Tributes paid to a remarkable man (From Stroud News and Journal)

Tributes paid to a remarkable man

9:30am Wednesday 1st February 2012 in News By Chris Warne

ADOLF Kardynal, the Second World War veteran who fought at the battle of Monte Cassino and later became a dedicated supporter of the Poppy Appeal, has died aged 88.

Mr Kardynal, who lived in Leonard Stanley, passed away just under a fortnight ago.

He was described as ‘a devoted husband and a loving father’ by his daughter Elizabeth Bailey.

"He was a proud man with strong family values and anything he did, he did with total dedication," she added.

Mrs Bailey said her father was a ‘proud man with strong family values’, who never shied away from standing up for a cause he believed in.

A survivor of the 1944 assault on Monte Cassino, Mr Kardynal died at Cheltenham General Hospital following a heart attack in the early hours of Thursday, January 19.

Born in the town of Rowne, Poland, he fought side by side with the British Eighth Army as they battled to capture the historic hilltop abbey of Monte Cassino, where determined German paratroopers had dug in among the charcoaled ruins.

The frenzied five-month firefight to gain control of the Italian monastery exacted a heavy toll on both sides.

It is estimated that around 55,000 Allied troops lost their lives, with 20,000 Germans also said to have been killed or wounded in the fighting.

Mrs Bailey said her father had known ‘hell’ during that wartime offensive, which eventually penetrated the formidable Gustav Line – a series of German fortifications which dissected the country south of Rome.

Yet even prior to his harrowing experiences on the battlefield, Mr Kardynal’s life had been one beset by trauma and hardships.

As a 16-year old, Russian troops, hostile to his father’s political views, had rounded his family up and sent them to a forced labour camp in Siberia.

Herded like cattle into open trucks and then put on a train to the remote Soviet territory, Mr Kardynal had become separated from his parents and siblings during the journey.

"He was a survivor but his family went through absolute hell," said Mrs Bailey.

"My grandfather was opposed to communism so the Russians came to his house and put a gun to his head, telling him he had to leave. It was horrendous."

After joining up with Polish forces fighting alongside the British Eighth Army, remarkably Mr Kardynal was reunited with his father in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

His battalion then spent time in Palestine, Jordan and Egypt, before being dispatched to Monte Cassino, where his father was killed in action.

Speaking to the SNJ in 2007, Mr Kardynal said: "The great monastery of Monte Cassino ablaze amid a pall of smoke is one of the most vivid memories I have."

After the war concluded, Mr Kardynal took British citizenship, marrying his wife Peggy in December 1953 and working as a weaver and cloth inspector at Marling and Evans at Stanley Mill.

Committed to his community and a regular volunteer, he helped to build King’s Stanley village hall and was a loyal supporter of the annual Poppy Appeal.

He was heavily involved in the Royal British Legion and at separate times was secretary of branches in Stroud and King’s Stanley.