Description
Object description
Wordprocessed memoir (76pp), written in the 1990s in an entertaining if somewhat anecdotal style, covering his voluntary enlistment as a driver in the RASC in May 1940, training in the United Kingdom and troopship voyage via the Cape to Egypt, and service as a 3 ton truck driver with No 309 Company RASC (2nd Armoured Division)in the Western Desert until his capture in April 1941; his passage across the Mediterranean on a German cargo ship, experiences as a prisoner of war in PG78 (Sulmona) in Italy till September 1943, recapture very shortly after the Italian armistice, transfer to Germany and employment with an Arbeitskommando attached to Stalag IVA at a blanket making factory in Kirschau, Saxony, their move by train and forced march in February 1945 to a camp near the Elbe as the Russians advanced, their abandonment by their German guards in late April 1945 and the perilous journey which he and a fellow prisoner made through the zone between the two opposing armies until they reached an American air base in Czechoslovakia shortly after VE Day and were flown back to England; with interesting references to the hazards of driving in the Western Desert, morale in prisoner of war camps, his involvement in camp entertainments in Sulmona and occasional acts of kindness shown even in the harsh circumstances of war.
Content description
Wordprocessed memoir (76pp), written in the 1990s in an entertaining if somewhat anecdotal style, covering his voluntary enlistment as a driver in the RASC in May 1940, training in the United Kingdom and troopship voyage via the Cape to Egypt, and service as a 3 ton truck driver with No 309 Company RASC (2nd Armoured Division)in the Western Desert until his capture in April 1941; his passage across the Mediterranean on a German cargo ship, experiences as a prisoner of war in PG78 (Sulmona) in Italy till September 1943, recapture very shortly after the Italian armistice, transfer to Germany and employment with an Arbeitskommando attached to Stalag IVA at a blanket making factory in Kirschau, Saxony, their move by train and forced march in February 1945 to a camp near the Elbe as the Russians advanced, their abandonment by their German guards in late April 1945 and the perilous journey which he and a fellow prisoner made through the zone between the two opposing armies until they reached an American air base in Czechoslovakia shortly after VE Day and were flown back to England; with interesting references to the hazards of driving in the Western Desert, morale in prisoner of war camps, his involvement in camp entertainments in Sulmona and occasional acts of kindness shown even in the harsh circumstances of war.
History note
Cataloguer RWAS
History note
Catalogue date 2000-04