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I was a British Red Cross nurse with the civilian nursing reserve in a hospital in the outskirts of London with 245 Middlesex detachments during the war.
I met and married my husband flying officer Stanley Walton on the 31st October 1942 and found a flat near the Crystal Palace in SE London. He was stationed at Hornchurch in Essex and Tangmere Sussex with Fighter Command 222 Squadron.

We had a baby son born on the 21st March 1944. One day whilst out walking with him I heard one of the flying bombs — doodlebugs — stop almost overhead and landed on our home — which was destroyed. So having no home my husband took us to Southport in safety where my parents were. Whilst up there I received a telegram which I still have along with his medals and log book to say that he was shot down over Belgium and was missing. I then contacted the British Red Cross for information and then I heard he was a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft III POW camp — where the 50 officers were shot escaping out of a tunnel?? (Wooden horse) and my first communication from him was a German post card with just his signature just before Christmas 1944. He was shot down on October 1944 — actually on rest from operations delivering mail to the British Troops on the front line. I had a few letters from him, but didn’t hear what had happened until he returned home to England after the end of the war. After 8 months of internment the Russian army was advancing through Germany, so at very short notice the whole of the camp prisoners were forced to march through dreadful conditions in the winter of 1945 ( January) over hundreds of miles form Silejia in Poland to Berlin. Many died of frostbite; others were shot trying to escape. On arrival to the outskirts of Berlin to a huger POW camp. The Russians then arrived and took over the camp. None of the British even knew that the war was over until a ´óÏó´«Ã½ man reporting about the end of the war with Germany. He was Aiden Crawley and saw this cam p and got this news that if anyone could get out of the camp (by fair means or foul) a USA truck would be waiting in the nearby woods. My husband escaped and climbed aboard with other British officers and eventually after many days, arrived back home to England to me and our son.

The Russians stopped further escapes and took many of them to Russia for a victory parade in Moscow.

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