Henryk was born on 19 January 1915 at Busk, Kamionka Strumillowa, in Tarnopol province.  His parents were Jozef and Halina (nee Kawecka).  Her had two siblings: Wladyslaw and Jadwiga.

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In 1938 Henryk trained at the 24th Infantry Regiment and when the war broke out, he was an Officer Cadet reservist. He was called up for duty with the 23rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Battalion, at Wlodzimierz Wolynski.

 

During the September Campaign, Henryk participated in the following action:

Action at Puszcza Tucholska, at Starogard-Bydgoszcz Line, near Torun, march towards Wloclawek and Kutno, and battle with the enemy near Kutno where he was wounded in action and hospitalised in Gostynin.  He became a Prisoner of war on 17 September 1939 and was released on 19 October 1939.

 

Henryk returned home but found that life was very different under Russian occupation. Then, in early 1940, his father was arrested, and the family never saw him again. On 13 April 1940, Henryk was forcibly taken from his home by the Russians and deported with his mother Helena, brother Wladyslaw and sister Jadwiga.  They were given less than an hour to pack what they could, and had to leave everything else behind. 

 

They were taken to the train station, where they were packed into a cattle car with dozens of other Poles from the area.  They spent the next 2-3 weeks in that cattle car, with few provisions and increasing desperation.  Their destination was Sowchoz nr.23, near Czornoje (near the Irtys River) in the Pawlodar Oblast of Kazakhstan. For the next 15 months, they endured forced labour, disease and malnutrition at this collective farm until the Sikorski -Maisky agreement between the Polers and the Russians was signed on 30 July 1941. This led to the release of Polish deportees so that they could join the Polish Armed Forces which were being organised in 1941-1942 in the southern USSR.

 

After a long and exceedingly difficult journey on foot and in cattle cars, Henryk reached the Polish army base and enlisted on 1 February 1942. He was posted to the 22nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. He was subsequently assigned to the 22nd lnfantry Regiment, Machine Guns Company.

 

When the Russians failed to provide the necessary provisions and equipment, the Polish army left the USSR and evacuated to Persia (Iran).  Henryk evacuated with them via the Caspian Sea and landed in Pahlavi on 15 August 1942.  At this point, the Polish army came under British command. While in the Middle East, Henryk was sent to Iraq for training, and then to Palestine and Egypt.

 

On 2 December 1944, he transferred to the United Kingdom (via a sea journey that took him around the coast of Africa) and was seconded for study at Oxford. In July 1945 he transferred to the Infantry Training Centre, and in September 1945 to the Officers Record Office where her served until 1947.

 

As Polish forces were slowly being de-mobilized, Second Lieutenant Marynowicz was commissioned in the Polish Resettlement Corps (PRC) on 19 April 1947 and served in the United Kingdom until he relinquished his commission on completion of his two-year contract with the PRC on 30 September 1948.

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For his wartime service, Henryk was awarded the Polish War Medal, as well as the British Defence Medal and War Medal 1939-45.

 

While still in service, Henryk married Irena Michorecka and they settled in the United Kingdom after the war.  Henryk died there on 4 August 1967, as a result of a tragic accident.

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