238596 L/Cpl. Harry Taylor Cooper Paxton British Army 6th Battalion Durham Light Infantry My father, Lance Corporal Harry Paxton from Spennymoor, County Durham, was reported missing in action in the Western Desert just a few months after marrying my mother in January 1942. He was subsequently reported in 1943 as injured in action and detained in POW Camp 73, near Modena in Italy. When Italy surrendered, Harry and a great number of the prisoners decided to stay and wait for the Allies (according to the Italian guards). Unfortunately it was the Germans who arrived! The prisoners were marched to Stalag 357 in Torun, Poland. In August 1944 with the Russians advancing through Poland, the camp was moved to Oerbke, north of Hanover, Germany, where Harry stayed for the rest of the war. He died of a heart attack in 1968 at the cruelly young age of 47.
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