211443 Pte. Frederick Charles Worthy British Army Royal Hampshire Regt from:Christchurch, UK My father, Fred Worthy, served in North Africa in Tunisia and was then at the Salerno Landings. He was an old sweat having joined the Grenadier Guards in the mid 1920s. As war loomed in 1939 he rejoined the Army and enlisted into the Hampshire Regiment.
He was captured on the 9th of September 1943 the first night of the invasion. He told me that out of 27 men that he was with only he and one other were left when he was captured. I believe he was then taken to a place called Ocre in Italy and then sent to camp 8b in Fallingbostle Poland. He made an attempt to escape but was caught. When he was brought back to camp he was taken to the camp officer in charge. He asked my father where he thought he was my father replied Poland where upon my father received a beating as the officer told him Poland is now greater Germany.
As the Russians advanced so the Germans marched all the POW's towards Germany {The March} as it is known. During this time they sufferd many hardships which my father told me little about except that one night they stopped at a farm in German terrortry where he and another chap stole a duck to eat they were caught red handed. The German soldier that caught them should have shot them out of hand but as the war was nearly over he asked the owner of the farm what he wanted to do about it the farmer was the mayor of the village and just took the duck back and let them go lucky or what? Two weeks before the end of the war his column of fellow POW's were straffed by aircraft my father was shot in the leg his luck had run out his leg was eventually amputated in 1947. The doctors tried to save his leg but the pain of gangerene was to much to bear so he asked them
to amputate it.
In my oppinion he wasn't looked after very well after the War. Having to fight the authorities for a war pension which he eventually recieved in the early seventies. He worked all his life after the war on a building site as a carpenter. He was a strong man and a good man along with many others of his generation their suffering was great but thier hearts were strong good men all
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