212765 Flt.Sgt. John Anthony Edwards Royal Air Force My Dad, John Edwards, was an RAF air-gunner. His Lancaster was shot down on a sortee over Manheim and my Dad and two colleagues parachuted and "went on the run". Some weeks after when they were in France, a farmer gave them up to the Germans and they were sent to Stalag 4b. That was near the end of 1943 and he stayed there until the camp was freed by the Red Army.
My Dad would not talk about his experience and he died at the age of 90 in 2012. To that day none of our family was ever allowed to leave food on the plate and had to eat everything - and, from reading the accounts from his colleagues at 4b, that surely resulted from the near starvation they suffered Jan-March '45.
For those who know of him he was a useful boxer and then a boxing manager until he retired from that at the age of 85. I still have his Stalag 4b metal tag and because I know so little, I am going to visit the site of the camp next month. If anyone remembers Jack/Johnny Edwards RAF rear gunner, I would love to hear from him. I wish he had told me something more about camp life- except that he said that no one now knows what it's like to be really starving and his jocular reference to a Russian prisoner he befriended who asked him to "special dinner" that night. He could not believe the marvelous stew that was served and when he asked about the meat, his friend said with a smile "woof woof" guard dog.
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