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

211256

L/Cpl. James Walker McLaren

British Army Cameron Higlanders

from:6 Hamburgh Place, Leith, Edinburgh

My father, James McLaren was captured on 27/5/1940 at La Basse, France. He was sent to Stalag XXA (Thorn) from 9/6/1940 - 19/4/1941. He was then transferred to Stalag XXB from 19/4/1941 - 24/1/1945. During his time in the camps he worked at Marienwerder 23/4/1941 - 2/3/1943 (Farm), Rehof 16/3/1943 - 18/4/1944 (Farm) and Mierua 20/4/1944 - 24/1/1945 (Smithy Work). He was then forced to go on the long march. During his time working on the farms he became very friendly with a young Polish girl called Stefania Drews. Soon after the war he applied for permission to bring Stefania to Britain and he married her. They went on to have four children, three girls and one boy.




Additional Information:

My dad Private George Harry Porter was captured at St. Valery, France on June 12 1940 according to notes he left me he spent time in Thorn before being transferred to Stalag XXB in Marienberg where he remained until the Russians liberated his camp on January 23 1945. During his time at Stalag he too worked on farms, I have a picture of him with a young woman. Because he was injured while a POW it took him three months to make it back to the UK. I wonder if they knew each other. My dad was with the Gordon Highlanders. I used to ask him many questions about his time as a POW which he didn't want to talk about, then one day he gave me a notebook with lots of details and told me to read this and not to ask him again, he said these were memories he would rather not talk about. I typed up these notes and cherish them. My dad passed away in 2004.

Angela Leishman



Related Content:








Can you help us to add to our records?

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.




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.