Ryszard Wroblewski

1st Polish Armoured Division

Ryszard was born on 13 April 1914 in Pinsk, Poland. When war broke out, his parents were deported to Siberia while Ryszard served in the Polish Army.

During the September 1939 Campaign in Poland, he served in the 1st Gendarmerie Squadron. He then evacuated to Hungary and was interned. He escaped the internment camp and made his way to France where the Polish Army was being reconstituted.

Ryszard reached France and on 17 February 1940 and enlisted in the Polish Independent Highland Brigade under General Szyszko-Bohusz. With the Brigade he took part in the battle of Narvik between 23 April and 17 June 1940. Returning to France, his brigade fought in the defence of Brittany until it was disbanded and some of its soldiers, including Ryszard, were evacuated to Britain where they became part of General Maczek’s First Armoured Division at Duns.

After D-Day, the Division fought through France (where Ryszard was awarded the Cross of Valour). Ryszard served in the 1st Armoured Regiment and fought, among other places, at Caen, Falaise, Chambois, Abbeville, Ypres, Roulers, Tielt, Ghent, Sint-Niklaas, Stekene, Koewacht, the Axel–Hulst Canal, Merksplas, Baarle-Heide, Baarle-Nassau, Gilze, Breda, Moerdijk, the Meuse River, the Custen Canal, Aschendorf, Papenburg, Irhove-Leer, and Wilhelmshaven. From 1945 to 1947, he served with the occupation forces working on the disarmament of Germany.

While at Wilhelmshaven, Ryszard met Lucja at the nearby prison camp at Oberlangen. She had been taken from her home at age seventeen into the Nazi forced labour machine. Ryszard and Lucja (née Bukowska) married in Germany and having no home to return to in Poland, eventually moved to Somerset after the war.

In 1947 he returned to Scotland and settled in Glasgow where he worked as a cabinetmaker. Life for Lucja was always hard - the camps had left an indelible scar. Lucja died in August 2001 and Ryszard in December. They had been together for over fifty years. They had one son, Kazimierz.

Ryszard passed away on 7 December 2001 in Glasgow, at the age of 87 years.