Gregory, R W

,

Sergeant Robert Warren (Bob) Gregory

Family/Last name:
Gregory
Forename(s) and initial(s):
Robert Warren (Bob)
Nationality:
Canada
Military Unit:
Canadian Army, Royal Regiment of Canada
Rank when captured:
Sergeant
Place of capture:
Dieppe
Date of capture:
19/8/1942
Camp
Stalag VIIIB Teschen / Stalag VIIID
Data sources
Other Sources (Relative’s report)
View a commemorative certificate for this prisoner

Information provided by Norm and Lynn Talbot

My wife’s uncle Robert Warren Gregory was a POW at Stalag VIIIB. I did not see his name on the list but I do understand that you have a few more.

You may be interested in the following from my genealogy record of ‘Uncle’ Bob.

“A sergeant in the Royal Regiment of Canada, Bob, at the age of 24, one of 1874 Canadians taken prisoner by the Germans at Dieppe, captured on the beaches during the World War II Allied landing at Dieppe, France on August 19, 1942. He was held prisoner at Stalag VIIIB. Located at Teschen, in Silesia, it was the largest of all Nazi camps for British soldiers with 30,668 British prisoners of war, and 1,560 Canadians in the fall of 1943.

This plumber’s apprentice was described by his friends as unselfish and with a high sense of honour. The burly, dark-haired, smiling Bob Gregory was a natural leader. Bob was one of the three (non-commissioned officers) “Men of Confidence” (as they were called by representatives of Switzerland and the International Red Cross) who during their captivity, stood “between the Canadian captives and their Nazi guards”. Sergeant Robert Gregory, together with Company Sergeant Major John Farnington Garswood of the Essex Scottish Regiment from Windsor and Sergeant Norman Pender, Royal Canadian Engineers, from Weston, Ontario, the other natural leaders, was devoted to increasing the food ration, and cooking it to obtain the greatest nutritional value. The three men were responsible for arranging concerts, pleading for outdoor exercise fields and indoor recreation rooms, for sports equipment, playing cards, books – anything to keep minds occupied and bleak days filled. Their complaints were responsible for many examples of improved treatment of prisoners in work camps, and for improvements to unsafe and unsanitary conditions, especially for the work gangs in mines, mills, quarries and factories.

Bob had a penchant for languages – thus learning German, French, Icelandic…during his early career.

(Above information gleaned from an article in August 12, 1944 Liberty magazine entitled “The Three Sergeants of Stalag VIIIB” by Captain Kim Beattie.)”

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