大象传媒

As a young boy growing up in the 1960's I was always aware that my father had taken part in WW2 - the REME tunic and the green/blue forage cap (with a red star on the front) gave that away.

Over the last 40 years I have gleaned a little more - from other sources rather than directly from my father. I now know that:-

1) He joined up fairly soon after war was declared - as a young man.
2) He fought in the battle of Crete but was taken prisoner of war when the island was evacuated.
3) He was placed in many different POW camps but escaped 3 times. Some of these were in Hungary and other baltic countries. After escaping he and a few colleagues were hunted and recaptured and moved to different camps.
4) After his final escape he linked up with Tito's freedom fighters and spent the rest of the war fighting under him.
5) He caught malaria and was flown home (from Italy) shortly before the end of the war.
6) He has a MM - I don't know why

My dad is now in his 80's and has spent the majority of his life working in and serving his local community in Wales. He never talks about the war although he does, on occasions, go to the Crete reunions. You may well be thinking "Why doesn't he ask his dad about the war?" but things are never that easy and he would dismiss my request should I make it.

I am facinated by what it must have been like to have these "boys own" experiences and what drove him to do some of these things and what the war really was like for him.

I decided to write this account after watching Jeremy Clarkson's account of his father-in-law and how he won the VC. I enjoyed the programme but realised that I don't have anywhere near the detail about my father that Jeremy shared - clearly his father-in-law was an exceptional man.

So this isn't really a story - well perhaps part of one. I wonder if there is a way of capturing the whole story so that the detail can be archived before it is lost for ever.

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