The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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205828 2nd Lt. Peter Hubert Mosenthal British Army 1st Btn. Ox and Bucks Light Infantry from:Maidenhead My grandfather, Peter Mosenthal, served with the TA Battalion (1 Bucks I believe) in France in 1940. He was captured in Hazebrouk on 27 May. His company had been holed up in a farmhouse which was surrounded by German infantry and armoured cars. They had fought for a number of hours before the farm house took a direct hit from a mortar and was burning fiercely. The cellar by this stage had been filled with wounded who would perish if not evacuated. The remaining men had no choice but to surrender. He had been lightly wounded and the German medics put his arm in a sling. He was part of a group that was force-marched to trains in Germany, but a young German officer saw his rank and arm in a sling and gave him a lift to the train in his Kubelwagen. He was sent to an Oflag 7C in Laufen, on the border between Germany and Austria. The prison building is now luxury flats which I visited when by coincidence when I was an exchange student in the town. He subsequently moved to various camps in Poland and suffered increasing deprivations. He was liberated by American forces on 30 April 1945 and flown back to England, but not until after he had been in charge of guarding German prisoners in early May. He had been on some fairly horrendous forced marches from Poland to Ingolstadt as the Germans emptied the camps in Poland from the advancing Soviets. Very sadly his column was strafed by the US Air Force which mistook their 1940 battledress uniform as Hungarian. A lot of prisoners were killed. I have photos of the farmhouse where his company was captured, taken when he visited Hazebrouk in 1946. The burnt out shells of the trucks in which they arrived on the 26th of May and which were destroyed in the fighting on 27th of May were still there. He also told me of the Battalion Adjutant going off to recce the forward elements of the Wehrmacht advance and never being seen again. On or around the 25th of May his platoon were in trenches when the German recce infantry were spotted. His platoon still had 12 inch WW1 bayonets which he ordered to be fixed. All the Germans could see were the bayonets glinting from the top of the trenches and they ran away as fast as possible. They did not shoot the fleeing Germans as it was regarded as ungentlemanly. The battalion was neither equipped nor trained to fight German armour and was effectively destroyed. His only armour training had been a battalion exercise on Newbury racecourse in December 1939 where cyclists with flags represented German tanks! He had had to temporarily change his name to Morten in 1939 at the Army's request, for his name was German Jewish, although he was Christian. This was lucky in view of the fate of his company. Charles Macdonald Add to this record.  Related Content: 1st Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry 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.

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