Hibbard, T P

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Private Thomas Percival Hibbard

Family/Last name:
Hibbard
Forename(s) and initial(s):
Thomas Percival
Place of birth:
Birmingham
Date of birth:
12/2/1904
Service number:
5723189
Military Unit:
British Army, Dorsetshire Regiment, 2nd Battalion (Dorsets)
Rank when captured:
Private
Place of capture:
Dunkirk
POW number:
9946
Camp
Stalag VIIIB Lamsdorf / Stalag 344
Data sources
The National Archives (UK)Other Sources (Relative's report? + 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

Private Thomas Hibbard was captured in Dunkirk in the region of the Albert Canal. His army number was 5723189. He was in the Dorsetshire regiment. POW number 9946. I understand he worked in the salt mines He was one of the first to be captured and last to be released.

At Aldershot on the outbreak of war, the 2nd Dorsets were the first of the Regiment to go to war.  Sent to France with the 2nd Division, they spent the phoney war training on the Belgian border and moved into Belgium when the Germans invaded the Low Countries on 10th May 1940.

With the French Army collapsing on their right flank, the British Expeditionary Force conducted a fighting retreat past Brussels and Tournai.  At Festubert on 25th May they were ordered to stand and fight to enable other units to escape.  Holding positions on the Albert Canal over the next three days they beat off attack after attack by a greatly superior German force and losing 40 killed, 110 wounded and 158 taken prisoner.  On the night of 27th/28th May their Commanding Officer, Colonel Stephenson, assembled his 245 survivors (plus 40 men from other units) and personally led them to safety on a long march across the German advance, across canals and occupied country.  Colonel Steve did not relax until he had shepherded his men to Dunkirk and seen them safely aboard a ship back to England. Thomas Hibbard, of course, was not among them.

German Troops Crossing The Albert Canal

German Troops Crossing The Albert Canal

[Source not given]

Editor’s Note: Private Hibbard’s WO416 German Record Card states place of capture as Béthune,

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