Time Spent in the Prisoner of War Camps

At the Battle of Calais, in May 1940, Sergeant Samuel Buck lost his elder brother to the Germans that had surrounded the city. At the same battle he and his good friend, Sergeant Edward Neal, were captured and taken as prisoners of war. This process involved being forcibly marched across Europe to Stalag XX A in what was then called Thorn and now is called Torun, Poland. The two men faced an extremely bleak future ahead of them in captivity but it did not stop them from doing what little they could for the war effort. Prisoners of war were expected to join labour parties and work for their captors but, like many men, they refused to do so. This resulted in them being forcibly marched to a different prison camp, Stalag 383 hundreds of miles away in Bavaria, in 1942. Whilst being marched they did not know what fate awaited them for their disobedience. However, Stalag 383 they found was not too bad a prison camp. It was severely understaffed due to most fit and able men serving on the Soviet front and the governor of the prison camp for these Allied soldiers who refused to work is generally noted as having respected their loyalty to their respective countries (as men from across the Commonwealth found themselves in Stalag 383).

The camp was liberated by the Americans in April 1945 but the autumn and winter of 1944 saw many men die as a result of supply shortages in Germany. Samuel Buck died of a stomach ulcer in September of 1944, never being able to meet his son David; his friend Edward Neal returned to England and married Samuel's widow, Maud Buck, later in 1945.

Having amassed a huge collection of photos whilst in the POW camps (some that were sent to him from England and others that were taken inside the camps), Edward Neal put many of these photos into a scrapbook bound together with string. Photography was not allowed in the camps to prevent intelligence gathering however Sgt. Neal was able to smuggle out hundreds of photos in his tobacco tin, many of which showcase everyday life inside the POW camps.