35HM0034 TKS EDMUND ROMAN ORLIK

Edmund Roman Orlik was born in 1918 and died in 1982. He was a Polish soldier during the September campaign and a non-commissioned officer of the armored forces. Shortly after graduating from high school, he volunteered for the Polish Army, where in 1937 he completed a course at the Armored Weapons Training Center in Modlin. After this course, Edmund Roman Orlik began his studies at the Warsaw University of Technology. On the eve of the September campaign, he was mobilized and served in the armored division of the Wielkopolska Cavalry Brigade. Edmund Roman Orlik went down in the history of the September campaign on September 18, 1939, when in the course of the skirmish near Pociecha, commanding a TKS tankette with a 20 mm MGM and with the cooperation of two other tankettes of this type armed with ordinary machine guns, he destroyed three German tanks with no losses of their own. In the course of this clash, the commander of the German branch, Wiktor Albrecht von Ratibor, the Duke of Racibórz, was killed. The next day, September 19, Edmund Roman Orlik continued to fight and probably destroyed or damaged 7 more German tanks. After these fights, Edmund Roman Orlik withdrew to Warsaw and took an active part in its defense. After 1945, during the September campaign, he was awarded the Cross of Valor for his actions. After 1939, he fought in the Home Army. After the end of the war, he successfully worked as an architect