Pte. Alfred Frederick Rollason
British Army 3rd Parachute Brigade Army Air Corps
from:Northfield, Birmingham
Alfred F Rollason, my father, enlisted with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment on 19th Feb 1942 which was converted to 8th (Midlands) Parachute Battalion. He trained as a paratrooper and earned his wings in January 1943. He was assigned to the HQ Defence Platoon of 3rd Parachute Brigade prior to D-Day, it is not certain whether he dropped in France by parachute or glider. His role was that of a 'runner' and his platoon were responsible for defending the Brigade HQ at Le Mesnil crossroads near Ranville in Normandy. It is unknown whether he was dropped in the correct zone and/or whether he actually made it to the HQ area, he was taken Prisoner of War on D-Day 6th June 1944.
By 30th Jul 1944 it was confirmed that he had arrived at Stalag X11A Limberg a 'transit' camp where new POW's were processed prior to being transferred to other camps. He left Limberg on the 25th Aug 1944 and was transferred to Stalag 1VD Torgau where he arrived on 13th Sept 1944. Torgau was an 'administratiion camp' that organised prisoners to be sent out to surrounding Arbeits Kommandos (Work Camps) to be used as forced labour. Alfred Rollason was sent to BE12 Bitterfeld where he was set to work in an open caste lignite (brown coal) mine Grube Golpa that fuelled a major power station.
He was liberated by the US army on 14th April 1945 as they moved east, he was eventually repatriated on 13th May 1945, where after a period of extended leave was posted to Royal Artillery, Kinmel Camp, North Wales on 4th Sept 1945 where he reverted to his trade as a carpenter and trained as a driver subsequently being demobbed and transferring to the Army Reserve on 18th Jan 1947.
Upon leaving the Torgau Prison Camp he collected a number of interesting literature souvenirs including a hand written camp magazine prepared by the prisoners, the Christmas pantomime programme, sample menus with listings of contents of the various red cross parcels and prison camp newspapers.
