231732 Sgt. Charles Gillan Nicholson "Jock" Taylor British Army 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders from:Aberdeen My father, Charles Taylor, joined the Army in 1936 as a boy soldier with the 1st Bn North Staffordshire Regiment and served in India and Palestine until 1939.
On the out break of the War he joined part of the newly formed 59th Staffordshire Division and arrived in Normandy on the 26th June 1944 as part of the follow up to the D-Day landings. At the end of July 1944 after heavy fighting and suffering heavy casualties around Caen and the Orne river the 59th was disbanded and the remaining troops dispersed to other units/divisions.
My father was sent to the 2nd Bn Gordon Highlanders and continued the advance through France and Belgium to Holland. On the 31st October 1944 near Asten in Holland he was wounded whilst attacking a farmhouse and woke up in a German Field Hospital flash blinded and with shrapnel wounds. When he recovered his sight and was well enough he was moved initially to Stalag 9C and then to Stalag Luft XIB where he spent the remainder of the war until liberated in April 1945.
He said conditions were harsh and food was scarce but towards the end of the war they were able to trade with the locals and some guards which helped. He even managed to obtain a camera and took some of the attached pictures for posterity. He told few stories of his time as a prisoner but he did appear in the newsreel at the gate of the camp when it was liberated which gave much relief to his family at home when they saw him.
Charles returned to the army when he recovered from the months of malnourishment and served until 1948 before being demobbed. He served in Germany as part of the British occupation and bore no grudge against the ordinary German people who he became quite fond of after the war.
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