Prisoner Details

Through other channels it appears Edwards family received further details of his current war status. This is shown in the below letter in which it appears the Red Cross are replying to news passed to them directly from the family. Whilst undated it does further confirm his status as a prisoner, presumably due to some other undocumented news that had been received and advises that any further correspondence must now be directed through the Prisoners Of War Department.

What is again absent from both this letter and our family documents of this period are the exact details of his imprisonment. Therefore i have been forced to turn to other sources to fill in the gaps.

From records sourced online (Ancestry.co.uk) Edwards capture first appears recorded in "Imperial Prisoners of War Held in Germany or German-Occupied Territory Section 1" which is dated 1943.

Found on page 480 (Alphabetical order) Edwards record is to the top of the page and notes his name, rank, army number, regiment and record office number. However, typically, and quite unusual for this document, Edwards prisoner of war number and camp number are absent.

Further exploration into the subject however found there was a revised version of this document "corrected generally to 30th March 1945".

In this document Edward is again listed with the details previously noted but with two important additions, his prisoner of war number and camp number.

This document confirms he was located in camp 8C and was issued a prisoner of war number 86907. I can only presume that these are such details which were provided by the family to the Red Cross which resulted in receipt of the opening letter of this blog.

One final line of enquiry to secure these details lead me to another record. "The Surrey 1930s-1940s Register of Transfers In, Book 17, General Service Corps" also contained a record of Edward naturally by this point being a part of the Queens Surrey Regiment. The books use of the word "Transfer" appears to be in relation, not to those who have transferred in (such as Edward) but rather to those transferred out. Further reading confirms this does not just include those transferring to other regiments but also any other reason for no longer participating in the regiments activities, such as becoming a prisoner.

To the bottom of page 12 Edward is listed, noting first his army number, then presumably the date he enlisted (a year after our paperwork suggests as discussed previously), his name, and has been stamped that he is no longer in action for the Queens regiment, as he is a Prisoner of War.

There are other accompanying notes which have sadly faded above the stamp and below the words Dis Para 390 (XVIIIG).This will have been added after the war and refers to Discharge Paragraph 390 section XVIIIG, the regulation under which he was finally discharged from the regiment on 09/02/46. This regulation is one noting he was discharged of his own request and was commonly used after the war.

These documents combine to confirm to us that Edward is now imprisoned, the number he has been subsequently issued and the camp in which he is being held. Whilst the actual document does not appear available online, there is one final document referred to which brings together what all this information means. Entitled "The Prisoner of War Collections, Sussex, England" from "The Naval and Military Press" its contents are recorded as below, and will be explored in my next post:

(Source - Ancestry.co.uk)