Stalag XXB - POW G.W.Sibthorpe - Any info appreciated.

Hi

I am trying to trace my grandfather's WW2 experiences, I have the following info.

Private George William Sibthorpe of the Queens Royal Regiment, reg no 6091573, POW no 9041. We know he was held at Camp Stalag XXB in Malbark Poland Mairenburg and was there approx 5 yrs.

We do not know where he was captured but my mother remembers him saying that he was captured on the 1st day of his war. Would this suggest that he could have been captured at Dunkirk??

I would be very grateful for any advice or info that could help me in my search as it is quite a daunting task as I really don't know where to start to follow on from the info I have.

Also is there any way I could get hold of his service records as my Nan is sadly no longer with us and she would of been his next of kin.

Many thanks in advance for any help you can give.

 

Hello and welcome to the forum.

If your grandmother has passed away then your mother/father is the natural next of kin. You can get all the info you need from the link below:
Army Personnel Centre - British Army Website

Regards
Andy

 

Hi and Welcome!

I've done similar research into my Grandfather.

As well as his Service record as Andy pointed out, the International Red Cross kept records of all POW's. You can obtain a summary of these from them:

ICRC POW records

That should give you a breakdown of what camps he was in and when. Once you have that, then you can look for POW reports on these camps, these are held at the National Archives. There are also POW Liberation Questionnaires, although not all ex-POW's filled these in - my Granddad didnt.

POW records at the National Archives

Also you can find out more about POW camps and life as a POW on Mark Hickman's Pegasus Archive POW site:

Pegaus Archive - POW

Good luck!

 

Many thanks to you both.

I shall get to work.

 

Hi

I am trying to trace my grandfather's WW2 experiences, I have the following info.

Private George William Sibthorpe of the Queens Royal Regiment, reg no 6091573, POW no 9041. We know he was held at Camp Stalag XXB in Malbark Poland Mairenburg and was there approx 5 yrs.

We do not know where he was captured but my mother remembers him saying that he was captured on the 1st day of his war. Would this suggest that he could have been captured at Dunkirk??

I would be very grateful for any advice or info that could help me in my search as it is quite a daunting task as I really don't know where to start to follow on from the info I have.

Also is there any way I could get hold of his service records as my Nan is sadly no longer with us and she would of been his next of kin.

Many thanks in advance for any help you can give.

Welcome to the forum. A POW number of 9041 is certainly a very early number and would have been in France / Belgium in 1940.

He was reported / confirmed as being a POW in the Times list on Friday, Dec 20, 1940;

http://callisto.ggsrv.com/imgsrv/Fetch?banner=4b48c74f&digest=effa5fb8181c935aea3332d648c2274c&contentSet=LT&recordID=0FFO-1940-DEC20-007-F&highlight=ff99ff+1+2355+4988+129+30&format=png&scale=0.330&highlight=ffffff+0+914+1155+220+1023&crop=684+34+455+2149

 

I don't suppose you know what Battalion he was in ?

 

Thank you so much, my mum is thrilled.

Mum also remembers my grandfather talking having to march for days. Is there anyway of finding out where he was captured or would that only be in his service records???

Thank again. :-(

 

Is there anyway of finding out where he was captured or would that only be in his service records???



Possibly if we can identify his battalion and date of capture/surrender.

 

My Granddad's Red Cross POW records had his date of capture on. In my experience the Red Cross are very quick at getting back too.

 

Drew5233 - No not that I can see - we have very limited documentation, but I'll try and see if anyone in the family recalls this.

James Daley - I'm fillimg in the form as we speak so fingers crossed.

Thanks

 

You should be able to ID his unit on his Service Records.

 

The Red Cross records should have his unit on hopefully.

The other thing, there are some details of POW's on Ancestry, I'm not sure what information is on there. Unfortunately I let my Ancestry subscription lapse as I hadn't really been using it that much.

 

Lovely Thx Guys least I have a starting point.

Sent request to Red cross so lets see what happens from here.

Yes I might have to go there and take a look as I have a little more info now than the last time I tried.

Thx again.

 

From Googling:-
The Queen’s battalions formed into two brigades; 131 (Queen’s) Brigade consisted of 1/5th, 1/6th and 1/7th Queen’s and 169 (Queen’s) Brigade was made up of 2/5th, 2/6th and 2/7th Queen’s. All six Territorial battalions fought in France in 1940.
This all points to your father being captured at Dunkirk, although obviously no doubt other Pals will be able to narrow it down. The long march may have been after his capture but more likely to have been at the end of the War when PoW's were moved from their PoW camps in Eastern Germany, Poland etc to keep them out of Russian hands in the dreadful winter months of 1945.
I hope you get a lot more information to fill out what happened to your grandfather

 

Wow, thanks, I'm even more confused now I never realised that there were so many battalions for one regiment.

Would the area he lived in narrow down which battalion ?

 

In peacetime each Regiment had 2 Battalions, and were in the main recruited from their recruiting area as suggested by their name. They also had several Territorial Army Battalions. When war started each Regiment also had a number of hostilities-only Battalions formed, mainly of men called-up for the war only but with some regular NCO's and Officers.

In wartime the recruiting boundaries became more blurred and it was more common for men to join regiments out of their area. In my research into Portsmouth's WW2 dead about 50% of infantrymen were in the local Hampshire Regiment, and 50% were in other Regiments.

 

They were Territorial Army battalions so they would have been associated with an area/town. However, 5th (Guildford etc., see below), 6th (Bermondsey) and 7th (Southwark) battalions were doubled-up just before the war (the originals were renumbered 1/5th, 1/6th & 1/7th; the new battalions being 2/5th, 2/6th and 2/7th who were initially sent to France as a labour force).

For the sake of completeness, the original 5th Battalion sub-units were located at:
Guildford: Battalion (Bn) HQ and C Company (Coy)
Reigate & Dorking: A Coy
Farnham & Camberley: B Coy
Woking & Farncombe/Godalming: D Coy
Haslemere: MG Platoon (Pl)

As the two Regular Army battalions of the Queens (1st & 2nd) were overseas, it's also probable that reservists (recent ex-soldiers) would have gone into the TA battalions.

So, his home may give us a clue, but it won't be 100% reliable because of the rapid expansion of the TA.

 

He lived in deptford in london so both bermondsey and southwark are very close by, maybe I'll try those 1st.

Thx you for all this info - I would never have found all this out myself

 

It's conjecture at this stage but you're mother's memory that 'he was captured on the 1st day of his war' tallies better with the story of 35 Brigade (Bde) - 2/5, 2/6 & 2/7 Queens - than 1/5 & 1/6 in 131 Bde and 1/7 who had been attached to 25 Bde.

The original battalions were front-line troops who moved up into Belgium and had a chance to prepare positions before meeting the enemy. Most were bombed on the move forward so the first days of their wars didn't have much scope for prisoners being taken. In general, these battalions also withdrew in fairly good order after their first defensive battles.

On the other hand, 35 Bde was down by the Somme with a Germany army between it and Dunkirk. They were not as well prepared for battle but were sent forward to the Abbeville area. The move forward was fairly uneventful, given the circumstances. All the battalions had to withdraw in the face of German armour on the first day of their war and mention is made of sub-units being overwhelmed or otherwise left behind.

2/6 or 2/7 Queens look like the safest bet for your grandfather's battalion, though the odds may not be very high.