206715 Pte. Bernard Skerry British Army 9th Battalion Parachute Regt from:East Acklam, Yorks My father, Bernard Skerry was parachuted into Normandy 6th June with 9 Para objective Merville Battery. He was caught up in heavy fighting and captured within a week of D Day. He finally ended up in Stalag 4B but managed to get out on working parties including a coal mine, Leipzig Gas works and railway marshalling yards. He made 3 escape attempts obviously being recaptured twice. The successful attempt was during the March west when Russian tanks could be seen on the horizon North and South. They entered a barn saw a gap in the rear covered it with a great coat and waited until dark. He and another soldier, unidentified to me, then walked west to Wurzen where they believed the Germans had capitulated to the Americans. On the road they walked into an exhausted fully armed company of German Infantry resting each side of the road and walked through cleanly until they met an American jeep of soldier. My father was then transferred to Rheims in France where he was flown back to RAF Ford in a Lancaster flown by a 19 year old pilot.He was invalided out of the Regiment on his return following some psychotic problems believed due, in particular, to the heavy bombing he suffered at Leipzig railway yards where there were considerable casualties. He passed away in 2007 at the age of 84. This country owes my father, along with many thousands of other servicemen, a great debt that was never repaid and can never be so.
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