254815 Pte. Hans Major Embleton British Army 8th Battalion Durham Light Infantry from:Sacriston, Durham My granddad, Hans Embleton, enlisted in June 1913 into the Territorials, joining 8th Durham Light Infantry. He went to training camps as well as working in the mines.
In August 1914 he was at Morphia in Wales training. They where told to go to Folkstone to go to France to join the campaign. They marched through France to Belgium and filled in the gaps in the Second Battle of Ypres. After a great bombardment by the Germans that lasted for ten days and nights the Durham Light Infantry suffered heavy loses, and eventually only a few remained. They where taken prisoners, including my granddad, in May 1915.
They where taken by cattle trucks to Munster and put into a holding camp until they where sorted out for work. My grandad was in Muster camp 2 and was sent to the coal mines in Oberhausen Westphalia. He was put to work. Every day he witnessed his comrades being beaten including himself and was sent to the coke ovens as punishment. He survived and was repatriated December 1918.
He came to live with us in 1959 and he told me all about the war, being a prisoner and all the trauma he went through. When he got back to the receiving camp in December 1918, after they de-mobbed him, he signed a form. Little did he know he was signing his war pension away for just two pounds so he never received any. He died in 1973.
He earned the Allied Victory Medal, British War Medal and 1914-1915 Star.
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