Pte. Percy Thomas Edward "Pete" Vanburg
British Army 2nd Btn. Royal Warwickshire Regiment
from:Bristol
My father, Percy Vanburg lied about his age and joined the Army. Later, when WW2 broke out he was posted overseas with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was captured at Dunkirk and was taken by cattle truck and ended up in Stalag VIIIB (344) and was a POW for 5 years.
During this time he was sent out on many working parties and made a few unsuccessful or short-lived escapes for which he was in solitary for 40 days on two occasions and another 40 days solitary for refusing to work when it was very cold on one working party. Two other men with him refused to work and they were told if they didn't get back to work they would be shot.... so they said well shoot us then. I guess this shows how bad the conditions must have been that they didn't care if they lived or not. The Germans lined them up and raised their guns and then relaxed, and then raised their guns again and when they realized they were serious and prepared to die. They were, instead, sent back to the camp where they did their 40 days solitary with very little food.
Towards the end of the war my father was forced to endure the Death March and saw many of his friends die either from dysentery, fatigue or killed by the German guards because they could no longer go on. Eventually the guards left them and they had to march as best they could forward hopefully to their advancing own lines. Eventually, my father was picked up by an American jeep, transported back to his own lines and straight away home.
He continued on reserve and met and married my mother. When I was about 3 or 4 he was recalled to fight again in Korea. This time he was with the Northumberland Fusiliers but later once in Korea he transferred to the Gloucestershire Regiment and was at the Imjin River Battle where the Gloucesterhires became known as the Glorious Glosters and were awarded the US Presidential Unit Citation for their heroic stand where they held out for 4 days against l0,000 voluntary Chinese forces until they ran out of ammunition, most were killed or taken prisoner. Luckily, for my dad he was sent out under fire at a crucial stage in the battle to get back to HQ and tell them about their dire situation and try to get more ammunition. But it was impossible for anyone to get back to them as they were totally surrounded and overrun and air drops of more ammunition simply rolled down the hills to the enemy. Many of the men he was a POW with in Germany were captured here again and did a further 2 years as POWs only 15 Glosters got out of that battle and my dad was one of them. He was then repatriated home.
During his life he never spoke about the war to me although once he retired he did seem to take an interest in the Army again and joined the various associations and took part in parades and poppy day work. I think he enjoyed being able to talk with other men about their experiences where they couldn't relate to civilians who had no idea about the awful experiences they had gone through.
On his death, when I was going through his things, I came across some tapes about some of his experiences which is how I have learned all this. I have uploaded them on the web and they can be heard at this link to a Stalag VIIIB site. They are under the Percy Vanburg and make quite interesting listening.
