Luck's Favours - Two South African Second World War Memoirs: Cyril Crompton, For the Adventure of It; Peter Johnson, On the run in wartime Italy

摘要

The last of the Commonwealth's First World War veterans havernpassed on and the number of Second World War veterans is steadily diminishing. As a consequence of this, we are losing a knowledge resource of the war. Some veterans leave diaries or written accounts, but most experiences will be lost forever. Oral history programmes can capture memories but the material so garnered is accessible to but few and, as Echoing Green Press have discovered, a considerable amount of work is needed to turn oral history into readable history. Fortunately, in this book they have succeeded at a difficult task. It is all the more important because, over the years, there have very few accounts of South African prisoners of war. Largely as a result of the battle of Sidi Rezegh and the fall of Tobruk, 14 583 South Africans became prisoners of war. Cyril Crompton was captured at Sidi Rezegh and Peter Johnson was taken at Tobruk.