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Reklama
Andrej Gazda
Andrej Gazda was born on 28.01.1920 in the village Dlhé nad Cirochou in the family of a worker. There he also graduated from eight classes of the municipal school. From 1935 he worked as a labourer in agriculture and later as an assistant forest manager in his native village.
On 20.10.1940 he joined compulsory military service with the Engineer Battalion 11 in Nové Město nad Váhom. From there he was sent to the Eastern Front on 17.06.1941 as part of the 2nd Engineer Company. There, on 20.01.1942, he was hit in the leg by a shell splinter. After treatment in a German and Slovak field hospital he was sent back to the battalion in Nové Mesto nad Váhom on 04.02.1942. He was promoted to the rank of lance corporal on 01.10.1942 and on 21.10.1942, although he was transferred to the reserve, he was retained on active duty under the state's conscription alert.
He was promoted to the rank of Corporal Gazda on 01.05.1943. He was released to civilian life on 31.03.1944. He subsequently found work as a railway worker, but after the bombing of the railway he lost his job and hid in the woods from the German troops. After the liberation of the northeastern tip of Slovakia, he enlisted in the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps and on 22.12.1944 he was conscripted in Humenne under the tribal number 19.464/M, protocol number 15.121. As a member of the 1st Czechoslovak Independent Tank Brigade, he participated in combat with it until the end of the war, including the Ostrava Operation, first as a squad leader, later as a platoon commander. On 01.06.1945 he was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant.
After the end of the war Gazda decided to continue his military career, so he completed his education. In addition to his employment in 1945-1947, he completed the last two years of the burgher school and in 1947-1948 he attended an application course for engineer officers in Litoměřice. In the same period he married and had two children - a son and a daughter.
He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant on 01.01.1946, to the rank of lieutenant on 01.04.1947 and to the rank of captain on 25.02.1951. Until 1950 he served as a commander of a female company in Engineer Battalion 13, from November 1950 to October 1951 he served in the same capacity in Engineer Battalion 3. From there he went to the 51st Engineer Brigade in Litoměřice, where he became commander of the 1st (151st?) Engineer Battalion. From October (řijna) 1952 to September (září) 1953 he completed the command course of the engineer troops. After the course he was appointed commander of the 1st Technical Battalion in Nepomuk in Plzeň-jih district.
One of the soldiers of the battalion there was one Miloslav Svandrlik. He was so captivated by Gazda's person that Gazda served as a prefigurement of the legendary Major Haluska-Terazky in his work The Black Barons. But not all of Major Haluška's qualities had a basis in the real Major Gazda. Another of the battalion's soldiers, the later Czech diplomat František Černý, remembered Gazda as a man without much insight, but polite and direct. According to him, Gazda even wore a German Close Combat Pin on his ceremonial uniform.
During his command of the 1st Technical Battalion, Gazda was promoted to the rank of major on 29 May 1954. On 29.09.1956 he was relieved of his duties as Battalion Commander and temporarily placed in the Reserves. He later served in command posts of units assigned to pipeline maintenance and fuel depots. Until 1960 he worked in Bohdanec, later he was transferred to Bela pod Bezdězem, from 1967 he served as chief of pipeline supplies at 1st Fuel Pipeline Brigade. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel on the 25th anniversary of the end of the war on 01.05.1970. From July (July) 1971 he became the chief of the fuel storage centre in Heřmanov Městec within 1st Circle Base of Fuel and Lubricants. He was discharged from that post on 28.01.1975 as he had reached the age of 55 and the retirement limit.
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