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The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website.
Announcements
- 1st of September 2024 marks 25 years since the launch of the Wartime Memories Project. Thanks to everyone who has supported us over this time.
- The Wartime Memories Project has been running for 25 years. If you would like to support us, a donation, no matter how small, would be much appreciated, annually we need to raise enough funds to pay for our web hosting and admin or this site will vanish from the web.
- 18th Dec 2024 - Please note we currently have a huge backlog of submitted material, our volunteers are working through this as quickly as possible and all names, stories and photos will be added to the site. If you have already submitted a story to the site and your UID reference number is higher than
265120 your information is still in the queue, please do not resubmit, we are working through them as quickly as possible.
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Want to find out more about your relative's service? Want to know what life was like during the War? Our
Library contains an ever growing number diary entries, personal letters and other documents, most transcribed into plain text. |
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Wanted: Digital copies of Group photographs, Scrapbooks, Autograph books, photo albums, newspaper clippings, letters, postcards and ephemera relating to WW2. We would like to obtain digital copies of any documents or photographs relating to WW2 you may have at home. If you have any unwanted
photographs, documents or items from the First or Second World War, please do not destroy them.
The Wartime Memories Project will give them a good home and ensure that they are used for educational purposes. Please get in touch for the postal address, do not sent them to our PO Box as packages are not accepted.
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Did you know? We also have a section on The Great War. and a
Timecapsule to preserve stories from other conflicts for future generations.
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Want to know more about Stalag Luft 7 Prisoner of War Camp? There are:40 items tagged Stalag Luft 7 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. |
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Sergeant H Lea 61 Squadron My great uncle flew a Lancaster with 61 Squadron and was killed on the 23rd of September 1944. I'm trying to find info on the only survivor, Sgt H.Lea who was put into Stalag Luft 7. I'd like to know if he is still alive.
The crew were:
F/O Ian Melville Campbell RNZAF 426213
Sgt John Norman Hoad 1175274 23/09/1944
Sgt R.D.Cole
F/S M.J.Milne RNZAF
Sgt John McCabe 1348047 RAF Volunteer Reserve
Flt/Sgt Samuel Vernon Wickland 640170
Sgt H.Lea
Lancaster ED470 took off at 19:07 23rd Sep 1944 to bomb the Dortmund-Ems Canal at Ladbergen near Munster. It crashed at 23:30 at Wechte, 3km from Tecklenburg. Those killed are now buried in the Reichswald Forest War cemetery.
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Jack McQueen 419 Squadron I'm one of the daughters of Jack McQueen, Squadron 419, and we finally have his story down on paper. He was a rear gunner on the Lancaster and the only survivor of his crew. He was a POW. It took him all these years to be able to talk about the detail of his experience.
John F. McQueen, rear gunner, 419 Squadron
When he was 17 Dad wanted to enlist in the Navy but he couldn’t gain enough weight to meet the requirements. He went many times to be weighed but finally decided to join the Air Force. He had to get his dad to sign for him since he was 17 and should have been 18 to join.
He started at the Brandon Manning Depot where all recruits began their first training. He went on to more specific training and when in training at Mt. Pleasant, P.E.I. he met Pat O’Hara who became dad’s best friend. He was with dad right through training including O.T.U., Operations Training Centre, and they ended up in the same squadron, 419. Dad became the rear gunner of the Lancaster.
The night dad’s Lancaster was shot down he remembers a small plane coming at them so fast. He called for evasive action but nothing seemed to be able to stop the small plane. He found out later it was an 18 year old pilot and the small plane had been upgraded to 50 calibre bullets and the Lancaster only had 30 calibre so the pilot was able to continually stay out of dad’s range. When dad’s plane was shot down, dad had his parachute on and ejected. His boot got stuck and it ripped right off. A week or so before being shot down dad had asked permission to put a seatpack (parachute) on for extra speed to avoid losing time instead of leaving it just inside the plane as standard procedure. It would save lost time in opening and closing the hatch door. He never would have been able to open the door and pull out the parachute in time. Dad remembers landing in a tree and didn’t know what he should do. He could hear dogs barking and a farmhouse was close by. His Lancaster was close enough to him that he could see it and knew no one else survived. He listened to kids getting closer so he stayed very quiet. He could see they had guns and they had gone over to look at the plane. In the morning he crawled down from the tree and over to a hedge row and tried to hide behind a bit of growth. A small dog started sniffing in the hedge and came across dad and started barking at him. Dad tried to coax it to stop barking but it wouldn’t quit. A Russian prisoner, forced to work on the farm, went over with a pitch fork and found dad and motioned for him to stand up. Then a German farmer came over and yelled at the Russian who was only there to help with chores. The farmer helped dad over the fence and said he’d like to let dad go free but couldn’t. It would have been too risky for him and his family. He brought dad into his house and he met his wife and 12 year old daughter. She could speak some English and went right away for a map to see where dad lived. He showed her Winnipeg and the daughter showed her father where dad lived and the farmer said “do you know my brother?”, as he measured with his finger on the map from Manitoba to Illinois. Dad, of course, said no he didn’t know him. The farmer said he wished he could hide dad but said it would be too dangerous. He didn’t want the “kids” getting dad and said not to say anything bad to them or they would instantly kill him. He told dad he would call his friend who was the mayor of Hosfeld, the town nearby. The mayor went out to their home the next morning on his bicycle and brought a rope. He tied dad to the rope and dad walked behind him into town. He was missing a boot but the farmer had given him a pair of wooden shoes to wear. He tied dad to the rope so that the “kids” wouldn’t shoot him. When they got into town the mayor tried to make arrangements for an army group to guard dad but then the commander of the “kids” got hold of dad and tore his cigarettes out of his pocket and then put dad into a cell. The “kids” took everything they could from him. Then they got a Homeguard fellow to come and guard.
In the morning a young pilot came in and he told dad he was the one who shot dad’s plane down. That’s when he explained the 50 calibre bullets. He took dad to a train and sat beside him the entire time. They went to a building in Frankfurt where the interrogation area was. They kept dad there for 3 weeks. He was in a boarded up room with a hanging light that never went out. The same fellow came to him each morning and yelled at him and got very mad. He was trying to break him down. Dad said he felt very numb.
After 3 weeks of interrogation he was sent to the distribution point where he was given shoes and clothing. Most everything had “U.S. Army” written on them. They were the belongings from the dead U.S. soldiers. Then they went on a train and everyone was jammed in and standing up and traveled to the first concentration camp called Stalagluft 7 at Bankau. Dad was a prisoner from October 1944 to June 1945.
When the Germans were being pushed out by the Russians and Allies they had to take the prisoners on the “forced torture walk” to get to the next POW camp. Dad has the original newspaper articles written in August 1945 by Joseph John Walkty who wrote from his diaries of the torture walk dad was on. Sgt. Walkty was the commander of dad’s POW group. He was the one who negotiated the things they needed from the Germans. Dad said his account of the march is exactly what they all went through.
After the walk they ended up at Luckenwalde POW camp and stayed there until they were finally freed by the Russians. When the Russians were closing in, the German guards threw their guns to the prisoners so it would look like the Germans were the prisoners. When the tanks came in to free the prisoners they started tearing down the fencing and dad’s group just started walking and in a few days were picked up by the Americans who
were there to take them back. On the march the Germans had blown up every bridge they crossed so when they were walking with the Americans and came upon a blown up bridge the Americans put a cable across and everyone had to hold on tight to make it across. A few fell off and were washed away in the current never to be seen again.
They were taken to Brussels and were washed thoroughly with brushes and then sprayed and then after they had a nice shower. All of their clothes were washed and dried for them. Then they were taken to a big room for a feast and they couldn’t believe how good the food smelled. When they saw so much food they started filling their plates and the women serving them said they could eat as much as they wanted but should only take small portions to begin with. Afterwards they knew why. Their stomachs had shrunk and they couldn’t eat what they had hoped they could.
Dad arrived back in Winnipeg and was so happy to be home at last. He still has the original copy of the newspaper clipping saying he was missing in action, his squadron crest from his hat, his wings, a German label with a swastika emblem that a guard had given him in the POW camp, as well as pictures and original news clippings of the torture march. Kathleen McQueen had sent away for the pictures that were taken in the POW camp, which were taken at dad’s camp.
Two days after arriving home he went to a dance and met mom…and they lived happily ever after!
Dad never talked about his experience all of those years because he not only wanted to leave the memories of terror behind, but he had always blamed himself for being shot down and felt guilty being the only crew member to survive.
The crew were:
- P/O A.I.Cohen RCAF
- Sgt R.A.Campbell RCAF
- F/O G.W.Murphy RCAF
- F/S J.H.E.Goldfinch RCAF
- Sgt R.F.Emerson RCAF
- F/S L.F.O'Hara RCAF
- F/S J.F.Mcqueen RCAF
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Flt. Sgt. John Potter Nichol bomb aimer 106 Sqd. John Nichol was taken prisoner of War after his Lancaster was lost on the 30th of Aug 1944. He was held in Stalag Luft 7 along with his flight engineer Sidney Bell.
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WO2 W. E. Eyre 514 Sqd. Having been shot down on the 3rd of August 1944, WO2 Eyre was interned in Stalag Luft 7. He had previously flown with 15 Sqd. and had a narrow escape from death by burning when Stirling LS-C crashed into a pond at Potash Farm, Brettenham, near Ipswitch, on the 11th of August 1942 at 03:37 while trying to land at RAF Wattisham. The aircraft had been badly damaged by two Ju88s, one of which was claimed damaged by return fire. F/S Eyre was saved by the heroic actions of three men, Jim, John and Stan Arbons, who chopped their way into the fuselage and dragged the injured airman to safety. The rest of the crew perished.
They were: F/S A.A.B.McCausland, Sgt P.Bushby, Sgt J.B.Hammond, Sgt F.Nixon, Sgt R.Tree and Sgt J.Mile.
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F/S H. Gilmore 514 Sqd. Having been shot down on the 3rd of August, F/S Gilmore was interned in Stalag Luft 7.
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W/O. Clive Ireson Lyell Clive Lyell's plane was shot down near Heligoland, and he and his navigator, Frank Hitchcock RNZAF, spent 4 days in the North Sea in a rubber dinghy before being picked up by a German destroyer. Taken prisoner, they were then transferred to Stalag Luft 7.
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Sgt. Wilfred Chapman Wilfred Chapman was a prisoner in Stalag Luft 7. He was shot down as the tail gunner of a Wellington.
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WO Ernest "Teddy" Gooch 115 Squadron Dad, Ernest Gooch was flying his 13th mission over Germany from RAF Witchford and was shot down by flak on 29th of October 1944, one of 2 to survive, the other being the bomb aimer, John Bovill, who was also kept in Bankau Stalag Luft VII. They went on the forced march to Luckenwalde south of Berlin from where they eventually left for the Allied lines when the Germans capitulated.
Bankau was ok for the US, French and British airmen, not so good for the Russians who were systematically starved and and frozen to death. With nothing to wear but what they stood up in, the other nationalities would tip potato peelings over the fence to the Russians on pain of execution, who would then fight to the death for them. Corpses were often seen the next day with flesh missing from them.
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Richard Ronald Dale Glider Pilot Regiment Richard Dale was captured at Wolfheze, Holland on 21st of September 1944, and was taken to Oberursel near Frankfurt. He was then moved to Stalag Luft 7, Bankau, Silesia, Germany, arriving on 7th of October 1944. Later he was forced marched (known as long march or death march), in freezing conditions, and arrived at Stalag 3a at Luckenwalde on 7th of February 1945 where he remained until liberated on 22nd April 1945 by the Russians.
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F/Sgt. Stanley Michael Mitchell 9 Squadron Mick Mitchell was my 2nd cousin. His Lancaster III JB116 crashed in France on 8th of July 1944. Mick was in Stalag Luft VII from July 1944 and repatriated May 1945. Mick died in 1997 in Frankston, Victoria, Australia.
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Flt.Sgt. Robert E. Toomey 428 Squadron    Flight engineer, Flt.Sgt. Robert Toomey was returning from a bombing raid of the port area of Stettin Germany on 16th/17th August 1944 when the aircraft was shot down into the Baltic Sea off the coast of the Island of Sejero, Denmark. It was his fifth sortie. The aircraft was coded KB751.
He was the only survivor of the crew of seven, and helped to bury his pilot two days later. He was captured, interrogated for three days while suffering from tonsillitis, then transported by train to a prison camp in Bankau (Bakow), Poland.
Conditions in the POW camp were horrible, with little food or medical care. After five months, the prisoners were forced to walk over 250 km in a snow blizzard and below freezing temperatures with very little food, sleeping in barns and factories as the Russians were closing in. This became known as the Long March, Central Route.
Of 1,550 on his route only 720 survived the walk. Many passed away from starvation, fatigue and illness. Soldiers were told they would be shot if they didn't keep up. They arrived at another POW camp at Luckenwalde, just south of Berlin. A friend from Toomey's combine, Percy Crosswell was shot and killed trying to escape this camp.
Unknown to the prisoners, Hitler had signed an order on 22nd of April 1945 that they were to be executed if Germany was forced to surrender. Fortunately, the camp was liberated that month.
Crew of Lancaster X KB751, coded NA-Q
- F/O W. Fairgrieve RCAF
- Sgt R. Toomey RCAF
- F/O L. Brown RCAF
- F/O H. Slater RCAF
- P/O R. Boyce RCAF
- F/O J. Srigley RCAF
- P/O W. Lamb RCAF
C. Lafleur
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Flt.Sgt. Christopher Patrick Byrne I have a prayer book with the following written on front page "Flight Sergeant Byrne POW no 118691 Stalag Luft 7, Bankau, upper Silesia". Then also in his hand "given to me by Father Berry 17-1-1945".
Christopher Byrne was my father-in-law and he died in 1973 and came from Dublin before he enlisted in RAF. I wondered if anyone has any information about him as a POW.
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Flt.Sgt. Frederick Walter Helme 178 Squadron Frederick Helme was with his crew on a supply run to Polish and was flying from Italy. The mission was completed and they were on the run home when they were attacked by a night fighter. Their plane, a B24 Liberator GC933, was shot down. It crashed in the yard of Oscar Schindler's factory. Three crew including the pilot perished. Three crew got out alive. One man was injured and rescued by the Polish Resistance. Frederick and another were taken prisoner and ended up in Stalag Luft 7. His POW number was 666. He was then on the Long March after the Germans emptied the camps as the Russians advanced from the East.
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Sergeant H Lea 61 Squadron My great uncle flew a Lancaster with 61 Squadron and was killed on the 23rd of September 1944. I'm trying to find info on the only survivor, Sgt H.Lea who was put into Stalag Luft 7. I'd like to know if he is still alive.
The crew were:
F/O Ian Melville Campbell RNZAF 426213
Sgt John Norman Hoad 1175274 23/09/1944
Sgt R.D.Cole
F/S M.J.Milne RNZAF
Sgt John McCabe 1348047 RAF Volunteer Reserve
Flt/Sgt Samuel Vernon Wickland 640170
Sgt H.Lea
Lancaster ED470 took off at 19:07 23rd Sep 1944 to bomb the Dortmund-Ems Canal at Ladbergen near Munster. It crashed at 23:30 at Wechte, 3km from Tecklenburg. Those killed are now buried in the Reichswald Forest War cemetery.
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Jack McQueen 419 Squadron I'm one of the daughters of Jack McQueen, Squadron 419, and we finally have his story down on paper. He was a rear gunner on the Lancaster and the only survivor of his crew. He was a POW. It took him all these years to be able to talk about the detail of his experience.
John F. McQueen, rear gunner, 419 Squadron
When he was 17 Dad wanted to enlist in the Navy but he couldn’t gain enough weight to meet the requirements. He went many times to be weighed but finally decided to join the Air Force. He had to get his dad to sign for him since he was 17 and should have been 18 to join.
He started at the Brandon Manning Depot where all recruits began their first training. He went on to more specific training and when in training at Mt. Pleasant, P.E.I. he met Pat O’Hara who became dad’s best friend. He was with dad right through training including O.T.U., Operations Training Centre, and they ended up in the same squadron, 419. Dad became the rear gunner of the Lancaster.
The night dad’s Lancaster was shot down he remembers a small plane coming at them so fast. He called for evasive action but nothing seemed to be able to stop the small plane. He found out later it was an 18 year old pilot and the small plane had been upgraded to 50 calibre bullets and the Lancaster only had 30 calibre so the pilot was able to continually stay out of dad’s range. When dad’s plane was shot down, dad had his parachute on and ejected. His boot got stuck and it ripped right off. A week or so before being shot down dad had asked permission to put a seatpack (parachute) on for extra speed to avoid losing time instead of leaving it just inside the plane as standard procedure. It would save lost time in opening and closing the hatch door. He never would have been able to open the door and pull out the parachute in time. Dad remembers landing in a tree and didn’t know what he should do. He could hear dogs barking and a farmhouse was close by. His Lancaster was close enough to him that he could see it and knew no one else survived. He listened to kids getting closer so he stayed very quiet. He could see they had guns and they had gone over to look at the plane. In the morning he crawled down from the tree and over to a hedge row and tried to hide behind a bit of growth. A small dog started sniffing in the hedge and came across dad and started barking at him. Dad tried to coax it to stop barking but it wouldn’t quit. A Russian prisoner, forced to work on the farm, went over with a pitch fork and found dad and motioned for him to stand up. Then a German farmer came over and yelled at the Russian who was only there to help with chores. The farmer helped dad over the fence and said he’d like to let dad go free but couldn’t. It would have been too risky for him and his family. He brought dad into his house and he met his wife and 12 year old daughter. She could speak some English and went right away for a map to see where dad lived. He showed her Winnipeg and the daughter showed her father where dad lived and the farmer said “do you know my brother?”, as he measured with his finger on the map from Manitoba to Illinois. Dad, of course, said no he didn’t know him. The farmer said he wished he could hide dad but said it would be too dangerous. He didn’t want the “kids” getting dad and said not to say anything bad to them or they would instantly kill him. He told dad he would call his friend who was the mayor of Hosfeld, the town nearby. The mayor went out to their home the next morning on his bicycle and brought a rope. He tied dad to the rope and dad walked behind him into town. He was missing a boot but the farmer had given him a pair of wooden shoes to wear. He tied dad to the rope so that the “kids” wouldn’t shoot him. When they got into town the mayor tried to make arrangements for an army group to guard dad but then the commander of the “kids” got hold of dad and tore his cigarettes out of his pocket and then put dad into a cell. The “kids” took everything they could from him. Then they got a Homeguard fellow to come and guard.
In the morning a young pilot came in and he told dad he was the one who shot dad’s plane down. That’s when he explained the 50 calibre bullets. He took dad to a train and sat beside him the entire time. They went to a building in Frankfurt where the interrogation area was. They kept dad there for 3 weeks. He was in a boarded up room with a hanging light that never went out. The same fellow came to him each morning and yelled at him and got very mad. He was trying to break him down. Dad said he felt very numb.
After 3 weeks of interrogation he was sent to the distribution point where he was given shoes and clothing. Most everything had “U.S. Army” written on them. They were the belongings from the dead U.S. soldiers. Then they went on a train and everyone was jammed in and standing up and traveled to the first concentration camp called Stalagluft 7 at Bankau. Dad was a prisoner from October 1944 to June 1945.
When the Germans were being pushed out by the Russians and Allies they had to take the prisoners on the “forced torture walk” to get to the next POW camp. Dad has the original newspaper articles written in August 1945 by Joseph John Walkty who wrote from his diaries of the torture walk dad was on. Sgt. Walkty was the commander of dad’s POW group. He was the one who negotiated the things they needed from the Germans. Dad said his account of the march is exactly what they all went through.
After the walk they ended up at Luckenwalde POW camp and stayed there until they were finally freed by the Russians. When the Russians were closing in, the German guards threw their guns to the prisoners so it would look like the Germans were the prisoners. When the tanks came in to free the prisoners they started tearing down the fencing and dad’s group just started walking and in a few days were picked up by the Americans who
were there to take them back. On the march the Germans had blown up every bridge they crossed so when they were walking with the Americans and came upon a blown up bridge the Americans put a cable across and everyone had to hold on tight to make it across. A few fell off and were washed away in the current never to be seen again.
They were taken to Brussels and were washed thoroughly with brushes and then sprayed and then after they had a nice shower. All of their clothes were washed and dried for them. Then they were taken to a big room for a feast and they couldn’t believe how good the food smelled. When they saw so much food they started filling their plates and the women serving them said they could eat as much as they wanted but should only take small portions to begin with. Afterwards they knew why. Their stomachs had shrunk and they couldn’t eat what they had hoped they could.
Dad arrived back in Winnipeg and was so happy to be home at last. He still has the original copy of the newspaper clipping saying he was missing in action, his squadron crest from his hat, his wings, a German label with a swastika emblem that a guard had given him in the POW camp, as well as pictures and original news clippings of the torture march. Kathleen McQueen had sent away for the pictures that were taken in the POW camp, which were taken at dad’s camp.
Two days after arriving home he went to a dance and met mom…and they lived happily ever after!
Dad never talked about his experience all of those years because he not only wanted to leave the memories of terror behind, but he had always blamed himself for being shot down and felt guilty being the only crew member to survive.
The crew were:
- P/O A.I.Cohen RCAF
- Sgt R.A.Campbell RCAF
- F/O G.W.Murphy RCAF
- F/S J.H.E.Goldfinch RCAF
- Sgt R.F.Emerson RCAF
- F/S L.F.O'Hara RCAF
- F/S J.F.Mcqueen RCAF
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Flt. Sgt. John Potter Nichol bomb aimer 106 Sqd. John Nichol was taken prisoner of War after his Lancaster was lost on the 30th of Aug 1944. He was held in Stalag Luft 7 along with his flight engineer Sidney Bell.
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WO2 W. E. Eyre 514 Sqd. Having been shot down on the 3rd of August 1944, WO2 Eyre was interned in Stalag Luft 7. He had previously flown with 15 Sqd. and had a narrow escape from death by burning when Stirling LS-C crashed into a pond at Potash Farm, Brettenham, near Ipswitch, on the 11th of August 1942 at 03:37 while trying to land at RAF Wattisham. The aircraft had been badly damaged by two Ju88s, one of which was claimed damaged by return fire. F/S Eyre was saved by the heroic actions of three men, Jim, John and Stan Arbons, who chopped their way into the fuselage and dragged the injured airman to safety. The rest of the crew perished.
They were: F/S A.A.B.McCausland, Sgt P.Bushby, Sgt J.B.Hammond, Sgt F.Nixon, Sgt R.Tree and Sgt J.Mile.
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F/S H. Gilmore 514 Sqd. Having been shot down on the 3rd of August, F/S Gilmore was interned in Stalag Luft 7.
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W/O. Clive Ireson Lyell Clive Lyell's plane was shot down near Heligoland, and he and his navigator, Frank Hitchcock RNZAF, spent 4 days in the North Sea in a rubber dinghy before being picked up by a German destroyer. Taken prisoner, they were then transferred to Stalag Luft 7.
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Sgt. Wilfred Chapman Wilfred Chapman was a prisoner in Stalag Luft 7. He was shot down as the tail gunner of a Wellington.
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WO Ernest "Teddy" Gooch 115 Squadron Dad, Ernest Gooch was flying his 13th mission over Germany from RAF Witchford and was shot down by flak on 29th of October 1944, one of 2 to survive, the other being the bomb aimer, John Bovill, who was also kept in Bankau Stalag Luft VII. They went on the forced march to Luckenwalde south of Berlin from where they eventually left for the Allied lines when the Germans capitulated.
Bankau was ok for the US, French and British airmen, not so good for the Russians who were systematically starved and and frozen to death. With nothing to wear but what they stood up in, the other nationalities would tip potato peelings over the fence to the Russians on pain of execution, who would then fight to the death for them. Corpses were often seen the next day with flesh missing from them.
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Richard Ronald Dale Glider Pilot Regiment Richard Dale was captured at Wolfheze, Holland on 21st of September 1944, and was taken to Oberursel near Frankfurt. He was then moved to Stalag Luft 7, Bankau, Silesia, Germany, arriving on 7th of October 1944. Later he was forced marched (known as long march or death march), in freezing conditions, and arrived at Stalag 3a at Luckenwalde on 7th of February 1945 where he remained until liberated on 22nd April 1945 by the Russians.
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F/Sgt. Stanley Michael Mitchell 9 Squadron Mick Mitchell was my 2nd cousin. His Lancaster III JB116 crashed in France on 8th of July 1944. Mick was in Stalag Luft VII from July 1944 and repatriated May 1945. Mick died in 1997 in Frankston, Victoria, Australia.
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Flt.Sgt. Robert E. Toomey 428 Squadron Flight engineer, Flt.Sgt. Robert Toomey was returning from a bombing raid of the port area of Stettin Germany on 16th/17th August 1944 when the aircraft was shot down into the Baltic Sea off the coast of the Island of Sejero, Denmark. It was his fifth sortie. The aircraft was coded KB751.
He was the only survivor of the crew of seven, and helped to bury his pilot two days later. He was captured, interrogated for three days while suffering from tonsillitis, then transported by train to a prison camp in Bankau (Bakow), Poland.
Conditions in the POW camp were horrible, with little food or medical care. After five months, the prisoners were forced to walk over 250 km in a snow blizzard and below freezing temperatures with very little food, sleeping in barns and factories as the Russians were closing in. This became known as the Long March, Central Route.
Of 1,550 on his route only 720 survived the walk. Many passed away from starvation, fatigue and illness. Soldiers were told they would be shot if they didn't keep up. They arrived at another POW camp at Luckenwalde, just south of Berlin. A friend from Toomey's combine, Percy Crosswell was shot and killed trying to escape this camp.
Unknown to the prisoners, Hitler had signed an order on 22nd of April 1945 that they were to be executed if Germany was forced to surrender. Fortunately, the camp was liberated that month.
Crew of Lancaster X KB751, coded NA-Q
- F/O W. Fairgrieve RCAF
- Sgt R. Toomey RCAF
- F/O L. Brown RCAF
- F/O H. Slater RCAF
- P/O R. Boyce RCAF
- F/O J. Srigley RCAF
- P/O W. Lamb RCAF
C. Lafleur
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Flt.Sgt. Christopher Patrick Byrne I have a prayer book with the following written on front page "Flight Sergeant Byrne POW no 118691 Stalag Luft 7, Bankau, upper Silesia". Then also in his hand "given to me by Father Berry 17-1-1945".
Christopher Byrne was my father-in-law and he died in 1973 and came from Dublin before he enlisted in RAF. I wondered if anyone has any information about him as a POW.
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Flt.Sgt. Frederick Walter Helme 178 Squadron Frederick Helme was with his crew on a supply run to Polish and was flying from Italy. The mission was completed and they were on the run home when they were attacked by a night fighter. Their plane, a B24 Liberator GC933, was shot down. It crashed in the yard of Oscar Schindler's factory. Three crew including the pilot perished. Three crew got out alive. One man was injured and rescued by the Polish Resistance. Frederick and another were taken prisoner and ended up in Stalag Luft 7. His POW number was 666. He was then on the Long March after the Germans emptied the camps as the Russians advanced from the East.
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Recomended Reading.Available at discounted prices.
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Footprints on the Sands of Time: RAF Bomber Command Prisoners of War in Germany 1939-45Oliver Clutton-Brock
he first part of this book deals with German PoW camps as they were opened, in chronological order and to which the Bomber Command PoWs were sent. Each chapter includes anecdotes and stories of the men in the camps - capture, escape, illness, murder and more - and illustrates the awfulness of captivity even in German hands. Roughly one in every 20 captured airmen never returned home. The first part of the book also covers subjects such as how the PoWs were repatriated during the war; how they returned at war's end; the RAF traitors; the war crimes; and the vital role of the Red Cross. The style is part reference, part narrative and aims to correct many historical inaccuracies. It also includes previously unpublished photographs. The second part comprises an annotated list of all 10,995 RAF Bomber Command airmen who were taken prisoner, together with an extended introduction. The book provides an important contribution to our knowledge of the war. It is a reference work not only for the
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