Official POW correspondence, sent by Frank Craig to his parents from Stalag VIII B, 14 October 1940, front [image 1 of 2]
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Official POW correspondence, sent by Frank Craig to his parents from Stalag VIII B, 14 October 1940, inside [image 2 of 2]

Description

In a similar vein to official army correspondence, British and American POWs held by Germany were allocated official notepaper on which to write to their families. This correspondence was of course scrutinised by the German censor before it was sent. This is one such piece of mail sent by Frank Craig to his parents in Waun Wen in Swansea, from Stalag VIII B. Doris Craig joined the ATS in December 1940. Her first posting was to Bournemouth, where she started out doing clerical work, but went on to assemble 'suitcase packs' for the French Resistance, which contained radio transmitters and receivers, power packs and spare parts. She met Barnes-Wallis, and shook him by the hand. Her husband, Frank Craig, had been captured at Dunquerque, and spent three years in POW camps, initially the notorious Stalag VIII B, where he very nearly starved. In 1943 he was repatriated on health grounds as he suffered from asthma, and was sent to Croydon to retrain as an electrical technician. There he met Doris, and they married on Christmas Day 1944.

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