261152 Pte Paul John Leonard Randles South African Army Umvoti Mounted Rifles from:Pietermaritzburg, S.Africa Paul Randles was headboy of his school Hilton College, Natal, S.Africa. He captained the 1st XV and 1st XI Cricket.
In late 1940 he volunteered to join the South African Army (his father had served the Empire in WWI) and was assigned to a local regiment, the Umvoti Mounted Rifles. Following training in South Africa and Botswana the regiment embarked from Durban in July 1941 bound for Egypt.
In 1941, the South African Army was comprised of two infantry divisions. The First Division was held in reserve while the Second Division was deployed to North Africa in support of Allied forces fighting the Desert War. The Second Division comprised 3rd, 4th and 6th Infantry Brigades. The Umvoti Mounted Rifles were part of 4th Infantry Brigade.
After weeks of acclimatisation and training in desert warfare Paul was in action in the battles at Bardia and Sollum. In June 1942 the entire SA Second Division formed part of the Allied forces defending Tobruk. When Rommel attacked and captured Tobruk he handed all Allied POWs to the Italian Army.
Paul was shipped to Italy where he was held in a number of POW camps. When Italy declared an Armistice on 8th September 1943 Commandants in many of the camps in Italy released their captives. Paul and three others were freed from Campo PG49, Fontanellato near Parma. They headed South on foot along the Apennine Mountains relying on peasant farmers (contadini) for shelter and food. They had reached Frosinone, south of Rome by early December.
Unable to cross the Gustav Line, heavily fortified as it had become, they sheltered in a stone hut on a mountainside near San Donato Val di Comino. They were fed and clothed by a local family. They left the hut in January as they felt they were putting the family at too great a risk. Some days later their location was given away and they were recaptured by the Germans.
Paul and his pals were trucked to Bolzano and then entrained to Germany. Paul spent the remainder of the war as a POW first in Stalag VIIA Moosberg, near Munich and Stalag IVG Oschatz, a work camp near Leipzig. There they were witness to the Allied bombing raids on Chemnitz and Dresden. In April 1945 their German guards forced the prisoners to march away from the camp. During the march they encountered groups of prisoners from concentration camps in Poland and Czechoslovakia. They finally met American patrols and were free.
They commandeered a military ambulance and drove West through Germany and Holland. They crossed to England by ferry.
Paul spent 4 months in England. He visited his aunt in Bexhill-on-Sea and spent a while in London taking part in the victory celebrations. He returned to South Africa late in 1945 where he was demobilised,
Paul joined his father's legal practice in Pietermaritzburg and married Diane Tweedie. Paul went on to become senior partner at Randles Davis & Wood. He played provincial rugby and cricket representing Natal. He and Diane had 5 children: four daughters and a son. Paul died in 1978 aged 56.
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