RootsChat.Com

I have just discovered this fascinating discussion. My late father was taken a prisoner of war in 1942. He was an Ordinary Telegraphist serving in the Royal Navy on HMS Sikh. When it was blown out if the water at Tobruk in September 1942, he was taken POW by the Italians and my understanding is that he was there for about six months until he and some of his fellow POWs were exchanged for Italian POWs. Going through his papers, I found a letter from the Red Cross about his capture dated 1942, and three postcards he sent to his parents from the camp. The details on the cards allowed me to identify his camp, the compound in which he was kept (Comp. 3) and brought me to this interesting forum. My father’s memories of this time were naturally not happy, and he rarely spoke of it - although latterly I did manage to get him to make a voice recording of his memories for me. I believe food was extremely short for the prisoners and the guards. I still have the spoon dad made from wire and the lid from a food tin. I am very excited to be able to identify, via this forum, the actual location of where he spent those years. I will share the four documents here (when I have compressed them!) in case they may be of interest to the other contributors.