The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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213439 Jack Vaughan British Army Royal Horse Guards / Commandos My father, Jack Vaughan, was captured in Crete and spent 4 years in VIIIB He had deducted one year from his birth date so that he could join the Royal Horse Guards at 17. In January 1940, the regiment took horses to Palestine and there he rode as many as 70 miles a day through many places mentioned in the Bible, including one day drinking ice cold water from Jacob’s Well. As the war progressed and European countries fell to Nazi Germany, he transferred to the Commandos after undertaking specialist training in Egypt. He went to Abyssinia where he took part in raids behind enemy lines, sometimes covering as much as 200 miles in a day. After a further short spell in Egypt, two commando units went to Crete, but the weather was too rough to land. After changing on to a cruiser, he eventually landed at Suda Bay and fought hand to hand across the island for five days before being captured by the Germans. He was taken to Stalag VIIIB where his experiences were horrific including being hospitalised for four months after being severely beaten. Released by the Americans in 1945, he returned to the UK spent some time in hospital receiving treatment before resuming Guard duties at Whitehall. Later, due to his treatment in the prisoner of war camp, he was disabled out of the Horse Guards. I have cartoons and pictures drawn in a log book by WMH who I have now deduced is Bill 'Toad' Hughes as a result of meeting up with the wife of former inmate Stan Livingstone - she also has a log book containing a cartoon by WMH. We found the reference and some further pictures in a book called "Almost a Lifetime" by John McMahon. We know of at least 5 cartoonists/artists who drew in prisoner's log books – does anyone have any information on these prisoner artists please? I would like to hear from anyone who remembers my father. Michael J Vaughan Add to this record.  Related Content: Battle of Crete HMS Crete 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.