239593 Pte. James Owens British Army Cheshire Regiment from:Bebibngton I have some details about my late father-in-law, James Owens. He was a gunner in the Cheshire Regiment, captured 29th of May 1940 and survived 5 years as a POW (acted as interpreter, thereby earning 'extras' despite knowing no German until he arrived at the camp). He later became part of the Long March into Germany as the war began to end during which many prisoners and some German guards died too from exhaustion, starvation and hyperthermia.
I have his service and pay book and a book gifted to him during his time as a POW by Red Cross entitled, The Autobiography of a Chinese Girl, which has a kind of official sticker:
"P/W 467. Pte. J. Owens Stalag XXID (13)"
While he was grateful, at the time, for such a gift, he never read it!
I also have his memoires of his war which he recorded by hand 1984 and were later typed up but remain unedited.
He married 1950 and had a son, my late husband. He died aged 74 in 1993. I believe his privations and experiences as prisoner, held for 5 years scarred him terribly. He had a recurring nightmare about losing his pack. He suffered flash-backs and depression, classic PTSD symptoms but of course, like his fellows, he never complained. He did not seem to bear any grudges against Germans either.
It makes me laugh to recall how when news of Allied defeats and Nazi victories etc were announced at roll call, the prisoners would cheer wildly much to the bewilderment of the guards who never got British humour.
|