Bryant, H C

,

Private Howard Clifford Bryant

Family/Last name:
Bryant
Forename(s) and initial(s):
Howard Clifford
Place of birth:
Dudley, Worcestershire
Date of birth:
6/2/1919
Service number:
5387461
Military Unit:
British Army, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
Rank when captured:
Private
Place of capture:
Cassels
POW number:
10170
Camp
Stalag VIIIB Lamsdorf / Stalag 344
Data sources
The National Archives (UK)Other Sources (Relative's report + WO392 POW lists + WO416 records transcribed by and held at the UK National Archives. Data processed and prepared by Rick Catt and Brian Cooper)
View a commemorative certificate for this prisoner

My father Howard Clifford Bryant was born in Dudley in 1919 and served with The Bucks and Oxon Light Infantry and captured at the beginning of the war.

He is top left in the first photo which has a stamp Stalag VIIIB Gepruft: Nr 40, and on the left of the second photo which says on the back August 1945.

His prisoner number was 10170. He would have loved your website,

Karen Mckenna

From: The Research Panel, The Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum

To: Mrs Karen McKenna 15/01/2016

Private 5387461 Howard Clifford Bryant
4th (Territorial) Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Royal Engineers
6th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment

Dear Mrs McKenna,
Thank you for your enquiry about your father, Private Howard Clifford Bryant. Our archives at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum do not hold the precise details of individual soldiers’ service records, but by virtue of the Regimental Chronicles and War Diaries of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, and the Prisoners of War Records, which we hold, we are able to piece together where Private Bryant served, was captured and made a prisoner of war.
As Private Bryant was still an enlisted soldier after 1921, his individual service record is still with the MOD. It may be possible for you to access his Record of Service by contacting the Army Personnel Centre, who will supply copies of any documents they hold, for a fee, to the next-of-kin of deceased soldiers.
The Army Personnel Centre
Historical Disclosures
Mail Point 555
Kentigern House
65 Brown Street
Glasgow
G2 8EX.

Howard Clifford Bryant was born in Dudley, Staffordshire on 06/02/1919. His mother’s maiden name was Evans. We believe that he died in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire in December 1991, at the age of seventy-two.
.
He enlisted in 1939 into the TA with the 4th Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, known as the “Oxfords”. Like many young men at that time, he saw war coming and joined a Territorial Army unit. After mobilisation on the declaration of war, the 4th Battalion assembled on 14/09/1939 on Greenham Common south of Newbury for formal training and integration with the other regiments in the brigade. The Battalion departed for France on 18/01/1940 with the British Expeditionary Force, as part of 145 Brigade, 48th (South Midland) Division. Once in France, some battlefield training and exercises took place, but a great deal of time was wasted in building concrete blockhouses and anti-tank ditches to extend the Gort defensive Line on the Belgian border.

On 10th May….refer to Related Post “Soldiers of Oxfordshire” for further information leading up to the capture of Howard Clifford Bryant.

Private Bryant found himself incarcerated in Lamsdorf POW camp, Lambinowice today in modern Poland. He would have been roughly marched, trucked and entrained overland to Lamsdorf, and given the POW No.10110. The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Part II Orders “Y” List dated 1/10/1940 records Private 5387461 H C Bryant of the 4th Battalion as previously reported “missing” now reported POW.

After the end of the war, our records indicate that Private Bryant was transferred to the Royal Engineers on 23/08/1945, and then the 6th Battalion, the Northamptonshire Regiment in September that year. We have no records of his service from that time, but it may be possible to acquire them from the Army Personnel Centre as mentioned earlier.

Private Bryant would have been entitled to the following campaign medals: 1939-45 Star and the 1939-45 War Medal.

As you will be aware, your father married Joyce L. Bangay in Aylesbury in the registration period January-March 1947.

We are attaching a copy of a narrative of the defence of Cassel drawn up for a battlefield tour, some maps showing the attack by 6th Panzer, a photograph of Cassel, some pages from the 4th Battalion Regimental Chronicle of the time with a first-hand narrative of the action, a copy of the 1940-part II Record of 4th Battalion soldiers declared as POWs and some images of the Lamsdorf POW camp.

 

Editor’s Note: Private Bryant is mentioned on the POW record for George Charlton:

 

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