Wladyslaw Pacewicz

Polish Navy

Following the imprisonment of his policeman father in Równe (later to be executed in the Katyń massacres) 11-year-old Władysław Pacewicz was deported in a cattle truck on 13 April 1940, together with up to 2 million other Polish citizens (including up to 242,000 POWs) to Siberia. Władysław was sent for forced labour to the harsh steppe of northern Kazakhstan.

With his mother and sister, they survived the first winter but would not have survived a second. On 22 June 1941 Germany attacked Russia in “Operation Barbarossa”, bringing Stalin to the side of the Allies. On the 30 July 1941 the “Sikorski-Maisky” agreement was signed which gave the exiled Poles in USSR “amnesty”. A Polish-Russian military agreement followed on 14th August 1941, permitting the formation of a Polish Army on Soviet soil under General Władysław Anders. The HQ was in Buzuluk, in the Orenburg District of the Ural Mountains, with recruitment centers in Tatischevo, Toskoye, Kuibyshev and Koltubanka.

On 17th September 1941 Władysław was released from forced labour. He and many thousands of Polish citizens had to make their way to the army recruitment centers without money, food or organized transport: “the rail network was thrown into confusion and was unable to cope. Poles were released in an appalling state – half-starved, susceptible to illnesses and infections, very often clad in rags, without proper footwear, and lice-ridden.” Keith Sword, “Deportation and Exile: Poles in the Soviet Union, 1939-48”.

On 1 December 1941, Władyslaw reached the Urals and enlisted in the Polish Army at Toskoye, being posted to the 18th Infantry Regiment, 6th Infantry Division. The Polish soldiers had to camp in tents in freezing winter conditions. There was a huge lack of weapons for training, inadequate food provision (because Stalin had cut the rations to the Polish Army) and epidemics of typhus and dysentery.

In January and February 1942, the Polish forces were moved to the warmer, southern republics of the USSR – Uzbekistan, Kirghizstan and Turkmenistan. Finally, Stalin and General Anders agreed to evacuate the Polish Army to Persia, first by train to Krasnowodsk and from there by ship across the Caspian Sea. Approximately 116,000 Polish exiles (78,572 were military) escaped the Soviet Union this way. The first ship ASTRAKHAN left Krasnowodsk on 24 March. This contingent numbered 1,387 Poles, almost all of whom were sailors and airmen earmarked for onward transfer to G.B. under Operation Scrivner. Władysław had volunteered for the Polish Navy and was on this first evacuation to Pahlevi on 24 March 1942.

From Persia, then to Iraq, the more able-bodied Polish troops were moved to Palestine where the Polish Army was being re-organized. On 1 June 1942, Władysław was transferred to the Polish Navy camp in Palestine. He was 14 years old but lied about his age by 5 years. On the 3 July he left by ship for the UK, arriving in Clyde or Liverpool on the 23 August 1942. With effect from the 28 August 1942, Władysław, able-bodied seaman, was enlisted in the Polish Navy under British Command.