253201 4D Chamberlain, Alwyn, T/213834, RASC.
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Reported missing, 20/6/40. Capured Tobruk. alongside friend Alfie Granger.
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Served in 9th Light Field Ambulance, captured Tobruk. Camp 70 Italy in 1943, see PG 70 group photos, then via Stalag 4B to Bad Schmiedeberg W03, see 1944 photo.
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Yorkshire Evening Post 3/12/43: 'The following Leeds and District men have been moved from prisoner of war camps in
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Italy to Germany.....Dvr A Chamberlain (25), RASC, mother lives Kirkby Malzeard and sister Holbeck Lane, PG 70 to
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Stalag 4B.'
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I managed to trace 'Nev' Chamberlain via the phone book after Pat O'Sullivan told me that his first name wasn't 'Neville' but Alwyn. This was a rare enough first name to make tracing him via the phone book relatively easy. Like Pat, 'Nev' was a mine of information about the camp--and about his old pal Alfie--and I subsequently went up to Leeds and interviewed him at length for the IWM in 2001.
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The direct link to the interview is:
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http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80024519
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Two of the PG 70 group photographs on the site were provided by him. The first features Chamberlain and also Garbutt, Granger and Kennerley in a group of around 40 men:
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http://stalag4d.atspace.co.uk/page121.html
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The second, Alwyn told me, was the 'Leeds group', presumably of Camp PG 70 POWs hailing from Leeds:
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http://stalag4d.atspace.co.uk/page122.html
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253433, 4D Price, Gnr J T, 921063, RA.
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Reported missing, Cyrenaica, 20/6/42, serving with 277 Battery, 68 Heavy AA Regt.
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PG 85 Italy in 1943.
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His 1945 home address, '7 Swann Road, Hursthill, near Bilston, Staffs. was written in his own hand on a postcard of Halle preserved by Pat O'Sullivan. Awarded Territorial Efficiency Medal 1946.
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Four Early Departures.
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In May 1944, four men, Kennerley, Sangster, Washington and Woolley were transferred out of the camp to a Stalag 4C workcamp. Brendan Greene at some stage also departed, for Stalag 3A.
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Eight Decades Later:
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Situation so far: in the late 1990s I made a concerted effort to trace the 23 men featured on the photograph. The results of this was that I traced two men still living and interviewed them at length for the IWM. I contacted the friends and families of eight others, who, it emerged had died before I started my research. Add my father and that makes 11 traced in total.
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Only eight returned POW/Liberation Questionnaires seem to have survived in the National Archives, as noted above.
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This investigation remains live. Any and all further information on these men gratefully received.
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Last updated: 4/12/23.
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The 1944 Bad Schmiedeberg POW Group Photograph.
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POW HOME
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