大象传媒

1904 On the 23 April 1904 Francis Rodney Eglen was born to James William and Maud Mary Eglen in Hull England. His father was a Petty Officer in the Royal Navy, one of the ships he served on was HMS Sultan, and he saw action in Alexandria 1882, Chilli, Bolivia. After service in the Navy he became a Customs Officer.
Not much is known about Francis and which schools he attended.

1918 Joined Brides Shipping Company in Cardiff as Apprentice Merchant seaman, during his time as a apprentice time it is believed he sailed passed Cape Horn South Africa twice,

1928 He married Caroline Annie Brown on the 17 December at Alverstoke a suburb of Portsmouth, England.

1929 Joined the army as signalman in the Royal Siganal Corp

After his basic training was sent to India to the Bolan Pass, in what was then the North West Frontier at Queta, now part of Pakistan. What's more his first son was born on 21st September Gordon Arthur Eglen in Hull.

1935 He left the Army and went to work for GPO as a telephone engineer in Hull.

1936 His second son was David born on the 26th September in Hull.

1939 On the first of September three days before the out break of war he reenlisted back in the Army at Catterick.

5th September 1st Armoured Division Signals Bulford.

15th September Blanford
November Hitchin Attached to 3rd Royal Tank Regiment

1940 February Fordingbridge
April
From April onwards British Troops sailed to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force.

On May 20 the panzer group took Abbeville at the mouth of the Somme River and began to push north along the coast; it covered 400 km (250 mi) in 11 days. By May 26, the British and French were pushed into a narrow beachhead around Dunkerque. The Belgian king, Leopold III, surrendered his army the next day. Destroyers and smaller craft of all kinds rescued 338,226 men from Dunkerque in a heroic sealift that probably would not have succeeded if the German commander, General Gerd von Rundstedt, had not stopped the tanks to save them for the next phase.

June How long he spent on the beaches at Dunkirk is not known, from there getting rid all his belongings and clothes, and he waded out into the cold North Sea for two miles out to be rescued by an American ship and taken to Ramsgate. From there he was taken to Plymouth.

July During July to November went form one camp to another, Included Warminster, Fordingbridge, Kettering, Thursley
Cambridge and Kettering.

November On the 1st embarked at Liverpool for Athens via Freetown
Sierra Leone on the western coast of Africa. Then on to Durban in South Africa.
December Arrived at Port Suez in Egypt on the 22nd

1941 In January move across to Amria near Alexandria then Marsa Matru
In February finally leaving North Africa for Greece from
Camp Tanag near Ismailia.

In March arrived in Athens, in April moved up Amentione. Before being captured at Nafplion on the 28th April at 7.00 p.m.

The Greek army of 430,000, unlike the Yugoslav, was fully mobilized, and to some extent battle tested, but national pride compelled it to try to defend the Metaxas line northeast of Salonika. By one short thrust to Salonika, the Germans forced the surrender on April 9 of the line and about half of the Greek army. After the Greek First Army, pulling out of Albania, was trapped at the Mets贸von Pass and surrendered on April 22, the British force of some 62,000 troops retreated southward. Thereafter, fast German drives鈥攖o the Isthmus of Corinth by April 27 and through the Pelop贸nnisos by April 30鈥攆orced the British into an evacuation that cost them 12,000 men. An airborne assault on May 20-27 also brought Crete into German hands.

I think they where moved on to Corinth on the 6th May
From there up to Solonika in the north of Greece on the 18th June.

Stalag VIII D was a satellite camp at Marburg Austria to Stalag VIII A at Wolfsburg. He arrived on the 29th June where he spent the next ten months until being moved to Stalag VIII B on the 14th April 1942. At a place called Krennach he was put to work on farm near Gratz with two others and a guard. Were during this time, he escaped twice but always ended stuck between the Germans and the Russians. The Russians were known to shoot P.O.W鈥檚, so he gave himself up to the Germans and was returned to the farm. I believe he was friendly with farmer鈥檚 daughter Christine? So he stayed until the closing stages of the war.

It was decided to move the P.O.W鈥檚 from the camps in Austria closer to Germany, as the Russian forces moved across through Yugoslavia, Slovakia and to northern Italy.
It was believed by the German High Command, that with the end of the war coming closer this would make a better bargaining tool on surrender.

So on the 15 April 1945 they were marched from Krennach. Arriving in Markt Pongou on the 5th may 1945 in total a 316 km or 197 miles two days before the signing of surrender by the Germans. They were joined by many P.O.W鈥檚 from camps all over southern Austria.

This is an account of the journey taken from a note book

Hitler decided to await the end in Berlin, where he could still manipulate what was left of the command apparatus. Most of his political and military associates chose to leave the capital for places in north and south Germany likely to be out of the Soviet reach. On the afternoon of April 30 Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker. As his last significant official act, he named Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz to succeed him as chief of state.
Doenitz, who had been loyal to Hitler, had no course open to him other than surrender. His representative, General Alfred Jodl, signed an unconditional surrender of all German armed forces at Eisenhower's headquarters in Reims early on May 7. By then the German forces in Italy had already surrendered (on May 2), as had those in Holland, north Germany, and Denmark (May 4). The U.S. and British governments declared May 8 V-E (Victory in Europe) Day. The full unconditional surrender took effect at one minute past midnight after a second signing in Berlin with Soviet participation.

On the 7th of May Cliff and the rest of the German guards left the camp. At 8 o鈥檆lock the next evening the U.S. forces arrived at the camp. Over the next few days they were moved out of the huts and into tents. Rations were brought into the camp, had to be controlled because many prisoners died by eating to much after being starved for so long there digestion systems could not handle the rich food.

By the 16th of May then men were stared to be interrogated as to find out who and where they came from, and medically taken care of.

On Sunday the 20th of May two thousand five hundred men where moved out of the camp for home. The rest left waiting for their order to move.

21st of May the movement order was cancelled

22nd of May sat and waited for the rain to stop, which it did not do till late afternoon. The 23rd and 24th were much the same.

Finally the order came to move on the 25th of May, the U.S. Army trucks made there way to Salzburg aerodrome. An R.A.F. plane flew us to Brussels so they could refuel, landing at about 6.30 pm. Taking off again at 7.00pm over the North Sea, back home to England and landing at 9.00pm. Nearly one thousand five hundred days spent in captivity. It was nearly three
R3HYAyears before he was demobbed from the army.

A list of parcels received while a prisoner of war

Year Month Received From
1941 November Clothing Wife
1942 January Clothing Wife
January Playing cards Post Office
February 120 cigs Ivy
February Books Post Office
May 120 cigs Hull Post
May 120 cigs Ivy
May 300 Cigs Ted
May Playing Cards Hull Mail
June 300 cigs Ted
June Clothing Home
June Tobacco Ted
June 200 cigs Po Office
June 120 cigs Ivy
July 120 cigs Hull Mail
Aug 120 Cigs Ivy
Sept Clothing Home
1943 Jan 120 cigs Hull Mail
Feb Clothing wife
March 200 cigs Post off
March 200 cigs No name
March 120 cigs Hull Mail
March Clothing Wife
March Books Post off
May 120 cigs Hull Mail
May 120 cigs Royal sig
May Tobacco Hal
May Tobacco Gert
May Tobacco Hal
June Clothing Wife
July Tobacco No name
Aug 400 cigs No name
Sept Tobacco No name
Sept Tobacco No name
Sept 200 cigs No name
Oct 200 cigs Hull Mail
Oct Tobacco No name
Nov Clothing Wife
Nov Book Post off
Nov Tel phone bk R.C.
Nov Clothing Wife
Dec Tobacco No name
1944 Jan Books Post off
Jan Tel phone bk R.C.
Feb 200 cigs No name
Feb 200 cigs No name
feb Books Post off
March 200 cigs Hull Mail
March Books Post off
March Books Post off
April Clothing Wife
May 200 cigs Hal
May Tobacco Joy
June 200 cigs Royal sig
June 200 cigs No name
June Clothing Wife
June Tobacco No name
July Tobacco Wife
July 200 cigs Royal sig
Aug Books Post off
Oct Clothing Wife
Nov 200 cigs Wife
Nov 200 cigs Wife
Dec Tobacco Hackfort
Dec Tobac/cigs Wife

A list of prisoners taken from a note book

Name P.O.W number
Chadwick 4535
Knight V 7564
James L 4679
Leslie J 6991 (73597)
Sainty J 2471
Plackett J 7784
Cooper B 1313
Coates C 5276 (144833)
Dale A 1345
Preston N 5800

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