The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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234467 William Dodds British Army Pioneer Corps from:Bedlington, Northumberland An uncle of mine, William Dodds, is recorded as having been a POW at Stalag XXA. He had the dubious distinction of being gassed in WWI and then of spending most of WWII as a POW. He was captured at Dunkirk in 1940. He was always regarded as something of a black sheep and his father's only reported comment on hearing of his capture was that 'Hitler would have to watch out.' Although I remember him, most of what I know about his experiences is second hand. I was told that the POWs had a radio under the floorboards which kept them informed of progress throughout the War. This story may be somewhat exaggerated in the telling, although I see from the information on the Web that the POWs certainly did hear about the end of the War before their German captors. I also heard that he had a Polish girl friend who used to help with supplies of food. I had heard he was on a march out of Poland at the end of the War, which is presumably the one described by many of the other POWs. He apparently jumped into a ditch in the course of the march, but this only resulted in his being liberated after the other POWs. My father met him at Newcastle Central Station about a week after everyone else had already arrived home. He got frostbite on the march and in later life had to have the affected leg amputated. It is a long shot, but it would be interesting to know if this stirs any memories with anyone else. William Dodds came from Bedlington, Northumberland, and was with the Pioneer Corps. He would be in his early 40s when he was taken prisoner. Chris Fisher Add to this record.  Related Content: Stalag 20A (312) Prisoner of War Camp Pioneer Corps 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.