Wincenty Skarzyński

Wincenty Skarzyński was born in 1887 in the Russian-controlled part of Poland. During the Revolution of 1905, he was arrested and deported to Serbia by tsarist authorities; but he managed to escape. Wincenty emigrated to America in 1908 and enlisted as a volunteer in the United States Army. He was eventually persuaded to leave the army to join the Polish Falcons Alliance movement. In September 1916, Skarzyński travelled to Ottawa with Andrzej Małkowski, where they met with Sir Sam Hughes, Minister of War, and Major-General Willoughby Gwatkin, to propose the formation of a Polish Army in Canada.
Skarzyński was the first to graduate from the Polish Officers’ training at the School of Infantry on February 24, 1917 and was given the rank of Lieutenant. When Camp Kościuszko opened, he served as the Polish adjutant. During his brief stay in Niagara-on-the-Lake, he married his wife, Wanda, on November 12, 1917 and a few weeks later he left for St. Johns on November 26, 1917. When Skarzyński was discharged in 1921 following the Polish–Soviet War, he was honoured with the Croix de Guerre and the Polish Cross of Valour. Wincenty Skarzyński perished during the Second World War in the Soviet Starobielsk Prisoner of War camp on April 22, 1940.

Image courtesy of “Haller’s Polish Army in France” by Paul S. Valasek.