The story of John Searancke's parents, told mostly from the side of his father, Eddie Searancke, from the time of his calling up in early 1940 to his release from a prisoner of war camp in Germany in 1945, thence his
return to England to try to pick up the pieces of his old life.
Nothing could ever be quite the same afterwards
When a cache of letters, written by my father to my mother during the years of World War 2 eventually came in to my possession, I concluded that I should share some of them with a wider audience. In between a selection of those letters is traced the story of his life over those five long war years.
It fascinated me to learn of the day to day life of an enlisted man – and later officer – as the war progressed to its inevitable conclusion, though finally without him as he languished behind the wire in a POW camp in Germany after having been captured on the battlefields of Normandy. And so his story has finally been written.
This is a watercolour painting of part
of my father’s POW camp in Germany, Oflag 79. The painting was done by a
prisoner, and my father brought it back to England on his release. It shows a
skater in winter, skating across what looks like a frozen pond, but which is,
in reality, a bomb crater. The Americans bombed the camp in error, thinking
that it was the nearby Goering aircraft engine factory! They scored 7 direct
hits and killed some 51 people. What an example of friendly fire!
John Searancke
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About the Author
John Searancke was born in 1943, a war baby, and lived in Ashby de la Zouch, an old market town in Leicestershire before attending Rugby School. After working at a firm of solicitors he managed a country hotel.and a commercial legal services company. He now lives in Tenerife and his exploits in Tenerife became his first book, Dog Days In The Fortunate Islands: A new life in hidden Tenerife. Find out more about John Searancke and his books at Rukia Publishing at Meet The Author Book Showcase and visit John's author website
www.johnsearancke.com. Youi can also find John on Twitter @johnsearancke
Great blog :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting :)
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