2nd Lieutenant Edmund Bielawski, 3rd Battalion, 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade Group. As he descended on Thursday 21st September 1944, Bielawski noticed he was about to land on top of an enemy machine-gun position and so fired at the occupants, who were unable to elevate their gun towards him and so returned it with their small-arms. Two of the Germans were killed and a third surrendered. The latter was a photographer who carried a Leica camera, which Bielawski swapped at gun-point with the cheap camera he had illegally brought with him, and then ordered the German on his way; he was reluctant to do so, thinking that Bielawski would shoot him, but moved when he was told that he would be shot if he did not. He handed in the undeveloped film, but kept the camera and the unused film and proceeded to take numerous photographs with it. Bielawski was wounded, probably in the weeks after Arnhem, and whilst recovering in hospital at Wrexham he set up a photography department to teach wounded soldiers. He was later awarded the Krzyz Walecznych. Copyright: Richard Bielawski.