Story of Private Alec George Blakeman
Creators: name: Project Team, Their Finest Hour
Publisher: name: University of Oxford
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 430304
subject: British history
classificationCode: 430308
subject: European history (excl. British, classical Greek and Roman)
classificationCode: 430316
subject: International history

description: The interviewee's father, Alec George Blakeman, was born in Cowley and served in Oxf &amp; Bucks Light Infantry 1939. He was captured at Dunkirk, and spent five and half years in Silesia, now Poland. The only thing he brought back from war was a tin (pictured) which the interviewee finds spooky. It contains a POW tag is STAG VIIIB, then changed to 344, and what he thinks was Blakeman's WWII cap badge.Blakeman marched back and escaped, as a lot did. He linked up with Americans. Having been a PoW for over 5 years, he obtained a reasonable grasp of German so was used as an interpreter. On liberation, the Americans overfed him and made him very ill, having eaten turnips, etc. He was generally better fed than others as he was supervised by Polish guards, and was a young, fit guy in his early twenties. The interviewee thinks he got better food than some others did.The interviewee wondered if he had joined Territorial Army, but determined it was in fact straight Oxf Bucks. The battalion is unknown. At the time of joining, he was twenty, and was working for the Co-Op (as a grocer). He volunteered to join up straight away at the Cowley Barracks; he was born very close to the barracks. He couldn't go home but could almost see his house. He went off straight away, and was captured in June, before his twenty-first birthday; his birthday was 11 June 1918 .He was captured at 'Cassel', 5 miles from Dunkirk or a bit more than that; he was captured in the town. He was not wounded, and surrendered there. Little was said, but they were surrounded; since so many were captured, the order was just to surrender.Blakeman escaped on the march, on the way. He was hungry. He did say that it was the time to escape easily because people were dropping, including guards. He didn't think the guards would shoot them. Lots of the guards were impressed Poles, and he had an affection for them because they treated him well. He was found by the advancing Americans. As the Americans were capturing Germans and releasing Allied prisoners, they used Blakeman as a translator. He was over-fed by the Americans and when got back to UK, he was taken to Roehampton in Surrey to a rehabilitation hospital and was there for a while, a matter of weeks.After Roehampton, he became a PE instructor in Bicester and went on to be a professional footballer. He was still a fit person despite his experience. He was not demobbed straight away but in early 1946 (the interviewee thinks). He played football for Oxford City - and broke scoring records - and in 1947, signed for Brentford. He played for them for two years, then Bournemouth and Sheffield United. He came to football when 26, and missed his best years.Regarding members of his battalion, he only mentioned the people he joined up with (who are in the attached photo). A dozen had been at school together since the age of five, and joined up with him; two of his close friends were killed in Cassel.He never spoke about his experience at all until in his seventies when he joined local British Legion, who 'drew it out of him'. He just wanted to forget all about it.The amount told to his son about the defence was almost zero. The interviewee finds this sad, and wishes he had known more, but he wouldn't talk about it. Even when he went to British Legion, and played a game of snooker, he might start talking with some of the men, but if his son started talking about it, he would 'clam up'.The interviewee stated that his mother served in Operations - Movements as a WAAF at RAF St. Mawgan for four years. At eighteen, she could have gone into service or could have joined up. As Blakeman was her fiancé, and had been captured, she wanted to do her bit. (Blakeman married Joyce Beck in April 1946)Of the photo in Newquay when Blakeman had just come back from captivity, the interviewee said it doesn't look too bad. On the back of photo, it states he is eighteen, but he is over twenty. (N.B. Newquay is close to RAF St. Mawgan in Cornwall. St. Mawgan had been a base for maritime anti-submarine patrol aircraft).His grandfather fought in Great War, in the Oxf &amp; Bucks then in the Cyclist Corps as a messenger in Gallipoli, and then in the Home Guard in WWII. (Grandfather was 1806 L/Cpl Alec George Blakeman. He also served in Salonika Force).