Shaw, Alexander

,

Private Alexander Thomas (Snowy) Shaw

Family/Last name:
Shaw
Forename(s) and initial(s):
Alexander Thomas (Snowy)
Place of birth:
Hamilton, New Zealand
Date of birth:
8/10/1910
Nationality:
New Zealand
Service number:
8512
Military Unit:
New Zealand Army (2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force), 20th Battalion (NZ)
Rank when captured:
Private
Place of capture:
Belhamid/Sidi Rezigh, Libya
Date of capture:
1/12/1941
POW number:
30295
Camp
PG 57 Grupignano, PG 148 Pol di Pastrengo / Bussolengo, Stalag VIIA Moosburg, Stalag 357 Thorn, Stalag XID Oerbke / Fallingbostel
Data sources
Archives New ZealandOther Sources (Relative's report)
View a commemorative certificate for this prisoner

From Lynnette Grayden (nee Shaw) 04/01/2025

Data sources: NZ Defence Records list dates and camps, There are no letters to family after April 44. The army seem to have lost track of Alex between April/May 44 and August 44 when he turned up at Fallingbostal. They were aware he was meant to go to Stalag 357 and inserted THORN POLAND into his service record. Later they told his family that THORN was closed and he had been located at Fallingbostal. He only ever told me (through gritted teeth) he was a VIIIB and closed the subject.

A card signed by Mr Burdekin of the NZ RED CROSS (dated 19/5/44) to Corporal Alex Shaw acknowledging change of tobacco is on record. I believe this was Alex’s way of letting family know he was still alive and Mr Burdekin made record of the contact.

Private letters to family in New Zealand. Limited oral information from POW. Family letters and memorabilia (telegrams etc.)

Comments made to myself (daughter).

Extra details: He was not liberated at Stalag 357 Fallingbostal. Prisoners were marched out of camp in groups. Early in April 1945, before ‘opening the gates’ (?) and leaving their prisoners, a guard told the prisoners ‘the Russians are that way, the British that way, we are going that way’ (to the British 8th Army).

Prisoners and guards made their own way towards British lines. Alex and an Aussie he was with(??) ‘found a bicycle’ they purloined [took possession of]. The Aussie suggested, as ex-farmers, they help a German woman struggling with a cow. He refused to help the ‘bloody hun’.

Back in England he spent 2 weeks in the NZ hospital wing (Puttick Wing to Hargest Wing Margate). Army Telegram dated 30/5/45 to his mother read SAFE IN UK but unfortunately she had passed in August 1944 thinking her son was lost. Family relate how wonderful it was when he came home.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SITE AND THE OPPORTUNITY TO ADD MY FATHER’S NAME TO YOUR ONLINE MEMORIAL
Lynn Grayden

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