222167 Norman "Nookie" McCarthy South African Army from:Benoni, South Africa My Dad Norman McCarthy was in Stalag 4B after capture in Tobruk (via a short detention near Brindisi in Italy). He was a South African volunteer driving trucks for the allies in the desert with the Tiffys. He lost his best friend from Benoni who was killed, right next to him, by shrapnel from a Stuka bomber which attacked their convoy. He didn't talk about Stalag 4B much except to say that 'Brindisi was better' and that 'thé Russian prisoners had a harder time than us'(he noticed them fighting each other for potato peels). He also told me that one day the German guards disappeared and that they wandered off through much farmland wreckage until they were found by Americans. He was demobilised in Britain where he met my English mother Eileen Mary Gallet, who later joined him in SA after he mailed her an engagement ring in the post! I now live in France and think I owe it to his memory visit the Stalag 4B site some time. He did not hold grudges against the Germans, but that was also the kind of person he was.
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