Nedza Franciszek

Kaporal promoted to sergeant on 21-12-1944
08/12/1917 - Rzeszow - Poland
04/07/2008 - Port Talbot - Wales (United Kingdom)

In 1939 My father Franciszek (Frank to everyone) was doing his national service and on the 1st September 1939 was stationed in Warsaw. On the 5th of September his diary records state “ I have been sent to collect - car with full equipment and join the front line, but instead we have to go back through Siedlce - Biala Podlaska -Chelm- Tomaszow Lub. to Hungary. “ The journey took two weeks and he crossed into Hungary 2 hours before the Russians closed the border. He spent the rest of that winter interned in a place called Sajoszentkiraly, which is today in Slovakia.

In the spring he left the camp arriving in France on 1st May 1940 at Modane on the Border with Italy. He rejoined the Polish Army and was sent to coetguidan camp where he was given a French world war 1 uniform and rifle and on 30th May was sent to join 10th Armoured Brigade (10BK). Around the 11th June he received orders to head for the coast and he set out with 22 colleagues via Dijon, Clemont to Bordeaux. On 22 June he boarded the Royal Scotsman and arrived in the UK on 26-6-1940 and was sent to Glasgow where he rejoined his comrades as part of initially the reconnaissance division and then the CKM.

His story then follows the story of CKM.

He was demobbed in 1947 and moved to work in South Wales where he met my mother and had six children.