My Boyhood War

by Bohdan Hryniewicz

  At the end of June, I learned that I was scheduled to ship out within a few days. We left on a train to Hamburg, where we boarded a cargo vessel converted into a troop transport. Our berths were in the cargo hold, where steel pipes with bars welded between them made a ladder. Every few feet were hooks for hanging hammocks. We were each issued a hammock. Since I was the youngest I took the uppermost level. This turned out to be a blessing since soon after we left the harbour we ran into a very heavy storm. I did not get seasick, but most of the others did. Being at the top level proved a great advantage. Two days later, the storm subsided and we rounded the tip of Scotland, passed by the Hebrides Islands and anchored in the Firth of Clyde. We anchored near an aircraft carrier and watched in amazement as the admiral was piped aboard the carrier. A Rolls-Royce limousine drove him across the width of the deck to the point where he entered the superstructure.

  The following day we disembarked in the port of Glasgow. We had arrived in the UK.

  PART 7

  ENGLAND

  30

  Nicholas Copernicus Polish College for Boys, July 1947–June 1949

  Leaving Glasgow, we travelled the entire length of England by train and disembarked in Salisbury. We were taken by truck to the Hyde Park Polish Army Camp. I stayed there until the end of July, waiting for the beginning of the new school year at the Polish Lyceum.

  In July 1945 the Western Allies had recognised the Provisional Communist Government that had been formed in Poland, nevertheless the British retained responsibility for the Polish Armed Forces who had fought under their command during the Second World War. More than 140,000 Polish service men from a total of 250,000 refused to return to a Poland now dominated by the communists. The British government then established a Polish Resettlement Corps (PRC) to facilitate their transfer to civilian life. This organisation continued to maintain the military camps.

  During the war, the Ministry of Education of the Polish Government in London established numerous Polish educational facilities serving a quarter of a million military personnel and their families. On the university level, a Polish School of Medicine was established in Edinburgh, active from 1941 to 1949, there was a Polish Veterinarian School at the Royal Veterinarian College, the Polish Administration at the University of St Andrew’s, the Polish School of Architecture located in Liverpool and the Polish School of Law in Oxford. Later in 1947, the Polish University College was established in London. There were secondary schools throughout the divisions of the Polish Army, Polish Air Force and Polish Navy, as well as cadet schools. By the time I arrived in England, only two Polish military secondary schools remained: one for women and one for men.

  Towards the end of July, I collected my train voucher and food ration cards, and departed for the 3rd Polish Infantry Division secondary school, which had recently been relocated from Italy to England. All of the Polish military secondary schools for men were consolidated into this school. When my train arrived in Thetford, Norfolk, I went to the stationmaster and telephoned the Riddlesworth Camp, where the school was located. I was advised that there wasn’t any available transport, nor was there any scheduled public transportation between the station and camp. I decided that I could get there on my own as the camp was only 6 miles away. I was about to pick up my kit bag when I noticed a Polish Army lieutenant standing nearby. I introduced myself and asked if he too was going to the same camp. Lt. Józef Bujnowski said yes, he had been assigned to the teaching staff at the school. He invited me to go with him by taxi. During our conversation I learned that he was from an area near Wilno and had studied there at the university.

  During the war, the camp had been a USAAF base. The camp grounds straddled a country road leading to an airfield a few miles away. We lived in barracks that had been built in clearings between trees. Our classrooms, dining hall, kitchens and administration offices were all in ‘Quonset’ huts across the road from our living quarters. Our barracks were prefabricated huts of flimsy wood construction made in Canada. They were divided into halves and each room accommodated five of us.

  The majority of the students were ex-service men of the Polish Armed Forces or members of their families; a few civilians were also enrolled. Many had missed several years of schooling due to the war, resulting in their average age being older than comparable levels in a more standard school. The academic programme was administered by the Committee of Education of Poles in Great Britain. Our teaching staff was excellent, very high calibre, mostly university lecturers; the curriculum was equally demanding. Daily life was spartan. Typically, five students shared a room, which had been furnished with narrow military beds, a small wardrobe and a table with chairs. In the middle of our room stood a potbelly stove and a single bulb hanging over the table was our only source of light. There were many shortages in England at that time and fuel was one of them. Hot water was available once a week on Saturdays, when the shower room boiler was fired up. Our coal allotment was insufficient. We used our stove only after 4 p.m., when we returned from class, and let the fire die down before we went to bed. Meals were unappetising and meagre. In the dining hall we sat six at a table. Breakfast consisted of half a stick (four tablespoons) of margarine, two tablespoons of orange marmalade and a piece of cheddar smaller than half a cigarette pack, for the six of us. In addition, there were two slices of sandwich bread for each of us. At noon, our main meal of the day consisted of soup and a platter with mashed potatoes, mystery meat and veggies. In the evening there was a small meal of porridge or farina with vanilla custard on top, referred to as ‘revenge of the newborn’. Needless to say, we were all hungry most of the time. All food was rationed and we did not have ration cards. Our camp was very isolated; the nearest town was Thetford, 6 miles away. Anyway, most of us received only pocket money from the committee. The camp canteen, run by NAAFI, sold only small meatless sandwiches and sweet buns.

  To assure equal distribution, each table rotated one man who divided the food into six portions and passed the platter to his right. Since he was the last one to take his portion, they were divided absolutely equally. The soup for the midday meal was served from a large kettle. Each table had a designated runner and a number two man. Their job was to sprint to the mess hall as soon as the bell rang and get in line. The technique for ladling the soup was to spin the contents clockwise, reverse the ladle, and scoop all of the solids as it was lifted up. By the time the first three or four tables had their dinner soup, only a thin watery liquid remained. Luckily, our classroom was one of the closest to the mess hall. To supplement our meagre rations of meat we would occasionally poach rabbits, which were abundant, by setting up snares. This was illegal, but a delicious rabbit cooked on top of the stove made the risk worthwhile. We were very careful to dispose of all the evidence. In the spring of 1948, bread was no longer rationed. We all biked to nearby bakeries to buy bread. It took me a long time to find a bakery where the bread was not already sold out. Finally my roommate Władek Miłkowski and I bought two loaves each. We sat down and each devoured a loaf of freshly baked bread.

  We all had bicycles. Soon after my arrival at this school, I had been told to borrow a wrench, pliers and a bicycle pump and walk to the dump adjacent to the airfield. Home-bound American airmen dumped their bicycles there, literally hundreds of them in a large pile. What remained had been pretty well picked over. Nevertheless, I quickly managed to assemble a bike and ride back to camp. The bicycles were our principal means of transportation, whether we went to see a film in Thetford or to explore nearby villages.

  The Polish Army 3rd Infantry Division administered the camp. Emergency medical services were provided by the camp’s medic, and a Polish military hospital, 60 miles away in Diddington, served our camp. An army ambulance left the camp early in the morning and returned late in the afternoon on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Aunt Fela had been a nurse with this hospital during the war in Italy. She and uncle Richard were now living there and I decided to visit them. With an invented excuse I departed one Fr
iday morning, ‘missed’ the return ambulance and returned on Monday. I had not seen them since they had been deported from Wilno to Russia in the summer of 1941. I had always liked them so I enjoyed the visit very much. I met my newborn cousin Andrew. They were very pleased to hear news of uncle Richard’s mother and brother, whom they had not seen since the beginning of the war. When I repeated this ‘visit’ a few weeks later I was reprimanded.

  Before leaving Germany I had been demobilised from the Polish Armed Forces. I had also been ‘Converted as an Allied soldier from PWX to civilian DP status on 24.6.1947.’ Though we were technically demobilised, we continued to wear our uniforms since they were the only clothing we had.

  I had been conditionally accepted into the first year of the lyceum, subject to passing my Latin examination. Ours was the maths and sciences branch of lyceum and we no longer had Latin classes. After a couple of months, much to my surprise and discomfort, I was told to report to take my Latin exam. After a brief attempt on my part to answer some of his grammar questions, the examining professor smiled and said, ‘Maybe you should just write an essay on the political situation in Rome at the time of Julius Caesar … in Polish.’ With this, once again, I breathed easier.

  I had not seen mother since May of 1947, when she left Germany. We kept in touch by mail and I went to London to see her during the 1948 Easter break. Mother’s first assignment when she arrived in England was in the PRC payroll department at Camp Willey near Guildford, south of London. In February she was released and went to work as a labourer in a London factory. She had stayed in a nearby Polish boarding house with several other demobilised Poles. Working in the factory was hard and monotonous. She and a co-worker fed large sheets of painted metal into a press to be stamped into lids for small metal boxes. Even though she was tired, mother had been in good spirits and was already making plans for a move into the centre of London to somehow start a business.

  This trip to London was the last time I wore my uniform with its Polish eagle and ‘Poland’ shoulder patches in public. Upon my returned to school, we were required to remove all military insignia of rank and unit and national emblems. We still wore our uniforms; it was all most of us had, but now we mixed in some civilian apparel.

  Towards the end of our school year, a British military mission arrived and attempted to recruit the student body into the British Army. This effort was strongly opposed by our teaching staff; nevertheless, the school was obliged to permit the mission to make its presentations. We listened to the offer of good pay, advancement and, after years of service, a grant of citizenship with the possibility of commission. Only three men enrolled.

  The school year ended in June and I was promoted into the second and final grade of lyceum. We were advised that our school would be relocated during the summer to a new camp in Ellough, near Beccles in Suffolk. When classes ended, I took a bus to London to visit mother. After a short stint as a hotel maid, she had relocated and established herself as a manicurist in a room she rented in Ebury Street near London’s Waterloo Station.

  After a few days I left for a farm camp that had been organised by the Minister of Agriculture. Its slogan, ‘Lend a Hand to the Land,’ came from the Second World War WLA (Women’s Land Army) camps. It was near Nottingham, close to Sherwood Forest. Most of the participants were university students, both English and foreign. There were also some young women, who were taking a two- or three-week holiday there. The work was hard. At the beginning of my stay I worked pulling up flax plants and later on the combines. We carried 224lb sacks of grain on our backs. The pay was meagre, food relatively good, but great fun was had by all. It was essentially a holiday. I saved most of my earnings because food and lodging were provided. At summer’s end I visited mother again in London.

  At the beginning of September I arrived in Beccles, 100 miles northeast of London, and made my way to Ellough. Our school relocated to another camp, again an old USAAF airbase. It was larger, with better facilities. We lived in Quonset huts, which we preferred to our previous quarters. The gymnasium and dining hall were in conventional buildings. The sanitary blocks had tiled walls and the hot water was much more frequent. The gymnasium and tennis courts allowed us to participate in more sports, we were no longer limited to football and volleyball.

  The school was now administered by the committee and was renamed the Nicolaus Copernicus Polish College for Boys. The food had improved greatly. The town of Beccles, only 3 miles away, was larger than Thetford and had more to offer. I had more disposable money, due to my summer work; I could afford additional films and food. We made excursions by train and bicycle to the nearby towns of Ipswich and Norwich.

  In November the school moved again, to another USAAF base near the village of Bottisham, east of Cambridge, on the road to New Market. The village had less than 1,000 inhabitants, an old fourteenth-century church and a couple of pubs, not much to offer. Cambridge, only 6 miles away, easily accessible by bicycle, was our frequent destination. The camp facilities were the best, with proper classrooms, dining room and sports facilities. We continued living in Quonset huts, four to a room. The rooms had better furniture and real central heating. The four of us got domesticated. We bought an iron and hired a radio. There were no independent radio stations, only the BBC. The only independent station in Europe was in Andorra. It played popular music, which we preferred to the classical music on the BBC. The food improved again. We were no longer hungry. One day we received a shipment of bananas, which we ate for dessert. I had not seen a banana since 1939.

  I spent Christmas with mother. She was living near Victoria Station and had easy access to the Underground, making travel through London very easy. I explored the city and its museums during my ten-day stay. London had a large Polish presence centred in Kensington, Knightsbridge and Earls Court. As the Second World War ended, there were close to 20,000 Poles living in Great Britain. By 1949, the population had swelled to 140,000 and many of them lived in London. London was the centre of Polish political and cultural life in exile. The Polish government-in-exile continued. There were combatant associations, all branches of the Polish Armed Forces. The ‘White Eagle’ and ‘Polish Hearth’ clubs, with restaurants, bars and ballrooms, were the centre of Polish activity. I liked the city and especially the ambiance surrounding the Polish community.

  When I returned, our soon-to-graduate class was given civilian clothes. Everyone received a tweed jacket, grey flannel slacks, two shirts, a tie and a pair of shoes. Every day we continued to wear our old uniforms but on trips to Cambridge we wore civvies.

  Our year had close to sixty students and was divided into A and B sections. An unpleasant incident occurred in the other section. The English language lecturer was a Col. Burns, retired from the British Indian Army. He could have been the model for ‘Colonel Blimp’. He openly expressed his belief that only God knew the English language well enough to achieve a grade of 100 per cent, the brightest English student could earn 80 per cent, while a Polish student at best could earn 60 per cent. During one of his lectures he made a grammatical error. One of the students, who was fluent in English and whose stepfather was English, stood up and politely asked for an explanation. The enraged colonel walked over and slapped his face. The whole class stood up and left the classroom, refusing to return until an apology was made. The standoff continued for about a week, until a compromise was reached and a new lecturer took over. The students returned to class.

  After the spring break, spent in London, we all started to cram for our matriculation exams. The exams were long – three to five hours written in each subject, followed by an oral exam in front of an examining committee. We had exams in mathematics, including algebra, trigonometry, spherical trigonometry and calculus; physics; chemistry, organic and inorganic; Polish language and literature; and history. My cramming paid off and I attained the highest grades ever. To my surprise, I got all As and Bs, except for one C in language. With only three exceptions, all sixty of us passed and matriculated. The nig
ht after the graduation ceremony we held our ‘Matriculation Ball’. The graduates from the Polish Women’s Lyceum came, reigniting the romances that had begun when they hosted the studniówka ‘100 Days before Ball’ at their school. Two days later, after exchanging farewells and good luck wishes, I hopped on a bus headed for London.

  31

  London, June 1949–

  8 December 1950

  I stayed with mother for a few days, until I found a summer job working as a waiter at the United University Club, along with three other Polish men. Tipping was against the rules at the club, except at Christmas. As a result, all the waiters were Poles, no professional waiter wanted to take a job without tips. Membership of the club, founded in 1821, was restricted to a limited number of graduates of Cambridge and Oxford. It occupied its own imposing building adjacent to Trafalgar Square. There were two dining rooms, one for members only and the other for entertaining female guests. There were twenty guest rooms and an overnight stay included breakfast service. At that time, food rationing was still in effect. All club service personnel ate their meagre meals in a basement room next to the kitchen, where all meals served at the club were prepared. Breakfast plates were sent up to the dining room by dumbwaiter, to a service pantry. Each plate had three rashers of bacon. When the plates reached the pantry we removed one piece of bacon and the guest was served the remaining two. At 10 o’clock, breakfast service ended and the dining room was closed. The four of us retired to a secluded pantry room, where we sat down at a table laden with food. There were rashers of bacon, boiled eggs, grilled mackerel, toast, marmalade and coffee. We sat down with our London Times and relaxed. One day we miscalculated. Somehow the last guest had arrived late for breakfast and could not find a waiter. The English steward, a kind, elderly man, served him and then came looking for us. He opened the pantry, took in the scene and was stopped speechless. He lifted both hands to his head and repeatedly said, ‘Oh my God’. Without another word, he turned and left. We never heard anything further and continued our breakfasts.