Introduction
While part of the 51st Highland Division, Ark Force, escaped capture at St Valéry and returned with the reformed 51st Highland Division to continue the war in North Africa and Europe for many their war would continue in captivity for the next five years. Some would escape, some successfully other to be recaptured, others would die in capacity while many would have to endure varying prisoner regimes before finally being repatriated at the end of the war. There are many personal tales to be told and this section of the web site can do no more than shed a little light on some of them.
This map, published in June 1944 by The Red Cross & St.John War Organisation, shows a map of Principle Camps for British & Dominion Prisoners of War in Europe.
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| Map of PoW Camps |
The Prisoner of War Experience : Personal Accounts
Corporal Jack Kidd
In 2007 Jack told his story to Miss Lavina Roe who transcribed them. The accounts listed here come from those transcripts of Jack's story.
Gunner Henry Owens
Henry was persuaded to write down some of his experiences after he retired and his son, Robert Owens, compiled this collection of Henry's own words in November 2001.
These accounts tell a story from Henry's volunteering in 1939, through the capture at St Valery, to life as a PoW and finally the long march back from East Prussia into Germany, from where he was finally repatriated in 1945.
Johnnie Matheson
One of the St.Valery veterans present on Thursday 10th June 2010 when Provost Jimmy Grey of Inverness hosted a reception in the Inverness Town House to honour the veterans was John Matheson (4 SEAFORTH).
In the course of talking with him his companion Barbara loaned me his photograph album. In it I discovered an account of his prisoner of war experience told to the Ross-Shire Journal (November 14,2003). This fascinating account is reproduced here by kind permission of the Ross-Shire Journal along with a number of photographs from the album.
Charles Grant (Website Historian)