Lieutenant-Colonel Władysław Zgorzelski
10th Dragoons Regiment (Poland)

There’s no better mentor than Col. Zgorzelski who coached the Irish Olympic team in 1960 and who coached the Argentine team for nine years. He’s a dapper little man who is stern when sternness is needed, who seems to have a deeply rooted belief that most American instructors push their pupils too quickly … and who is man enough to diplomatically handle even the most difficult problems between pupil, horse and instructor.

(Washington Evening Star, 19 May 1963, 60)

Born on 20 February 1901, Żytomierz, Russian Empire, Władysław Zgorzelski was a member of the secret Polish Military Organization and joined the newly formed Polish Army in November 1918. He was commissioned in 1922. In addition to his military career, he was a champion equestrian and participated in competitions worldwide during the interwar period.

He was taken prisoner by the Soviets in September 1939 but escaped and eventually reached France via Hungary and the Balkans. He commanded a motorized cavalry unit during the German invasion and evacuated to the United Kingdom, where he commanded a rifle battalion then an armoured regiment.

In November 1943, Zgorzelski was appointed commanding officer of the 10th Dragoons Regiment, which deployed to France in July 1944 as a part of 1st Armoured Division under the overall command of General Stanisław Maczek. Of the conditions fighting in Normandy, Zgorzelski recorded in a diary:

The weather created particular difficulties on that battlefield. Battledress proved very uncomfortable in the day’s heat under the blazing sun. Clouds of dust, raised by hundreds of tracked and wheeled vehicles from dry soil, covered the countryside and penetrated into the eyes and parched throats, while drinking water was in short supply. The most pitiful sight was that of the dispatch riders covered in dust, with black faces, swollen eyelids and reddened eyes. There was no water, so local cider was tried but found to be a poor substitute. The most burdensome thing one had to endure was the stench of the swollen German corpses decomposing quickly under the blazing sun. Their bodies were scattered everywhere on the fields, in the hedges and amongst the buildings. Continuous fighting left no time for burying the dead.

(Quoted in Peter Caddick-Adams, Monty and Rommel: Parallel Lives, 436)

Zgorzelski received the D.S.O. but would be badly wounded in early September 1944 in Belgium.

in the action in the area of TRUN – CHAMBOIS (August 17 – 22nd, 1944) commanding a combat team with the task of attacking CHAMBOIS and linking up with the AMERICAN troops from SOUTH. His able leadership and outstanding personal courage resulted in performing this task successfully, taking CHAMBOIS by a frontal attack and holding it against desperate enemy attacks aiming at a breakthrough with heavy armour. Owing to his outstanding leadership & courage the main task of the Division was performed; the pocket had been kept close and the enemy destroyed.

Command of the 10th Dragoons passed from Captain Wacław Kownas in September to Major Bohdan Mincer until December 1944, and then Major Andrzej Szajowski until February when Zgorzelski resumed command for the final push into Germany until the end of the war in Europe. One subordinate platoon commander considered Zgorzelski a courageous officer but also a tyrannical disciplinarian.

With Poland under communist rule, Zgorzelski lived in the United Kingdom and returned to his equestrian career as a well-respected and much sought after trainer. Considered one of the top experts in the world, he worked with dressage and show jumping teams in Uruguay, Argentina, Ireland, England, and the United States.

He died in Scotland on 4 February 1998.