The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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245000 Pte Ronald Arthur Hope British Army Sherwood Foresters from:Bridge Street, Langley Mill, Nottinghamshire My Dad, Ron Hope never talked about his time in the war. However, he would never allow us to go to Butlins at Skegness. Mum said it was too much like a POW camp. Dad was a POW. I believe he was captured somewhere near Dunkirk. I think a few of them got away and made it to a little town, then were captured. From the little my Mum could tell me, he was marched to Poland and became a POW in Stalag 8b. She said he never took his boots or socks off during the march, maybe to avoid frostbite? He had the softest and nicest feet in the whole family. I believe my Dad was put into the coal mines in Poland (he was a miner anyway) and according to his sister (my aunt) he was well fed and not treated too badly. When he returned to Langley Mill after being liberated, the whole village turned out and held a street party for him. Right up until his death, he was always made a fuss of by the locals and was very well regarded. Now that I am older, I can understand that Dad's time as a POW did have some impact on the rest of his life. He just wanted to be loved. He worked hard all his life, and only had 2 years retirement, dying of a massive heart attack at 67. I have his service medals and a photo of him in uniform in a little Memory Cabinet on the wall. Lynne Martin Add to this record.  Related Content: Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) Operation Dynamo - The Evacuation from Dunkirk and nearby Beaches Battle of France and The Low Countries 1940 Stalag 8b 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.