Smeeth, L J

,

Corporal Leslie John Smeeth

Family/Last name:
Smeeth
Forename(s) and initial(s):
Leslie John
Nationality:
British
Service number:
6400997
Military Unit:
British Army, Royal Sussex Regiment
Rank when captured:
Corporal
Camp
Stalag VIIIA Görlitz, Stalag VIIIB Lamsdorf / Stalag 344, Stalag XIB Fallingbostel
Data sources
Other Sources (Relative's Report)
View a commemorative certificate for this prisoner

From: Nigel Smeeth  

Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 

Subject: POW information

Corporal Leslie John Smeeth, Royal Sussex Regiment, D Company, Service number 6400997.

I have a huge document (over 106 A4 pages), photographs, documents and many other artefacts relating to my father’s time as a member of the Royal Sussex Regiment in the time leading up to the war, and his time as a POW from May 1940 until the end of the war.

From his diaries and notes it appears that he spent some time at Stalag VIIIA, Stalag VIIIB and Stalag XIB.  He was also a member of a number of working parties including E51, E13253 and E108.

Amazingly he kept a diary and collected all sorts of items and documents and he managed to bring everything home with him when he was repatriated in April 1945.  

During his lifetime we were unaware of much connected with his WWII service and his time as a POW, but at the age of 80 he decided to unearth most of what he brought home and record his experiences.

After his death in 2008, at the age of 90, more documents came to light and two appendices were added to his original reflections.  A copy is help by the Royal Sussex Regiment archive maintained at the County Record Office, West Sussex County Council, Chichester.  Details are, I believe, also held by the National Archive (although his name is incorrectly spelt at Lesley John Smeeth!). 

Unfortunately the three documents are very large (over 120Mb in total) and so it has not been possible to upload them.  They are currently in PDF format.  It should be possible to copy them to a CD or DVD. 

 

 

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