3388112 Private Edward Duncan Walker,

4th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment.

Walker lived at 1, Keith St., Burnley, Lancashire.

His record of service was from 16 October 1939 to 3 March 1946.

He was captured by the Germans at Dunkirk, when he was part of the rear guard action to hold back the Germans whilst the Allies made their evacuation. He was then marched and transported east across Europe, eventually to be held at the Stalag VIIIB prisoner of war camp at Lamsdorf/Opole in eastern Poland. His Gefangenennummer there was 12050. He was held there until the Russians advanced in 1945 and the Germans then forced the prisoners on a long march west to Germany. The march started in 22 January 1945 through snow and freezing conditions, getting frostbite along the way, but surviving arriving at the final destination Oflag IX camp Zeigenheim in Germany, a 600 mile journey. Not long after the Allies freed them and he was flown back to England. He was in a bad state and the army sent him to Clatterbridge Hospital on the Wirral to recover.

He hardly spoke about this time, but when he died 8 April 1990, we found a postcard in his wallet, on which he had scribbled a log of the forced march.

Postcard Not Sent- by his son Duncan Walker.

I held the postcard gently knowing how close I was to my father, as close as ever in his life. It was as if I was with him in that dreadful time, when his freedom had been brutally ripped from him and was told what to do. I know this was the worst that could happen, to be strapped to someone's leash. On the front, was a picture of a German hotel, looking just like a holiday postcard, but on the back, was a neat log of a painful journey. A forced march from a POW camp, Stalag VIIIB in Poland, driven by the Germans, fleeing from the advancing Russians. In my father's strong neat hand an entry for each day with a number of kms walked, place at the end of each day, and miscellaneous comment - ½ loaf, no rations, frostbite, slept in barn. The card was full of entries, 38 days, from Monday January 22nd to Tuesday March 6th, 1945 - 588 kms, 16 to 34 kms per day staying odd days at places along the way Gorhitz, Bautzen, Lazaret, Kamenz, Konigbruck, Radeberg, Meissen, Lommatzsch, Dobeln, Leisnig, Bad Lausick, Deutzen, Zeitze, Koni..haff, Steu..nitz. I gently caressed this card, soft with age. I guess it must have been in his breast pocket. It suggested why he couldn't share his past with us. But now at this age where I see death ahead I am drawn to and understand this relic of pain and aloneness, which formed his life. At the side of the road, huddled in the snow he gazed at the hotel on the card and snatched a short stay, a fleeting visit to sounds and feelings remote from all this. And that is where I am going right now to find this place, check in and be with him, where sheets are soft and meals are served in summer sun and fresh mountain breeze.

Edward Duncan Walker

Courtesy of Duncan Walker