The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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225258 Gnr. Ronald Stewart British Army Royal Artillery from:Bristol My father, Gunner Ronald Stewart, 51st Highland Division, Royal Artillery, BEF was a POW at Stalag VIIIB for 5 years after he was captured just outside Dunkirk. He was 20 years old at the time. Since his unit was told to leave its guns and cover the retreat of the infantry he was always rather acid about his war experience. "The only thing that can run faster than a French soldier is a British officer" or perhaps vice versa. My father worked in a coal mine and also a timber mill, and as one of your correspondents says it wasn't easy. There is also a family legend from my aunt who is still alive that he worked in a salt mine but we have always been dubious about this. If there are any records confirming where he worked I would be grateful. I have contacted the Red Cross who have the camp records, but there has been no reply. There have been photographs of the funeral of a "Perri Daniels" (I have seen photos of the gravestone) and we were told the the funeral party was dressed up for propaganda purposes but I'm afraid the photos have been lost. I have a number of photographs and some letters home. My father always spoke very highly of the hospitality of the Polish people who had very little themselves but who would leave presents of food on his lathe or who would throw cigarette ends as a work party passed, often at great risk to themselves. I worked for a year in Poland in 1997 and when they heard about my father the managers of the Polish construction company organised the trip to the camp for me. Mac Stewart Add to this record.  Related Content: Royal Artillery Stalag 8b Prisoner of War Camp Operation Dynamo - The Evacuation from Dunkirk and nearby Beaches Battle of France and The Low Countries 1940 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.