The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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249072 Norman Key British Army Royal Artillery from:Birmingham My father, Norman Key, was captured immediately prior to Dunkirk evacuation. He was called up in 1939 as reserve after serving 6 years in RA from 1928 and was in his last year of his 6 year reserve service. From a recently discovered letter I found he was in Stalag XXb until 1945. He died in 1969 and had suffered from bouts of bronchitis and malaria (from serving in India) for many years. He recounted a few experiences of his life in POW camps and was shot in the calf during an escape attempt, I've seen the scars. I saw the belt he wore during his time there which showed the decline in weight from 12 to 7 stone as new notches were added. I read the letters he sent back to my mother (then his fiancée) describing these incidents. Unfortunately, after he died my mother burnt these items. I also found a postcard and a letter, dated 18th of January 1947 that I was told were from the Polish commandant of the POW camp, who was in England and due to be returned to Poland, asking my father for money to buy presents for his family. I cannot read the signature on the letter. My father could not bear to be watched when eating or for anyone to leave food as he told of starving fellow prisoners. He rolled and re-rolled cigarette stubs, not surprising he suffered the fate of lung cancer. Despite his 12 years of service and poor health, the MOD declined to give him any sort of pension and reduced any wages earned, when a POW, by expenses incurred repatriating and his convalesce. He told me to never join the army.   Norman Key Postcard from Stalag XXb Stephen Key Add to this record.  Related Content: Operation Dynamo - The Evacuation from Dunkirk and nearby Beaches Stalag 20b Prisoner of War Camp Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.