My father, John Thompson, who died in January 2006, spoke very little about the war years, in fact he made it clear it was a period he would prefer to forget, so I have only a limited account of what happened and less of the emotions he felt.
At the outbreak of the war, he was working for an Estate close to Richmond, and living with a family in Ravensworth. He was called up, or volunteered, joined the Green Howards and went to France. During their retreat to Dunkirk they stopped to burn or destroy equipment to stop it falling into enemy hands. This was on an evening, and then set off to march overnight, the following morning they arrived back from where they had started, the smouldering trucks. He found this to be quite incompetent on the part of the Officers leading them. Upon arriving at the beach at Dunkirk, he was wounded by shrapnel to his shoulder, and left the beach the same day as one of the walking wounded. On arriving at the beach, he had been stood with a particularly good friend when there was an attack by dive bombers, both he and his friend fell flat on their faces with their arms around their heads, a bomb fell quite close to them, but my fathers friend was between my father and the bomb, killing his friend outright, but according to my father, his body saved my fathers life, and suffered only the shrapnel wounds.
He was brought back on a destroyer, and after a short period of recovery was on a Liner which according to him sailed across the Atlantic and hugged the American coast southward and eventually arrived at Durban. He then went up to the desert, before going to Palestine and back to the desert where he was captured. He said of his capture, that he never saw the enemy, he was told by a senior Officer to simply lay down his arms, and head off in a certain direction.
He was held captive in various camps in Italy, Austria and Germany, he hated Italy, something had happened which he would never talk about. He learned to speak both German and French whilst a prisoner, he was forced into working, mostly forestry work I believe, he told a story about marching back to the camp after a day working and men fighting over a dead crow which was lying by the track. He told a story about a prisoner being shot and killed for stepping over an inner wire, he generally considered it to be his best years being taken away from him.
On a lighter side, he was held in an old Chateau of some description, the windows were boarded up from the inside. In his room, there was a joiner by trade before the war, he managed to pull the nails, and somehow put things back in place so that when the guards checked the boards at night, they appeared as they should. After the inspection the boards were taken down, and my father and others headed down to the village. There were French prisoners in the village, who were not under guard because if they escaped retribution would be taken against their family members in France. I have no idea what they got up to, but I think this was quite a regular occurrence.
As previously mentioned, by the end of the war he could speak German, and on the last night of his captivity, an old guard told him that the next morning he would be gone, and the Americans would be walking up the road, and sure enough the camp was completely unguarded, and the Americans were approaching a short distance away.
He was demobbed, and had to pay for the rifle he had been ordered to lay down.
