208336 Gnr. Charles Frederick Johnson British Army 68 H.A.A 277 Bty. Royal Artillery from:Earl Shilton, Leicestershire My father, Charlie Johnson, was a gunner in the Royal Artillery and served in Egypt where he suffered from dysentry before being reported missing in Tobruk on 20.6.1942. He was taken as a prisoner of war and shipped to a transit camp in Italy, PG 75, P.M. 3450, Bari. I have no information of what happened to him in Italy but he was transferred from there to Stalag XVIIIA in Wolfsburg, Austria sometime in 1943 where he stayed until 1945. My father didn't really talk about the war or what happened to him in the camps, all the information I have is mostly through research and the records I have received from the Army Personnel Centre. All I have of my Dad's from this time is his dog tag which has the no. 8296 and a ring which has scribed on it "Austria 1943" and in one corner an arc of the sun with rays coming off it. I was told by my Mum that she thought that someone in the camp had made it for him, but on reading a passage from the book "POW Allied Prisoners of War in Europe 1939-1945" by Adrian Gilbert, where it mentions that the Russian POW's on the other side of the fence were so badly treated that the POW's in my Dad's camp smuggled food and cigarettes to them and in gratitude the Russians gave them small wood carvings and metalwork, I now wonder whether this ring was made by a Russian prisoner of war.
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