L/Cpl. Winston Massey
British Army 2/7th Btn. West Surrey (Queen's Royal) Regiment
from:8 Gordon Road, Farnborough
Winston Massey enlisted in the Territiorials joining the Queen's Royal Regiment on the 18th of April 1931. He went to Shanghai, China in 1932 with the army. From November 1933 he served in India, was stationed at Luxor (1935) and went to Quetta, Waziristan as support during Quetta earth quake on the 30th of May 1935. He returned home on the 26th of March 1940 and went to France with the BEF on the 23rd of April. On the 31st of May he was taken P.O.W. and held in Stalag XX1c-z, returning home on the 28th of April 1945. He was Discharged on the 12th of February 1946.
During research found at Dover castle museum, in glass case, an officer's personal diary that has maps and dates regarding 1st BEF Queen's Royal Regiment. After his capture, Winston and his fellow soldiers were force marched from the French-Belgium border into Poland, he elected to work on farms, in order to steal raw cabbage and raw eggs. As a survivor of the long march of 1945, at the end of the march, he was liberated by Americans. They had nothing to feed them, so were given rotten potato peelings. My grandfather went into a coma, and didn't regain consciousness until repatriation to England and was in hospital. Unsure of the American unit that liberated them.
