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World War 2 Two II WW2 WWII 1939 1945

224981

Pte Leslie Christopher Chilvers

British Army East Surrey Regiment

from:Fulham, London

Leslie Chilvers, the son of Herbert George Chilvers and Anne Elizabeth Chilvers (nee Tindall), was born at Fulham, London, on 4th December 1918. He was baptised into the Roman Catholic faith, but did not follow it. His paternal grandparents came from Essex and his maternal grandfather was an Irish soldier. Leslie was the youngest of four children born at about five year intervals. The children were Herbert, Reginald, Ivy and Leslie.

Leslie was called up for military service in 1940 and was drafted into the East Surrey Regiment. After only three weeks training he was sent to France. Following the complete abandonment of a large area by French troops Leslie was almost immediately involved in fighting a rearguard action in company with a number of other young similarly semi-trained and poorly armed raw recruits from his regiment. Together with men of the 51st Highland Division these young soldiers with only their rifles, a few Bren guns and very little ammunition were ordered to hold the mighty German Army Group B.

Spearheaded by General Kleist’s Panzar Division, the German Army struck from the World War I battleground of the Somme. Smashing through the Tenth French Army the Germans reached the Seine River west of Paris on June 9 and then turned westward to pin the IX French Corps, the British 51st Highland Division and the men of the East Surreys against the sea at Valery-en-Caux. These two groups of soldiers constituted one of the few British Expeditionary Force elements still fighting in France. An attempt was made to evacuate them by sea from the port of St. Valery-en-Caux in a similar manner to the evacuation at Dunkirk only 12 days earlier. Unfortunately, this proved to be a very difficult task although 3000 men were taken off. After some very fierce fighting, the small remaining group of 251 men from the East Surreys were taken prisoner on the 12th June, 1940, together with over 5000 men from the 51st Highland Division.

It is interesting to note that in September 1944, the town of St. Valery where Leslie was taken prisoner, was liberated by members of the 51st Highland Division and years later a pipe band tune called “The Heroes of St. Valery” was written for the 51st Division Pipe Band to commemorate the stand taken by the soldiers in that area in June 1940. However, it is very doubtful whether Leslie was aware of this piece of music and even if he did know about it, he would not have considered himself a hero; although this may very well have been the case.

Following his capture at St. Valery Leslie spent the next four years in a prisoner of war camp (Stalag 21a) in Poland, but in 1944/45 he was force-marched ahead of the advancing allied forces over a mountain range for about one thousand miles. Many of Leslie’s comrades died during this march. Those who survived grubbed around in frozen fields for remnants of root crops and Leslie recalled eating a dog’s dinner found outside a farmhouse door because of starvation. For the rest of his life Leslie had scars on his fingers where tubes were inserted to draw off the fluid created by malnutrition in the prisoner of war camps.

Before being conscripted into the army Leslie had been employed as a trainee French Polisher with Lyons (the famous teashop company) but the position was not held open for him. Therefore, after his demobilisation he became a house painter and decorator. Due to the privations that he suffered during his period as a prisoner of war, Leslie had a very retiring personality and suffered from a considerable inferiority complex; both of which made it very difficult for him to mix with people. His wartime experiences also made it hard for Leslie to settle in one place for very long and it was only when he and his wife Penny moved to Poole that he became more contented. However, Leslie was quite a talented artist, both in oil paints and with pencil and during his period as a prisoner of war he earned extra cigarettes, etc., by producing illustrated cards for the other prisoners to send home. From about 1970, Leslie suffered a number of health problems including; coronary conditions, angina, vertigo and phlebitis and was eventually forced to retire from paid employment because of ill health. Although he was able to fill his first years of retirement with gardening, walking in the Dorset countryside etc, Leslie was later forced to curtail these pastimes because of his declining health. When a form of dementia was added to his problems causing him to become quite childlike and to become incontinent Leslie was admitted to Wareham Hospital where he passed away on 14th July 1995.






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