Click photo to enlarge
Clockwise from top left: The young George Pepperell in
uniform. George Pepperell composes a letter to his beloved,
in this composite image sent home to Elsie Newman. Mr and
Mrs Pepperell out together years later. George Pepperell
and Elsie Newman cut the cake on their wedding day.
Darling, don't wait. For those Allied soldiers who
were captured early in World War 2, one of the few freedoms
they had behind the barbed wire of a Nazi prison camp was the
freedom to release their beloved from bonds of affection.
Pam Jones recalls her uncle's war years.
When George Pepperell left New Zealand's shores in 1940 to
help defeat the Germans he probably never imagined he'd spend
nearly four years living under their thumb.
But, after a year training at Burnham Military Camp and in
Egypt, he found himself in Crete and "in the bag", as they
called it, a prisoner of war on a bitter journey to the "hell
camp" in Germany called Stalag VIIIB.
Captured after the Battle
of Crete, George and thousands of other Allied prisoners
suffered months of maltreatment and uncertainty - herded into
makeshift camps, having to cope with hunger and lack of
hygiene, and finally travelling by cattle truck to POW camps
all over Europe.
Only then were they recognised as official prisoners of war
and given numbers. Information about their capture and
location was sent to next of kin in their home country.
The news would have been bitter-sweet for his family in
Rahotu, in south Taranaki, who had already received a
telegram in May 1941 listing George as missing in action,
whereabouts unknown.
And, back in Middlemarch, Otago, George's girlfriend Elsie
Newman had three of her letters to her sweetheart returned to
her, marked, "Missing, return to sender".
It took five months for a second telegram to arrive: George
was no longer missing, but at Stalag VIIIB, Lamsdorf, Germany
- POW number 7963.
George Pep, as his friends knew him, had already written many
letters to his family, and the woman he intended to marry. It
was while he was training at Burnham they announced their
engagement.
On a ship to the Middle East, he killed time socking it out
in bouts of army boxing, eventually winning a cup as ship
champ, and in Egypt he remained in good spirits before being
sent to Crete.
But now came nearly four years of postcards and lettercards,
censored by the guards of Nazi Germany. Sometimes, George's
writing was positive and showed characteristic backbone and
humour. Other times, his words were written in despair.
Elsie and George, my mother's late aunty and uncle, had met
while she was working at Kawarau Station, near Cromwell, and
he was working around Bannockburn. That was before their
old-fashioned Central Otago courtship was interrupted by a
call-up to war.
It's not known what happened to the letters Elsie wrote to
her tall, rugged beloved during the time he was away. But,
she kept the letters he wrote back to her in a marbled
cardboard box, along with other mementoes and snapshots of
what the war meant to the country boy turned soldier and his
betrothed.
There were maps of POW camp locations around Europe and
instructions on how to send parcels to prisoners, a plastic
bag of black armbands and photos of "old cobbers", a faded
paybook with a picture of a family member killed during the
war pasted inside.
Taking up to six months to arrive in Middlemarch, his letters
are a glimpse into what he experienced as a captive soldier
and the loss he and Elsie suffered as a couple.
