Heighton, R

, ,

Richard Heighton

Family/Last name:
Heighton
Forename(s) and initial(s):
Richard
Military Unit:
British Army, The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, 1st Battalion (The QOCH)
Place of capture:
Wasquehal
Date of capture:
9/1940
POW number:
6702
Camp
Stalag VIIIB Lamsdorf / Stalag 344
Working Party
E111 Sank Annaberg
Data sources
Other Sources (Relative's report)
View a commemorative certificate for this prisoner

My father Richard Heighton was with the 1st Batt Queens Own Cameron Highlanders France 1940 and was fighting a rearguard action on the Escaut Canal, eventually being overwhelmed by German Storm troops and making a hurried withdrawal. He managed to evade capture along with 2 other Camerons and was taken in by a French family and hidden. Eventually he was captured by the Gestapo in cafe at Wasquehal en route to a Market Garden where they were supposed to be picked up by a Lysander aircraft. My father and only one of the other Camerons L/s A.McInravey were taken to a prison in Loos where they were interrogated(they had long since dumped their uniform for civvies). The date was late Sept 1940 and they were not released into a POW camp until Feb 1941.

The camp was Lamsdorf, Stalag VIIIB.

Dad was part of a working party E111 and spent time working at Sank Annaberg (stone quarry) 12/03/41 until 01/10/42

Then back at Lamsdorf 1st to 5th Oct.

Stephansdorf (loading sugar beet) 05/10/42 to16/12/42.

Ichhhamer (Forestry work)16/12/42 to summer of 43.

Dad kept a day by day diary with the first entry Wed April 23rd 1942 “won this in raffle” and the last entry being Whit Sunday.

Attached is a page from my father’s diary he kept as a pow at Stalag VIIIB as you can see he has named the places and the type of work, only know of two he was part of E496 & E111, the photos are all of the same party I think, dad’s behind the NCO with a moustache. The photo of the Cameron Highlander  is dad before the war around 1935, the two POWs outside the huts are named on the back but I don’t know who’s who. The map shows his journey on the death march taken from a Luftwaffe map he brought back with the town and villages they passed through marked.

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