Connections: A Family History

George "Georgie" Venables born 4 January 1916, baptised 30 January 1916 at Doncaster Road United Methodist Chapel. He started work on the London North Eastern Railways as a railway checker and lived at 14 Croissgate, Mexborough.

 

During the Second World War, on 13 Feb 1941, Georgie joined the Royal Navy (number 261490).   Georgie joined the crew of HMT Horatio.    Horatio was commissioned on 17 January 1941, carrying the pennant numberT153. Temporary Acting Lieutenant Commander Charles Robertson took command on 24 Jan but apparently was killed in an accident only four days later.  Command was taken up by Acting Lieutenant Commander Henry Silvester Warren on 20 Feb 1941. Around April of the same year, Horatio received a new commanding officer, Temporary Lieutenant Charles Alfred Lemkey, who was to remain the trawler's captain for remainder of its career. The trawler took part in a number of convoys during World War II.

 

On 7 July 1942, Leading Seaman William Harold Leon Simpson RNPS was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for "courage and steadfastness in beating off an attack on H.M.T. Horatio by two groups of three enemy aircraft, destroying one aircraft and seriously damaging another.

 

On 7 January 1943 Horatio was sunk by the German motor torpedo boat S-58 off Cap de Garde, near Bône, Algeria. Two crew members survived the sinking and were captured by the German navy.The full list of 32 sailors lost in the sinking of Horatio was published in the Times on 24 November 1943.[1}

 

The records definitely confirm that he was captured on the high seas in the  Mediterranean Sea in July 1943. He was wounded in the head and leg. This is a copy of the ex-prisoner-of-war questionnaire that he had to fill out.  .​​

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Research on these camp has revealed that Campo 66 (often referred to as Camp 66) was an Italian prisoner-of-war and transit camp located in Capua, Italy, Near Naples.  It was operated primarily as a major transit and holding camp for Allied prisoners of war (including British, South African, New Zealand, and American troops) captured during the North African campaign. When he was recovered he was added to the work gangs and they 

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Camp 52 was another holding camp, little of it remains today. But in the spring of 1943 the prisoners were marched north towards Poland and Germany and ended up at Stalag VIIIB - also known as Königshütte - it was later renamed Stalag 344. {2}.  Under the Geneva Convention, lower-ranking POWs could be forced to work as long as it wasn't directly dangerous or part of the immediate war effort (though this line was frequently blurred). In Königshütte, they were deployed to the local coal mines, heavy industries, and infrastructure networks.  Poor Georgie, joined up for a life on the ocean wave, and here he was, back with railways and coal mining!!

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From April 1944, Georgie was deployed to the Arbeitskommando (Working Party) E749 located at Peiskretscham (now Pyskowice, Poland). E749 typically held a contingent of around 180 to 200 British and Canadian prisoners. The "E" prefix designated an English-speaking camp. Prisoners here were forced into brutal, back-breaking manual labour for the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Reich Railway). Venables's daily life would have consisted of using picks and shovels to excavate ground for bridges and tunnels, laying down heavy steel tracks, and unloading immense amounts of gravel and cement. 

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Like most prisoners in Upper Silesia, Georgis time at Peiskretscham came to a sudden and harsh end in January 1945. As the Soviet Red Army advanced rapidly from the east, the German military evacuated the sub-camps. Georgie and his fellow prisoners were forced out into the sub-zero winter temperatures on what became known as the "Long March" or "Death March" westward into Germany. The prisoners (up tom 80,000 of them)  marched hundreds of miles under-clothed and starving before eventually being liberated by Western Allied forces (typically American or British troops) in April or May 1945 as the war ended.  A very good description can be found here on Wikipedia, {3}

 

Upon his return to England, and an extended stay in hospital he was posted to HMS Victory (the shore based headquarters of the RN.  Some of the questions he was asked in his debrief included:

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• were you lectured in your unit on how to behave in the event if capture?                                            NO

• were you specially interrogated by the enemy?                                        FERRYVILLE, Tunis, indirect questions

• ESCAPES ATTEMPTED. Did you make any attempted or partly successful escapes?                       N/A

• SABOTAGE: Did you do any sabotage or destruction of enemy plant, war material, communications.                      when employed on working parties or during escape?                                                                         N/A

• COLLABORATION: Do you know only British or American personnel who collaborated with the enemy,                  or in any way helped the enemy against other allied prisoners of war?                                                N/A

 

A book containing his story has been written but is now lost - however if that book was published it shouldn't be difficult to obtain. Enquiries are currently underway.  George died 8 Aug. 1987 and is buried in St Margaret Churchyard, Swinton. What stories he could have told.