Leslie Kitchener Grace
British Army Royal Sussex Regiment
from:London
My grandfather, Leslie Grace was posted in Egypt and was wounded in battle. His regiment had to retreat and the injured were left behind. He was captured and a German officer came up to him and said "You'll be OK, Tommy, tomorrow you will be a prisoner. I may be killed." He was taken to a POW camp in Italy and sometime afterwards, he was transferred to Germany to Stalag 4D.
My grandfather's memories were: There was never enough food in the camp, so they were always hungry, he lost 6 stone in weight and was suffering from malnutrition. When he got home in 1945, he had spent 2 years and 5 months in hospital. He said German people that he met were hungry too, and he never had bad feelings towards the German people. He smuggled out four handwritten newspapers from the camp (they give a great insight into life in camp including shows they put on), hand-drawn pictures of some of the inmates, Cribb championships. There are lots of other names of inmates in the papers and it would be wonderful to share them with family members. Some of the names are:
- A Mowl
- F Jewkes
- W Blissett 249383
- D Johnson 259995
- T Cummins 10689
- H Cartwright 259993
- E Hubbard 11150
- W Millyard 259946
