Description
Object description
British NCO served with 1/8th Bn Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regt), 148th (Territorial) Infantry Bde in Norway, 4/1940-5/1940; prisoners of war in Stalag XX-A,Thorn in Poland, 6/1940-1/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Maythorne Mill, GB, 1918-1939: family; education; employment. Aspects of period as private and NCO with 1/8th Bn Sherwood Foresters in GB, 1936-1939: reasons for joining Territorial Army, 1936; attending Coronation Day parade, 1937; question of training and instruction in Territorial Army; attitude towards outbreak of Second World War, 9/1939; problems with impedimenta. Recollections of operations as NCO with 1/8th Bn Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regt), 148th (Territorial) Infantry Bde in Norway, 4/1940-5/1940: voyage from GB to Norway; journey to Lillehammer; living off land; German attack on positions; question of cowardice of NCO; firing on Germans; incident of officer's incompetence.
REEL 2 Continues: acquiring a return ticket to Hell; withdrawal along railway line; capture by German Army troops; question of Germans Army troops shooting of prisoners of war; behaviour of German captors; character of his interrogation; quality of British Army rations. Recollections of period as prisoner of war at Stalag XX-A Thorn, Poland, 6/1940-1/1945: journey to camp; his sacking as cook; rackets operated; privations after 6/1940; sight of ill treatment of concentration camp inmates, 1/1941; march away from camp, 1/1945; help received from Soviet prisoners of war.
REEL 3 Continues: eating cat; Allied bombing of Hanover, Germany; liberation by British troops; return to GB and reception received; reaction to treatment of Italian prisoners of war in No 79 Prisoner of War Camp, Moorby Camp, near Horncastle, GB; 1945; ill-treatment of Poles by Germans; fraternisation with women; escape attempt made and recapture; psychological condition on return to GB; prisoner of war morality; dental treatment received.
REEL 4 Continues: stealing from Germans; beating of Scottish prisoner of war; army humour; ill treatment of Soviet prisoners of war. Composition of 1/8th Bn Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regt) in Norway, 1940.