[4] During his service in the March Battalion of the Bochnia-based 32nd Landwehr Regiment, he passed his matura exams and in February 1918 graduated from an officers school in Opatów.

After graduating from additional courses at the Centre for Infantry Training in Rembertów near Warsaw, on March 19, 1938 Sucharski was again promoted, this time to the rank of Major.

After short stays in various German transit camps where the sabre was removed from his possession, on October 26, 1939 Sucharski was imprisoned in Oflag IV-A in the Hohnstein castle.

After being liberated from the Schwerin sub-camp of the Oflag X-C Lübeck by the Americans, on May 28, 1945 Sucharski joined the Polish II Corps and was transferred to Italy, where he briefly served as a commander of the 6th Karpaty Rifles Battalion following January 25, 1946.

On August 19, 1946, he was sent to a British military hospital in Naples[5] where he was interviewed by Melchior Wańkowicz, who made Sucharski the main protagonist in his 1948 short story Westerplatte.

During the post-war years, Wańkowicz's mythologised account of Sucharski as a brave commander enduring under hopeless odds became the main source of information on Westerplatte action.

that the Communist authorities preferred to maintain the myth of Sucharski, a heroic son of a peasant and shoemaker, rather than support his deputy, Franciszek Dąbrowski who was born into a szlachta family.