Soldier:	Lew F. Kemp
Date:	17th, 18th and 19th september 1944
Location:	Sicily, Italy, Holland
Unit:	156th Battalion Parachute Regiment

Prisoner of war
I joined the parachute regiment 156th Batalion after service in Sicily and Italy 1943. In september 1944 I parachuted into Holland in a field called the Ginkelse Heide. Our pilot was an american chap who dropped of us in a corner of the field near to where German forces were located in the dense forrest, which of course we were not aware of.

After 3 days and nights fighting the rest of the battalion tried to make it's way to Oosterbeek and I stayed behind, hiding in a hollow, to block the Germans from following the battalion. German mortars were firing at my friend John Jones and myslef. I took a piece of shrapnel in the ankle and was wounded and taken prisoner. In Apeldoorn, we were put into cattle pens then into railtrucks to Frankfurt, then onto 11b at Fallingbostell. I became a POW (Prisoner of War)

I was in Germany during the winter and spring of 1944/45. A winter with little food and even less clothes. After the war was over I returned home when I got my strength back the posted me to Trest in Italy on the Yugoslav border against Teto.

Lew Kemp

Personal Photographs


Shoulder patch showing Bellerophon on the winged horse Pegasus, combined with the Latin slogan:
"ad unum omnes" which means "To a man" they form the symbol of the British Airborne Forces.



Lew Kemp, being one of the original Red Devils, was proud of his uniform....

A picture of Stalag 11 B camp in Fallingbostel.

A postcard date 20-10-1944. Lew send it home to his mother from the stalag 11 B camp in Fallingbostel where he was held as POW.