Description
Object description
Privately printed memoir (70pp ts), based on wartime diaries and other personal documents, giving a very readable account of his service with the Honourable Artillery Company at the outbreak of war in 1939, the first days of war in the City of London, training at Bulford camp (Wiltshire), commissioning as a 2nd Lieutenant into the 1/8 Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, in camp at Bury and Newbury before proceeding to France and Belgium in April 1940, the defence of the River Dyle line at Wavre and the retreat to Bethune, capture by the Germans in May, confinement at Trier and Mainz and his subsequent life as a POW at Oflag VIIC (Laufen), Stalag XXID (Fort VIII, Posen), Oflag VB (Biberach), Oflag VIB (Warburg) and Oflag VIIB (Eichstatt), capturing nicely the conditions and popular mood in all of these camps, with particular reference to escapes and escape plans, the forced march from Eichstatt to Stalag VIIA (Moosburg) in April 1945, narrowly escaping death from strafing by American fighter planes, and his repatriation [Note: the IWM also holds the papers of his father, Major E A Brown, and of his sister, Miss D S Brown].
Content description
Privately printed memoir (70pp ts), based on wartime diaries and other personal documents, giving a very readable account of his service with the Honourable Artillery Company at the outbreak of war in 1939, the first days of war in the City of London, training at Bulford camp (Wiltshire), commissioning as a 2nd Lieutenant into the 1/8 Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, in camp at Bury and Newbury before proceeding to France and Belgium in April 1940, the defence of the River Dyle line at Wavre and the retreat to Bethune, capture by the Germans in May, confinement at Trier and Mainz and his subsequent life as a POW at Oflag VIIC (Laufen), Stalag XXID (Fort VIII, Posen), Oflag VB (Biberach), Oflag VIB (Warburg) and Oflag VIIB (Eichstatt), capturing nicely the conditions and popular mood in all of these camps, with particular reference to escapes and escape plans, the forced march from Eichstatt to Stalag VIIA (Moosburg) in April 1945, narrowly escaping death from strafing by American fighter planes, and his repatriation [Note: the IWM also holds the papers of his father, Major E A Brown, and of his sister, Miss D S Brown].
History note
Cataloguer SWW