Thomas McCarthy
British Army 100th Field Company Royal Engineers
from:Newport, Gwent
My dad, Tom McCarthy of the 100th Field Company, Royal Monmouthshire Engineers was captured at Wattou, on the retreat to Dunkirk on 29.5.1940. After a time in Stalag X11A and Stalag 344, he along with 96 other POW's was transferred to Stalag V111B at Teschen on the Polish border. I have a Christmas Card sent by POW's from Stalag in December 1942. Tom remained there as a POW (no 15356) until the "death march" on 20.1.1945. On 9 May 1945 he and other survivors crossed American lines at Karlsbad.
Sadly, my Dad died in 1963 when his three children were very young, so we were never able to talk to him about his time as a POW. But we did have left to us some pictures and Xmas Cards and a very small notebook in which he kept a record of the "death march". Tom used a pencil stub to bravely keep a record of what happened, despite the risks to him. The original of the notebook in now in the Regimental Museum in Monmouth.
