The real Stalag Xlll

Stalag 13 was on the outskirts of Hammelburg, about 50 miles (80 km) east of Frankfurt. During World War I, the camp was used to house Allied prisoners of war. In the summer of 1940, the southern end of the camp was prepared for prisoners of war from the enlisted ranks. The camp was called Stammlager XIII C, or Stalag XIII C for short, and wooden barracks were built to house POWs of a variety of nationalities.

Map of location of Stalag 13

Stalag XlllC

 

The first to arrive were the Dutch, Belgian and French soldiers captured during the Blitzkrieg invasion of France in 1940.  In 1941, Serbian, Polish and Russian soldiers joined them after battles on the eastern front; the Serbians arrived in the spring, and the Russians in the summer.  Some of the British, Australian (over 8000) and other Commonwealth soldiers captured in the fighting in Crete in 1941 also ended up in the camp.  

One of them was my Uncle Eddie. Edward John Clark had signed up when he was 28 and was living with his parents in a home built by his father and named after his mother "Lillian".

Edward John Clark

Initially he did his training at Greta in NSW and was shipped overseas after only 2 months with the 2/1 Survey Regiment. (the survey regiments went looking for the enemy).   That was on 23rd September 1940.  On 4th Nov 1940 he disembarked at Palestine and then marched to Egypt.  On 26th April 1941 he set sail with his regiment to Crete.

On 12th June 1941 he was reported missing in action, so my grandparents would have received that telegram and been very fearful for his life.  Then on 11th November the same year he is reported as a POW in Stalag 13C.  The Australians were captured in Crete, airlifted to Italy, then packed into trains and traveled to Hammelburg in what was then Bavaria.   The family must not have been notified until later as my father enlisted in  August 1942, and received a postcard from his family at Christmas 1943 telling him that his brother had been found as a POW.

Front of postcard  (Edward front 2nd from left)

1943 postcard back

By early April of 1945, the Americans had crossed the Rhine and were within 80 miles of Hammelburg. General Patton ordered a special armored task force to go deep behind the German lines and free the prisoners in Oflag/Stalag 13.The men of Task Force Baum, as it was called, ran into heavy resistance coming in but they reached the camp on March 24, 1945.  What a relief it must have been to the men who were starving by then, without the red cross who supplied food and clothing the men in the camp may have perished.  After returning to Australia the POW's raised money for the red cross to thank them for everything they had done for them.

Uncle Eddie's Red Cross Card

On 22nd May 1945 my uncle arrived in the UK "recovered POW" having spent at least 4 years in the camp.  In the UK the POW's were fed, clothed and hopefully recovered somewhat.  He set sail for Australia on June 11th, and arrived in Sydney on 27th July 1945.  He was not discharged from the army until 28th September "at own request on compassionate grounds", but this was amended in November 1945 to "being medically unfit for further military service".  By this time he was 34 years of age.

My Uncle Eddie lived in Toongabbie after he married, and had three children.  He lived to age 69 dying on 24th May 1981.