The Wartime Memories Project - Oflag 79 POW Camp

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Information. Oflag 79 was located at Waggum, Germany. The prisoners were liberated by men of the 9th US Army on the 12th April 1945 Donald Benjamin Burgess was my father. He was British and was captured at Tobruk, in North Africa, during WW11. He ended up in a Prisoner of War camp, Oflag 79, where he became a member of the Braunschweig-Querum Law Society. I am interested in any information about Oflag 79, especially photographs. In the item on your site about Driver Ronald Lewis, the second photo called "Ron Lewis with friends" shows a group of eight men. The person top left is described as "B Winchester", but he has a striking resemblance to my father, and I wonder if this could in fact be him. My Dad, Captian Jack Tonge, passed away in 1983 at the age of 70. He was a pow in Oflag 79 also I have found a photo of my mum sent to him and on the back it has Oflag v111f if you know what that means, he was the Nz div sigs and had a secret radio in the camp where he sent messsages to London. The Gerries suspected there was a seacret radio and searched the room usually the radio was hidden behind a book case but if they heard there was going to be a search they hid it under the floor boards, this day was a supprise search they tore the room apart and the radio was still behind the book case. When they had finished the only thing still intact was the book case on the wall. I have photos of the radio hide. Dad recieved the Military MBE after the war. I would be interested to hear if any of his old friends are still alive. Janice Burlace Tonge My interest in Oflag79 is because of my elder brother, Ronald. He was taken prisoner at Tobruk on the 21st.June 1942 and was transferred to Italy (Campo PG65). After the defection of Italy from the war in late 1943, and a short period of freedom trying to reach allied lines, Ronald was recaptured by the Germans and sent to Oflag 79 in Brunswick, Germany. My brother received "A Wartime Log For British Prisoners" supplied as a gift from the YMCA Switzerland and it is from the pages of this book that I have extracted the following information which may be of interest. Driver Ronald Lewis 2329455 Royal Corps Signals P.O.W No. 1767 Oflag 79 Germany. The log book contains many photos taken in Oflag 79 and I have listed below a few names of Ron's fellow prisoners featured in the photos. B.Winchester, H.Towers, P.Rowbothom, T.Hopwood, D.Joyce, F.Stannard, B.Woods. "Windy"Windridge, Jock Watson, Don Smith, P.Tobin. Taken in Oflag 79 23rd May 1944, L to R back row: B Winchester, H Towers, P Rowbotham, T Hopwood L to R front row: D Joyce, F Stannard, B Woods, R Lewis. When reading the log book, I was particularly impressed by two poems contributed by a Leslie Butterfield. They were titled: "A Desert Rat's Complaint" & "This Place They Call Tobruk". L.Butterfield notes that the latter was discovered by a German soldier after the fall of Tobruk and was thought so good that the German authorities allowed it to be published in the Camp newspaper (P.O.W. Weekly). Sketches from Ron's Log book. A page of the log book My brother (Ronald) is now 83 and as fit as a fiddle! He doesn't have a computer but can be contacted through me, his younger brother. Peter Lewis On January 18 1944, Witheridge, then a captain, was commanding a company of the 8th Battalion Royal Fusiliers which was ordered to attack Point 411 on Monte Damiano, south of Cassino. The company approach was held up by the terraced hillside, with walls eight to 10 ft high, and numerous well-camouflaged enemy machine-gun posts, many of which could not be exactly located. Witheridge went out into open ground and shouted orders to his company, in order to draw the enemy fire and enable his Bren gunners to pinpoint these posts and destroy them. All the posts were eliminated and the company advanced once more and captured the feature. After re-organising his company, which had taken heavy casualties, Witheridge and his men drove off repeated counter-attacks. Four days later, Witheridge led a fighting patrol to deal with German troops which had infiltrated the area around the village of Lorenzo. He arranged his fire plan with considerable skill and accounted for 16 of the enemy and captured two Spandau posts without loss. For his part in establishing the Damiano bridgehead, Witheridge was awarded an immediate MC. Henry James Witheridge was born on January 31 1910, the son of a railway superintendent, at Tufnell Park, north London. He won a scholarship to Bancroft's School, Essex, before joining the Camden Town branch of the Midland Bank in 1927. He subsequently took a degree at the London School of Economics. After the outbreak of war in 1939, Witheridge went to OCTU before being commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers in 1940. He fought with the 2nd Battalion in North Africa and in the Italian campaign with the 8th Battalion. On February 13 1944, Witheridge's battalion arrived at Anzio just in time to deal with the strong counter-attacks that were being mounted by the newly reinforced Germans. In one of these attacks, he was wounded and taken prisoner and sent to Oflag 79 at Braunschweig, near Hanover. The camp was overcrowded, the sanitation primitive and the cold intense; above all, the inmates suffered from a gripping hunger and a feeling of helplessness. Mustered for a roll-call on a cold, wet morning in February 1945, a group of Allied officers decided that something good should come out of the miserable squalor of their existence and the idea of forming a boys' club after the war was born. The club, they decided, would bring a better life to many disadvantaged lads who, they believed, were probably enduring the same sort of privation. A mass meeting of the PoWs was held in a huge attic. There were gaping bomb holes in the roof and an icy wind whistled through the spaces where there had been windows. The prisoners, hungry and dejected, sat huddled in their blankets for warmth while the scheme was outlined to them. Their chairman spoke of the need to do something concrete, the importance of planting a seed that they could watch growing in the post-war world and asked for pledges of several thousand pounds to build and run the club. The audience was not won over until a tough, 6 ft tall paratrooper got up and said that he was a cockney from a slum in the East End of London and that, as a youth, his boys' club had meant everything to him. Promissory notes were written on scraps of paper and a raffle was organised. Prizes underwritten by some of the PoWs included a weekend for two at the Savoy, a year's subscription to Punch and kippers from the Isle of Man. The sum of £11,000 was pledged and, in due course, was honoured in full. Witheridge emerged as a prime mover and scoured the bomb sites of London to find a suitable location for the club before settling on one in Fulham. This was purchased, and the Brunswick Boys' Club was inaugurated by Prince Philip in 1949. Re-named the Brunswick Club and with its membership open to girls, it has become one of the largest youth clubs in the country. In 2000, Prince Philip attended the 50th anniversary. Extract Copyright. The Daily Telegraph Here are some poems written by my father. His name was Lt Douglas Berneville-Claye, he was captured by the Afrika Korps in December 1942 while serving with the SAS behind enemy lines although originally with the West Yorkshire Regiment. The poems were written in Oflag 79 prisoner-of-war camp in late 1944 or early 1945. DOUGLAS’S POEMS Written in Oflag 79, Brunswick, Germany, 1945 TO NINA When tranquillity of mind’s beset by fears, When life seems o’er and yet but little done, Oft-times I think of those much sweeter years Which gave me you, and made we two a one. I think of things which should have been, Of enterprise and life for which I yearned, Then recollect the things we two have seen, And realise how much from you I’ve learned. From war-torn years my character is cut, By its foul stain my future will be ruled, Unless by your tender guidance from the rut, And by your love and faithfulness I’m schooled. O grant me peace when to you I return, Weary, dispirited, bitter and depressed, From empty victory’s slur with shame I turn. Give me new life and lift me up refreshed. TO GRAEME An era passes, toll its parting knell, Look forward, face the future without fear. All that you do, see that you do it well, Hold on to all that England holds so dear. In doubt or danger, fear or trial alone, Let honour guide your thoughts and deeds. This birthright hold, bequeathed you as your own And dedicate your service to its needs. Remember her, who through the war-mad years Nursed you and gave unstintingly her best. Cherish her and guard her from all tears And give her joy of motherhood well blessed. ‘This above all: to thine own self be true And it must follow, as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man’. (Hamlet) ON HOPE Out of the depths of bleak despair, Rising inexorably as the stars at night, Give honour sway! Exquisite, new, emotion rare, Giving new hope and a glimpse of a promised light. We’ll show the way. If victory means a future gain, Peace is the guerdon which governed our sacrifice. Tyranny lose! Let justice be the nation’s aim, Make war-years’ hatred and chaos themselves suffice. Victory’s whose? Enemy see and friends behold, Industry joy, together with faith will fly. Let nothing halt! In harbours safe from hatred’s cold, Where national aims on a communal base rely, Mankind exalt! ON PEACE How can they know, of what their future’s made, Effects of deeds no vision impending gives. On danger’s death, necessity’s heroes fade, An end to war, and naught but poverty lives. What have they seen, whose youth thro’war has fled? Naught recompenses time so wasted, flown. Nothing she does recalls a nation’s dead. How bring them back to peace, who’ve slaughter known? Better to see a nation’s soldiers dead, Than bring them back to help to make a peace Steeped in hatred, to kill as babes they’re bred, Their poisoned influence halts a life’s new lease. Ended is strife! Let nations wreak their will, Learn now the joys that peace alone can give. Let brothers know that love endureth still, Though frontiers sever tongues, let honour live. Margaret Photographs List of Prisoners Lt Bill Bowes (English Test cricketer) Capt. Frank Brown (English Test cricketer) Lt Douglas Berneville-Claye. SAS.Read his story Donald Benjamin Burgess Read his Story Leslie "Pud" Butterfield. E.Caraher Capt Cotterill (New Zeland All Blacks Rugby team) Lt Col Viscount Cranley. Donald Croft Captain Philip John "Pip" Gardner, VC. Royal Tank Regiment Read his story Lt Peter Hillis (actor) T.Hopwood D.Joyce B.Kendrick Harry Lovett R.P.Lawson Ronald Lewis. (Driver) Royal Corps Signals. Read his story Tom S Meehan. 2nd/11th Royal Batallion of the Ludhiana Sikhs Read his story William H Murray Read his story Brigadier John Oldfield P.Rowbothom Douglas Sadler. 7th Armoured Division (Desert Rats) Tommy Sampson CSM Bob Smith Don Smith F.Stannard Captain Denis Swinney. Read his story P.Tobin. Captian Jack Tonge. Nz Signals. Read his story H.Towers Jock Watson B.Winchester Major Harry James "Windy" Witheridge. MC. Royal Fusiliers (City of London) Regiment Read his story B.Woods. If you have a story which you would like to share, or a website dedicated to a POW camp or prisoner of World War Two please get in touch. Send an E-mail to The Wartime Memories Project Links Photographs from Oflag 79 POW Camps Index The Wartime Memories Project is a non profit organisation. This website is run out of our own pockets and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Or by cheque to: PO Box 325, Stockton on Tees, TS20 1XL. Website and ALL Material © Copyright MM - All Rights Reserved