The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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250409 Private Gerald John "Sandy" Sandberg South African Union Army Signalers from:Durban, South Africa Pre-Theatre picture Gerald John Sandberg was my Grandfather on my mothers side. He was captured in North Africa, and was interned in Stalag VIII A in Gorlitz, Germany from 1943 - 1945. He wrote a diary detailing his daily experiences which has been professionally restored digitally. Of significance is his participation on the famous 462 mile March during a particularly bitter winter. He also mentions his protection of a young lady from Russian forces who were moving towards Berlin and conducting mass rape of young German girls and mothers. Through lack of nutrition and 10 hours manual labor per day, Gerald returned to South Africa late in 1945 in poor health. Although he married and had 7 children, he sustained a heart attack at age 28. He also had a stroke late in his thirties, and passed away from a massive heart attack at age 42 (August 1967). He worked as a sugar cane farmer near the town of Doornkop in Kwa Zulu Natal province, South Africa when he died. I have high resolution images of all diary pages which I'd like to offer. In Theatre picture Release Papers telegram POW work Card Mark Hatting Add to this record.  Related Content: 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.