206111 Warrant Officer Graham Cullis Royal Air Force 102 Squadron from:S.Wales W/O Graham Cullis, a Welshman, was a wireless operator flying in Halifax bombers with 102 Squadron based at Pocklington N. Yorks. In late 1943 or early 1944 Graham's plane was shot down over Germany and he bailed out, landing with his parachute in a tree in a wood from which he had to extricate himself. At day break he left the wood, but there was a reception party awaiting him and he was captured. He remembers being taken through Berlin on his way to a POW camp and being spat at and verbally abused by German women in the city, though fortunately no further harm befell him. He was imprisoned in Stalag Luft 1 on Germany's Baltic coast and was eventually liberated by Russian forces in May 1945. By this time his weight was down to under seven stone due to the shortage of rations at the camp as the war progressed. Graham thought that, of his plane's crew of seven ,either three or four may have survived the shooting down. After the war Grham remained in the RAF for a time and eventually died C1992. He told me his story in the 1980s.
|