Brockhill, L
Lance Corporal Leslie (Bill) Brockhill
From: David and Lynn MacCuish
23rd October 2017
Leslie “Bill” Brockhill, POW No 33747 was a POW from 1942/3 till 1945.
He was in the following working parties (in chronological order) E479, E543, E411 (Hohenzollerngrube Beuthen coal mine). We are not sure of the length of time spent in each working party.
In the last working party, there was an explosion in the mine, in late 1944. According to Leslie no-one apart from himself survived. He had a severely fractured femur. He was only rescued because a German officer was down the mine inspecting conditions. He was taken to a hospital at Schmorkau which we believe was staffed by nuns. A German doctor put him on a train to Dresden to go to a hospital there. The hospital backed onto the main railway sidings in Dresden.
On the night of the blanket bombing of Dresden he managed to escape from the hospital, which was destroyed, and spent 3 days in a ditch. He only survived due to the kindness of a German housewife who supplied him with food and water till he was picked up.
He talked about the huge fires and intense heat, melting tarmac and the large number of deaths. The bodies were picked up in carts for days afterwards.
He did survive the rest of the war despite his injuries, sadly, only to find his mother had died 3 weeks before he made it home.
We have attached a photo of Leslie “Bill” Brockhill .
Re the attached photo: on the original it says:
“Ivy Garth, Charlestown, Baildon – L/Cpl Leslie Brockhill, POW Germany – Baildon”
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