246160 Pte. Joseph Terence Roberts British Army Northumberland Hussars from:Presteigne, Radnorshire Joe Roberts joined the Territorials in 1934 aged 18. When war was declared in 1939 he was drafted into the regular army. In October 1940, along with his Regiment, The Northumberland Hussars, he was posted to North Africa as a private in the Royal Artillery.
In March 1941 he was part of the Expeditionary forces that landed on Greece after it had been invaded by Italy. The Allied forces and the Greek fighters were pushing the Army also invaded Greece and the Expeditionary forces were overwhelmed. There was nothing else they could do but to evacuate by ship as quickly as possible. Joe was lucky to escape as he was among the last to board a ship back to Egypt.
Later in 1941 Joe took part in Operation Crusader with the 7th Armoured division in an attempt to end the siege of Tobruk.
In 1942 Joe's regiment was posted to join up with the(SNH) The South Nottingham Hussars at the battle of Knightsbridge on the Gazala line.
In June it became clear that the Allies were losing the battle, and so the (SNH)and Joe's regiment were ordered to stand their ground and fight to the last man and the last shell to enable the rest of the 7th Armoured Division to fall back towards the Egyptian border. They were overwhelmed by German and Italian forces and Joe was taken prisoner on the 5th of June.
Joe was shipped to Italy and found himself in Capua prison camp, he was there for several months but was then moved to Maserata, Sforza Costa.
Joe spent about six months at Maserata and then was moved again to Novara prison camp. Novara was a work camp, it isn't known how exactly, but Joe and at least one other man escaped from the camp. Somehow they managed to reach Switzerland by the end of September 1943. Joe spent another year in an Internment camp in Wald and also Bornhaussen, Echenz.
Joe was finally repatriated back to the UK in September 1944, in quite poor health as the food was very poor in the Italian prison camps and also it wasn't that good in the Swiss camps either.
His health did recover, and he surely didn't think he would be sent overseas again, but in June 1945 he was posted to Iserlohn, Germany, with the peace keeping forces. He was helping to arrest a German woman at the top of some steps, she had just called him an English pig and had spat at him, Joe made a remark about what the German's had done in the concentration camps and then turned away from her and started down the steps. As he stepped down a bullet whistled past his head, the woman had a gun hidden on her. Joe returned to the UK in August 1945.
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