Jan Pela

Jan Pela, born in Adams, Massachusetts to a patriotic Polish family, joined the Polish Falcon Association as a young man and trained as a cadet at the Alliance College in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania. He graduated as a second Lieutenant with the second group of Poles in the Canadian Officers’ Training Course at the University of Toronto in 1917. Having accompanied the first depot of men from Camp Kościuszko to the overflow camp at St. Jeans, Quebec, he shipped out aboard the first transport of volunteer Polish Americans, SS Niagara, bound for France. Fighting both in France and later Poland, he was seriously wounded. He was the youngest American volunteer to be awarded the Order of Virtuti Militari, Poland’s highest military award for bravery. Back home in Detroit, Michigan, both he and his wife became very involved in various Polish community and veteran organizations.