Born: February 3rd, 1918, Dębina (Lublin voivodship, Poland)
Died: August 12th, 2012, Hobart (Tasmania, Australia)
Wife: Maria (maiden name Piwowar)
Children: Grażyna, Leszek
Military Medals: Polish – Virtuti Militari Order, Cross of Valor, Silver Merit Cross (for his activity for Polonia)
Fates before joining Anders Army: A graduate of the General School in Rechta near Lublin (1933), a volunteer in the Junak Labor Corps (1935-37), and from 1937 a soldier of the 12th Armored Battalion in Łuck, a graduate of the NCO school, promoted to the rank of corporal.
During the September campaign in 1939, together with his battalion, he served in the so-called the second line of defense, which was occupied on 09/17 by the Soviets. This forced the unit to evacuate to Romania and try to break through to France. In April 1940, together with his colleagues from armored units, he made his way to the Polish Independent Carpathian Rifle Brigade in the Middle East – in April 1940, they ended up in Beirut. Participant of the Siege of Tobruk, decorated with the Order of Virtuti Militari and promoted to the rank of plutonowy.
Military history: soldier of the Carpathian Lancers Regiment of the 2nd Corps – Iraq, Palestine, Egypt (instructor at the British Armored Training Center in Abbassia, Egypt). On January 25, 1944 he landed in Italy in Taranto. Participant in the fight for Monte Cassino, on the Musone River near Loreto, for Ancona and Bologna. Platoon commander. In Italy, he stayed with the Regiment until July 25, 1946, when their troops were transported by sea to England. In the British Isles, he stays with the Regiment at Weelsby Camp near Grimsby (Lincolnshire), and then at West-on-Trent. On August 2, 1947, he left his regiment, being sent, due to his willingness to emigrate to Australia, to the transit camp in Chippenham, where he was to wait for a ship to the Antipodes.
Post-War: On September 22, 1947, he arrives in Australia on board SS Asturias and finally reaches Tasmania through the Karakata transit camp near Perth and Melbourne. From October 17, 1947 to October 7, 1960, he worked as a senior car mechanic at The Hydro-Electric Commission (H.E.C) in Tasmania. He lived in Waddamana-Hiltop and Bronte Park. In 1949 he married Maria Piwowar – a Siberian survivor, during the war, after evacuation from the USSR, she was staying with her sisters in Polish refugee camp in Valivade (India). In 1953, Mr. Mieczysław moves with his family to Hobart. After 1960, he runs a family shop in the city. Very active in the Polish community and veterans’ associations in Australia – incl. member of Branch No. 7 of the Association of Polish Combatants (Stowarzyszenie Polskich Kombatantów- SPK) in Hobart since its founding in 1954. Organizer of a number of veterans’ meetings, including the Australian Reunion of the Virtuti Militari recipients (1973). He actively supported the erection of the Polish-Australian Tobruk Brotherhood of Arms monument (unveiling on December 11, 1982) in Hobart, the initiator of the monument at the Polish section of the Pontville cemetery (1988) for the intention of those Poles, who died outside the country. In 1995, he published a collection of his own memoirs and those of his colleagues from the Polish 2nd Corps in the publication “Na wzburzonych falach życia”, which, thanks to the persistence of his son Leszek and Polish Museum and Archives in Australia in Melbourne, was translated and published in English in 2021 under the title “On the rough waves of life”. Mr. Drelich died in Hobart in 2012.
Author: Aneta Hoffmann, Warsaw, Poland
Based on Mr. Drelich’s memoirs in the book „Na wzburzonych falach życia”, Hobart 1995.
