THE deaths of Polish soldiers based in Herefordshire will be marked in an upcoming remembrance service.

A Polish Remembrance service will take place at Leominster Cemetery on November 7 at 12.30pm, the week before Remembrance Sunday.

The event is being held by the Leominster Area Polish Society (LAPS) to mark the deaths of 12 Polish soldiers who died in the county between 1947 and 1949.

Joe Cocker, of LAPS, explained that Baron's Cross in Leominster was an American army base during the Second World War, and that following the end of the war, it was given to a Polish resettlement corps.

He said Polish soldiers were stationed in other parts of Herefordshire, including Shobdon, Kington and Foxley.

"A lot of Polish soldiers didn't want to go back home. Soldiers stayed here for two years to help them resettle in Britain."

"There was also an American military hospital in Baron's Cross, which became a Polish military hospital, so many of the soldiers buried in Leominster died there."

LAPS was formed 10 years ago after people came together to clean the graves of seven polish soldiers in the town.

The society has held their remembrance service every year since 2016. Since then, it has discovered five more soldiers buried in unmarked graves in the town.

The society is also in touch with the families of four of the soldiers buried in Leominster.

Mr Cocker said the event reminds us of the debt which the UK owes to Polish forces for the critical role they played in the war.