Long March POW Casualty 1945: John Antony Ronald Coulthard, Stalag XXA, Thorn

Hi there. My name is Samantha Hunter and I was wondering if anybody could help me find information on Frederick T Hunter. I am his great, great neice and have bee trying to find out more about what happened to him during the march out of Stalag XXA but am having little success. Any help would be very much appreciated.

 

Hello Samantha,

I am very sorry to be the bearer of sad news but I know that 2752517 Lance Corporal Frederick T Hunter died on 22 February 1945 near Gustrow on the River Elbe. He was in the same column of march as Antony Coulthard which started the march on 20 January 1945 from Chelmno, a town to the north of Torun.

You may have read previously in the thread that a Staff Sergeant Aitken was the senior British sergeant in the column and he kept a meticulous diary of all those who died. L/Cpl Hunter was the fifth to die and according to S/Sgt Aitken he died of dysentery.

I researched all 30 who died in the column and I know that he was exhumed by the Directorate of Graves Registration and was reburied in Berlin War Cemetery in grave 11 B 7. He is there with 23 others from that column; I visited all of their graves last year and I can tell you that he is resting in a very peaceful and beautiful setting.

Here is the CWGC entry for L/Cpl Hunter:http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead.aspx?cpage=1

Here is the page from S/Sgt Aitken's affidavit to the War Crime Commission


I found the affidavit in file WO 309/58 at the National Archives.

I hope this has not been too upsetting for you, will send a personal message and we can exchange e mail addresses so that I can forward as much information as I have.

With kind regards

Steve Foster

 

Hi Samantha
Sorry about the tragic loss of Frederick Hunter on the Forced March after making it all the way into Germany. He must have been a tough man but that torturous walk was too much. Steve paid particular attention to all the brave POW's who died on that 1,000k death march. I've been to the Berlin Cemetery where he is buried and it is a very special place. Hope you can go there.
Regards
Barbara

 

We have just had the photographs delivered from the L/Cpl Antony Coulthard memorial day at HQ Intelligence Corps, Chicksands.

The first one is his two nieces, nephew and myself standing by the plaque on the classroom door in Templer Company, Defence Intelligence School. The classroom is now called the LCpl Antony Coulthard Classroom.

The second one is a group shot of the relatives who attended the day with the Intelligence Corps Colonel, RSM and Intelligence School officers.

Steve

 

Hello.
I Googled "Anthony Coulthard" because his name comes up on my Father's cousin's memoire, which has come into my hands, his line of the family having died out. His name was Dennis Bonner, and he died about 5 years ago. He was on the same march as Anthony Coulthard, and though he doesn't mention the name of the village, I'm sure this passage will be interesting to many of you:

"We walked into a small village and as usual settled down in a barn on straw. Again there was just a ration of so-called soup and a piece of rye bread. We were all in a shocking state. In our small party was Anthony Coulthard who I remembered from our days in the main camp at Thorn(?) in 1940. He did not go out on working parties as he was a Cambridge educated undergraduate and gave lessons to his fellow prisoners. He was known as "The Professor". Tony was very emaciated but above all he had just lost heart. It could have happened to any of us. He laid next to me and died during the night. His family thought he had been singled out by the Germans for harsh treatment because of his high profile in Stalag XXA, but this was not so as during the latter months with all the changes of the guards, none of them knew our background."

This was written years after the events, and Dennis in not that detailed on places, sadly. Seems like he may have had some contact with the family after the war; otherwise why would he know about their feelings. Anyway, I thought you should know.

 

Very interesting. Did he mention any other names on the march ,or did you ever see any pictures of your fathers cousin in xxa.

 

Hello JohnnyB,

Thanks very much for that very interesting quote from Dennis Bonner's memoires. You are correct, Dennis wrote to Antony's mother on Sep 9th 1946, with quite a long description of where Antony died including a sketch of the barn at Kaltenhof.

I have attached a copy of the letter here; it was this letter which gave us the breakthrough we needed in finding the barn and thus Antony's grave. I would be very interested in reading his memoires of the Forced March to see if it has any other information about Antony, his comrades or their guards. It is amazing but very sad that Antony died right next to Dennis in Kaltenhof. The fact that Dennis died quite recently is also astounding, I could have spoken to him when I started this research.

Thanks again,
Steve

 

Hi Steve,

Fascinating letter. I recognized the handwriting at once. The "memoire" i have is really just Dennis noting down the story of his life near the end of it, and so is short on details. He mentions so few people by name that Antony Goulthard stood out, and is never mentioned previously. There's not really a lot about the march, actually. Most of the memoir is more concerned with the ins and outs of being an agricultural merchant in Essex after the war until his retirement in 1982. He preferred to put that all behind him, I think.
Ironically, when he was repatriated not long after, his first detail was to look after German POWs in England. He takes a certain pride in their treatment being of an order of magnitude better than his treatment at the German's hands.

John Bonner

 

Hi billminer,

Sadly, no pix of Dennis during the war came down to me.

 

Thanks John

Steve

 

Hi John, a big welcome to you. I'm one of Antony's nieces. Steve Foster and I worked together to locate his grave. We came to this forum the same way as you- putting Antony's name into a search engine. I'd done it for quite a few year's before anything came up! Your relative, Dennis Bonner, figured a lot in our discussions because he was a key witness to Antony's death and burial. We would love to have met him!

Dennis' map of the burial march shows how alert he was in 1945, despite his weak state. It helped us a lot. Did he live to be 90 or older? A remarkable life.

It was very moving reading the information you posted. I'd be interested to read the whole memoir, I hope he had a good life after the war? I sometimes wonder how Antony would have adjusted to civilian life after being a POW.

Regards
Barbara

 

I've just finished reading the story of XXA POW Ian Grieve Black, written by his son Robert. I think it's been renamed from "Highland Scottische" to "Across the Bridge" . A good read. The description of the route taken on the Forced March explains the zig-zag and retracing of steps along the way, as they were forced to avoid American and Russian troops. Amazing that anyPOWs survived!

 

This is just a quick update to post a couple of attachments that are relevant to the Antony Coulthard thread. The first is an MI9 typed transcript of Guardsman Burnell's Release Questionnaire after release from the Long March. Diane originally posted this in manuscript form at the beginning of this thread. Horsapassenger was kind enough to forward it to me after he discovered it at Kew.

The second document is the latest letter received from the JCCC with an update of progress in staffing the Antony Coulthard case. It appears they have recently had an increase in staff numbers and may be in a position to look into the evidence I have forwarded about the whereabouts of Antony's grave sometime in the New Year. We will keep our fingers and toes crossed.

Steve

 

We've been contacted by Joint Casualty & Compassionate Centre and know a Researcher is currently reviewing Steve's documentation on Antony's Grave.
Hoping for the best outcome which would be Grave recognition.

Here's Steve and I, in 2012, standing at Antony's grave and un-named headstone. Becklingen Germany.

 

ANTONY COULTHARD GRAVE RECOGNITION - 24 March 2015 -

It's appropriate that the members of WW2Talk should be among the first to know, we've had word that the JCCC, UK Department of Defence, will recognise the Unmarked Grave at Plot XVIII, Row C, Grave 2, Becklingen War cemetery as Antony's. Today is the 70th anniversary of Antony's death on the horrendous Forced March from Poland to Germany in 1945.

Thanks to Steve Foster for making this happen.

Thanks very much to everyone involved at WW2talk.

More details soon.

Regards
Barbara

 

Hello Barbara and Diane

A very emotional day for us all, it has been a genuine privilege to find the grave of the man who came back for my father at the Swiss border when he could have continued to freedom and to life.

There have been times when I felt this day would never come but I continued on as I felt I was doing it for both L/Cpl Antony Coulthard and Sgt Fred Foster, who I hope will both be looking down on us when we rededicate the grave. Thank you both and to the rest of the contributors to this thread for your help along the way - genuine team work.

Kind Regards

Steve

 

Thanks for the kind words Diane. Thanks Drew and Owen for ticking things along in the beginning.

Can't resist re-quoting Steve, from his post on 3 Nov 2011:
"My wife says I am a driven man once I get the bit between my teeth and I was not going to give up until I had discovered all I could about Antony, if for no other reason than it is a fantastic story and also for my father's sake. My aim is to find his citation for his Mention in Despatches, find his grave in Domitz, and of course to contact any living relative"

I think Christine knows her husband very well! I guess you all know Steve is a bit of a fixture at Army Intelligence Chicksands these days, where he presents the story of Antony and Fred, to young trainees.

Regards
Barbara

 

I thought you may find of interest the letter from the JCCC that we have been waiting for four years! I didn't think I would see the day when this would drop onto the door mat.

Regards,

Steve