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209410 Tpr. Percy Albert Nichols British Army Royal Armoured Corps from:Somerset My Great Uncle Percy Nichols was captured in the Middle East somewhere and spent most of the war in Stalag 4A. The story I have heard is that he was one of only 4 survivors in a tank battle. Additional Information: | Adrian's great uncle Percy was my dad, Albert Percival Nichols (1919-2004). He joined the Royal Armoured Corps (42nd Royal Tank Regiment) (Trooper 7905444) in Feb 1940. After training, they went to North Africa, where they saw action in Matilda tanks at Sidi Barrani in November 1941. Although they captured the fort, they were overwhelmed by German reinforcements. Dad wrote "All of our men were either killed or captured except two - my wireless operator and me [Dad was the tank driver] .... We walked all night ... something over 20 miles, and in the morning we saw a fort [Fort Capuzzo] in the distance ..." The next day, Fort Capuzzo was captured by German forces and they were held as prisoners, but about two weeks later New Zealand forces re-took the fort, and Dad and his colleague got back to their Battalion. Some time later they were left as spare tank crews in Tobruk, but the Germans captured this in June 1942. Dad's brief record of his wartime experiences then compresses what must have been three awful years into the following : "they [the Germans] shipped us off as POWs [20th June 1942] to Brindisi, Italy, then Bari, then Fara Sabina near Rome, where we were until Italy capitulated [3rd September 1943]. We then got away but were recaptured (not all of us) & taken to Germany [Stalag IVa], where we existed without much food until the German guards let us go in their anxiety to get away from the Russians. We walked for many miles & eventually reached American lines". The description of the walk in the last sentence refers to the 'long march' of allied POWs walking east through a bitter winter and fast deteriorating conditions in Germany, although his notes don't say how and when they reached freedom.
He left a batch of nearly 50 small photographs, showing wartime scenes. I've identified him in only 4 of those, and only one of those has "Stammlager IV A" on the reverse. Phil Nichols
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