description
Content description
Privately printed ms memoir (100pp) with illustrations and photographs, based on his diary, titled "My War", covering first his service with 152 Field Ambulance, 51st Highland Division, attached to the RAMC from the RASC as a despatch rider (January-June 1940), describing encounters with locals at Metz, helping a wireless operator out of a crashed Bristol Blenheim, the difficulties of moving through the chalk land of Verdun and moving at night, air raids at Abbeville, being misdirected by fifth columnists, disabling vehicles, his escape from St Valery En Caux on a wooden door during the evacuation from Dunkirk, when after 7-8 hours at sea he was picked up by a little French boat and transferred to an English ship, reaching Southampton wearing only a blanket and a pair of socks, his move to Scotland where he continued as a despatch rider with the petrol supply company and his experiences there; he then covers his service in the Royal Air Force (June 1941-December 1943), having volunteered for aircrew duties, describing his training at Scarborough, and then Rhodesia and South Africa, his journey to Africa on the SS MOOLTAN, encounters with the natives, parades, encounters with members of the Ossewabrandwag, his journey back to England on the SS KARANJA, his time at 25 Operational Training Unit near Doncaster where he was asked to join the crew of Squadron Leader Street and his daily life with No 50 Squadron RAF at Skellingthorpe flying in Avro Lancasters as a bomb aimer, mentioning his first raid (11 February 1943) flying with Flight Lieutenant Henry Maudslay to Wilhelmshaven, his commissioning, the court martial of a flight sergeant for 'lack of moral fibre', several other raids including his last (20 December 1943) when he was shot down over Frankfurt and had to bale out as the Lancaster broke up; he was then captured and the memoir covers his time as a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft III describing the daily routine, his involvement in the jazz section of Len Whiteley's band and later forming 'The Music Society of Silesia', the opening of the camp theatre, red cross parcels, mentioning fellow prisoners, the Great Escape, 'kreigie happy' prisoners and the Christmas and new year festivities of 1944/45; the forced march to Stalag IIIA, Luckenwalde (January-February 1945) describing living conditions there, air raids, liberation by the Russians on 22 April 1945 and his eventual journey home, leaving the camp on 20 May and his welcome back in England on 26 May 1945. The memoir includes several images of pages from his original diary containing poems, illustrations and diagrams made during his time as a POW, including a drawing of Rutherford before leaving Stalag Luft III by William Reid VC.
History note
Cataloguer MP
