Crawley, Winchester, Hampshire (Germans/American base/ post office/ pub- Packard

[lawra]

Hello

I am interested in finding out more about the American base camp based near by Crawley (winchester,hampshire) in WW2 and the German P.O.W detainees who worked around and in the village. I am interested in this because i have recently found pictures of my family with scribbled notes of things like German POW painting Wall and American Joe,jim and dave and me (dolly mixture) --a nickname given to my great nan from Americans because it was the only sweets in the shop at the time. Also a picture labelled German POW making toys for the village children.

I want to try and compile the pictures and get as many names as possible. It seems alot of the pictures seems to go with some 'memory notes' my great nan wrote down when i was a little girl. So if someone could point me in the right direction of what/ where the american bases were and the germans site were i'd be grateful.

My family (surname-Packard) use to own the only village shop/post office during WW2 and managed the Fox & Hound pub (which still exists today as does the shop/postoffice- it is now a house and has been for many years)

Packard (s) were also known to have written to/for the hampshire chronicle and avidly involved in the Crawley Cricket team.

If you lived in Crawley or know about Crawley area from this time please contact.

My family left crawley in the 1950's to Southampton. See below for names;

Daisy Packard nee Evans (known as dolly mixture)
Robert Packard
Pamela Packard
Gwendoline Packard (died between 1935-1945)
Walter George Packard aka george packard
James Packard aka Jim
Charlie Evans (cousin to daisy/nephew stayed till 1953ish in crawley.

The book based on Crawley winchester featues a pic of my family stood outside the shop/postoffice with 2 female employees. i forget names?!


Thanks for taking your  time to look at this

[lawra]

Hi

It's been a while since i worked on this part of my tree for a while and reigniting this post to see if any new root chatters might be able to give me insight?

I've tried googling war bases near crawley,hampshire but to no avail. Does anyone know how i can go about finding out what regiments/type of bases were situated near by (please note this doesnot mean literally just out of crawley as it could have been a good few miles?!)

Really intriguing as since when i last did the post i've come across more pictures of the village and army/pilot WW2 images.

Thanks again for reading this

Laura

[Salty]

Hi Laura,

If you click on this and then scroll right down to the bottom where Winchester comes in you will find that there were at least 3 places in Winchester where the US Army were based, but I cannot find anything about Crawley.

http://www.airfieldinformationexchange.org/community/showthread.php?6828-Army-Camps-Barracks-Hampshire   

Actually not just under Winchester, you need to check all the village and town names around Winchester.
Regards
Tom

[noble1945]

Hi,

you might want to consider that prior to the D-Day invasion american and British units on the follow up waves where in and around the villages. I know this as my grandfathers village Overton had Americans and their equipment where stationed there living out of their trucks and on the following morning June 6th where gone England was divided at Portsmouth to the west Americans to the east British and Canadians.

all the best

[lawra]

Hi thanks for the advice and link. Have found some pics with names of privates scribbled on the back so getting there.