Buster11 (#8933),
...censored both by the Germans and by the British...
Have mentioned this distasteful (but necessary) chore somewhere. The lads knew all about it, and kept their letters bland, but that didn't make it any more pleasant. Who censored
my mail?
Quis custodiet..? Don't know.
...upper-case script about 1.5mm high...
He would not normally do so. Presumably required by his captors as being easier to read. Same thing on Telegrams at home.
...but I suspect that this was a personal initiative...
And a good one too ! But he was pushing his luck in the questions about "noticing a change" in his handwriting" ! That should have alerted the German Censor, as it did the British. It is no credit to them that they had to enlist the aid of the two ladies to notice what should've been obvious to even a half-witted cryptographer.
...My father was in Oflag Xc, near Lübeck, then Oflag VIB at Warburg and Oflag XXIB at Schubin. From October 1942 until almost the end of the War he was in Stalag Luft III at Sagan,..
You've got me now ! Were there Oflags inside Stalags, as it were, or had all the RAF people been bundled together irrespective of rank ?
...the sketchbooks were lost. Luckily I had previously lent some to Charles Rollings, author of Wire and Worse, which deals with RAF PoWs till 1942, and he had photocopied some watercolours, which I have...
The film producers who did not return the material loaned to them in all good faith should be damned well ashamed of themselves ! All that, and the material you have, should be on permanent loan to the IWM, or the RAF Museum.
Your Father was "a man of many parts", and his war experiences would make a fascinating book in themselves.(Reflect: if you hadn't found us at this late stage, your story (and his) might have died with you (as has Fred's "six weeks dodging the Gestapo" died with him.
Rather an abrupt end - hope there's a lot more to come ! This is exactly what this Thread is "all about".
Danny.