Description
Object description
Memoir 'Are you glad you joined lads?' (92pp ts) of his enlistment into the Royal Artillery (TA) in north London as a teenage volunteer in February 1939, in the newly-raised 44 Battery of 12th (Finsbury Rifles) Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) Regiment, basic training in London and at Stiffkey in Norfolk, quartered at Gravesend in Kent at the outbreak of war in September 1939, moving shortly afterwards to Dover until February 1940 and from there to Blandford, Dorset, to form part of 101st LAA Regiment RA, proceeding to northern France after the German invasion in May 1940, covering the retreat of the 51st Highland Division to St Valery where the Battery went into German captivity the following month, his experiences as a POW en route to and in Stalag XXA (Thorn), on working parties in severe winter conditions before being sent to Graudenz in spring 1941 and then on to Stalag XXB at Marienburg with an interlude of farm labour nearby, transfer to Heydebreck in March 1942 to form ? `Building and Labour Battalion' BAB 40 (BAB 20 already in residence) for work associated with the IG Farben chemical plants in the area, increasingly heavy air raids on the site through 1944 and evacuation of the POWs to Stalag VIIIB (Lamsdorf) in January 1945 for the onward forced march westwards, escape from the column near Goettingen and reception by American troops in the area, repatriation to the UK by aircraft from Hildesheim and return to postwar RA service as a Gunner, finally leaving the army in 1956.
Content description
Memoir 'Are you glad you joined lads?' (92pp ts) of his enlistment into the Royal Artillery (TA) in north London as a teenage volunteer in February 1939, in the newly-raised 44 Battery of 12th (Finsbury Rifles) Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) Regiment, basic training in London and at Stiffkey in Norfolk, quartered at Gravesend in Kent at the outbreak of war in September 1939, moving shortly afterwards to Dover until February 1940 and from there to Blandford, Dorset, to form part of 101st LAA Regiment RA, proceeding to northern France after the German invasion in May 1940, covering the retreat of the 51st Highland Division to St Valery where the Battery went into German captivity the following month, his experiences as a POW en route to and in Stalag XXA (Thorn), on working parties in severe winter conditions before being sent to Graudenz in spring 1941 and then on to Stalag XXB at Marienburg with an interlude of farm labour nearby, transfer to Heydebreck in March 1942 to form ? `Building and Labour Battalion' BAB 40 (BAB 20 already in residence) for work associated with the IG Farben chemical plants in the area, increasingly heavy air raids on the site through 1944 and evacuation of the POWs to Stalag VIIIB (Lamsdorf) in January 1945 for the onward forced march westwards, escape from the column near Goettingen and reception by American troops in the area, repatriation to the UK by aircraft from Hildesheim and return to postwar RA service as a Gunner, finally leaving the army in 1956.
History note
Cataloguer SWW