I have managed to find out a little more information on my great uncle and am now more confused than ever. Although the cap badge in our photo has been identified as South Staffordshire regt,and my Mum & Aunty are convinced it is Freddy in the photo,on his marriage cert it says he was with 55th field company Royal Engineer as a Sapper this is April 1939, could he have retraded from Staffords to Eng ? We have also found out he was a POW in Poland not the desert as previously believed,he was put to work in the mines ?? One family member has some letters he sent home but as familys are some dont talk to each other anymore and we are struggling to find out who has these. His name was frederick Spence his DOB was 15 Dec 1916 and place of birth Thirsk North Yorkshire. Any help would be great Thanks in advance.
I think your best bet is to apply for his service records. This will answer all the questions about his unit etc. Cheers Andy
I have managed to find out a little more information on my great uncle and am now more confused than ever. Although the cap badge in our photo has been identified as South Staffordshire regt,and my Mum & Aunty are convinced it is Freddy in the photo,on his marriage cert it says he was with 55th field company Royal Engineer as a Sapper this is April 1939, could he have retraded from Staffords to Eng ? We have also found out he was a POW in Poland not the desert as previously believed,he was put to work in the mines ?? One family member has some letters he sent home but as familys are some dont talk to each other anymore and we are struggling to find out who has these. His name was frederick Spence his DOB was 15 Dec 1916 and place of birth Thirsk North Yorkshire. Any help would be great Thanks in advance. My records do not give any F.Spence as a P.O.W. in Italy as of August 1943. Some prisoners were moved to Germany prior to this date. They do show the following for Germany in 1945---- Sgt.Spence F.M.H.1868152 Camp 383 Hohen Fels P.O.W. No. 2535 Spr.Spence F. 4914714 Camp 344 Lamsdorf (Poland) P.O.W. No. 2958 There were Coal Mines amongst the Work Camps based on 344. Brian
Lamsdorf is also known as Łambinowice in Polish. There is a village in south western Poland. Before WWII there was a german country, which was given to Poland after war. Germans established a concetration camp there. Closed down after the Treaty of Versailles, the camp was yet again reopened on September 3, 1939, immediately after the outbreak of the Polish Defensive War. The infamous Stalag VIII-B camp housed roughly 100,000 Polish prisoners. After the outbreak of the Soviet-German conflict some of the Poles were transferred to other places of detention while thousands of Soviet prisoners were amassed in tragic conditions in a separate camp named Stalag VIII-F. Altogether, throughout the World War II more than 300,000 Allied and Soviet prisoners have passed through the gates of the camp at Lamsdorf, between 40,000 and 100,000 of them died. Most of those who perished are buried in mass graves in the nearby village of Klucznik and at the local cemetery. Åambinowice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hi, What a tragedy was the loss of all those lives! When we toured the Polish Military Museum in Torun, which is the town next to Stalag XXA, the Museum managers said they still got letters from Soviet families hoping for information on what happened to their loved ones. I wonder why the Soviet authorities don't help with exhumations and DNA testing on those mass graves?
