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

231732 Sgt. Charles Gillan Nicholson "Jock" Taylor British Army 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders from:Aberdeen My father, Charles Taylor, joined the Army in 1936 as a boy soldier with the 1st Bn North Staffordshire Regiment and served in India and Palestine until 1939. On the out break of the War he joined part of the newly formed 59th Staffordshire Division and arrived in Normandy on the 26th June 1944 as part of the follow up to the D-Day landings. At the end of July 1944 after heavy fighting and suffering heavy casualties around Caen and the Orne river the 59th was disbanded and the remaining troops dispersed to other units/divisions. My father was sent to the 2nd Bn Gordon Highlanders and continued the advance through France and Belgium to Holland. On the 31st October 1944 near Asten in Holland he was wounded whilst attacking a farmhouse and woke up in a German Field Hospital flash blinded and with shrapnel wounds. When he recovered his sight and was well enough he was moved initially to Stalag 9C and then to Stalag Luft XIB where he spent the remainder of the war until liberated in April 1945. He said conditions were harsh and food was scarce but towards the end of the war they were able to trade with the locals and some guards which helped. He even managed to obtain a camera and took some of the attached pictures for posterity. He told few stories of his time as a prisoner but he did appear in the newsreel at the gate of the camp when it was liberated which gave much relief to his family at home when they saw him. Charles returned to the army when he recovered from the months of malnourishment and served until 1948 before being demobbed. He served in Germany as part of the British occupation and bore no grudge against the ordinary German people who he became quite fond of after the war. Colin Taylor Add to this record.  Related Content: 2nd Battalion, Gordon Highlanders Stalag 9C Prisoner of War Camp Stalag 11B 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.