Adam Marcinkiewicz

Adam was born in 1914 in the village of Glinnik Mariampolski. He graduated from the State High School in Gorlice. He joined a military training school, following in his fathers’ footsteps in 1934. He fought with the Gorlick National Defense Battalion during the German invasion, until the units' capture in September 1939.

He escaped from captivity in October 1939 and after hiding out for a month, he crossed the Hungarian boarder. He moved again into France and was stationed at a Polish Army Camp near Marseille. During the Battle for France his unit, along with other Polish service personne,l moved from Southern France to the small port of St Jean de Luz, being evacuated on the Polish ships MS Sobieski and MS Batory arriving in Plymouth.

He served with the re-formed Polish 1st Armoured Division in Britain until September 1941, when as an agreement between Gen Sikorski and Winston Churchill 400 Polish Officers joined the British Army and were sent to replace British officers be returned from the West African Frontier Force. Adam did two tours with the British 4th Battalion Nigeria Regiment in Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

After returning to Britain in November 1943, he was assigned back to the Polish 1st Armoured Division, landing in Normandy in 1944. During the fighting for the city of Thielt, Belgium the Sherman Tanks of the 1st Armoured Division came under heavy anti tank fire and, Lieutenant Marcinkiewicz carried out a raid on German positions, during which a German Panzerfaust blew off his right hand. The German positions were taken and only then did Adam retire to the rear with severe blood loss. For this action he was awarded the Polish Cross of Valour and the British Military Cross.

He returned to Britain for treatment and was listed as health category 'E' Invalid. Adam moved around several holding units, hospitals and the Polish Resettlement Corp, relinquishing his commission in 1949. Until 1950 Adam kept in touch with his family in Poland, and then it breaks down.

The last entry on his service record gives his address as Iscoyd Park Hospital, Whitchurch, Salop. This hospital treated Polish veterans with TB and mental health conditions, now known as PTSD. On closing in 1956, the patients moved to Penley Hospital. Despite the intense searches until 2003 conducted by his brother Józef Marcinkiewicz and the Polish Red Cross, The British Red Cross Society, Polish Institute and their Museum, Adam never got in contact again with his family. How and why, he ended up in a council flat in Nottingham is still unknown. Adam died a pauper in 1994 and was s buried in the PAFA section at Newark nearly a year after his death.