50 years ago
Prisoner of war in Germany
The memoir covers Sergeant Officer A Yates' time as a prisoner of war from September 1942 to April 1945. He was initially imprisoned in Stalag VIIIB in Upper Silesia, he was evacuated with 30,000 others to escape the advancing Russian Army. He and a friend escaped but the conditions were so bad that they turned themselves in. He evaded the next evacuation but was quickly caught and lined up against a wall. Some Russians were shot but he and some British paratroopers pretended they were medical orderlies who were protected under the Geneva Convention. They looted a Red Cross store before being put on a hospital train. This was a great improvement on their previous conditions. They stayed onboard for several days until Freising where they set up in a hospital. Because of their condition they were treated as patients at a much greater level of comfort than the camps. They were about to be evacuated when there was a huge bombing attack, by the Americans, which destroyed most of Freising. The hospital was used to treat the survivors. A few days later the hospital was liberated, the German’s asking for a volunteer to run up a white flag.
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4 typewritten sheets
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A Yates in Sidcot suit
Sergeant A Yates dressed in Sidcot suit, with parachute standing in long grass.
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
One b/w photograph
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Observer brevet and Stalag VIIIB identity tag
Sergeant A Yates's observer brevet and his identity tag when at Stalag VIIIB, number 27042
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
One colour photograph
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