260437 Pte. Benjamin Evans British Army 1st Btn. Welch Regiment from:Chapel Row, Nantyglo, Breconshire My late father Benjamin Evans joined the West Monmouthshire Regiment in 1939, aged 20. After basic training, he transferred to the 1st Battalion, Welch Regiment where he trained for desert warfare. Then he sailed from Plymouth around Africa to Egypt. In 1940, he saw action in the battles of Mersa Matruh and Bardia. In 1942, he was captured by Italian troops and was a POW in Italy until the Italians capitulated. He then became a POW of the Germans, who took him to a camp in Poland where he remained until early 1945, when the Russians were closing in from the east and the Germans marched all of the POWs to a camp at Lamsdorf in Germany. Along the way he had frostbite, which resulted in all of his toes being amputated. He was liberated from Lamsdorf by the Americans and flown back home where he spent a year in hospital, being discharged in 1946.
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