The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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222964 Flt.Sgt. Richard Ridley Huleatt Royal Air Force What follows is part of the obit I wrote for my step father based on his recountings and some documents I then had before turning over to his children. A surving Stalag Luft III officer internee recently questioned how a flight sargeant could have been interned in an officer's camp. I have no way of responding. Is there any way of confirming that Dick was actually interned in Stalag Luft III? "Huleatt, Richard Ridley (Dick) RAF F/Sgt. POW and Escapee. Peacefully in his 86th year at the Kingston General Hospital on June 30th, 2008. Born, Liverpool, England on July 28th, 1922. Following his August 31st, 1940 voluntary enlistment in the RAF, Dick led the life of the young invincible completing 56 missions as the rear gunner in Boston and Halifax bombers. Luck ran out on March 26th, 1943 over Duisburg, Germany when the left wing of his aircraft was destroyed by enemy flak. Dick parachuted from the burning aircraft at 17,000 feet, an adventure which qualified him to wear the caterpillar lapel pin with red ruby eyes, signalling his having hit the silk from an aircraft in flames. Dick spent the next 25 months as a POW in three different camps, most notably in Stalag Luft III where he worked on the tunnels featured in the movie “The Great Escape“. Dick's POW diary and letters featured many references to POW produced dramas and comedies evidencing his lifelong love of the limelight. Dick subsequently escaped alone on April 5th, 1945 from his last camp, Luft 357 and, following a series of sometimes harrowing incidents, he made it back through to the Allied lines ten days later and then home to England. ..." Jacques Menard Add to this record.  Related Content: Stalag Luft 3 Prisoner of War Camp Stalag 357 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.