4968431 Sgt Harry RICHARDSON, 8th Battalion Sherwood Foresters: POW, Norway 1940

I am new to this forum and this is my first post. I am trying to find out any information or photos of my Grandfather.
4968431 Sgt Harry Richardson, 8th Battalion Sherwood Foresters. Captured Norway 1940, Transferred to Stalag XB Sandbostel and then on to Stalag VIIIb 344 Lambsdorf, Then in 1945 on one of the death Marches.
I believe he finally caught a train from Prague to Brussels and then home. His tag from Sandbostel reads 39725 XB. I do not have anything from Lambsdorf other than some old family photos that were sewn onto either letters or postcards and mailed to Stalag VIIIb 344.
Any information or leads would be gratefully appreciated.

 

Welcome, a small piece of info to start, from the casualty lists he was reported as missing on 23/4/1940.

 

Hi,

Welcome to the forum.

You ought to apply to Swiss Red Cross 19th May 2025 for a copy of the information held in their files via this link -

Requests for information about people held during Spanish Civil War or Second World War: Quarterly limit reached

Check the site promptly at the given opening time and a pop up online application form will be visible. Complete and submit the form speedily as the application window can close within 90 minutes due to the limit being reached.

It’s a free service and you can expect a reply by email within 3 months (you’ve missed today’s enquiry window). You may be lucky and get a copy of the capture card postcard he completed on arrival at his first camp. The Red Cross document you will receive should list all the main camps where he was detained but doesn’t usually record any work camps.

Please post any photos.

I posted a query on the forum 10+ years ago about a relative wounded and captured with Scots Guards in Norway who passed through Stalag XB en route Lamsdorf.

Due to the power of the internet I received a message on the forum last year from the grandson of an Australian POW captured on Crete. He had recorded in his POW diary that in May 1943 he had escaped from a Lamsdorf work camp in the Sudetenland with my relative and 4 others - corroborated by post liberation POW questionnaires. He had seen my post and went on to share some POW photos of my relative I hadn’t seen previously.

You should also check Ancestry for his post liberation POW questionnaire.

Steve

EDIT TO ADD

You might want to order these German POW documents - that state he was captured 27/4/1940 at Oslo - from UK National Archives - includes his photo

Name: Harry Richardson . Date of Birth: 27/11/1906 . Place of Birth: Worksop . ... | The National Archives

 

Thank you

 

Thank you very much, I will do that.

 

my grandad was at the same camp and on a death march , i have some original photos of some of the guys at the camp maybe harry is amongst them do you have a picture of him and ill take a look?

kind regards
mark

 

Hi,

Welcome to the forum.

As MarkRicha3407 hasn’t visited the forum since January I’ve sent him a message to alert him to your post. I can’t guarantee he will respond.

Steve