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World War 2 Two II WW2 WWII 1939 1945
Stalag 3D Prisoner of War Camp
7th Nov 1939 57 Squadron Blenheim lost
22nd Jul 1941 Parcels
30th July 1943 Mid-air collision over DunkirkIf you can provide any additional information, please add it here.
Those known to have been held in or employed at
Stalag 3D Prisoner of War Camp
during the Second World War 1939-1945.
- Crellin George Edward.
- Dervish Izzet. Cpl. (d.4th Jul 1943)
- Gray . Thomas Andrew. Pte.
- Grobler Peter Paul. Pte.
- Hebburn Mark Bernard.
- Hegarty Alphonsus Thomas. Pte. (d.4th Nov 1941)
- Henrico Stephanus Jacobus. Capt.
- John Tudor Llewellyn. Spr.
- Lee Thomas Vincent. Pte.
- Lorsery CdG.. Raoul.
- Marshall Cecil Stanley Frederick.
- Methven John Ross.
- Payne John Joseph.
- Shadforth Robert. L/Bdr.
- Thomas Victor Albert. Pte.
- Yexley Arthur David. Cpl.
The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed, please Add a Name to this List
Records from Stalag 3D Prisoner of War Camp other sources.
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Want to know more about Stalag 3D Prisoner of War Camp?
There are:93 items tagged Stalag 3D Prisoner of War Camp available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War.
Mark Bernard Hebburn Royal Artillery
Hello There! I have been doing some research into my husband's family history and came across your site when I 'googled' Stalag XXB. My father-in-law, Mark Bernard Hebburn was a POW there for a substantial part of the war, like many of your other participants having been captured in France in 1940. He didn't really talk much to his sons about his time as a prisoner, but from time to time he would drop a snippet of information to me as we chewed the fat with a cup of tea in front of the fire!It is a great shame that he died in 2002 and took a lot of his stories with him. During the war he was serving as a Lance Bombadier with the Royal Artillery. His service number was 819389 and his POW number at Thorn was 18598 ( I have his dog tag). He told me that for some time during his stay at Thorn he worked on a farm. He also developed acute appendicitis and very nearly died of peritonitis so presumably was hospitalised for some time. By September 1944 he had been transferred to Stalag 3D near Berlin and the photographs I am attaching are from that time. The writing on the back of the cards has been mostly censored. In the uniformed photograph Mark hebburn is in the front row, far right as you look at it. Something that may jog a memory from someone (I am hoping so) is that just before he left Thorn for Berlin Mark fathered a child, Margaret who we think was probably born round July 1945. I would love to find her and her family but really don't know where to start looking. If anyone out there knew Mark or can fill in any of the gaps, I would be very grateful.
Barbra Hebburn
Pte. Thomas Vincent Lee Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps
My father Tommy Lee was born and brought up in Dublin. He was a proud Irishman who joined the British Army at some point in 1939.I know that 10 days after his 20th birthday on 23rd November 1939 he was in France with the Pioneer Corp and was captured at Boulogne on 26th May 1940. They were waiting to be repatriated by boat but Dad swapped places with another man who was desperate to get home (apparently he'd had a Dear John letter) and so Dad ended up at the HQ waiting for an officer to reply to orders when the boats left without them and the Germans marched into the town the following day.
A German solider told him "the war is over for you Tommy" and Dad grinned and thought jokingly how does he know my name, the German looked perplexed apparently. He was marched across France up into Belgium and back down across Germany. He was kept in one prison camp early on and then moved to Stalag III D until the end of the war as PoW No. 6292.
As children Dad never talked about the war but as we his 5 children grow older he would share stories, for instance I happened to say I went on a day trip to Boulogne and he told me that was where he had been captured and the events surrounding it. Peeling potatoes one day earned me a rebuke, the Germans would have shot me for the chip sized peelings I'd made, but lead to the story of how he hurt is ankle playing football and got a few days light duties peeling spuds in the kitchen. He obviously preferred it and changed the end date on his doctors note several times until he was rumbled and thrown into solitary confinement for a period.
He explained how the camp was near a railway station and one of is duties was to unload Red Cross parcels. On occasions the guards would disappear for a short time and this was the prisoners cue to help themselves. He said there were good and bad amongst the Germans and he never held a grudge or spoke about them with any malice. In fact he went on to learn German, read copious amount of German books - so many that the local library had to restock for him and visited Germany and the site of the camp - now I believe an academy or school.
He recalled seeing parachutists being picked off in the sky and being unable to do anything as they fell outside the camp boundaries and Berlin being bombed and the glow of the fires. His saddest recollection was the young German secretaries in the Red Cross office who were still there after the German guards abandoned the camp. They were terrified of the Russian's arrival, they knew how harshly the Russian prisoners had been treated and they feared retribution. They had shown Dad that they had cyanide pills sewn into their clothes and were prepared to take them. He and others begged them not to do it but he never saw them again and said he heard later they did take their own lives and he felt that was the greatest waste of life.
Obviously, my grandmother knew he had been taken prisoner but also had the painful experience of Lord Haw Haw reading out his name and saying the British were sacrificing the young boys of Ireland for their cause.
Just as an aside with my dad in the British Army and his brother James a GI, my Uncle Frankie their youngest brother inquired at the Irish Army recruitment office about joining up. When my grandmother found out she frogmarched him back, dumped the papers on the desk and told the officer "I have one son in the British Army and one in the US Army and you are not having him!!"
Cpl. Izzet Dervish Cyprus Regiment (d.4th Jul 1943)
Izzet Dervish was born on 28th September 1912, he was a Turkish Cypriot. He was captured by the Germans in Crete, on 1st of January 1941 and was taken to Stalag IIID Berlin, with a PoW number of 10657. His death is mentioned in the obituary of the 7th issue of the magazine that the war prisoners in the Stalag VIIIB produced. It is mentioned that he lost his life in Stalag VIIIB.Ülkü Öz
John Ross Methven Black Watch
My dad, John Methven was imprisoned in Stalag 3D during the war. I saw his passbook, but he would never talk about being there. He died in 1976, I am building our family history.John Methven
Pte. Alphonsus Thomas Hegarty 2/2nd Field Ambulance Medical Corps (d.4th Nov 1941)
Alphonsus Hegarty was born near the tiny village of Frosses in County Donegal, Ireland in 1911. In 1927, at the age of just 16, he emigrated to Australia to join some siblings.He joined the Australian Army Medical Corps in WW2 and was taken prisoner by German forces during the Battle of Crete. He died a POW (No. D12629) in Stalag IIID on 4th of November 1941 having not long turned 30 years of age. It is not known if he died as a result of wounds sustained at the Battle of Crete or whether as a result of his treatment during incarceration. He was buried in Doeberitz-Dallgau Cemetery but this was later destroyed. A memorial headstone is now to be found at the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Cemetery, Berlin. RIP.
Dun naGhall Abu. Erin go Bragh!
John Gavin
Spr. Tudor Llewellyn John 505th Field Company
Tudor John was my father. Some of his military records had an s added to his surname, but correct is without. Dad passed away in 1992 at the age of 73. He was in the Battle of Crete and captured by the Germans there. He was subsequently a POW for the rest of the war. He met my mother in Germany (she is German) during his captivity. She helped him escape from the POW camp, but he was later re-arrested and again imprisoned until the end of the war. He was in Stalag IIID, then Hohnstein, then Dresden. My parents both lived through that awful night of Feb 14th, 1945 when the Brits firebombed the city.Karin Deutschler
Pte. Peter Paul Grobler 6th S.A. Infantry Brigade Signals
While held at Stalag 3d as prisoner number 12787, my late father Peter Grobler recounted a story, they were building a railway line between the aircraft factory at Grossbaren (I don't know the exact spelling) to the aerodrome in Berlin, everytime the guards were distracted all sorts of things were thrown in the construction, apparently the first train to use this line the embankment collapsed and the train was wrecked.
Pte. Victor Albert Thomas Royal Army Service Corps
Victor Thomas joined the Army Service Corps when he turned 18. He was sent unprepared and almost unarmed to Crete aged 23 he was captured and spent the rest of the war as a POW in Eastern Germany. In his words: "We didn't have anything at all to defend the island, we were using rifles from World War One with two rounds each. They captured us and put us in cattle wagons and took us to Germany."He caught Diphtheria in the camp and became so weak that he couldn't walk or work. He was looked after by New Zealand-born doctor and officer Earl Stevenson-Wright. He was taken to Berlin with one guard to the hospital. When on the Berlin underground a lady gave him her seat as he could barely stand. She told him that her son was a POW in Canada and hoped people would do the same for him there.
The Germans were going to shoot Uncle Vic due to his repeated escape attempts. Dr. Stevenson-Wright stepped in and told the Germans that Vic was his batman and therefore shouldn't be shot. It worked and he became Dr. Stevenson-Wright's batman from then on until they were moved to separate camps.
He was in the following camps:
- Stalag VIII B (Lamsdorf, Silesia) in October 1941
- Stalag III D (Steglitz, Berlin) in 1941
- Stalag IV G (Ostritz, Saxony) in 1944
He witnessed many things, including seeing a barbed wire compound in a wood where the Germans had herded Russian POWs and left them to starve to death. He saw the destruction of Leipzig by RAF carpet bombing and told me of the terrible effect it had on the camp guards who lived in the city with their families. The German guards, despite being short of food for themselves and their families, always passed on the Red Cross parcels to the POWs whenever they occasionally made it through. He also received food parcels, which arrived addressed from The Cafe. They were really sent by Miss Cascarini in St. Thomas, who did not put her name to them for fear of persecution of her family in Italy.
Almost at the end of the war they were marched Westwards, guarded by very jumpy Hitler Youth. He managed to slip away with another POW and head towards the Western Allied lines. Whilst hiding in a barn an American plane strafed them, killing his companion right at the end of the war.
Upon being liberated he spent many months in hospital recovering from his ordeals and severe malnutrition.
After the war he re-visited Germany several times, to meet some of the Germans who despite everything had been kind to him. He never had a bad word to say about Germans in general, just specific people there who behaved extremely badly.
Russ Thomas
Capt. Stephanus Jacobus Henrico Army Chaplains Department
Stephanus Henrico was a Chaplain with 2nd South African Divisions. He was captured at Tobruk on the 21st of June 1942. He was held in in Stalag 3D till 30th of Oct 1944 after which he was transferred to an unknown pow camp.
Raoul Lorsery CdG.
My grandfather, Raoul Lorsery, was a war prisoner in Stalag IIID in Germany from 20th of June 1940 till 16th of October 1942, dates written on the official paperwork given to him when he was sent back to France. I have one photo taken in the camp where we can see him along with 40+ other prisoners. He earned the Croix de Guerre.
Cpl. Arthur David "Yec" Yexley 9th (The Rangers) Btn. King's Royal Rifle Corps
Taken prisoner in Crete, Arthur Yexley my dad, was first sent to Stalag IIID, located at Freigeghlen near Berlin. He later transferred to Stalag 383 where he spent the remainder of his incarceration.He told a few stories of the good times but only occasionally talked about the bad days. Like most camps, cigarettes were currency, for both prisoners and guards alike. Dad said that whilst they were reasonably fed (although often hungry), the Russian prisoners in the next camp along were in a very poor state. As the British went out on work parties, driving past the Russian camp, they would throw cigarettes over the fence. Dad swore that, on occasions, the Russian prisoners would grab whatever was thrown in and simply push it straight in their mouths and eat. That memory stayed with him always.
Whilst they didn't have it "cushy", he did love to talk about the long bridge tournaments in which he played; of the Gilbert and Sullivan productions (some photos of which he also had) and the fact that, far from digging tunnels, towards the end of the conflict, the guards would collude in prisoner escapes for the right amount of tobacco. He did not attempt an escape, always saying that life under the Nazis was preferable to my other!
David
John Joseph Payne
My great uncle Jack Payne is a bit of a mystery man. All I know about him is through P.O.W letters he sent my Grandmother, from the letters he says he was taken prisoner in May 1940 in France, possibly Dunkirk. Jack hadn't see my Grandfather for 10 years until he found him on a stretcher about to be evacuated from Dunkirk with G.S.W Forehead. He survived.The letters came from Stalag 111d camp 998, prisoner number 11096. I don't know what Regiment Jack was in or Rank but he was definitely in the Army. Jack married Victoria after the war, he lived in England and died in the 1960s. Can any one point me in the right direction to get more info on my Great Uncle Jack.
Paddy Payne
George Edward Crellin 15th IoM Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, 129th Batte Royal Artillery
My late father, George Edward Crellin was with the 129th Battery, 15th (Isle of Man) Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment. The 129th was raised on the IOM just before war broke out. He was one of the many soldiers and officers of the 129th captured in Crete (only 1 officer and 30 soldiers escaped capture). He eventually ended up in Germany and was in Stalag 3D from August 1941 to October 1943, then Stalag 4G from November 1943 to April 1945. During his time as a POW he was in several work parties. e.g. at a stone quarry. Along with many of his fellow Manx POWs, my father died young and probably as a result of the harsh treatment received. I would be very grateful for any further information about my father, the camps and about the liberation of Stalag 4G.Ann Graham
Cecil Stanley Frederick Marshall Royal Artillery
This Stalag 8b group photo has a date of 12.7.1943. My father-in-law, Cecil Stanley Frederick Marshall, known as Fred is 4th from right middle row. He was also held in Stalag IIIDSusan Nystrom-Marshall
L/Bdr. Robert Shadforth 106th Light Anti Aircraft Regiment Royal Artillery
My grandfather, Robert Shadforth passed in 1995. He wouldnt really talk of his time during the conflict, even when I joined the Signals in 1986. I have been doing research about his time and have been speaking with the ICRC who kindly helped me find the basic details of his time served.He was captured in Crete on the 1st of June 1941, which looks to be at the time of the retreat from Suda bay central sector. At the time he was with the 106th LAA which was supporting 2/3rd RAA (Australian). At this point it looks like the 106th consisted of 4 batteries each with 2 troops that where (LAA)light anti aircraft Lanc Hussars.
OPERATION MERCURY (german)
When the retreat was ordered many were left to fight on with the german 2nd army, 15 divisions, Fallschirmjaeger-Regiment (1st Parachute-hunter Regiment) This seems a bit vague, looks like a communication breakdown.
My grandfather spent 4 months on Crete POW awaiting transfer to Stalag III/D which happened on the 10th of October 1941, then Stalag IV/B 24/7/1942, then Stalag IV/D 27/7/1944. The only information I have was that he was a watchmaker and made compasses for the escape commitee, where I dont know.
Anyone with any information of 106th RHA in Crete - please help me out, I dont want to give this up now!
Gregg
Mark Bernard Hebburn Royal Artillery
Hello There! I have been doing some research into my husband's family history and came across your site when I 'googled' Stalag XXB. My father-in-law, Mark Bernard Hebburn was a POW there for a substantial part of the war, like many of your other participants having been captured in France in 1940. He didn't really talk much to his sons about his time as a prisoner, but from time to time he would drop a snippet of information to me as we chewed the fat with a cup of tea in front of the fire!It is a great shame that he died in 2002 and took a lot of his stories with him. During the war he was serving as a Lance Bombadier with the Royal Artillery. His service number was 819389 and his POW number at Thorn was 18598 ( I have his dog tag). He told me that for some time during his stay at Thorn he worked on a farm. He also developed acute appendicitis and very nearly died of peritonitis so presumably was hospitalised for some time. By September 1944 he had been transferred to Stalag 3D near Berlin and the photographs I am attaching are from that time. The writing on the back of the cards has been mostly censored. In the uniformed photograph Mark hebburn is in the front row, far right as you look at it. Something that may jog a memory from someone (I am hoping so) is that just before he left Thorn for Berlin Mark fathered a child, Margaret who we think was probably born round July 1945. I would love to find her and her family but really don't know where to start looking. If anyone out there knew Mark or can fill in any of the gaps, I would be very grateful.
Barbra Hebburn
Pte. Thomas Vincent Lee Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps
My father Tommy Lee was born and brought up in Dublin. He was a proud Irishman who joined the British Army at some point in 1939.I know that 10 days after his 20th birthday on 23rd November 1939 he was in France with the Pioneer Corp and was captured at Boulogne on 26th May 1940. They were waiting to be repatriated by boat but Dad swapped places with another man who was desperate to get home (apparently he'd had a Dear John letter) and so Dad ended up at the HQ waiting for an officer to reply to orders when the boats left without them and the Germans marched into the town the following day.
A German solider told him "the war is over for you Tommy" and Dad grinned and thought jokingly how does he know my name, the German looked perplexed apparently. He was marched across France up into Belgium and back down across Germany. He was kept in one prison camp early on and then moved to Stalag III D until the end of the war as PoW No. 6292.
As children Dad never talked about the war but as we his 5 children grow older he would share stories, for instance I happened to say I went on a day trip to Boulogne and he told me that was where he had been captured and the events surrounding it. Peeling potatoes one day earned me a rebuke, the Germans would have shot me for the chip sized peelings I'd made, but lead to the story of how he hurt is ankle playing football and got a few days light duties peeling spuds in the kitchen. He obviously preferred it and changed the end date on his doctors note several times until he was rumbled and thrown into solitary confinement for a period.
He explained how the camp was near a railway station and one of is duties was to unload Red Cross parcels. On occasions the guards would disappear for a short time and this was the prisoners cue to help themselves. He said there were good and bad amongst the Germans and he never held a grudge or spoke about them with any malice. In fact he went on to learn German, read copious amount of German books - so many that the local library had to restock for him and visited Germany and the site of the camp - now I believe an academy or school.
He recalled seeing parachutists being picked off in the sky and being unable to do anything as they fell outside the camp boundaries and Berlin being bombed and the glow of the fires. His saddest recollection was the young German secretaries in the Red Cross office who were still there after the German guards abandoned the camp. They were terrified of the Russian's arrival, they knew how harshly the Russian prisoners had been treated and they feared retribution. They had shown Dad that they had cyanide pills sewn into their clothes and were prepared to take them. He and others begged them not to do it but he never saw them again and said he heard later they did take their own lives and he felt that was the greatest waste of life.
Obviously, my grandmother knew he had been taken prisoner but also had the painful experience of Lord Haw Haw reading out his name and saying the British were sacrificing the young boys of Ireland for their cause.
Just as an aside with my dad in the British Army and his brother James a GI, my Uncle Frankie their youngest brother inquired at the Irish Army recruitment office about joining up. When my grandmother found out she frogmarched him back, dumped the papers on the desk and told the officer "I have one son in the British Army and one in the US Army and you are not having him!!"
Cpl. Izzet Dervish Cyprus Regiment (d.4th Jul 1943)
Izzet Dervish was born on 28th September 1912, he was a Turkish Cypriot. He was captured by the Germans in Crete, on 1st of January 1941 and was taken to Stalag IIID Berlin, with a PoW number of 10657. His death is mentioned in the obituary of the 7th issue of the magazine that the war prisoners in the Stalag VIIIB produced. It is mentioned that he lost his life in Stalag VIIIB.Ülkü Öz
John Ross Methven Black Watch
My dad, John Methven was imprisoned in Stalag 3D during the war. I saw his passbook, but he would never talk about being there. He died in 1976, I am building our family history.John Methven
Pte. Alphonsus Thomas Hegarty 2/2nd Field Ambulance Medical Corps (d.4th Nov 1941)
Alphonsus Hegarty was born near the tiny village of Frosses in County Donegal, Ireland in 1911. In 1927, at the age of just 16, he emigrated to Australia to join some siblings.He joined the Australian Army Medical Corps in WW2 and was taken prisoner by German forces during the Battle of Crete. He died a POW (No. D12629) in Stalag IIID on 4th of November 1941 having not long turned 30 years of age. It is not known if he died as a result of wounds sustained at the Battle of Crete or whether as a result of his treatment during incarceration. He was buried in Doeberitz-Dallgau Cemetery but this was later destroyed. A memorial headstone is now to be found at the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Cemetery, Berlin. RIP.
Dun naGhall Abu. Erin go Bragh!
John Gavin
Spr. Tudor Llewellyn John 505th Field Company
Tudor John was my father. Some of his military records had an s added to his surname, but correct is without. Dad passed away in 1992 at the age of 73. He was in the Battle of Crete and captured by the Germans there. He was subsequently a POW for the rest of the war. He met my mother in Germany (she is German) during his captivity. She helped him escape from the POW camp, but he was later re-arrested and again imprisoned until the end of the war. He was in Stalag IIID, then Hohnstein, then Dresden. My parents both lived through that awful night of Feb 14th, 1945 when the Brits firebombed the city.Karin Deutschler
Pte. Peter Paul Grobler 6th S.A. Infantry Brigade Signals
While held at Stalag 3d as prisoner number 12787, my late father Peter Grobler recounted a story, they were building a railway line between the aircraft factory at Grossbaren (I don't know the exact spelling) to the aerodrome in Berlin, everytime the guards were distracted all sorts of things were thrown in the construction, apparently the first train to use this line the embankment collapsed and the train was wrecked.
Pte. Victor Albert Thomas Royal Army Service Corps
Victor Thomas joined the Army Service Corps when he turned 18. He was sent unprepared and almost unarmed to Crete aged 23 he was captured and spent the rest of the war as a POW in Eastern Germany. In his words: "We didn't have anything at all to defend the island, we were using rifles from World War One with two rounds each. They captured us and put us in cattle wagons and took us to Germany."He caught Diphtheria in the camp and became so weak that he couldn't walk or work. He was looked after by New Zealand-born doctor and officer Earl Stevenson-Wright. He was taken to Berlin with one guard to the hospital. When on the Berlin underground a lady gave him her seat as he could barely stand. She told him that her son was a POW in Canada and hoped people would do the same for him there.
The Germans were going to shoot Uncle Vic due to his repeated escape attempts. Dr. Stevenson-Wright stepped in and told the Germans that Vic was his batman and therefore shouldn't be shot. It worked and he became Dr. Stevenson-Wright's batman from then on until they were moved to separate camps.
He was in the following camps:
- Stalag VIII B (Lamsdorf, Silesia) in October 1941
- Stalag III D (Steglitz, Berlin) in 1941
- Stalag IV G (Ostritz, Saxony) in 1944
He witnessed many things, including seeing a barbed wire compound in a wood where the Germans had herded Russian POWs and left them to starve to death. He saw the destruction of Leipzig by RAF carpet bombing and told me of the terrible effect it had on the camp guards who lived in the city with their families. The German guards, despite being short of food for themselves and their families, always passed on the Red Cross parcels to the POWs whenever they occasionally made it through. He also received food parcels, which arrived addressed from The Cafe. They were really sent by Miss Cascarini in St. Thomas, who did not put her name to them for fear of persecution of her family in Italy.
Almost at the end of the war they were marched Westwards, guarded by very jumpy Hitler Youth. He managed to slip away with another POW and head towards the Western Allied lines. Whilst hiding in a barn an American plane strafed them, killing his companion right at the end of the war.
Upon being liberated he spent many months in hospital recovering from his ordeals and severe malnutrition.
After the war he re-visited Germany several times, to meet some of the Germans who despite everything had been kind to him. He never had a bad word to say about Germans in general, just specific people there who behaved extremely badly.
Russ Thomas
Capt. Stephanus Jacobus Henrico Army Chaplains Department
Stephanus Henrico was a Chaplain with 2nd South African Divisions. He was captured at Tobruk on the 21st of June 1942. He was held in in Stalag 3D till 30th of Oct 1944 after which he was transferred to an unknown pow camp.
Raoul Lorsery CdG.
My grandfather, Raoul Lorsery, was a war prisoner in Stalag IIID in Germany from 20th of June 1940 till 16th of October 1942, dates written on the official paperwork given to him when he was sent back to France. I have one photo taken in the camp where we can see him along with 40+ other prisoners. He earned the Croix de Guerre.
Cpl. Arthur David "Yec" Yexley 9th (The Rangers) Btn. King's Royal Rifle Corps
Taken prisoner in Crete, Arthur Yexley my dad, was first sent to Stalag IIID, located at Freigeghlen near Berlin. He later transferred to Stalag 383 where he spent the remainder of his incarceration.He told a few stories of the good times but only occasionally talked about the bad days. Like most camps, cigarettes were currency, for both prisoners and guards alike. Dad said that whilst they were reasonably fed (although often hungry), the Russian prisoners in the next camp along were in a very poor state. As the British went out on work parties, driving past the Russian camp, they would throw cigarettes over the fence. Dad swore that, on occasions, the Russian prisoners would grab whatever was thrown in and simply push it straight in their mouths and eat. That memory stayed with him always.
Whilst they didn't have it "cushy", he did love to talk about the long bridge tournaments in which he played; of the Gilbert and Sullivan productions (some photos of which he also had) and the fact that, far from digging tunnels, towards the end of the conflict, the guards would collude in prisoner escapes for the right amount of tobacco. He did not attempt an escape, always saying that life under the Nazis was preferable to my other!
David
John Joseph Payne
My great uncle Jack Payne is a bit of a mystery man. All I know about him is through P.O.W letters he sent my Grandmother, from the letters he says he was taken prisoner in May 1940 in France, possibly Dunkirk. Jack hadn't see my Grandfather for 10 years until he found him on a stretcher about to be evacuated from Dunkirk with G.S.W Forehead. He survived.The letters came from Stalag 111d camp 998, prisoner number 11096. I don't know what Regiment Jack was in or Rank but he was definitely in the Army. Jack married Victoria after the war, he lived in England and died in the 1960s. Can any one point me in the right direction to get more info on my Great Uncle Jack.
Paddy Payne
George Edward Crellin 15th IoM Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, 129th Batte Royal Artillery
My late father, George Edward Crellin was with the 129th Battery, 15th (Isle of Man) Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment. The 129th was raised on the IOM just before war broke out. He was one of the many soldiers and officers of the 129th captured in Crete (only 1 officer and 30 soldiers escaped capture). He eventually ended up in Germany and was in Stalag 3D from August 1941 to October 1943, then Stalag 4G from November 1943 to April 1945. During his time as a POW he was in several work parties. e.g. at a stone quarry. Along with many of his fellow Manx POWs, my father died young and probably as a result of the harsh treatment received. I would be very grateful for any further information about my father, the camps and about the liberation of Stalag 4G.Ann Graham
Cecil Stanley Frederick Marshall Royal Artillery
This Stalag 8b group photo has a date of 12.7.1943. My father-in-law, Cecil Stanley Frederick Marshall, known as Fred is 4th from right middle row. He was also held in Stalag IIIDSusan Nystrom-Marshall
L/Bdr. Robert Shadforth 106th Light Anti Aircraft Regiment Royal Artillery
My grandfather, Robert Shadforth passed in 1995. He wouldnt really talk of his time during the conflict, even when I joined the Signals in 1986. I have been doing research about his time and have been speaking with the ICRC who kindly helped me find the basic details of his time served.He was captured in Crete on the 1st of June 1941, which looks to be at the time of the retreat from Suda bay central sector. At the time he was with the 106th LAA which was supporting 2/3rd RAA (Australian). At this point it looks like the 106th consisted of 4 batteries each with 2 troops that where (LAA)light anti aircraft Lanc Hussars.
OPERATION MERCURY (german)
When the retreat was ordered many were left to fight on with the german 2nd army, 15 divisions, Fallschirmjaeger-Regiment (1st Parachute-hunter Regiment) This seems a bit vague, looks like a communication breakdown.
My grandfather spent 4 months on Crete POW awaiting transfer to Stalag III/D which happened on the 10th of October 1941, then Stalag IV/B 24/7/1942, then Stalag IV/D 27/7/1944. The only information I have was that he was a watchmaker and made compasses for the escape commitee, where I dont know.
Anyone with any information of 106th RHA in Crete - please help me out, I dont want to give this up now!
Gregg
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