was the electromechanical code-breaking machine created by cryptologists in Britain during World War II to decode German messages that were encrypted using the Enigma machine. The Bombe was derived from a device called the Bomba—Polish for “bomb”—that was invented in Poland during the 1930s. Polish Enigma replicas were also used by cryptanalysts in their work. Kazimierz Gaca “smuggled” one copy during his five-month escape from Poland to France via Romania, Yugoslavia, and Greece.
Additional Note: In May of 2019, Perth born Jean Millar Valentine (later Rooke) who passed away at the age of 94, was no ordinary woman. During the Second World War, Valentine was employed (September 1943 to March 1944) as a WRNS in Hut 11 of the British Government’s Code & Cypher School, Bletchley Park. Her job there was to operate one of the decryption devices, known as ‘Bombes’, designed by mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing and Marion Rejewski to crack the code of the German Enigma Machine. After April 1944, Valentine was later assigned to Colombo where, until the end of the war, she was involved in breaking Japanese meteorology codes. Valentine who was born in Perth in 1924 kept her wartime work secret until the mid-1970s. She later helped in the reconstruction of a ‘Bombe’ for the Bletchley Park Museum – the device was completed in 2006 and was demonstrated by Valentine. Acknowledgement of Valentine’s important role during the war has taken many forms: she is detailed on the ‘Codebreakers’ Wall’ at Bletchley Park and in 2004 her portrait was featured on a set of stamps issued by St Vincent and the Grenadines to commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day. Jean Valentine passed away on 17 May 2019.
Additional Note: The city of Perth is twinned with Bydgoszcz, a city in northern Poland, on the Brda and Vistula rivers – the eighth-largest city in Poland. Bydgoszcz was the birthplace of Marian Rejewski whose Bletchley team designed and built the Bombe machines. (Bletchley – Marian Rejewski, Jest Różycki and Henryk Zygalski.)
Polish Air Force
Whilst still in France during 1940, General Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile and Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces made the air arm of the Polish Army an independent service of the Polish Armed Forces. This became the Polskie Siły Powietrzne (PSP), the Polish Air Force.
No fewer than 290 talented and motivated Polish pilots served in one of 80 British fighter squadrons during World War Two. The Polish airmen were legendary for both their courage and their determination, and of course they were well motivated to fight for revenge. The Polish No. 303 Squadron was the top-scoring fighter squadron of all the RAF squadrons involved in the Battle of Britain, achieving a truly outstanding score of 126 enemy planes shot down, as well as 13 probable’s and 9 damaged. The Polish fighter squadrons (No. 309 Squadron included) were staffed with pilots who had already obtained combat experience against the Luftwaffe, firstly in Poland and later with the French. During the Second World War, they proved themselves truly excellent fighter pilots.
On 1st September 1939, the Polish Air Force’s 300 obsolete aircraft were opposed by the German Luftwaffe equipped with over 1,300 modern fighters and bombers. Despite this, the highly trained Polish pilots fought well, and in the brief campaign they shot down 126 enemy aircraft. Following the German and Soviet invasions, most of the Polish airmen escaped to France to continue the fight.
During the German invasion of France in May and June 1940, only 174 Polish airmen, or 10% of the available strength, were used in combat. Despite these difficulties, the Polish airmen distinguished themselves during the French campaign, scoring 52 confirmed, 3 probable’s and 6 damaged enemy aircraft. France too, was defeated and some 8,400 Polish airmen and crew were evacuated to the United Kingdom, which they now called Wyspa Ostatniej Nadziei or “The Island of Last Hope.”
“Had it not been for the magnificent material contributed by the Polish Squadrons and their unsurpassed gallantry, I hesitate to say that the outcome of battle would have been the same”.
AIR CHIEF MARSHAL SIR HUGH DOWDING Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command, 1936-1940
Sadly, during the first VE Day (Victory in Europe) parade, held on 8 June 1946 in London, none of the Polish forces who had fought for Britain were invited to attend. The Free Polish government in exile had been opposed to the Soviet Union since the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) that agreed to partition Poland between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The British government at the end of the war had decided to recognise the new Soviet controlled Polish government and seeking not to cause a diplomatic incident with the Soviet Union, chose not to extend an invite to the Free Polish forces. Instead, it invited representatives from the Soviet controlled Polish government. The decision caused much outrage in Britain and after protests from Winston Churchill, members of the RAF and others, invites were extended to 25 Free Polish pilots. However, these were refused by the recipients, unanimously snubbed in protest that all the Free Polish forces were not invited.
No. 309 (Dywizjon Współpracy ‘Ziemi Czerwien´skiej’ (‘Land of Czerwien´)) Polish Fighter-Reconnaissance Squadron
Formed as an army co-operation squadron at RAF Abbotsinch (now Glasgow Airport) in October 1940, No. 309 (Land of Czerwien) Polish Fighter-Reconnaissance Squadron became one of 16 Polish squadrons flying from Britain during the Second World War. The squadron took its name from an area in Western Poland just north of Zielona Góra. From 6 November 1940, the squadron was headquartered at RAF Renfrew.
During March of 1941, the Luftwaffe conducted a series of night raids on Glasgow. At RAF Renfrew it resulted in casualties among No. 309 Squadron. Consequently, the squadron was moved to RAF Dunino in Fife on 15 May 1941.
The squadron during 1941 maintained a ‘fighter’ flight of aircraft at RAF Perth (Scone) with the mission to destroy German bombers taking a flight path in the skies above Perth. Flying the outdated and slow Westland Lysander, it was not a realistic proposal, the squadron had little chance to accomplish the task.
Flights A and C of 309 Squadron operated out of RAF Findo Gask between 26 October 1942 and 8 March 1943 flying Westland Lysanders. Spring 1942 saw 309 Squadron start undergoing conversion training to Mk I North American P-51 Mustangs at RAF Gatwick (London). Flight B between 15 December 1942 and January 1943 were re-equipped with the North American Mk I P-51 Mustangs at RAF Findo Gask.
Within a few months, the entire squadron was trained to fly Mustangs. The squadron’s first mission with the new planes was a single reconnaissance flight over France (21 May 1942). The pilot of that mission (was most likely) Flight Lieutenant M. Piotrowski.
Flight ‘B’ was subsequently redeployed back to RAF Gatwick as RAF Findo Gask’s runways proved too short for the Mustangs. 309 Squadron were then relocated up to RAF Peterhead, where with their Mustangs flew protection cover for very many Russia bound convoy patrols in the North Sea.
Four victories have been confirmed for 309 Squadron pilots flying Mustang IIIs: a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and 3 Messerschmitt ME 262 jet-powered fighters.
Additional Note: RAF Findo Gask was located at Clathymore, near Findo Gask, some 8 miles west of Perth. It was operational between 14 June 1941 and 12 September1948. The airfield comprised 3 grass runways (1,100, 1,250, and 1,950 yards) fabricated with Sommerfeld wire mesh tracking, a type t2 (13-bay) hangar, 7 blister hangars (portable arched of corrugated steel sheeting), a technical area, dispersal areas, 16 hard- standings for aircraft, and accommodation facilities. The airfield’s complement included 59 officers, 70 SNCOs, 538 ORs, and 196 WAAF personnel.
One consistent comment recorded in reports regarding the field at Findo Gask was that it suffered poor draining, with the runways becoming waterlogged and muddy. The grass runways were constructed using Sommerfeld steel tracking, which used steel mesh pinned to the ground and reinforced with steel bars, but the continued flooding led to the eventual abandonment of the airfield in 1944.
Additional Note: Pilots using RAF Findo Gask used Dupplin Lake on the grounds of the Dupplin Estate (east of the airfield) as a flying landmark. Dupplin Lake was sometimes referred to as Dolphin Lake.
Additional Note: When fitted with Rolls Royce 2-speed supercharged Merlin 66 engines (early versions of the Mustang employed the Alison V-1710 engine which suffered from reduced functioning at higher altitudes), the Mustang was one of the finest fighter aircraft of the Second World War. Additional under-wing fuel drop-tanks allowed the P51 Mustangs to protect the heavy allied bombers as far as eastern Germany.
Ground crew remove a Type F.24 camera from Westland Lysander Mark IIIA, V9437 ‘AR-V’, of No. 309 Polish Fighter-Reconnaissance Squadron (part of the RAF Army Cooperation Command), at Dunino, Fife, following a photo reconnaissance sortie. 12 March 1942 ©IWM
Additional Note: Royal Naval Air Station Dunino or more simply RNAS Dunino (HMS Jackdaw II) is a former Fleet Air Arm base located 1.8 miles (2.9 km) west of Kingsbarns, Fife, Scotland and 4.6 miles (7.4 km) southeast of St Andrews, Fife
Additional Note: At Sir William Roberts Strathallan Airfield (near Auchterarder) aircraft collection was a Westland Lysander V9367 that was built in 1938. It had been part of Polish 309 Squadron before being allotted to the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force), serial no 2355 RCAF, to function as a ‘target tug’. Lysander V9367 returned to Scotland in October 1971 and was restored to flight worthiness at Strathallan in December 1979. Lysander V9367 is part of the Shuttleworth Collection in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire. It has now been dressed to represent an aircraft of RAF 161 Squadron, which flew clandestine operations over enemy territory (1942-5). Another 309 Squadron aircraft once on display at Strathallan (main hangar) was Lysander V9441 that bore the code letters AR-A signifying service before 1944 when the squadron changed its code letters to WC.
V9941 in hangar at Strathallan – Credit: David Kirkwood
©IWM
Pilots of No. 309 Polish Squadron with their P-51 Mustangs. Location unknown. ©IWM
No. 309: Squadron Operational Locations
7 October 1940 – 6 November 1940 – RAF Abbotsinch.
6 November 1940 – 8 May 1941 – RAF Renfrew.
8 May 1941 – 26 November 1942 – RAF Dunino. 26 November 1942 – 10 March 1943 – RAF Findo Gask (Perthshire) – Flights ‘A’ and ‘C’.
15 November 1942 – RAF Gatwick – Flight ‘B’.
10 January 1943 – RAF Peterhead – Flight ‘B’.
10 March 1943 – 3 June 1943 – RAF Kirknewton (West Lothian).
23 April 1943 – RAF Acklington (Northumberland) – Flight ‘A’.
3 June 1943 – 6 November 1943 – RAF Snailwell (Cambridgeshire).
6 November 1943 – 24 November 1943 – RAF Wellingore (near Lincoln).
24 November 1943 – 23 April 1944 – RAF Snailwell.
23 April 1944 – 14 November 1944 – RAF Drem (East Lothian).
14 November 1944 – 14 December 1944 – RAF Peterhead.
14 December 1944 – 10 August 1945 – RAF Andrews Field (Essex).
No. 309: Squadron Aircraft Flown
25 November 1940 to March 1943 – Westland Lysander II
August 1942 Westland Lysander III.
February 1944 – April 1944 – Hawker Hurricane IV.
February 1944 – North American Mustang I (possibly Flight ‘B’).
23 April 1944 – September 1944 – Hawker Hurricane IIC.
1 September 1944 – November 1944 – North American Mustang I.
20 October 1944 – December 1946 – North American Mustang III.
9 PAFU (Pilots Advanced Flying Unit) Burials in Wellshill
The 9 members of NO. 9 PAFU (Pilots Advanced Flying Unit), who were undertaking training that are buried in Perth’s Wellshill Cemetery are detailed below
Date of death – age, (U = Unknown)
Corporal Waclaw Adolf (5 November 1941 – 38) 304 Squadron. (Kapral Kancel P.794072 )
Sergeant-Cadet Officer Jerzy Barcicki (1941 – 24) died at 12.00 p.m. at Belladyke Military Hospital, Larbert, due to acute myocarditis, from which he had been suffering for 21 days, and catatonic schizophrenia, from which he had been suffering for 1 month and seven days
Senior Sergeant Stanislaw Dzialowski (19 March 1942 – U).
Captain Henryk Janicki (22 March 1942 – 38) Air Observer, died in East Kilbride Hospital.
Corporal Waclaw Adolf (1945 – 48) 300 Squadron.
Private Franciszek Kruszynski (13 June 1941 – U).
Lance Corporal Alexsander Matuszewski (1941 – 28).
Captain Waclaw Smierzchalski (1943 – 43) died at 1.00 pm, Polish Military Hospital, Taymouth Castle, due to broncho pneumonia.
Lieutenant Ludwik Zasada (17 November 1941 – 34) died of natural causes.
The Fight for Freedom and Liberty
Tens of thousands of Poles fought heroically and with indomitable spirit again and again in France, North Africa, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and with the Soviets on the Eastern Front, right up until the end of WWII.
About 250,000 Poles eventually went on to serve in the Free Polish Armies and Air Force from 1940 onwards. About 26,000 were killed or missing in action by the end of the war.
In July 1947, General Władysław Anders gave a speech:
These Regimental Colours are sacred to us soldiers as they have led us from victory to victory. We took an oath of allegiance on these colours, pledging to fight for Poland until our last breath, like every righteous Pole would do. Our Regimental Colours bear the inscription: “God, Honour, Fatherland” and the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Jasna Gora and of the Gate of Dawn. The names of battlefields are commemorated there, as well as the names of cities so dear to all Poles, such as Warsaw and Lviv, Poznan and Vilnius.
We fought with deep faith in God and His justice, we upheld the honour of the Polish soldier who knows perfectly well how to distinguish bravery from petty-mindedness and righteousness from treachery. We were fighting while keeping in mind the vision of Poland and remembering our entire nation which despite the harshest of conditions, despite the losses and cruel disappointments, has never lost faith in the cause of regaining true freedom and independence. We are the flesh and blood of this Nation, and we consider it the greatest honour to be its members.
I do not know when, but I feel and believe deeply that our Regimental Colours deposited here today will return to Poland in full glory, for the new glorious service of our Immortal Fatherland.
Research by Ken Bruce
All Polish War Graves at Wellshill
Boleslaw Adamczyk d. 23/4/1945 age 29
Waclaw, Adolf d. 5/11/1941 age 38
Józef Albrecht d. 27/2/1941 age 35
Artur Aleksik d. 3/2/1947 age 33
A Ambrozewicz d. 17/6/1945 age 31
Leslaw Andruchowski d. 20/2/1941 age 20
Mikolaj Andrusyszyn d. 17/4/1944 age unknown
Józef Aniolczyk d. 7/6/1941 age 24
Ludwik Antochow d. 13/11/1944 age unknown
Czeslaw Augustowski d. 8/2/1943 age 28
Bronislaw Bajdan d. 26/8/1945 age 36
Jerzy Antoni Baliñski d. 23/10/1941 age 49
Jan Banas d. 1/12/1943 age 26
Banaszek, Piotr d. 31/12/1940 age 33
Jerzy Barcicki d. 14/6/1941 age 24
Zbigniew Bazgier d. 22/1/1942 age 22
Jan Bednarek d. 22/4/1947 age 43
Lucjan Andrzej Beldowski d. 11/9/1947 age 48
Józef Bieczkowski d. 20/4/1945 age 21
Jan Bihl d. 5/9/1946 age 40
Karol Bik d. 28/8/1941 age 54
Grzegorz Bilyk d. 15/4/1945 age 30
Franciszek Binczycki d. 14/12/1943 age 42
Marian Franciszek Binert d. 27/7/1947 age 33
Wojciech Bobulski d. 3/4/1942 age 44
Michal Borsuk d. 8/2/1942 age 25
Ignacy Brak d. 30/8/1941 age 21
Jan Bronicki d. 29/10/1946 age 39
Wiktor Stanislaw Brummer d. 21/11/1941 age 47
Henryk Brzoza d. 6/7/1945 age 19
Wilhelm Brzozowski d. 14/11/1945 age 52
Michal Buczynski d. 29/4/1946 age 46
Boleslaw Bujnowski d. 4/11/1945 age 36
Józef Bykowicz d. 22/11/1944 age 47
Karol Byrkowski d. 23/3/1943 age 51
Stefania Barbara Carowa d. 16/8/1941
Andrzej Chemen d. 20/5/1941 age 27
Kazimierz Józef Chimiak d. 19/6/1941 age 18
Stanislaw Chmielowski d. 21/6/1943 age 55
Franciszek Cieniewicz d. 17/12/1946 age 49
Cieslar, Pawel d. 14/4/1941 age 26
Józef Cimachowicz d. 15/2/1946 age 35
Zygmunt Cuzek d. 6/3/1947 age 57
Maurycy Cwern d. 11/5/1941 age 18
Bronislaw Czajka d. 9/2/1946 age 23
Czerniecki, Marcin
Mieczyslaw Dankowski d. 2/1/1942 age 34
Wilhelm Daum d. 22/1/1946 age 22
Wladyslaw Franciszek Demski d. 15/6/1941 age 24
Tadeusz Dluzniakiewicz d. 12/1/1947 age 59
Aleksander Dmoch d. 29/7/1941 age 30
Stanislaw Dobosz d. 18/10/1943 age 45
Antoni Norbert Dobrzaniecki d. 16/11/1946 age 48
Jan Drag d. 14/11/1942 age 45
Jan Drozdzenski d. 5/5/1947 age 36
Michal Dunicz d. 26/9/1944 age 35
Dzialowski, Stanislaw d. 19/3/1942 age unknown
Jan Faltynowski d. 13/6/1945 age 42
Karol Fara d. 23/8/1943 age 30
Emil Flach d. 16/10/1941 age 49
Emanuel Fójcik d. 16/8/1945 age 46
Stanislaw Gajda d. 25/8/1946 age 43
Tadeusz Gasienica-Giewont d. 6/10/1942 age 34
Boleslaw Gaworowski d. 31/7/1946 age 44
J Geber d. 26/4/1941 age 20
Stanislaw Gierlotka d. 15/10/1946 age 22
Wlodzimierz Gilda d. 20/12/1941 age 30
Jan Gill d. 19/2/1946 age 29
Antoni Gladysz d. 4/2/1942 age 23
Aleksander Glebocki d. 3/6/1942 age 36
Franciszek Glowacz d. 23/8/1944 age 35
Alojzy Jan Glyda d. 18/10/1944 age 50
Stanislaw Gondela d. 28/7/1943 age 24
Waclaw Konstanty Gora d. 6/2/1942 age 37
Remigiusz Jerzy Gordon d. 1/7/1944 age 30
Jan Gosieniecki d. 11/5/1946 age 35
Franciszek Gross d. 2/6/1941 age 26
Michal Gruszkiewicz d. 23/4/1943 age 32
Michal Gryglaszewski d. 2/7/1945 age 25
Piotr Teofil Grygo d. 3/7/1944 age 28
Mieczyslaw Grzegorzewski d. 2/2/1946 age 32
Antoni Grzeskowiak, d. 18/11/1942 age 35
Seweryn Henisz d. 24/7/1941 age 43
Leon Hetmaniak d. 2/4/1946 age 46
Jan Hinc d. 10/1/1946 age 24
Janislaw Hirsch d. 21/7/1947 age 37
Józef Stanislaw Hoffman d. 3/10/1941 age 41
Leon Horn d. 11/2/1942 age 50
Jan Hryhorczyk d. 27/3/1941 age 42
Mieczyslaw Idzik d. 15/9/1942 age 28
Michal Iwankiewicz d. 7/12/1943 age 21
Piotr Iwanow d. 1/2/1946 age 28
Tadeusz Jakubik d. 17/12/1945 age 48
Jakub Jakubowski d. 19/9/1944 age 43
Wincenty Jambor d. 6/3/1946 age 59
Henryk Janicki d. 22/3/1942 age 38
Mieczyslaw Janicki d. 17/9/1944 age 38
Bronislaw Jankowski d. 25/6/1945 age 23
Mieczyslaw Jankowski d. 13/10/1942 age 29
Stefan Janowicz d. 30/4/1945 age 30
Franciszek Januszewski d. 3/5/1946 age 52
Stanislaw Jarmuz d. 27/10/1946 age 57
Wieslaw Marceli Jarzembski d. 6/3/1941 age 35
Alojzy Jasinski d. 12/10/1941 age 41
Jan Stanislaw Jasinski d. 3/4/1942 age 28
Wladyslaw Jaskólka d. 26/5/1945 age 19
Jan Jaworski d. 28/4/1941 age 39
Boleslaw Jazdzewski d. 5/10/1947 age 23
Stanislaw Jedrzejczyk d. 4/4/1942 age 29
Józef Jez d. 18/8/1943 age 26
Kazimierz Jez d. 6/2/1947 age 39
Franciszek Jurczyk d. 18/8/1945 age 48
Michal Kaczynski d. 2/2/1944 age 24
Witold Andrzej Kadzielawa d. 5/1/1941 age 24
Edmund Kajdan d. 29/7/1945 age 18
Dymitr Kalitonczyk d. 22/9/1946
Antoni Engelbert Kaluza d. 8/8/1946 age 42
Robert Kaminski d. 2/12/1944 age 49
W Kaminski d. 22/9/1942 age 43
Franciszek Karczewski d. 24/5/1945 age 40
Wladyslaw Karpinski d. 27/9/1945 age 30
Józef Kasperowicz d. 10/6/1944 age 35
Wladyslaw Kinel d. 1/5/1943 age 48
Eugeniusz Kinicki d. 29/11/1946 age 40
Franciszek Kisiel d. 29/9/1943 age 21
Franciszek Kitel d. 20/4/1945 age 37
Józef Klementowicz d. 6/4/1946 age 32
Józef Klim d. 25/12/1945 age 36
Kazimierz Klodnicki d. 11/3/1946 age 24
Ignacy Kmiecik d. 12/4/1942 age 36
Jan Kojs d. 24/5/1947 age 50
Tadeusz Jan Kolasinski d. 11/10/1943 age 40
Edward Kolat d. 14/5/1947 age 17
Józef Komor d. 16/9/1943
Ludwik Kondratowicz d. 15/10/1946 age 36
Marcin Konopka d. 6/9/1945 age 20
Józef Kopec d. 21/4/1947 age 53
Fabian Kosakowski d. 20/3/1946 age 29
Julian Kosciak d. 22/7/1945 age 20
Ryszard Koszowski d. 6/1/1947 age 41
Józef Kotowski d. 28/11/1945 age 35
Karol Kowalski d. 17/6/1942 age 24
Tadeusz Kowalski d. 11/9/1945 age 48
Eugenia Kownaca d. 9/9/1942 age 31
Józef Kozakiewicz d. 31/8/1943 age 20
Norbert Kozakiewicz d. 10/4/1944 age 44
Jan Kozan d. 4/12/1942 age 38
Walerian Kozlowski d. 12/10/1947 age 21
Wincenty Kozlowski d. 14/9/1946 age 48
Krawczyk Kazimierz d. 28/6/1945 age 41
Tadeusz Król d. 19/2/1941 age 28
Franciszek Kruszynski d. 13 June 1941
Adam Jan Krzanowski d. 24/11/1941 age 37
Jan Marian Kubowski d. 15/7/1943 age 44
Michal Kucemba d. 6/6/1946 age 48
Stefan Kucharski d. 7/8/1947 age 58
Mieczyslaw Kujawa d. 16/12/1943 age 22
Franciszek Kulik d. 29/4/1945 age 41
Franciszek Kunat d. 4/3/1946 age 60
Maksymilian Kuska d. 7/4/1946 age 43
Mieczyslaw Kutowski d. 11/7/1945 age 20
Mikolaj Kuzbida d. 11/5/1945 age 42
Wladyslaw Lach d. 4/12/1943 age 21
Gwido Karol Langer d. 30/3/1948 age 53
Józef Lazarz d. 14/19/1946 age 44
Boleslaw Leszczyk d. 4/12/1943 age 19
Feliks Lew d. 6/6/1941 age 36
Zygmunt Lis, Stanislaw d. 7/5/1941 age 34
Wladyslaw Literski d. 2/9/1945 age 25
Wladyslaw Lubaszko d. 26/4/1941 age 26
Maciej Machnik d. 14/2/1946 age 50
Jan Macura (served as Jan Stankiewicz) d. 8/6/1945 age 20
Maksymilian Maczkowski (served as M Michalak) d. 19/6/1945 age 24
S Magulski d. 31/1/1946 age 20
Jan Majerczak d. 23/5/1942 age 28
Franciszek Malanczuk d. 1/4/1944 age 31
Marian Malanczuk d. 14/5/1947 age 41
Eugeniusz Malik d. 26/7/1941 age 22
Antoni Malinowski-Litta d. 21/7/1945 age 47
Wladyslaw Mamczak d. 30/6/1943 age 24
Jerzy Maniura d. 26/12/1945 age 51
Antoni Marchaluk d. 5/11/1944 age 29
Wojciech Marciniak d. 16/2/1943 age 46
Alojzy Markefka d. 25/12/1944 age 29
Jan Marzec d. 17/10/1941 age 41
Ksawery Masiak d. 5/6/1946 age 44
Jan Mastalarek d. 4/3/1947 age 32
Stanislaw Matuszewicz d. 27/12/1945
Aleksander Matuszewski d. 27/11/1941 age 28
Walenty Mazurkiewicz d. 10/3/1945 age 54
Edmund Medecki d. 12/3/1942 age 31
Miroslaw Melnyk d. 23/7/1946 age 27
Stanislaw Kazimierz Michalak d. 13/1/1943 age 27
Jerzy Michalowski d. 12/12/1944 age 35
Józef Michniewicz d. 27/4/1946 age 23
Franciszek Michnowicz d. 15/5/1943 age 37
Wladyslaw Mierzynski d. 8/5/1947 age 21
Feliks Mieszala d. 2/10/1945 age 25
Józef Migala d. 9/10/1944 age 42
Adam Misiuk d. 2/7/1944 age 38
Stanislaw Miszczysyn d. 14/3/1944 age 56
Pawel Modrzynski d. 2/6/1946 age 31
Jan Mottel d. 5/10/1947 age 44
Stefan Mróz d. 27/5/1941 age 26
Kazimierz Mrozek d. 4/9/1941 age 21
Walenty Najwer d. 29/3/1941 age 46
Alfred Nechay d. 16/8/1944 age 53
Zygmunt Neiman d. 17/9/1945 age 38
Józef Stanislaw Neuman d. 9/8/1945 age 30
Roman Apolinary Nieminski d. 12/3/1946 age 56
Karol Niewiadomski d. 18/1/1946 age 41
Leon Nowacki d. 23/4/1942 age 41
Bronislaw Nowak d. 28/8/1944 age 46
Marian Nowak d. 29/6/1944 age 18
Konrad Nowakowski d. 17/4/1946 age 27
Leon Nowicki d. 17/4/1946 age 26
Kazimierz Nykiel d. 31/7/1942 age 47
Adam Leopold Oliwa d. 22/7/1947 age 52
Stanislaw Zygmunt Orlowski d. 23/9/1944 age 50
Wladyslaw Orman d. 19/7/1941 age 28
Józef Owsik d. 9/11/1942 age 52
Józef Pajak d. 20/9/1943 age 46
Czeslaw Pakuszewski d. 21/9/1947 age 47
Waclaw Palys d. 13/10/1949 age 49
Józef Patok d. 1/8/1945 age 22
Teofil Paul d. 14/10/1942 age 30
Stefan Pawelczyk d. 17/4/1946 age 23
Boleslaw Michal Ryszard Pawlowski d. 28/7/1946 age 53
Wiktor Pawlowski d. 2/4/1941 age 19
Aleksander Pechalski d. 15/3/1942 age 44
Piotr Pereswiet-Soltan d. 3/1/1943 age 25
Marian Perschke d. 19/12/1943 age 45
Antoni Franciszek Petraniuk d. 13/1/1943 age 21
Gerard Petrich d. 10/7/1945 age 31
Gustaw Wincenty Pflanzer d. 6/9/1947 age 47
Wladyslaw Piech d. 27/5/1942 age 39
Leon Piecha d. 13/9/1944 age 31
Józef Piecuch d. 17/12/1940 age 46
Józef Piekarek d. 11/7/1946 age 48
Stefan Konstanty Pienczykowski d. 23/9/1942 age 44
Henryk Pietrzykowski d. 23/10/1943 age 24
Tadeusz Piróg d. 5/3/1941 age 24
Józef Plaza d. 20/5/1943 age 23
Konstanty Poglódek d. 23/7/1944 age 51
Henryk Pogoda d. 16/1/1941 age 24
Edward Pokorny d. 30/7/1945 age 19
Wladyslaw Ponikowski d. 14/5/1941 age 23
Józef Predkiel d. 8/5/1946 age 38
Mikolaj Proniuk d. 8/3/1945 age 44
Ignacy Prysko d. 16/6/1945 age 37
Józef Przybyla d. 10/6/1941 age 27
Euzebiusz Anastazy Przybylek d. 6/7/1944 age 44
Józef Psiuk d. 30/1/1943 age 48
Marian Tadeusz Ptasinski d. 10/4/1942 age 35
Józef Pustulka d. 18/3/1943 age 38
Stefan Radolinski d. 8/4/1941 age 40
Bronislaw Radowski d. 12/9/1941 age 50
Mieczyslaw Radwan d. 29/9/1943 age 18
Wladyslaw Rajecki d. 4/12/1946 age 32
Mieczyslaw Rappaport d. 17/1/1946 age 45
Feliks Ratynski d. 23/12/1941 age 33
Kazimierz Reluga d. 1/8/1945 age 35
Jan Respondek d. 2/8/1946 age 26
Franciszek Robak d. 20/6/1947 age 47
Henryk Edward Rolinski d. 8/12/1945 age 57
Mieczyslaw Ropiecki d. 13/1/1944 age 29
Adam Piotr Rosiek d. 6/1/1942 age 45
Aleksander Wladyslaw Rotter d. 30/1/1941 age 40
Marek Rozmus d. 7/6/1945 age 44
Jan Franciszek Rudowski d. 9/10/1943 age 38
Franciszek Ryczka d. 21/7/1944 age 55
Jan Boleslaw Rysiewski d. 17/3/1946 age 51
Wladyslaw Ryszkowski d. 14/12/1941 age 36
Seweryn Sadowski d. 28/12/1944 age 35
Aleksander Sak d. 2/10/1945 age 40
Jakub Samel d. 3/2/1947 age 38
Julian Schneider d. 2/4/1944 age 48
Wladyslaw Serafin d. 21/7/1945 age 40
Stefan Serednicki d. 29/8/1945 age 48
Stefan Siemienski d. 29/11/1945 age 40
Stanislaw Piotr Sinkowski d. 20/10/1942 age 52
Józef Skoczylas d. 10/6/1946 age 41
Matylda Skoczynska d. 10/1/1941
Wladyslaw Skórkowski d. 30/12/1941 age 36
Stanislaw Skrzypiec d. 17/3/1946 age 35
Kamil Zenon Slizowski d. 10/10/1943 age 53
Aleksander Slowinski d. 13/4/1945 age 47
Waclaw Smierzchalski d. 9/4/1943 age 43
Stanislaw Sobieraj d. 17/4/1946 age 40
Artur Socha d. 14/7/1943 age 47
Edward Sochacki d. 12/4/1947 age 32
Stanislaw Sorocki d. 7/12/1944 age 45
Wladyslaw Sosnowski d. 13/9/1941 age 31
Józef Spychaj d. 28/9/1944 age 45
Józef Wiktor Sroka d. 23/9/1943 age 38
Adam Zbigniew Stanczyk d. 16/3/1946 age 25
Stanislaw Stasienko d. 8/4/1942 age 28
Zygmunt Lubin Stawarski d. 14/11/1945 age 49
Franciszek Jan Stecd d. 13/6/1947 age 37
Bonifacy Stefaniak d. 13/11/1942 age 30
Kazimierz Mieczyslaw Stefczyk d. 2/5/1941 age 49
Józef Stelmaszyk d. 29/5/1946 age 20
Wojciech Stezowski d. 31/8/1943 age 50
Wladyslaw Strutynski d. 1/3/1941 age 39
Wladyslaw Szczecinski d. 27/2/1944 age 43
Antoni Szczerbicki d. 22/9/1941 age 48
Antoni Szczyrba d. 24/9/1943 age 48
Jan Szeremeta d. 14/1/1947 age 47
Stanislaw Szewczyk d. 25/5/1941 age 26
Jan Szmidt d. 10/10/1945 age 30
Tadeusz Rafal Szmoniewski d. 26/12/1941 age 51
Alojzy Szopa d. 4/4/1945 age 29
Józef Stefan Szper d. 30/1/1942 age 58
Teodor Szportiuk d. 8/11/1946 age 42
Jan Bronislaw Szymanski d. 6/9/1946 age 53
Stanislaw Szymanski d. 12/1/1946 age 22
Mikolaj Szymczyszyn, d. 31/1/1942 age 25
Klemens Szymkiewicz d. 5/6/1943 age 49
Walery Szymkowiak d. 18/3/1942 age 38
Bronislaw Szymula d. 20/3/1946 age 29
Stefan Tarlowski d. 26/6/1942 age 46
Wladyslaw Tazbir d. 15/3/1936 23
Alojzy Tocha d. 17/3/1946 age 30
Jan Torba d. 18/7/1941 age 30
Stefan Franciszek Traczewski d. 14/2/1942 age 43
Jan Trepka d. 10/11/1946 age 29
Mieczyslaw Trojak d. 11/5/1941 age 40
Marian Andrzej Twardzik d. 5/12/1942 age 35
Janusz Ulrych-Ulenski d. 18/11/1949 age 27
Jerzy Urbanski d. 7/12/1946 age 24
Aleksander Ustinowicz d. 10/3/1943 age 29
Jan Wagner d. 31/5/1945 age 22
Wasyl Waszczyszyn d. 28/5/1943 age 39
Franciszek Weglerski d. 23/5/1945 age 33
Franciszek Weinka d. 16/12/1945 age 37
Piotr Weklak d. 20/2/1946 age 19
Wladyslaw Werstler d. 1/2/1941 age 21
Józef Widerski d. 4/5/1946 age 24
Józef Wieczorek d. 24/4/1944 age 42
Stefan Wielunek d. 24.9/1946 age 37
Józef Wija d. 14/2/1944 age 28
Stefan Wilandt d. 1/5/1947 age 32
Jan Wilczek d. 30/8/1941 age 51
Antoni Winkler d. 22/4/1946 age 22
Erwin Winsze d. 22/8/1947 age 43
Walerian Feliks Wisniewski d. 19/10/1946 age 53
Witold Wisniewski d. 27/4/1941 age 24
Zygmunt Wisniewski d. 9/4/1945 age 20
Witold Witkowski d. 15/1/1947 age 44
Jan Witoszynski, d. 12/3/1944
Zdzislaw Witwicki d. 12/5/1943 age 24
Alfred Wodarz d. 14/8/1945
Henryk Wodzynski d. 7/6/1941 age 24
Stanislaw Wójtowicz d. 27/3/1942 age 30
Tadeusz Wolf d. 13/5/1947 age 27
Antoni Wolk d. 19/5/1946 age 28
Czeslaw Wolosznski d. 14/9/1946 age 21
Julian Wiktor Wortman d. 11/10/1941 age 27
Maksymilian Wróblewski d. 7/6/1945 age 36
Wladyslaw Wyrwas d. 24/7/1946 age 29
Stefan Wystepek d. 23/2/1941 age 25
Wlodzimierz Zacharczonek d. 25/6/1944 age 26
Józef Zagórski d. 19/3/1947 age 35
Zofia Zajac d. 9/1/1946 age 20
Stanislaw Zalenski d. 29/9/1943 age 28
Jan Zalewski d. 22/8/1943 age 57
Karol Zamarski d. 1/11/1942 age 48
Tadeusz Zarzycki d. 2/5/1946 age 47
Ludwik Zasada d. 17/11/1941 age 34
Jan Zawada d. 5/3/1944 age 33
Eugeniusz Zawistowski d. 12/12/1940 age 30
Mieczyslaw Zdanski d. 24/6/1947 age 39
Józef Zeguslawski d. 3/4/1943 age 46
Wladyslaw Ziaj d. 17/4/1946 age 24
Wladyslaw Zielinski d. 26/5/1942 age 42
Józef Zienowski d. 3/12/1946 age 43
Hubert Ziora d. 12/1/1945 age 25
Pawel Piotr Zuchowski d. 1/3/1946 age 33
Wladyslaw Zuk d. 12/5/1943 age 44
Helmut-Emanuel Zura d. 10/8/1945 age 22
Franciszek Zygmunt d. 26/5/1945 age 20