8th May 1945
Dipping into my photo archives in past weeks I found this shot in the Pornic file. Until I became used to it, the naming of places after important dates did seem a particularly French custom. This date resonates with me and brings to mind the concluding pages of my father's diaries.
In the early hours of 8th May 1945, my father was in a column of prisoners being marched away from the PoW camps. They had reached the German-Czech border, after a 'stopover' in a tin mine at Zinnwald. My dad saw the guards shine their torches down and feared they would have no option but to sleep on the wet ground. He suggested to his pals that they leave the column.... Which they did. Unnoticed.
There followed a time of living on their wits for food and shelter, plus a few adventures, until they met three American ex-PoWs, who had found a 15 cwt truck. My dad and his mates hitched a lift to Pilsen where they were officially registered as recovered allied PoWs by the Third US Army.
There followed a flight to Reims in France and thence onward to England where my dad finally arrived home to his wife at 4.30 p.m. in the little village of Claydon, Suffolk on 25th May 1945.
I was born the following year - nearly a Christmas baby. A new little family; a different life.
As my Flickr friends who have read the story know, the help of a fellow member of a local U3A Photography Group has been invaluable to me in publishing, in paperback and kindle format, my father's diary account of his WW2 service, captured at Tobruk, subsequently as a PoW in N. Africa, Italy and Germany:
www.amazon.co.uk/Till-We-Meet-Again-Gunner/dp/154404870X
My royalties are donated to the Red Cross, without whose food parcels sent to the PoW camps, my father felt that 'a lot of us wouldn't have come back'.
8th May 1945
Dipping into my photo archives in past weeks I found this shot in the Pornic file. Until I became used to it, the naming of places after important dates did seem a particularly French custom. This date resonates with me and brings to mind the concluding pages of my father's diaries.
In the early hours of 8th May 1945, my father was in a column of prisoners being marched away from the PoW camps. They had reached the German-Czech border, after a 'stopover' in a tin mine at Zinnwald. My dad saw the guards shine their torches down and feared they would have no option but to sleep on the wet ground. He suggested to his pals that they leave the column.... Which they did. Unnoticed.
There followed a time of living on their wits for food and shelter, plus a few adventures, until they met three American ex-PoWs, who had found a 15 cwt truck. My dad and his mates hitched a lift to Pilsen where they were officially registered as recovered allied PoWs by the Third US Army.
There followed a flight to Reims in France and thence onward to England where my dad finally arrived home to his wife at 4.30 p.m. in the little village of Claydon, Suffolk on 25th May 1945.
I was born the following year - nearly a Christmas baby. A new little family; a different life.
As my Flickr friends who have read the story know, the help of a fellow member of a local U3A Photography Group has been invaluable to me in publishing, in paperback and kindle format, my father's diary account of his WW2 service, captured at Tobruk, subsequently as a PoW in N. Africa, Italy and Germany:
www.amazon.co.uk/Till-We-Meet-Again-Gunner/dp/154404870X
My royalties are donated to the Red Cross, without whose food parcels sent to the PoW camps, my father felt that 'a lot of us wouldn't have come back'.