Taken POW

Heroes Remember

Taken POW

Transcript

I ended up, I would say a quarter of a mile away from it and I was up on top of a hill in a little kind of a valley in the top of this hill and I flaked out I guess, went to sleep. Woke up in the morning and there was a German... I suppose, I forget what they called them, anyway he was, he was riding on a bike and he came up to the top of the hill and saw me, he fell of his bike... grabbing for his luger and came up with the luger. Then he...he... down at the bottom of the hill was a German soldier with a rifle. He had two little kids with him. I suppose he was stationed there because of the crash. So anyway, he kicked my rear-end down, till he got me down to him and then he left and the soldier was in charge. When we went on “ops”, they give us a couple of chocolate bars, you know, to last us over the trip. Well, I had these two chocolate bars and I gave them to the two kids and actually they hadn’t seen chocolate for a long time and they were saying, “Chocolate! Chocolate!” and ah... I made their day.

Description

Mr. Fawcett describes his capture and giving his chocolate ration to two children accompanying his captor.

Charlie Fawcett

Mr. Fawcett was born June 15, 1922 and grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He first became interested in planes when his father took him to Regina to go for a ride in one. It was this early interest in aviation that led him to sign up with the air force in 1942. He received gunnery training at Dafoe, SK and from there went overseas in the latter part of 1942. He chose to be a rear gunner as it was the fastest way to get overseas. Once in England he was assigned to an RAF squadron, stationed in Yorkshire, that consisted of an Australian pilot and an all English crew. In 1943, while on a trip to Czechoslovakia, they were shot down over Germany by a Messerschmitt. After bailing out of the aircraft Mr. Fawcett landed in a tree. The following day he was taken prisoner by the Germans. Over the next 2 ½ years he was interned in three different POW camps. Mr. Fawcett remained a POW until the end of the war.

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