My Polish Father’s Experiences in WW2: From the Gulag to Normandy and Scotland

My father’s wartime journey was epic: arrested by the Soviets in 1939, he spent nearly two years in Soviet prisons and labour camps before joining the Polish army in the USSR in 1942. This army was then evacuated to the Middle East. In 1943 he was transferred to the 1^st Polish Armoured Division that was being formed in Scotland. In August 1944 the division was sent to Normandy and played a key role in the decisive battle of the Falaise Pocket where my father was wounded. Evacuated to Britain, he ended up in a Polish Army Hospital in Scotland. Through a variety of documents, publications, photographs and official records, it has been possible to reconstruct my father’s remarkable experiences in the wider context of the Polish contribution to WW2.