New Resource Stalag Luft III Red Cross Reports part 5 2018-09-20

Compilation of reports by the Red Cross from the Red Cross

  1. Incredibledisc

    Incredibledisc Well-Known Member

    Incredibledisc submitted a new resource:

    Stalag Luft III Red Cross Reports part 5 - Compilation of reports by the Red Cross from the Red Cross

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    Recce_Mitch, Tricky Dicky and Lindele like this.
  2. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96

    Thanks for this work and the split up of all pages.
    I will read it over the next days/weeks.
    Would you by any chance, have any such reports for OFLAG VB and ILAG VB as well ?
     
  3. Incredibledisc

    Incredibledisc Well-Known Member

    Sorry I don’t have those. I have Oflag VIB Warburg, Oflag XXIB Szubin, Stalag Luft III, Stalag IXC And Stalag VIIIA Gorlitz as these were all places where my great grandad spent his five years behind the wire.
     
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  4. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96

    Interesting, in October 41, all officers and there orderlies were transferred from OFLAG VB to Warburg, following the mass escape of September 41.So, your great grand dad must have seen/met e.g. Atkinson,Barr, Baxter Onions, Paul,etc.They all were notorious escapees.

    Stefan.
     
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  5. Incredibledisc

    Incredibledisc Well-Known Member

    Quite possible. He was captured in 1940 and sent to Stalag IXC where he worked down a salt mine. He was a coal miner before the war. He was 40 when he was captured though and I wonder if this led to him being picked to be an orderly. He only got as far as writing about the first part of his experiences in his logbook so what he did for the rest of the time is speculation and educated guesswork. As you noticed hid dates of moving seem to coincide with escape attempts from each camp. There is a very prominent photo of Harry Day in his logbook - as you probably know Day was SBO and head of the escape committee.
     
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  6. Incredibledisc

    Incredibledisc Well-Known Member

    Sorry I was really tired when I wrote this last night which might account for the slightly clipped tone! I meant to add that my great grandad’s moments match Day’s until he was sent to a coal mine and then to Fallingbostel until liberation while Day ended up in Sachenhausen before being sent on an aimless wander through Germany with the “Prominente” VIP prisoners who were presumably being lined up as potential hostages to fortune in the dying days of the war. I’ve read Day’s autobiography and books by other former officer prisoners but can’t fibd any mention of my great granddad though - then again, the “little people” rarely seem to merit much attention in these books. My mum insists that he was batman to Douglas Bader (there is some correlation with dates but again no hard evidence) the waters are further muddied by the fact he was had the name of Colin Hodkinson - another double amputee pilot written into his logbook. I suspect that he and Bader might have become conflated in my mum’s memories of her granddad.
     

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