This is a letter that was sent by June Baker, aged 13, to her brother Dennis (my father) in a German POW camp. The letter was shown to me by my father about 10 years ago and I inherited it, along with other WWII photos and paperwork, when he died in 2017.
Dennis was in Bomber Command and his aircraft was shot down over Germany on 2 December 1942. Six of the eight crew survived and become POWs. They were moved around various camps over the next three or so years, however, the Red Cross were able to get parcels and letters to the POWs during this time.
This letter was sent in early 1945, but by the time it reached Germany, Dennis had been moved out of Stalag 357 Fallingbostel. He was on what became known as the Long March as the POWs were forced to march north, away from the Allied advance, in appalling conditions. Somehow, the letter was found by the Allied forces and returned to June, but Dennis’s family in Thame had no way of knowing where he was, or even if he was still alive.
The POWs were eventually freed when Hitler committed suicide on 30th April and the German officer in charge of the POWs surrendered to an RAF officer. The advancing US Army met up with the POW group shortly afterwards. Dennis was flown back to the UK a couple of days later and on VE Day was on a train back to the family home in Thame, seeing “all the beacons that had been lit on the hilltops”.
