An unusual wartime memoir with little in the way of heavy combat but enormous dangers and deprivation faced by the Author’s Grandfather, whose memories and words are to focus of this narrative. It is perhaps as much a recounting of trauma and dislocation, from family and friends- for almost everyone in this story. A fascinating and unusual war memoir, which I’m glad I read.

Stanislaw Kulik (1924-June 2016) was just 15 years old when he and his family were forced to leave their home in the village of Obrentchuvka in Eastern Poland and were put on a train to a Russian gulag in Siberia.He was forced to do backbreaking manual labour,and devastatingly,he lost his mother and younger brother,Mietek,who were both weakened from lack of food and illness.Stan managed to survive the horror of the camp,and at 17yo,he went to join the Polish Army that was being formed in the Soviet Union and embarked on a solo journey through Siberia,Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.Once he joined the Polish Army,he then went on across Eastern Europe and Asia,to a refugee camp in Iraq,then to India for a ship bound for UK,where he eventually arrived in Scotland.He trained as a paratrooper as part of a Polish Brigade in Fife and fought in the Battle of Arnhem,where he narrowly avoided capture with help from the Dutch resistance.Stan met his wife, Isa, in Scotland and they had 2 children,and 3 grandchildren,one of whom is this book's author.It was many years before Stan reunited with his father and sister Rozia in Poland.His brother,Billy,settled on the Isle of Wight.Anders' Army was the informal yet common name of the Polish Armed Forces in the East in the 1941–42 period, named after its commander Władysław Anders. The army was created in the Soviet Union but, in March 1942,based on agreement between the British, Polish, and Soviets, it was evacuated from the Soviet Union and made its way through Iran to Palestine.There, it passed under British command and provided the bulk of the units and troops of the Polish II Corps.The Polish-Soviet War was a precursor.On 17 September 1939,the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded from the west.The Red Army had originally sown confusion among the population, claiming that they had come to save Poland from Nazi occupation.However, the Soviet authorities quickly imposed Communist ideology and administration upon their new subjects and suppressed the traditional ways of life,through confiscation,nationalisation and redistribution of all private Polish property.

A truly incredible book on the hardships faced by a Polish man who after being evicted from his land and sent to a gulag, survived to fight for his country in WW2. The hardships endured were heartbreaking. A great read on the triumphant survival of a person who would not give up.

There aren't too many first-hand accounts of british paratroopers during WWII. Credit is definitely deserved by pen and sword for publishing the book and the author for bringing the material to light. It's a tough read filled with many obstacles and harrowing events, but ultimately is shaped by perseverance.