Drafted into the Polish Army in 1937, he was dispatched to the Reserve Officer School (Szkoła Podchorążych Rezerwy).

After his division was disbanded he was trying to find his way to Hungary, but was arrested by the Soviet NKVD and imprisoned in the Brześć Fortress.

Heda returned to his home area and joined the ranks of the Society of Armed Struggle (ZWZ), the first mass-scale resistance organization formed in Poland.

Named the commander of the Dolina area (in the Holy Cross Mountains), he became a notable resistance leader after his raid on the Gestapo prison in Starachowice.

Out of 80 political prisoners liberated from there, 60 decided to join the resistance and thus Heda formed a permanent partisan unit stationed in the forests of the area.

After the Soviet-backed Polish communist takeover of Poland, Heda - as a former prisoner of the NKVD - had to remain in hiding and joined the Ruch Oporu Armii Krajowej, one of splinter organizations formed after the Home Army had been disbanded.

He continued to collaborate with various groups opposed to the Communist regime in Poland and was also an active member of unofficial veterans associations.

President Lech Kaczynski posthumously awarded him the Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta, "for outstanding contribution to the independence of the Polish Republic".