James, D G

,

Derek George James

Family/Last name:
James
Forename(s) and initial(s):
Derek George
Place of birth:
Knowle, Bristol
Date of birth:
9/1921
Nationality:
British
Military Unit:
British Army, Commando
Place of capture:
Dieppe
Date of capture:
19/8/1942
Camp
Stalag VIIIB Lamsdorf / Stalag 344
Data sources
Other Sources (Relative’s report)
View a commemorative certificate for this prisoner

Information provided by Philip James.

My father was captured at Berneval-le-Grand (near Dieppe) in August 1942 and ended up in Stalag VIIIB until early 1945. He was a Bombadier – a Bren machine gunner in No 3 Commando. Born in Knowle, Bristol in September 1921, he ‘celebrated’ his 21st birthday at Stalag VIIIB.

He was, for obvious reasons, nicknamed “Jimmy”. He made friends at the camp with James (aka Jimmy) Malloy, from London, who eventually became best man at my father’s wedding in 1949. They escaped together for the last time in 1945 and after sheltering at the top of a barn for three days while a German battalion occupied the ground floor, they were almost shot by the advancing American army. It took several months to be repatriated, eventually to a holding camp in Burnham Beeches, Buckinghamshire for several weeks.

My father attended Cotham Grammar School and upon leaving, aged 16, became an estimating clerk at Mardon Son & Hall, a printing company and part of Imperial Tobacco in Bristol, a job he returned to after the war. My grandfather, Harold Arthur James (who had been a Captain in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment during WWI), also worked all his life at Mardon’s.

My father joined the TA (Artillery) at Whiteladies Road, Bristol in 1938 and when the war broke out he was posted to an anti-aircraft battery near Portbury (near Easton-in-Gordano). Bored, he answered the call for volunteers to join a new ‘hush-hush’ unit and had to make his own way to Largs in Scotland by a specified date for training in what turned out to be the Army Commandos. He took part in the raid on Vaagso, Norway in December 1941.

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