This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this siteplease consider making a donation.
Site Home
WW2 Home
Add Stories
WW2 Search
Library
Help & FAQs
WW2 Features
Airfields
Allied Army
Allied Air Forces
Allied Navy
Axis Forces
Home Front
Battles
Prisoners of War
Allied Ships
Women at War
Those Who Served
Day-by-Day
Library
The Great War
Submissions
Add Stories
Time Capsule
TWMP on Facebook
Childrens Bookshop
FAQ's
Help & FAQs
Glossary
Volunteering
Contact us
News
Bookshop
About
241378Pte. David Bladen
South African Army Die Middelandse Regimant
from:Johannesburg, Transvaal, South Africa
David Bladen enlisted in the South African Army on 16th April 1940, in the service of South Africa and the British Commonwealth of Nations. His designation was Vickers Machine Gun team member.David served in Die Middelandse Regiment in the 2nd South African Division and saw service at Libya, North Africa. He was wounded in Bardia on 2nd of January 1942 and returned to the front in time to be taken POW at Tobruk on 21st of June 1942.
David spent six months in a POW camp at Benghazi, and was then shipped to Italy. He worked as farm labourer on an estate near Brindisi until September 1943 when he was trucked to Germany (Stalag 8A at Goerlitz). He was sent to work in a sugar factory in Schweidnitz in southern Poland for nine months. David returned to Goerlitz for six months, and then was sent to a lumber mill in the Black Forest. He returned to Goerlitz in time to start the 500-mile walk westward, ending up at Kreiensen, from which he escaped in April 1945. He was demobilized in May 1945. He returned to England and then to South Africa.
David Bladen & Godfrey Collett 1942
Related Content:
Can you help us to add to our records?
The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them
Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area?
If so please let us know.
Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice.
Celebrate your own Family History
Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc.
Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.
The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items.
The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions.
If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.
Hosted by:
Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV
- All Rights Reserved
We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.