Jan Piwnik was born on 31 August 1912 in Janowice near Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, Poland. Until 1933, he served in the Artillery Reserve Cadet School “Włodzimierz Wołyński”Poland. High School No. II named “Joachim Chreptowicz” (completed in 1932)

 

Between the years 1935–1939, as a reserve lieutenant, he was a member of the State Police. As the commander of the 3rd company of the Police Reserve Group, after completing military exercises, in September 1939 he took part in the Polish campaign. Together with his unit, he managed to get to Hungary, where he was interned. He escaped to France and joined the Polish army there. He was eventually included in the 1st Independent Parachute Brigade.

 

During his stay in the British Isles, he volunteered to serve in the country. He took a special course for the Cichociemni - an elite group of paratroopers who were to be dropped into occupied Poland. On October 10th, 1941, he took the oath binding himself to the Union of Armed Struggle. In November, as a lieutenant, he was dropped into the country and landed near Skierniewice. He was involved in coordination of matters related to the arrival of subsequent groups of Cichociemni. Ultimately, however, he was involved in a whirlwind of conspiratorial work of a combat nature. In January 1943, he carried out an action, freeing three members of the Polish underground from a German prison in Pinsk in eastern Poland. This was recognized as an exemplary action, and Piwnik himself was awarded the Virtuti Militari order, and a legendary status among Polish WW2 freedom fighters.

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“He was a „Silent Unseen” soldier, who parachuted into occupied Poland, where he created the most efficient Home Army partisan group known as "Ponury" (the name derived from his own nom de guerre) in the Radom-Kielce area.

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After returning from Pinsk, Lieutenant Piwnik began trying to obtain permission to form his own partisan unit. In mid-May, he formally assumed the position of the commander of the Home Army Partisan Groups in the Świętokrzyskie region. ‘Ponury’ quickly created a brigade of about 100 people. Its main base was Hill 326 under the name of Wykus in the Świętokrzyska Forest. In turn, in a weapons factory in Suchedniów, Piwnik's people started a secret production of copies of sten - English submachine guns.

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His bravery in the field was evident during the September 1939 campaign, when Piwnik commanded a company of Motorized Police, fighting against overwhelming German forces. He managed to organize a coordinated withdrawal. From the east Soviet troops were already approaching, so Piwnik chose a route that led him to Hungary.

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He escaped from a Hungarian internment camp and found himself in France, where the Polish army was being re-created. The unit to which he was assigned, the 4th Infantry Division, was only partially ready for combat when the invasion of France began. Piwnik was transferred to Great Britain, where he joined the elite troops called “Silent Unseen”.

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The “Silent Unseen” were special-operation paratroopers of the Polish Army in exile, trained to support resistance in occupied Poland. Piwnik became one of them and was parachuted in one of the first “Silent Unseen” drops, operation “Ruction”. He successfully reached occupied Poland on 7 November 1941, carrying 30,000 dollars, a radio transmitter, and orders for Stefan Rowecki, the head of the Union of Armed Struggle that would become the Home Army (AK).

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More than one year later, Rowecki as the Home Army commander ordered Piwnik to raid the Gestapo prison in Pińsk. The raid took place on 18 January 1943. In a spectacular 15-minute operation, 16 men led by Piwnik freed fellow Home Army soldiers, including one “Silent Unseen”, without suffering any losses. On the same day, all of them were evacuated to Warsaw.

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Piwnik was later an efficient partisan commander of the Directorate of Diversion forces in the Home Army region of Radom-Kielce, where he conducted several successful guerrilla operations against the Germans. The soldiers of his Home Army Partisan Group "Ponury" were considered the best partisans in the area.

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Jan Piwnik spent the last months of his life in the Nowogródek area, where he was involved in the underground and combat actions of the Nadniemeńskie Partisan Grouping. In June 1944, in the area where his unit was stationed, military operations related to Operation ‘Tempest’ began.

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Jan Piwnik was killed in action on 16 June 1944 near Wilno, where his troops were fighting in “Operation Tempest”. Jan died in Evlashi, Belarus on 16 June 1944 at the age of 31 years,

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He was buried in July 1998,at Wąchock Abbey, Wąchock, Poland.

 

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Source: Institute of National Remembrance Facebook post

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