Henryk Sucharski (12 November 1898 – 30 August 1946) was a Polish military officer and a major in the Polish Army. At the outbreak of World War II, he was one of the commanders of the Westerplatte position in Gdańsk, which troops under his command defended for seven days against overwhelming odds. Sucharski survived the war.
Henryk Sucharski (12 November 1898 – 30 August 1946) was a Polish military officer and a major in the Polish Army. At the outbreak of World War II, he was one of the commanders of the Westerplatte position in Gdańsk, which troops under his command defended for seven days against overwhelming odds. Sucharski survived the war.
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R.I.P Henryk
Early life and career Sucharski was born on November 12, 1898, in Gręboszów, a village near Tarnów, to a peasant family. He finished a local bi-yearly trade school and then a similar school in Otfinów. In early 1917 he graduated from the 2nd KuK Gymnasium in Tarnów and on February 13 he volunteered for service with the Austro-Hungarian Army. During his service in the March Battalion of the Bochnia-based 32nd Landwehr Regiment, he passed his matura exams and in February 1918 graduated from an officers school in Opatów. Dispatched with his regiment to the Italian front of the Great War, Sucharski was infected with malaria and spent the remainder of the war in various hospitals in San Stino di Livenza and then Celje. Upon his return to Poland, on February 7, 1919 he joined the Polish Army and the Tarnów-based 16th Infantry Regiment, in part composed of his former Austro-Hungarian unit. In March he took part in the defence of Cieszyn Silesia against the Czechoslovak invasion and in June he was promoted to the rank of Corporal. By the end of October he was transferred to the North-Eastern sector of the front of the brief Polish-Bolshevik War where he took…
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Henryk Sucharskia adăugat o fotografie
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R.I.P Henryk
Westerplatte
On December 3, 1938 Sucharski became the commanding officer of the Military Transit Depot in Westerplatte, a Polish military outpost in the Free City of Danzig. A skilled organizer, Sucharski focused on improving the defences of the area under his command, a tiny ex–territorial area within the German-dominated city. He strengthened the fortifications of the Westerplatte peninsula and increased the number of soldiers serving there.
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After Westerplatte After short stays in various German transit camps where the sabre was removed from his possession, on October 26, 1939 Sucharski was imprisoned in Oflag IV-A in the Hohnstein castle. He spent the remainder of the war in various German prisoner of war camps, including Oflag II-B in Arnswalde from June 25, 1940 and Oflag II-D in Gross-Born from May 12, 1942. During the evacuation of Gross-Born in March 1945 he suffered a serious accident from which he never fully recovered. After being liberated from the Schwerin sub-camp of the Oflag X-C Lübeck by the Americans, on May 28, 1945 Sucharski joined the Polish II Corps and was transferred to Italy, where he briefly served as a commander of the 6th Karpaty Rifles Battalion following January 25, 1946. On August 19, 1946, he was sent to a British military hospital in Naples where he was interviewed by Melchior Wańkowicz, who made Sucharski the main protagonist in his 1948 short story Westerplatte. Henryk Sucharski died from peritonitis several days after the interview, on August 30, 1946. The following day he was buried in the Polish war cemetery in Casamassima near Bari. On September 1, 1971 his ashes were returned…
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Namesake places
A street in Gdynia is named for him (located at 54°33'30.99"N and 18°30'24.21"E) and also another in Ostroleka, called Sucharskiego, with seven apartment blocks along it.
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Honours and awards
Commander's Cross of the Virtuti Militari, previously awarded the Silver Cross