THE PRISONER OF WAR

BRAVE Fred escaped camp but was recaptured

Dad joined the Army in May 1939 and saw action in Norway in 1940. Over five days of fighting in deep snow in the village of Tretten, the British were subjected to continuous mortar and machine-gun fire which they had no answer to.

Armed only with rifles, they were eventually overrun as tanks passed through them. Hand-to-hand fighting took place in order to hold the village but it was finally taken when most of the brigade were killed, wounded or captured.

Fred was imprisoned in Stalag XXA, Thorn, Poland, where in 1942, he and a friend undertook an escape to the Swiss border.

At the border they were recaptured, harshly interrogated and eventually returned to the camp. From there, Fred was moved to Stalag 383 in Hohenfels, Bavaria, where he was finally liberated by American forces on May 1, 1945.

However, there were 250,000 allied PoWs released in Germany in May 1945 and most would

STILL CAPTIVE PoW pass issued after liberation

not get home by VE Day. The pure logistics of feeding, clothing and transporting them was a huge challenge.

Documents show that Fred was given a day pass from his camp on May 5, so he was effectively still a prisoner but held by British authorities and he did not get home until May 13.

He and his friends, who had spent more than five years as prisoners, were still in PoW camps in Germany on VE day and not out on the streets in their home towns celebrating.

This is perhaps a little-known fact.