In the Polish Secret War: Memoir of a World War II Freedom Fighter

Born in the Polish village of Gaj in 1923, Marian Mazgaj was just a teenager when Germany invaded his country and launched Poland into the combat of World War II. Although Mazgaj was too young to join the Polish army at the time, within a few years he became a member of the Sandomierz Flying Commando Unit, a unit which merged with the
Jedrus
Polish underground group.This memoir provides a vivid record of Mazgaj’s career in the military. The Sandomierz Flying Commando Unit and the
Jedrus
underground were actively engaged in fighting the Nazi forces in Poland during World War II, and the author provides a firsthand account of the groups’ roles in attacking and disarming German military units; destroying the enemy’s grain warehouses and administrators; and receiving air drops of weapons, ammunition, and explosives from the Allies. He also describes the incorporation of his partisan group into the Home Army, whereby he and his comrades became the Fourth Company in the Second Regiment of the Second Division, gaining strength and destroying many more German units.