Arthur Edwin Harvey

Well, I've been down the family tree rabbit-hole once more, initially trying to track down one of my Southall clan, specifically by grandad's brother, John Edgar. Having had mixed success thus far, I diverted my focus from the First World War to The Second World War, and to the Harvey side of the family, specifically my Uncle Arthur: my dad's second eldest brother. As I've noted before, he served latterly in Operation Market Garden with the 1st Airborne Division (gliders) and was fortunate enough to avoid getting killed, although unfortunate enough to subsequently spend the rest of the war as a POW.

This much everyone in the family knew, but no more than that, as Arthur never spoke a word of what had happened, even decades after his demobilisation. I was astonished to stumble upon - whilst browsing through Ancestry hints and search returns, this afternoon - his returning POW questionnaire, in his own hand, dated 19th May, 1945, part two of the form being marked as Top Secret and so subject to The Official Secrets Act. Obviously, that restriction was relieved on the documents' recent public release, and in any case, part two of Arthur's declaration reveals nothing of any substance.

What is of interest, particularly to me as his nephew, and the family in general, is part one,  in which he details the places of his incarceration between being captured by the German forces in the second week of October 1944, after the failure of the Allied operation at Arnhem, and his liberation in the second week of May, 1945. He was held in three different camps: Stalag XIIA, from the 10th to the 22nd October 1944; Stalag IVB, from the 28th October until the 10th November, 1944; and finally, at Stalag IVC, Lager 51, from the 18th November, 1944 until the 9th of May, 1945. Some of the early dates were stated by him to be approximate, but I would guess the day of his liberation would have been pretty firm in his mind.

This last camp was a work-camp, where he was forced to engage in coal mining, a far cry from his pre-war work as a skilled machinist. That he said little about these experiences, let alone the horror of the mayhem of Operation Market Garden which led to his capture, postwar, even to his closest family, speaks legions: personal trauma, loyalty, humility, duty, and the sparing of kith and kin from the realities of war, would all have been factors. A gentle man - a gentleman - who left the war behind him to raise his son, my cousin Richard, and live a decent and good life, with my Aunt Bet. Top bloke, my uncle Arthur.