The sixth Remembrance Service for the Polish soldiers who died in 1947-49 was organised by Mr Joe Cocker, Mrs Katarzyna Dykes, Mrs Veronica de Oliveira, and Leominster Area Polish Society at the Cemetery in British Leominster.
At the first service in 2016, we knew the names of only seven soldiers. Since then, the Polish Society have discovered the burials of 5 more soldiers in unmarked graves, and we firmly believe there maybe even more!
The event reminds us of the debt which the UK owes to Polish Forces for the critical role they played in WW2.
Unfortunately, there are many people in the United Kingdom who have forgotten the part Poland played in World War II. Polish Forces were the British oldest allies at one time. They were also British only allies.
In 1940 General SIKORSKI and Poles were the ONLY military allied a taskforce of Prime Minister Winston Churchill as America was not yet involved in WWII, until after the Pearl Harbour disaster (16 months later).
General Sikorski arrived in England in the genuine hour of need, with the 68,000 battle-hardened soldiers from France, with experienced Polish pilots and the Polish Navy. We all know how valuable were these military resources for PM Churchill.
General Charles De Gaulle with his …..5 soldiers(!) in London, was not comparable to what General Sikorski offered Britain. Churchill knew this well, and his relationship with General Sikorski was just amazing, and they became genuine friends.
They do need to be remembered. They were very gallant. Many came to enlist in the British Army, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, but mostly, the great numbers were in the army. Some of them came from the Soviet Union because they had been taken by Joseph Stalin and put in the gulags. They actually walked and got here, enlisted, and then helped Great Britain when they were released.
At some deep level, Britain may still feel a debt to Poland over the war. But it’s not something that the man in the street thinks much about. Over the decades, the Polish community in the United Kingdom put down solid foundations; during the war, we fought side by side with the enemy and frankly speaking, the repercussions of that alliance are arguably more vital now than ever. It is worth thinking about that the next time you pass a Polish shop or participate in the Polish Heritage Days celebrations.
These are the names of the soldiers with their age and date of death:
MAJOR GENERAL STANISLAW KOZICKI 55, 13th June 1948
DR MAJOR JULIAN TUMIDAJSKI 58, 27th July 1948
CORPORAL JAN LUKAWSKI 40, 23rd March 1947
2nd LIEUTENANT STEFAN NIEMCZYK 50, 26th June 1948
ENGINEER LUDVIK DOMANSKI 55, 9th July 1948
KAPITAN EDMUND SMALEWSKI 56, 15th August 1948
PRIVATE STEFAN ZAJACZKOWSKI 29, 20th March 1947
PIOTR TKACZ 46, 25th August 1948
STAFF SERGEANT BOGDAN DZIOPINSKI 50, 10th October 1948
ALEKSANDER MAKZIEWSKI 25, 7th November 1948
STAFF SERGEANT JOZEF FOLTA 52, 12th November 1948
JAN RZEPKA 52, 12th January 1949.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning.
We will remember them”.*
May They rest in peace!
We will remember Them!
Place of the ceremony: Leominster Cemetery, UK.
Author: Tomasz Wiśniewski
Photos by Tomasz Wiśniewski
*„For the Fallen”- Poem by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), published in The Times newspaper on 21 September 1914.
