Add Information to Record of a Person who served during the Second World War on The Wartime Memories Project Website
Add Information to Record of a Person who served during the Second World War on The Wartime Memories Project Website
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211983
Cpl. Frederick Edmund "Simmo" Simmons
British Army South Staffordshire Regiment
from:Chesterfield
My dad, Frederick Simmons arrived at Arnhem by glider from (I believe) Boston Spa Airfield, and was subsequently wounded in the leg at Oosterbeek and was taken prisoner. He was operated on by a German Army doctor. He told me he was at the Hartenstein Hotel when the failed attempt by the RAF to resupply the survivors was made.
The wounded prisoners were put into railway freight wagons for shipment to prison camp. He ended up in Stalag 11B.
I remember him telling me the Germans treated the prisoners very badly and dad was made to work in an iron ore mine. There were also Russian POWs in a separate part of the camp and they were treated even more harshly. On one occasion someone killed a German guard dog and smuggled it to the Russians who ate it and spread the skin on the barbed wire.