 During the latter half of 1939, he led the wooden sailing ship on a voyage through the Mediterranean and into Southern Atlantic waters.On learning of the 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi forces, "Iskra" returned from the Atlantic and left two crew members with the ship in Morocco.Along with the rest of "Iskra"s crew, Bartosik boarded a French ship and departed for France, where after deliberations between the French Navy's War Department and free Polish forces, he reported as a member of the reserve officer group at the ship-base ORP "Gdynia" in Great Britain.