The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies. If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.     Site Home     WW2 Home     Add Stories     WW2 Search     Library     Help & FAQs  WW2 Features     Airfields     Allied Army     Allied Air Forces     Allied Navy     Axis Forces     Home Front     Battles     Prisoners of War     Allied Ships     Women at War     Those Who Served     Day-by-Day     Library     The Great War  Submissions     Add Stories     Time Capsule     TWMP on Facebook     Childrens Bookshop  FAQ's     Help & FAQs     Glossary     Volunteering     Contact us     News     Bookshop     About Advertisements World War 2 Two II WW2 WWII 1939 1945

1206333 Cpl. Brinley Norman "Bryn" Williams British Army Royal Engineers from:Fleur-de-lis, Mon I knew very little about Dad's wartime experiences - he died when I was barely out of my teens. He had told stories of being in Palestine during the war and I know he was a POW - but he never talked about that. I do recall seeing a newspaper cutting from 1945 when he returned from the war (my grandmother had kept it). It said he was very sick, and that POWs had been so hungry they had eaten grass. When I began to research my family history I got Dad's military records from the MOD. What a revelation - they told me so much about this young man who joined up in 1939 - about his education, his previous employment (and what he earned) and his physical appearance. The records also told me that Dad was captured at Gazala in North Africa and ended up in Stalag VIIIb, in what is now Poland, from September 1943 until liberation in April 1945. Research then told me about the Death Marches - and the fact that the starving prisoners ate grass. An elderly cousin of my father was able to tell me about the impact his capture and imprisonment had on his family - his sister and parents - and that helped me understand a lot about family relationships in later years. As a teenager, she remembered Dad's return and how very weak and ill he was. I have just come back from a visit to the remains of Stalag VIIIb and the Prisoner of War Museum at Lambinovice (Lamsdorf). I stood on the railway platform where Dad would have arrived, and saw the entrance to the camp. Very little remains there, but there is an exhibition of daily life in the camps and a reconstruction of a hut where Russian POWs were held (and treated very badly). Lamsdorf became a prison camp in 1870 during the Franco Prussian War - and was used as such until the late 1940s. Hundreds of thousands passed through those gates - and tens of thousands died there. It saw almost a century of misery. Today there are beautifully kept POW graveyards in peaceful surroundings, filled with birdsong. The visit has really inspired me to make sure that Dad's name is recorded and remembered. His wartime experience was instrumental in forming the man he became. His lifelong involvement in the British Legion is testimony to that. Su Add to this record.  Related Content: Royal Engineers Battle of Gazala Stalag 8b Prisoner of War Camp Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.