213456 Gnr. Edward Gordon Weight New Zealand Army from:Wellington This picture of a group from Stalag 8B was in a wartime picture magazine in New Zealand. It comments on the New Zealander in the photo. He was Gunner Edward Gordon Weight from Wellington. He died in April 2004, following an accident, aged 85.
He told me a little of his experiences at the camp, he was a boot maker and repaired prisoner's boots with wooden nails. He first made a hole with an awl and then tapped them through to the steel lath until they broke off. He referred to it as being on a "racket".
He said only the air force chaps did the escaping. He said he was often let out on work parties. On his day of liberation he was in hospital, he said. However, he was unable to recall the day, other than being in hospital. He was captured in Crete. A few days after he told me about the camp, I asked him how he was feeling today and he said, "At least I'm not having any more nightmares now."
I hope somebody might remember him. He was a very young chap in the photo group though. The others looked definitely older. His widow, Ruby, is 60 and so able to take an interest in his camp background, although his war experiences were evidently too hard to bring into his family life. Therefore, what he told me was unknown to his wife of 35 years.
Like me, Edward "Gordon" Weight was known by his middle name, Gordon, which is how the photo is captioned. It's a bit tatty because it was kept in Gordon's tin of treasures and lent to me by Ruby after he passed away. It was very sad that the accident also put an abrupt end to any more wartime recollections from Gordon.
The stories he told me, were not easy, at first, for him to tell me. He remembered the events leading up to capture with ease and enthusiasm. However, after capture in Crete, he would tell me a few recollections per visit and then say, "Well, that will be enough for today", and I knew he meant it, since he was sensitive and intelligent. However, unlike the "war-time thriller stories", he calmly told it as if just another day at the supermarket. I printed him a good picture, from the internet, of the Aquitania, the troopship he went over on. Since I am a friend of the family.
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