257245 Pte. Richard Ward British Army Royal West Kent Regiment from:Croydon My Dad, Richard Ward served with the Royal West Kent Regiment in WW2. He was captured and spent 5 years in Stalag XXa. He was caught on the Albert Bridge in France.
He was a bag of bones when he came home. When I was a little girl he would shout out at night in Polish or German and he didn't sleep much. He also used to sleep on the floor. It took him years to live with what had happened to him. I used to think it was normal as I had got used to it.
He didn't tell me or my 2 brothers much about Stalag XXa except how he and a group of other prisoners had to go and collect bodies of people (mainly Jews) and put them on carts. This had a terrible effect on him.
He could never be on his own so when we were older and learnt to drive one of us would take him to work then one of us would bring him home.
Dad was put to work in a sugar factory then on to a farm. He was made to work very hard with little food. In the sugar factory the men were searched every night. One night my Dad had a length of sugar beet down the inside of his trousers. When the German guard searched him he said "my, you Englishmen" as he felt the inside of his leg.They must have been desperate for food.
Another time their meal was crab apples and they scrounged some ducks' feet. It was stewed up and the meat was picked from the little bones in the feet. I don't know how they ever survived.
I have some photos and his small case with Stalag XXa stamped on it, letters he had sent home and 3 pencil drawings of a German guard. I will keep these for the rest of my life.
Dad died in 1992 and he was the best Dad in the world. I miss him so much and am sorry that I never found out much about those 5 years.
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