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Joseph Alfred Syson . British Army Joseph Syson served with the British Army in WW2. I believe he served at Kempton Camp.
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Les Sysum . Royal Air Force My grandfather's name is Les Sysum, and I want to know if anybody remembers him. He was captured at Tobruk, spent time in Stalag IVB and was in the RAF.
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Lt. Mieczyslaw Ignacy "Mietek" Szczepanski . Polish Army 2PSP from Lwow I am posting this for my Beloved Grandfather, Mietek Szczepanski who passed as a naturalized Polish Citizen in 1976. He fought bravely during the September campaign and was help in 4 other camps beside this one. Below is the autobiography of sorts that he left me when he passed. It was kept from me for 35 years and I have translated it to basic English to make it easier.
Villingen 1st January 1951, My Story
I was born in Lvov on 31st of July 1905. After finishing primary and secondary school, and completing a state teacher training course, I was called up for National Service into the 26th Infantry Regiment in Lvov. I was in the army for 15 months: 9 months in training and 6 months active service. My training in the Reserves took place in the 2nd Regiment in Sanok. And at this time I completed a vocational course in bookbinding. Subsequently I thought this subject in primary school in the Lesko and Stryj areas.
I was called up for active service in to the 11th Infantry Division in Stanislawow where I took part in the September campaign of 1939. I was taken prisoner by the Germans in Rybkowice near Lvov. I was a Prisoner of War in Oflag VII in Murnau, Oberlangen, Hofnungstahl near Koln and Villingen.
After a war Villingen became my place of residence and remains so to date (1951). After the war I volunteered for service in the Donaueschingen Battalion. After this Unit was disbanded I worked in team 680 of the UNRA administration, thereafter I worked on childrens' summer camps with the YMCA and finally with the PDR until it ceased operation in Villingen.
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Capt. Albert Z. Szczepkowski . United States Army from Sarasota, FL Albert Szczepkowski was born in Torun, Poland and moved to America when he was 9. He joined the Army in 1943 and took classes at the University of Alabama while in boot camp nearby. Overseas he was wounded three times, twice by rifle fire and once by mortar shrapnel, was held as a prisoner of war. He told his son that one time he was he was lying in a trench in a field in France, his buddies were in retreat, but they had placed him there, hoping they could return to save him. But the soldier crossed over and kept going. In the house-to-house combat he and his buddies had once been captured. But the Germans had retreated, leaving the Americans behind.
By the time he was discharged in 1945, his son said, he was a captain who had declined a promotion in order to return to his college studies.
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Strzelec Jozef Szybkowski . Polish Army 3rd Coy. 37th Battalion from Morawce My great grandfather Jozef was conscripted into the Polish military in 1938, being assigned to the 37th 'Leczycki' Regiment located in the city of Kutno. Prior to this he had worked as a farm labourer in the village of Morawce. He participated in what is now known as 'The Battle of Bzura' or 'The Battle of Kutno'.
He surrendered along with the remainder of his regiment at Ilow on 18th September 1939. From here he was transferred to Stalag XA and designated as Prisoner No. 339P, where he remained until 5th January 1941, when he and seven other men from the camp were 'Released for civilian work' and assigned to a farm in the area of Handewitt, known as Handewitt Field, the employers' name was M. Clausen. Here he remained, and met my great grandmother Antonina Jeremenko, who had been deported from the occupied territory of Ukraine in 1943 as an 'Ostarbeiter' to perform domestic duties at the Clausen household.
When Flensburg fell to the allies they were placed in the Wentorf DP camp and married on 28th July 1945 in the Flensburg Registry Office. Over the course of the next few years the pair were transferred to various DP camps. Jozef joined the Civil Mixed Labour Organization and later the Watchman service within the British Zone, and Antonina gave birth to three children, one of whiom suffered an accidental death at the Wedel DP camp.
They had initially intended on leaving for Morawce, but decided otherwise because of the Soviet presence. They applied for assistance from the IRO and on 8th July 1950 they left Bremerhaven harbour aboard the SS Fairsea bound for Australia.
The family spent some time in a refugee camp at Somers in Victoria, where Jozef had to work on contract in exchange for the family's asylum. Eventually the family was released and they settled in a nearby town with three new children. Jozef returned to Poland for the first time in 1973 to attend his mother's funeral, he died in 1990.
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