As POW in the Great Escape camp
The caption reads: “The dear old groupy gets quite a kick from pinning on these medals.”
One of the contributors to Alkemade’s diary was Ley Kenyon, a celebrated wartime artist who illustrated scenes from Stalag Luft III.
His drawings adorn the book and nestle neatly between his descriptions of camp life, giving a flavour of a German prisoner-of-war compound. “Existence here is pretty humdrum,” Alkemade wrote. “But it’s quite bearable. And, what with theatre shows, sports meetings, reading, swimming and occasional spells of working, time flies quickly.”
The encampment consisted of 15 single-storey huts which slept 15 men in triple-deck bunks.
By the end of the war, the camp had grown to 60 acres and housed about 2,500 Royal Air Force officers, 7,500 US Army Air Force personnel and about 900 officers from other Allied air forces.
As Alkemade languished in the camp, his sweetheart, a 21-year-old Loughborough girl named Pearl Belton, was at home pining for her airman. She would keep him updated with goings-on at home via regular letters, as well as proclaiming her love for her captured hero.
“Please don’t worry about me sweetheart,” she wrote in a letter in March 1945. “You know I shall always love you with all my heart and be faithful to you – the only one in the world for me.
“Wherever you are, dear, I am with you in thoughts and prayers.”
The two would marry years later and had a son, also named Nicholas – although he prefers Nick – and a daughter, Valerie. Nick, 55, is now the proud owner of his dad’s diary.