Add Information to Record of a Person who served during the Second World War on The Wartime Memories Project Website
Add Information to Record of a Person who served during the Second World War on The Wartime Memories Project Website
Additions will be checked before being published on the website and where possible will be forwarded to the person who submitted the original entries. Your contact details will not be forwarded, but they can send a reply via this messaging system.
211051
Pte. Verdun Bramley Dilks
British Army Royal Army Service Corps
from:Stanley, Derby
My father, Verdun Dilks was one of the many taken prisoner at Tobruk. He was taken first to Italy, then -presumably on Italian capitulation taken to Stalag IVB Muhlberg where he spent the next two years. When the Russians liberated the camp in the spring of 1945, dad,despite now suffering from TB, made a long and hazardous journey to the American Lines in Czechoslovakia. (I still have his, by now, very fragile diary detailing this journey. He reached the Americans at Pilsen and was repatriated to England. When he arrived back home he told me that I was most disappointed that he hadn't brought me back a camel from Egypt!-I was four at the time!
After the war all dad wanted was his home, family, and garden - perfectly understandable after his experience. I doubt whether I would have possessed his quiet courage. Dad died in December 1989 aged 73. I miss him still.