261313 William Thomas Motley British Army Royal Sussex Regiment from:Bradford, Padiham William Motley was taken as a POW and held in Camp 78 at Sulmona, Italy (1942-43) and at Stalag 4f Hartsmannsdorf, Germany (1943-45)
I was only 6 years old when my grandfather, William Motley, died in 1966 and I have only a few memories of him. Unfortunately, my father also died when I was young and I never got the opportunity to quiz him about his and my grandfather's past life.
Although I didn’t know for certain, I had long suspected that my grandfather had been a POW as there existed a letter from the Regimental Paymaster dated December 1942 to William’s partner saying that William had been reported missing and that she would continue to receive an allowance.
In recent years I have been able to find out that William was 42 when he joined the Royal Sussex Regiment and that he was sent out to the Western Desert and captured around the 27th of October that year, possibly during the Battle of El Alamein which was being fought at this time. In May 1943 it was reported that he had been sent to Camp 78 Sulmona in Italy and that he was wounded, presumably this happened the previous October.
Following the Italian Armistice in September 1943 it appears that many of the POWs in Sulmona escaped. I don’t know if William had tried to escape and was recaptured or if he had remained in the camp, but he was captured again by the Germans and sent to Stalag 4f, Hartmannsdorf in Germany, where he remained until the end of the war.
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