Following is a synopsis of my uncle's wartime experiences in the Royal Navy up to and during his capture and internment in the POW camp in Laghouat in Algeria. George William Sleet was a career sailor; eventually rising through the ranks to become Chief Petty Officer.
Everyone in the family was having narrow escapes. The radio news bulletins had mentioned that Uncle George’s ship, H.M.S. York, had been torpedoed and run aground in Suda Bay, Crete, where the crew had scuttled it and got ashore to hide in the caves. His ship and sister ship, H.M.S. Exeter, had chased the German pocket battleship Graf Spee to the River Plate and had seen it scuttled before joining the Mediterranean fleet. Now they were holed up and waiting for rescue. The Germans had invaded Crete and were trying to find the source of the radio messages Uncle George was sending to Alexandria. As they were deep in caves, bombing was useless, and eventually the crew was rescued by the destroyer H.M.S. Hero and taken to Alexandria where he was put on the battleship H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth. He was Mentioned in Dispatches for his part in the rescue so my grandparents were very proud of him.
Later, Uncle George sent a letter from Alexandria to say he was now serving on H.M.S. Havoc and protecting the Mediterranean convoys. Then there was word that H.M.S. Havoc had been sunk and the survivors had managed to get ashore at Tunisia, where the Arabs had turned them over to the Vichy-French army who sided with the Nazis. Grandma was to get a censored postcard later from a POW camp in Laghouat in Algeria, so the news was confirmed.
As the North Africa campaign wore on, Uncle George was freed from the POW camp by the invading English and American troops and made his way home. When he did finally arrive, the family was shocked at how thin he was. His shin bones stuck out on his legs, and he had lost a lot of teeth through bad food and lack of it. He said everything was soaked in olive oil and solid food was rare, hence the bad teeth. He also had sand sores where they had to sleep and sit on the desert sand as no chairs or beds were available. The POWs were treated abominably, but he did say that they all felt a lot better after they had gone down to the Arab villages and given the inhabitants a beating up for their part in the treatment they received. Apparently any escape from the camp was doomed, because the Arabs caught the escapees and returned them to the Germans.
He was home for sometime and the family did its best to make it enjoyable for him. He wouldn’t go into the shelters at night, though, but the air raids had lessened considerably anyway.
