500817 Leopold Bandurka Polish Army 5th Rifles Regiment from:Sanok, Poland My father, Leopold Bandurka, was born in 1922 in Sanok, south-eastern Poland.
He was 17 when the Nazis invaded in September 1939, and he escaped over the
border to Slovakia and travelled to France to join up the Polish Army which
was assembling there. After fighting with the 5th Rifles Regiment of the 2nd
Infantry Rifles Division of the Polish Army in France, in June 1940 he was
captured and imprisoned in Stalag XIIA near Limburg, then Stalag XIIF near
Forbach in France, where he was given prisoner number 32325 and 1052B (his
name was wrongly spelt Bandarka). Some time later he was transferred to
Stalag VIIB near Gneixendorf and Krems in Austria. After the war he came to
Scotland (Fraserburgh) then Mansfield, England where he eventually located to
Shirebrook in Nottinghamshire,married and had one child. He passed away in
1984.
He had several stories to tell about these experiences - some repeatable,
others rather less so.
I am anxious to contact anyone who may have known him during his period in
the Polish Army and as a POW.
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