James Dennis POW

The picture on the front cover is my great grandad James William Edward Dennis. He was born on February 25th 1926.
He was 13 when the war was declared.

At the Outbreak of War, he was a telegram boy in London during the Blitz.
He suffered a near miss which left him deafened and suffered with a stutter for a considerable time.

He was 18 years old when he went to war in 1944. The picture of him at the bottom right was taken during his training.

James as a telegram boy.

I think he was too young to go to war because he could have died.

He was wounded and taken prisoner on October 28th 1944,
aged just 18 years and 9 months.

The Germans sent him to a Prisoner of War camp, it was called Stalage X1B and his prisoner number was 200084. The pictures below are of the prison camp he was at and the badges he received after the war.

Below is his story that he wrote, in his own words.

Private  JAMES  WILLIAM   EDWARD   DENNIS
                                                                   No. 14495529,  9 Platoon, C. Company
                                                                           7th. Bn. The Hampshire  Regt.
                                                                       Now  The  Royal  Hampshire  Regt.

Date of Birth.     February  25th.  1926
Wounded and taken prisoner on October 28th. 1944
Age.  18   years  and nine  months.
Stalage   X1B
Prisoner No.  200084

On October 27. 1944. in a small village of Mook, on the outskirts of Nijmegen, Holland, I was on stand down until morning, after being on duty all day. The Sergeant called to me saying "Sorry Jim grab your bren gun and come quick". I replied that I was on stand down until morning and then I was told. "There's a flap on". There was a large German Patrol coming through on our front, and we had no patrols out. I said, "I had to empty my pockets". "NO time" the Sergeant said. We picked up my number two, Ken Oaten and a lance corporal. Before going out I spoke to the Sgt. of the six pounder gun and the Bren gunner on the other side of the hedge from where we were going out.

We did make contact with the German's. In fact we came within nine feet of each other. "Jerry", I shouted. They also shouted and all hell let loose. I was hit in the left arm. Right chest by a sub machine gun's bullets. I was laying face down on the ground. The German patrol passed me going towards our lines. Clipped to my belt were a smoke and hand grenade. I threw the hand grenade after the passing patrol, forgetting that the patrol's last man was sweeping their rear. He sprayed me from head to foot on my right side. I could feel the earth hitting my face. Three bullets hit my right thigh and one cut the steel heel clip on my boot.
On their return, the German patrol took one arm apiece and ran towards their lines. The buttons on my overcoat started to come undone, and they soon found that they only had an overcoat. They soon found me again, as our lines were sending up lights. As they were running and dragging me back to their lines I felt no pain. It was like floating on air, and I remember seeing all my family sitting around a fire at home. It was as if I was an onlooker.
When we reached their H.Q. they laid me on a table to wait for interrogation. By now it was two or three o clock in the morning. No attempt was made to dress my wounds. Two German officers had a large book with all of the British Tank and Division signs in it. I was dumb and naive as a British soldier can be on such occasions. Later I was put on a stretcher. Four soldiers carried me at shoulder height through the woods to their dressing station, where I waited for my turn to be dressed.
They cut my clothes from my body to clean my wounds. No anaesthetic was used. I watched them clean and plug my chest wound and saw them put the first stitch in, with a large instrument before I passed out. I came to while they were bandaging my leg with paper bandages. I knew no more until I came to, laying on the floor of a church with the other wounded British and German soldiers.

A Priest gave me the Last Rites. My only thoughts were to get a message home to say that I was O.K. The Priest promised to do this.
I asked for water and a cup of water was placed by my side. As I was wounded in the leg, arm and chest I was unable to help myself to the water. How long I stayed in that church I do not know.
My next memories are of laying in a blanket with four soldiers holding a corner each. They were laughing and tossing me in the blanket on the quayside at Wessel. To get me on board the boat, up the gangplank they came together. That doubled me up in a U fashion, like a bundle of washing. Then I was taken to a lower deck and flung on the floor. I let rip with all the barrack room language that I could muster, until a sgt. in the artillery, in the bunk above my head quietened me down as I would have got us all shot. The boat was mostly full of German wounded.
Later that day we arrived at a hospital in Dorsen, run by Nuns, and I was put into a small room on my own. Until now I have had no food or water and I was in a very poor state.
How long I was in that room I do not know, but when they tried to lift me in bed the bed sheet stuck to my back. They found that I had two small shrapnel wounds stuck in my back and also that my right leg was paralysed.
I was then moved into the main ward with other German soldiers, and one Dutch Guide posing as an American soldier. He informed me that the S.S.soldier, with the leg wound , at the end of the ward , is telling the soldiers around him that he was in the patrol that captured me and that he was wounded and his friend was killed. I shouted with joy. In no time at all a doctor with a gun in his hand and others were around my bed threatening to shoot me.

It was not long before they had me and two others, and a Russian locked in a small room on our own. It was later to hold nine of us.
It was not until the middle of Feb 1945 that I learned my number two Ken Oaten was killed in that action, and is now in Grave No. 15 C1, British Cemetery Jonkersoos, Nijmegen. A bren gunner from my platoon who had been captured and sent to 11B told me.

One afternoon we saw a dogfight between a spitfire and a German fighter through the window of our room. Unfortunatly the spitfire got shot down. Later that night they bought in a Canadian Warrant Officer, who was the pilot of that spitfire. They had to amputate his foot.
Another night they bought in a Canadian Warrant officer with concussion, Two broken bones and he was badly bruised. He was shouting out in french. they told us that he was found in the middle of a field but did'nt know how he had got there. The other Canadian could speak french but could'nt make anything of his ramblings. Later when he was more stable, he told us that he was the rear end charlie in a Wellington and was told to bale out. When he went to get his parachute, which was in the middle of the plane, he found that the tail piece had parted company and he slid out of the end. Falling in space was all that he could remembered until waking up in the hospital.
The food and nursing that we received was the same as that of the German soldiers. The nurses worked up to eighteen hours a day. We were locked in the room twenty four hours a day and got on well with each other, except the French Canadian. He was bad tempered and did not fit in. the room soon became full. Nine altogether including an merican airman who was badly burnt from the waist up.

Most days there were air raids and they took the German wounded down into the cellers. We stayed in our room on the second floor. they had ack ack guns close to the hospital. This day they must have upset the bombers as they started to drop ten ton tessies. I have been through air raids in London, where we were bombed out, and raids in Southampton but the noise that those ten tonners made was like a lot of woman and children screaming. It was terrifying to the point that you were laying in the bed with only a sheet to cover your head for protection. We had a few broken windows but no one was hurt except the American who got under the bed on the floor. Since he could not use the top part of his body he could'nt get up again. We soon got our spirits back again. We were all convinced that we would be home for Christmas.

One morning they told us that they were going to send us onto a prison camp. They got a lorry and laid straw on the floor, and laid eight of us head to feet on the floor, with one guard on the tailpiece. The Russian was left behind. We Traveled all day without food or water and arrived at a warehouse in Hamm, nr. Dortmund, which they used as a prison hospital. We were put on the third floor with French and Belgian P.O.W.s . They were very good to us and helped us to settle down to prison life. The food was the normal 1 1/2 inch thick black bread which was very hard to swallow, one small cup of thin soup, three small potatoes, one cup of beechnut coffee and if you were lucky, you got one spoonful of sugar a week and a piece of cheese made from coal, the size of a ten pence piece.

The doctor was a massive man. He was a Czech. a vet in his homeland, but a gentle giant who did vanishing tricks with coins.The P.O.W.s there had been P.O.W.s for four years and one Frenchman took poison in order to qualify for repatriation. For one whole week he lay there moaning and the stomach was getting bigger and bigger. After a night of screaming, he died.

Just before Christmas we could hear the guns at Aachen. We thought this is it. The guns were getting louder and we thought that we would be home before Christmas. Then it become quieter. the Germans passed a book around showing their tanks breaking through Aachen.
In January 1945 they said that they were moving us to a Brittish P.O.W. camp. the day we moved they gave us one slice of bread 1 1/2 inch thick and German sausage 1 1/2 inch thick. One days ration. there was snow on the ground and we had to walk to the railway station. I could barely walk ten yards. My clothes had been washed. the shirt and jacket were cut from the neck down and the left arm to the cuff. It was done up with three pins. The trousers were cut up the right leg and also done up with pins. I had no boots or socks. they found me a pair of old boots without heels. the right boot was cut from the toe to the laces. It was not the ideal situation to face a winter in a P.O.W. camp.