EL Parker
Hi to Sarah and everyone else on this hunt !
Sarah - ref Grandad Parker as a POW...I suspect the book/list of POWs you were looking at was 'POWs of the British Army - 1939 to 1945' pub by Hayward. In it an EL Parker is listed as a Gunner (meb of Royal Artillery) - Army # 900773 - POW camp was Stalag 8B & POW # as 55136 (given to him by Germans).
If the family story is that he served with an Armoured Unit in N Africa, he was probably a member of an Artillery unit attached to an Armoured (tank) Brigade or Division. The two main contenders are probably 7th Armoured Division or 6th Armoured Division. The former fought all the way fm Egypt to Tunisia, while the latter only fought in Tunisia.
As for Upavon - this is a small village on the N edge of Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England. Upavon was formally RAF Upavon, one of the first military airfields in the UK. There might have been an army camp there during the war, but I have no details. The place is still a military base to this day, now housing various bits of the Adjutant General's Directorate.
Hope these bit help
Roddy de Normann
|