Publisher's Synopsis
The easy-to-read (non-combat) memoirs of a young Polish schoolteacher who is conscripted into the Russian Red Army on his 20th birthday. Roman's girlfriend and village fade into the distance as a cattle train takes him into the Soviet Union and a thousand miles from home. Sleeping in peasant huts, zemlyanka dugouts and a lepers' village, the soldiers undergo tank and mortar training, trench digging on the frozen steppe and logging with Georgians before being marched 500 km to Stalingrad in one of Russia's coldest recorded winters. That summer, Roman escapes his work camp with three companions, a 6" map and a bag of onions. Ten days later and thousands of miles to the east, they reach Anders' Army in Uzbekistan and soon after gain freedom from the dreaded Soviet Union across the Caspian Sea. Once in Iran, Roman volunteers for the RAF along with 2,000 other Poles; a series of jeeps, trains and ships carry them through Iraq, India and around Africa to Scotland and Roman's diary highlights the journey. In the UK, Roman describes the effect that the war is having on morale as the squadron begins pilot training, learning a new language, and dating the local girls. Includes diary entries from 1942-1944. [This edition combines "In the Soviet Union without Toilet Paper" and "For King and Empire".]
