Obituaries

to them both.

Lt-Col Zbigniew S. Mozdzierski: veteran of the Battle of Cassino.

At the outset of the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Zbigniew Mozdzierski, 19, was commanding a troop of 155mm guns of the Polish 6th Artillery Regiment in the southeast of the country, facing the advance of General von List's 14th Army. He had graduated from the Artillery School at Zambrów three weeks earlier and so had to learn his new profession at speed.

The Poles' strategy of forward defence, designed to protect the main centres of population and the Silesian coalfields, actually facilitated the swiftly moving German armoured columns' tactics of dividing the defending armies. By September 10 Mozdzierski's regiment and others were confined to the pocket of resistance under General Sosnkowski, west of Lwow. After the Red Army crossed the eastern frontier a week later, he and thousands of his comrades were deported to the Soviet Union — virtually as prisoners of war — and not released until the Sikorski-Maisky (Polish-Soviet) agreement of July 1941.

Mozdzierski was one of the 75,000 Polish soldiers released to form the Polish II Corps under General Wladyslaw Anders in Persia (Iran), eventually to move through Palestine to join the British 8th Army in Italy. The 1st Polish Corps was already in Britain established from units which, after escaping the German invasion, had travelled through Eastern Europe and still-neutral Italy to France. These, together with Polish naval and air units that had also escaped, were Britain's only ally outside the Commonwealth from the fall of France in June 1940 until the invasion of Russia.

Mozdzierski served in Italy with the 10th Artillery Regiment in the II Polish Corps from January 1944 until the German surrender in April 1945. On March 24, 1944, Anders was instructed to capture the dominating heights of Monte Cassino barring the Allies' route to Rome. The Americans, the battle-hardened 4th Indian Division and 2nd New Zealand had all tried and been unable to hold the ground they gained on the slopes against well-sited and resolutely defended German emplacements. Now it was the turn of the Poles.

Anders' plan was to capture the approaching ridge to isolate Monastery Hill that would then have to be subjected to constant bombardment and screened by artillery-delivered smoke to allow the 5th Kresowa and 3rd Carpathian Divisions to scale the other heights. As a forward observation officer advancing with the infantry, it fell to Mozdzierski to direct the fire of 1st battery of the Polish 10th Artillery Regiment in this task.

At 11.40pm on May 10, the Polish artillery began its concentration on the German infantry positions on Monastery Hill. Despite the carefully prepared plans for the infantry attacks, the overall artillery support proved inadequate, leaving Anders no choice but to postpone his advance until May 12. After reorganising he renewed his attack and — with increased artillery support — succeeded, so that the Polish standard flew above the monastery at 10.30am on May 18.

Mozdzierski, who was with the attacking infantry in both attempts, was awarded the Polish Cross of Valour for his steadfastness in directing the supporting fire of his battery's guns, despite being constantly under enemy retaliatory fire. He also received the Polish Monte Cassino Cross, awarded to all Poles who had taken part in the final and successful assault.

Unwounded, he served in the battle for Ancona on the Gothic Line, in the northern Apennines and in the battle for Bologna in the Lombardy Plain. In March 1947 he was transferred to the Polish Resettlement Corps in England as, in company with many thousands of his compatriots who had fought with the Allies in Italy and North-West Europe, he decided against returning to his homeland, by then under Soviet domination as part of the division of Europe into regions of influence agreed at the Yalta conference.

He made his home in England for several years but, after meeting and marrying a British architect, Susan Armstrong, they moved to Los Angeles, where he trained and became a civil engineer.

Zbigniew Stanislaw Mozdzierski was born and educated at Stanislowów in southeastern Poland, now incorporated into Ukraine. His affection for Poland after the end of hostilities found an outlet in voluntary work on behalf of Polish expatriates in England, when he was living there, and later in and around Los Angeles after his move to the United States.

After the fall of communism in Poland in 1989, this work was recognized by him being granted the honorary rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Polish army reserve.

In the 1970s he and his wife retired to Guernsey, where he died.

He is survived by his wife, whom he married in 1957, and two daughters.

Lieutenant-Colonel Zbigniew S. Mozdzierski, veteran of the Battle of Cassino, was born on December 12, 1919. He died on December 30, 2009, aged 90

Squadron Leader "Zeke" Zeleny was a dashing, charismatic figure. Tall, blond and fiercely determined, he twice escaped from his country of birth, Czechoslovakia, during periods of political oppression, on the first occasion briefly joining the French Foreign Legion before arriving in England to serve in the RAF as a navigator.

He fought through the Second World War in the Czechoslovak- manned 311 Squadron, flying Wellington bombers and surviving several raids over Germany. After the war he spent many years as an air traffic controller before setting up and running desert rescue teams and survival schools in Nairobi, Kenya and El Adem, Libya.

In 1960 his team brought home the crew from a crashed light aircraft in Tanzania and in 1968 he visited and investigated the remains of a missing American Liberator Lady Be Good, which had disappeared and crashed in the Sahara Desert in 1943. He was appointed MBE in 1968, one of the few awarded to a Czech-born RAF serving officer. A keen painter, linguist, historian and geographer, after retiring from the RAF, he spent the next 20 years travelling the world as a tour guide.

Adolf Pravoslav Zeleny was born in 1914 in Rozná nad Pernstejnem, Zdár, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic today). He was educated at the local gymnasium, where his father was the headmaster, and although he had no military background he joined the army in 1934 and graduated from the Military Academy, Hranice, in 1937.

In September 1938, after the Czechoslovak Government accepted the Munich edict and the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia began, Zeleny and four friends escaped to Poland, hiding on an empty coal train. As war had not yet been declared, the only course open to the many Czechs assembled in Poland, keen to fight against Germany, was to join the French Foreign Legion.

When the defeated French accepted the German terms of Armistice in June 1940, those Czechs who wanted to continue to fight were evacuated by sea to the UK. Zeleny was commissioned as a pilot officer in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1941 and given a basic navigation course. He learnt English with the help of a new friend, Captain Bernard Braine (later a Conservative MP), and met and married his English wife, Vera.

Posted to RAF East Wretham in March 1942 he took part in bombing raids on Cologne and Essen before joining 311 Squadron at RAF Talbenny on anti-submarine patrol as a newly promoted Flying Officer. In September he and his crew were attacked by three German Junkers Ju88s but survived by dodging into cloud. Zeleny later recalled: "We got into a cloud and anytime we got out, there was a German plane waiting, but it didn't shoot. That was either a miracle or the Germans had run out of ammunition." That year he was awarded the Czechoslovak Gallantry medal and War Cross. By the end of the war he had completed 52 operations, three in Bomber Command and 49 in Coastal Command.

He then returned to Czechoslovakia, where he was joined by his young family and was put in charge of air traffic at Ruzyne airport. He was elected president of the Association of Airmen and promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. But when Czechoslovakia came under communist rule and he was dismissed as president as a reactionary, he decided to return to England. His family, with British passports, left in April 1948. In August, after obtaining forged papers giving him the ownership of a mythical farm in Australia, he left and landed at RAF Northolt after a nail-biting journey when he feared the Dakota in which he was flying might be recalled to Prague.

After a spell as a farm manager in Kent, Zeleny rejoined the RAF in 1949. He served at various RAF stations in England and did a tour of duty in Singapore. His posting to RAF Eastleigh in Nairobi, Kenya, proved a turning point. He established a mountain and desert rescue team responsible for Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Now in his element, he took part in the rescue of a crashed light aircraft on Monduli mountain near Arusha in Tanzania. The rescue team prepared a landing strip within an hour to take out the badly wounded pilot and two other injured men, along with the navigator, who had been killed.

In 1965 he was posted to RAF El Adem in Libya and typically decided to drive there with his wife in a camper van. The journey took 41 days. Once more he became involved in desert rescue and was appointed to command the station's school of desert survival and desert rescue team. During this time he led a number of expeditions to various parts of the Libyan Desert: the Tibesti Mountains, Uweinat and Murzuch, among others. In 1968 he organised an expedition to the wreck of the Lady Be Good, a Liberator that vanished in a sandstorm in the Sahara in 1943 and was only found 16 years later. They extracted an engine for evaluation by the McDonnell Douglas company.

Zeleny retired with the rank of squadron leader in November 1971. He then embarked on a career as a tour guide and over the next 20 years visited every continent except Antarctica. He studied the histories and languages of the countries he visited so he could, if necessary, stand in for the local guide. Zeleny was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1974.

At the age of 76 he decided to stop travelling and lived quietly in Frome, Somerset. His wife died in 1999. He is survived by a daughter and son.

Squadron Leader "Zeke" Zeleny, MBE, was born on October 11, 1914. He died on January 25, 2010, aged 95

From Times Online

February 10, 2010

When it was suggested in December 1940 that army NCOs should be trained to fly gliders, the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff declared: "The idea that semi-skilled personnel be entrusted with piloting these troop carriers is fantastic. Their operation is equivalent to force-landing the largest-sized aircraft without engine aid. There is no higher test of piloting skill."

Troop and equipment carrying gliders were urgently required to deliver infantry and supporting arms in a more concentrated manner than could be achieved by parachute. The first large-scale glider-borne operation was undertaken during the invasion of Sicily in July 1943. Mistakes were made and many lives lost. Better preparations were essential for the Allied invasion of Normandy.

Peter Boyle was one of the 12 glider pilots selected to fly the six Horsa gliders, towed towards their landing point by four-engined Halifax bombers, for the coup-de-main capture of the "Pegasus" bridge over the Caen canal and the Ranville bridge over the River Orne in the first hour of D-Day, June 6, 1944. The difficulties of this operation and intensive training of the pilots led the Commander of Allied Air Forces for the invasion of Normandy, Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, to describe it as "the airmanship feat of the war".

Only eight of the 12 pilots and co-pilots involved in this hazardous operation received a British or French decoration. In Boyle's case, this omission was corrected over half a century later when the French Government awarded him the Légion d'Honneur.

Two bridges spanned the Caen canal and River Orne on the eastern flank of the Allied Normandy beachhead. It was judged essential for them to be captured before the beach landings began, to prevent German armoured units, known to be based east of the waterways, crossing and attacking the sea-landing formations in the flank. Subsequently, the bridges would be needed for the resupply of the 6th Airborne Division, dropped or air-landed beyond them.

It seemed virtually certain that the German troops responsible for holding the bridges would have prepared them for demolition. To avoid them being blown before the glider-borne troops could take them, it was decided the gliders must make rapid descents from high altitude (6,000 feet) to achieve surprise. This required the three gliders assigned to the Caen canal bridge to make two tight, right-angled turns in the space of three minutes from cast-off from their towing Halifaxes in order to slip quietly down by the bridge.

Boyle was co-pilot and navigator to his friend Geoff Barkway (obituary June 20, 2006) with whom he had trained intensively for this operation for six weeks, including ten night landings under equally exacting conditions. Just as their Number 3 glider for the canal bridge struck light cloud two minutes and 15 seconds after cast off, Boyle identified the bridge below and to the right. The right-angled turns made, the glider approached the bridge at between 90 and 100 mph, instead of the usual 65mph for landing, due to the extra weight of a folding boat for crossing the canal if the bridge was found to be blown. Possibly due to a sideslip, the glider landed at an angle, ripped across the ground and came to a shuddering halt in the gap between the first two gliders and at the edge of a pond, into which Barkway was thrown through the smashed cockpit.

Boyle was slightly concussed by the final shock but Barkway, having crawled out of the pond, freed him from his harness and pulled him clear of the cockpit. Then, as Major John Howard's company of 2nd Battalion The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry streamed out of the gliders to take the bridge, the two pilots adopted their "total soldier" role for which they were trained, preparing to fight as infantrymen. Barkway was shot in the right arm and evacuated shortly afterwards.

Boyle returned to the glider to collect some equipment and took part in the operation to clear the enemy from the far bank. He spent that night with the small force garrisoning the bridge and, in accordance with the policy of returning glider pilots to England at the first opportunity, sailed from the beach in a tank landing craft on D+1. This was his first active service of the war.

The next three months were spent in practice flying from Brize Norton before moving to Manston airfield in preparation for Operation "Market Garden", the airborne assault to take the bridges culminating with the rail and road bridges over the Rhine at Arnhem, in September. The aim was to open a route for Montgomery's 21st Army Group round the north of the German Ruhr and end the war by Christmas 1944. Strategically, this was not a "bridge too far", as the whole operation would have been pointless without inclusion of the Arnhem bridges, but the enemy was there in greater strength than expected and neither bridge was captured.

Boyle flew as first pilot of a Horsa glider for Market Garden but, in company with other glider pilots who fought at Arnhem as infantry after landing, he was taken prisoner when the remnants of the 1st Airborne Division were forced to withdraw across the Rhine. He spent seven months in Stalag IVB at Mühlberg on the upper Elbe, from where he was liberated by the Red Army in 1945.

On demobilisation, he joined ICI Pharmaceuticals as a publicity assistant but left to join the RAF in 1951. He served as a pilot until 1954 when he joined Glaxo's New Zealand company. He remained in New Zealand after transfer to WD HO Wills as advertising manager, returning to England to join the board of Lindsey Kesteven Fertilisers in 1965.

He married Aileen Mitchell in 1945. She survives him with a daughter.

Peter Boyle, Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, wartime glider pilot, was born on September 9,1923. He died on February 5, 2010, aged 86

Flight-Lieutenant Leslie Stephenson: wartime night fighter pilot

From The Times

January 15, 2010

The pilot of one of the RAF's most successful night-fighter teams of the Second World War, Leslie Stephenson, flew two tours of operations with his navigator/radar operator, Arthur Hall (obituary Dec 11, 2007), the first on Beaufighters in North Africa, the second flying Mosquitoes over occupied France in the aftermath of D-Day and, later, as the Allied armies advanced into Germany, over the Reich itself.

Each man was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross twice for their performance in shooting down ten enemy aircraft. The awards acknowledged that in the two-seat night fighter the split-second understanding, acquired or instinctive, between the pilot who pressed the gun button and the navigator who guided him by airborne interception radar into a position to enable him to do so was vital to the team's success.

Stephenson's most remarkable feat was the downing of three Junkers Ju88s in a single sortie off the Tunisian coast in May 1943 and it brought both pilot and navigator a telegram of congratulation from the Air Officer Commanding, Air Vice-Marshal Sir Hugh Lloyd.

Leslie Stephenson was born in 1921 in Willington, Co Durham. His father was a pit-worker and his mother served in the drapery trade. He benefited from the opportunity for local children to attend Durham School as a day-boy, enjoying a successful school career both on the academic side and in sport, representing the school at rugby and athletics.

From school he obtained a place at Durham University to read chemistry but on the outbreak of war volunteered to serve in the RAF, and was selected for pilot training. After basic and operational training he was commissioned and posted to 141 Squadron in August 1942, flying night air defence sorties in Beaufighters over central southern England from its base at Tangmere.

In March the following year he was posted to 153 Squadron based in North Africa after of the Anglo-American Torch landings. There he was teamed up with Hall as his navigator, providing night air defence for the Allied troops advancing towards Tunisia, as well as cover for the convoys whose supply effort was so vital.

The pair had their first combat victory at dusk on April 17, 1943, as they attacked head-on a force of ten Ju88s that were approaching Algiers from the East.

Stephenson selected the lead bomber of the formation as his target but as he opened fire it dived steeply away and disappeared in the dying light. Hall, however, maintained radar contact with the quarry and Stephenson was able to follow the Ju88 down until he could see it again. He then sent it into the sea with a few well-aimed bursts of the Beaufighter's 20mm cannon and .303 machineguns.

May was to prove the most dramatic single month for the pair, making Stephenson an ace (five kills) within only two more sorties. On the night of May 11-12 he shot down two Ju88s, a feat for which he and Hall were cheered by their ground crew when they got back to base. Less than two weeks later they were to surpass even this performance. By that time the Axis forces in Tunisia had surrendered. But with the Allies building up their strength for Operation Husky, the forthcoming assault on Sicily, air activity from Axis air bases, only 100 miles away on the island, was intense.

On the night of May 23-24 Stephenson achieved a remarkable three combat victories in one sortie, bringing his and Hall's tally to six and earning them both the DFC gazetted that August.

They almost did not live to receive their decorations. The day after their three-kill feat one of the engines of their Beaufighter blew up as it was taking off. Stephenson knew he had insufficient power to climb and made the split-second decision to slam the aircraft back down on to the ground where it soon ran out of runway and ploughed into a wood. Neither man was hurt and they were able to get out and get clear of the aircraft as its fuel tanks burst into flames and its ammunition blew up.

After the Sicily landings in July Stephenson and Hall were rested from operations and went their separate ways as instructors in different operational training units. But they were reunited in 1944 in 219 Squadron which operated the Mk XXX Mosquito. After D-Day this was heavily engaged in night sorties over the Normandy battlefields. Stephenson's first combat victory in this theatre was on the night of August 15-16 when he shot down a Ju188 medium bomber in the Caen area with two bursts of cannon fire from a range of 250 yards after the target had been acquired by Hall on radar at a range of four miles.

By September the pair were operating over German territory as the Allies advanced, and Stephenson's second kill was a Ju88 over Erkelenz in the lower Rhineland. His penultimate combat victory was over an Me110 over Krefeld in the Ruhr and his last, also over an Me110, was over Hasselt, Belgium, on Christmas Eve.

He might have had a further combat victory when, in February 1945, he and Hall spotted a twin-engined, twin-boom aircraft over the Rhine. The only aircraft of that particular configuration known to them was the US Lockheed P38 Lightning and they did not close in for the kill. Later, in discussion with a debriefing intelligence officer, it emerged that their sighting might well have been a Focke-Wulf Fw189 "Uhu" reconnaissance aircraft that was known to be operating in the area. A Luftwaffe crew may well have had a lucky escape. Both men were now awarded a Bar to their DFCs.

After the war Stephenson returned to Durham University to complete his chemistry degree. He then became a research chemist with ICI on Teeside. In 1951 he moved to Glaxo Laboratories in Greenford, Middlesex, where he worked with Dr E. Lester-Smith and his team on the grouping of penicillin with vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamin) . He was then highly successful in developing synthetic steroids employed in both fertility and contraceptive formulations, securing several important international patents on behalf of the company. He retired from Glaxo in 1985.

His wife Jean, whom he married in 1951, died in 1999. He is survived by a son and two daughters.

Flight-Lieutenant Leslie Stephenson, DFC and Bar, wartime night fighter pilot, was born on January 20, 1921. He died on December 26, 2009, aged 88

Bernard Forsting Obituary: Bernard Forsting?s Obituary by the Gloucester County Times.

Bernard John Forsting Sr.

Bernard John Forsting, Sr., age 65 died on February 15, 2010. He lived in Mantua and Sewell most of his life.

Bernard was a Vietnam War Veteran serving in the Special Forces Navy Seals from 1964-1966. During his time in combat, he participated in a hostage rescue in Laos, rescuing 11 Americans and 4 French forces. For his service he was decorated with the Medal of Honor, Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart Medal. For the past 20 years he worked for Rollins Environmental in Logan Twp.

He is survived by his wife of 30 years Judith A. (nee Gardner), children Danielle Smith, Terry Bozarth, Donna Alexander, Lenna Smith and Jeffrey Smith, grandchildren Kansas Myers, Sieana Smith and 15 grandchildren. He was predeceased by son Bernard, Jr, daughter Diane Thorp, grandson Brian Alexander.

Friends may call on Monday after 10am in the KELLEY FUNERAL HOME, 125 Pitman Ave, Pitman, NJ. Memorial service 11am. Inurnment Gloucester County Veteran's Cemetery. Memories may be shared at Home - Kelley Funeral Home.


The above obit reflects that he won the MoH but I can't find him listed. Might be a family mistake because they were proud of him.

I haven't been able to find anything, either.

The last Canadian veteran of World War I has died at the age of 109.

John Babcock enlisted at the age of 15 after lying about his age. He trained in Canada and England but the war ended before he reached the French frontline.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Mr Babcock was Canada's last living link to the Great War.

Just two other veterans of World War I remain alive: American Frank Buckles, also aged 109, and British-born Australian Claude Choules, who is 108.

Mr Harper, paying tribute to the 650,000 Canadian men and women who served during WW1, said: "Today they are all gone.

"Canada mourns the passing of the generation that asserted our independence on the world stage and established our international reputation as an unwavering champion of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law."


I wanted to go to France because I was just a tin soldier

John Babcock
Speaking in 2007


Who are the last WWI veterans?
John Babcock was born on July 23, 1900 on a farm in Ontario.

In February 1916, at the age of 15, he signed up and the medical examiner recorded his "apparent age" as 18, which meant he was allowed to train.

Despite being under the legal age to fight, which was 19, he persisted in his attempts to get to the front line.

He lied about his age again, and sailed to Britain with the Royal Canadian Regiment. There, conscripts under the legal age of 19 formed the Young Soldiers' Battalion to train until they were eligible to fight.

But he never saw action as the armistice was signed six months before he reached his 19th birthday.

"I wanted to go to France because I was just a tin soldier," Mr Babcock said in an interview with the Canadian Press in July 2007.

Second attempt

In October 1918, after a brawl between Canadian soldiers and British Army veterans in Wales over a dancehall incident, Mr Babcock was sentenced to 14 days house arrest, the Canadian Press reported.

Before the fortnight was over, the armistice had been signed and he was on his way home.

He moved to the US in the 1920s, serving in the United States Army between 1921 and 1924 before becoming an electrician.

He died in Spokane, Washington, where he had lived since 1932, according to a statement from Mr Harper.

Mr Babcock tried to enlist in the US military again in 1941 but failed when it was discovered he had never become a US citizen.

He was naturalised as a US citizen in 1946

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