208270 Pte. Jack Lionel Wallis British Army Royal West Kent Regiment from:Tunbridge Wells My Father, Jack Lionel Wallis, was captured in Dunkirk in May 1940 and was POW in Stalag XXa and XXb from 1940 to 1944. He did not like to talk to us about it very much as it never left him like so many others I have read about on these pages. He learned to play the piano accordian while he was in the camp and he made a tapestry of a bowl of flowers which was very good. He did tell us how they had to march such a long way and how sometimes they only had cabbage water to keep going with. My Father eventually got TB and had to be repatriated in 1944 on a Swedish ship called the "Gripsholm" and was very lucky to survive. A few years after the war he went and found the doctor who treated him to thank him.
In the 1970's he went on a trip with the British Legion back there but he wished after he had not gone as it brought back so many memories and he went through a depressive time but recovered from it. Years went by and Dad was walking his dog along Eastbourne seafront when he stopped to speak to a stranger they got talking and the stranger said his uncle was also a prisoner of war in Poland his name is Jack Killick then Dad butted in and said "I remember him". Anyway, the nephew arranged for them both to meet which they did after 64 years. The local newspaper did a story on it which was nice.
Sadly my dad died 3 months after that. I have since been to the British Red Cross in London and found a picture of dad playing with a band in the POW journal which they allow you to search through. I have all the letters which his father wrote to him while he was in the camp.
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