(2) The War Begins

It was early 1939 and I was 21 years old. In Poland we couldn't really do much about the coming war, except to wait. In the East we had the Russians and in the West we had the Germans. Flanked by the two largest powers in the world, we Poles felt we could do nothing but wait.

I was called up to the 29th Regiment near my home town of Kalisz, in an area where Poland was given German land after WW1.

In preparation for the invasion we all knew was coming from one side or the other, the Polish Army had destroyed two of the bridges over the river Prozna; one on the road going East to Lodz and on to Warsaw, and the other going North to Konin. My friend from the village of Żydów and I were tasked to guard the one remaining bridge. We were more or less like the English Home Guard, “Dad’s Army” with very little equipment or even proper uniforms. Despite this, we still came under military command. Our Headquarters were at a little station in Piwonicka, and if anything happened, or we arrested anyone, we had to take them there.

One night, around midnight, we were on guard; me with my stick, my military jacket and hat. My friend with a rifle, our one bullet and his military trousers and hat! The real soldiers got all the good equipment, so with these weapons we were expected to defend the bridge, and ourselves, against the mighty Wermacht!

A man walked up to us, looking furtive and carrying an attaché case. At that time there were many German spies in the area. This was, at last, our chance for some action, so I stopped him and asked,

"Where are you going?"

As soon as he opened his mouth, I knew that he was a foreigner." On the other side of the bridge was a lovely village called Lisov. Instead of saying "do Lisov" in Polish he used the German form of speaking. I turned to my mate and said

"He's a German!”

"What've you got in that case?" I shouted.

At this he started to run away so I called over to my mate,

"He's a fucking German, and he's trying to blow our bridge up!"

We chased after him, and I caught him and gave him one or two whacks with my stick. I got my mate to hold him down, and told him,

"If he tries to run away, shoot him!"

(We had to make good use of our one bullet).

Well, he was scared and shouted out

"I am Polish!"

"Polish like my foot!" I replied.

We opened his case, and inside were 8 sticks of explosives and detonators. He looked like he was stronger than me and could have given me a good hiding if he'd had the chance, so I gave him another beating with my stick, then we tied his hands with string and took him to our headquarters where I handed him over to the Military Police.

After we filled in the paperwork, I never saw him again, nor knew what happened to him.

That really was my first and last action as a Polish soldier, because soon after that, the Germans invaded and the main Polish Army went south to defend Warsaw, leaving us to do our best and look after ourselves.