After being captured, Sidney remained in the transit camp on Crete for five months before being moved to a permanent camp.  Eventually he was allowed to receive post from home while he was in the transit camp.

When it was time for Sidney to be moved to a more permanent camp in Germany, Sidney was shipped from Crete to Greece and then he was moved on to Atheneum Greece to Salonika.  While he and the rest of the prisoners were in Salonika, Sidney mentioned that the beds in which they were given were full of bed bugs.  To try and prevent them they used to stand the beds in tins that were full of petrol.  After Salonika Sidney and the other prisoners were piled into cattle trucks and were transported to Silesia via Vienna on the trans-continental railway.  There were about 40 people in each truck and apart from straw on the floor; there was nothing else in the trucks.  Every so often the prisoners were allowed off the trucks in order to go to the toilet.

Sidney arrived at Stalag VIIIB at Lamsdorf just before Christmas 1941 and he sent his family the following postcard


After this postcard, I don't have any letters or postcards from Sidney until the 26th June 1942, when he writes to his parents

Dear Mum & Dad,
Had 2 letters this week - Mother (3-7-42) and Barbara (8-7-42) and my 3rd big Parcel this time it was from you. Thank you very much. In my Sept parcel please send me Belt and Braces & some leather soles & heels for my shoes. Please send plenty of toothpaste & another brush. I went out of camp for the first time on Friday we went into the woods 2 or 3 miles from camp to collect fuel for the Barrack Room stove it was a very nice change, although I would soon have been in Crookrise or Bolton Woods. Love - Sidney.

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