{"id":80971,"date":"2017-04-21T13:47:20","date_gmt":"2017-04-21T13:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=df33cfdb486c5cba50e37966e3b75f4b"},"modified":"2017-04-21T13:47:20","modified_gmt":"2017-04-21T13:47:20","slug":"news-story-grave-of-northumberland-born-world-war-2-prisoner-of-war-finally-rededicated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=80971","title":{"rendered":"News story: Grave of Northumberland born World War 2 prisoner of war finally rededicated"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A new headstone has been installed and a rededication service took place in a moving ceremony on Friday 21 April 2017 at Wittenburg Cemetery, Germany.<\/p>\n

The service, arranged by the MOD<\/abbr>\u2019s Joint Casualty & Compassionate Centre (JCCC<\/abbr>), part of Defence Business Services was led by the Reverend Heather Rendell (Chaplain to the Forces), Regimental Chaplain, HQ Westfalen Garrison.<\/p>\n

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\"(L<\/div>
(L to R) Phil Richards, Alan Culshaw, Major Pat Ralph, Reverend Heather Rendell, Colonel David Moreton, Steve Foster, Cdr Ian Harrop, Bob Jones, Keith Orton, Crown Copyright, All rights reserved<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nicola Nash, JCCC<\/abbr> said:<\/p>\n

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Private Thompson and his comrades were faced with a tortuous march after years of captivity. We are glad to be able to confirm his final resting place and honour him as he so richly deserves.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Private Thompson was born on 4 April 1919 at Tynemouth, Northumberland. Before enlisting, he was recorded as working as a glazier and lived with his sister, Elizabeth, on Penman Street in North Shields. George enlisted on 16 October 1939 and was sent, as a Private, to France on 28 February 1940 as part of the British Expeditionary Force.<\/p>\n

He was reported missing on 19 June 1940 after being captured at Athies, France. His status as a Prisoner of War (POW<\/abbr>) was confirmed a month later.<\/p>\n

Pte Thompson was sent to Stalag XXA, located in Toru\u0144, Poland. He was imprisoned for nearly 5 years, until in early 1945 and with the threat of the advancing Russians, the Germans forced the POWs<\/abbr> to march towards the West. This \u2018Long March\u2019 was a tortuous undertaking for men that were already weakened from years of imprisonment.<\/p>\n

It was one of the worse winters on record, with temperatures dropping as low as -25\u00b0C. The men were without adequate clothing, supplies or medical equipment and were forced to march up to 40 kilometres a day, many succumbed to hypothermia, disease and death. Tragically, George lost his life during this march and having suffered dysentery, he passed away near the town of Wittenburg, Germany on 3 March 1945.<\/p>\n

Private Thompson was just 25 years old when he died.<\/p>\n

\n
\"(L<\/div>
(L to R) Phil Richards, Alan Culshaw, Major Pat Ralph, Reverend Heather Rendell, Colonel David Moreton, Steve Foster, Cdr Ian Harrop, Bob Jones, Keith Orton, Crown Copyright, All rights reserved<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reverend Heather Rendell said:<\/p>\n

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It was a privilege to give a name to the grave of a soldier that died in conditions that should never happen again.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A record of these POWs<\/abbr>, including George, was kept by Staff Sergeant (S\/Sgt<\/abbr>) Aitken of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. He kept a list of each man that died and where they were buried. He also attempted to intervene with the German guards to get better treatment of his men.<\/p>\n

George\u2019s burial place had remained unknown, until the grave of an \u2018Unbekampt Englander Soldat\u2019 (Unknown English Soldier) was found at a civilian cemetery in Wittenburg, where George\u2019s burial place had been listed by S\/Sgt<\/abbr> Aitken.<\/p>\n

This grave was brought to the attention of the Ministry of Defence by researcher, Steve Foster who has spent many years researching the final resting places of the POWs<\/abbr> on S\/Sgt<\/abbr> Aitken\u2019s list.<\/p>\n

After extensive historical research by Mr Foster and the JCCC<\/abbr> into this unknown grave and the circumstances surrounding George\u2019s death, the MOD<\/abbr> have now confirmed that this Unknown Soldier is actually Private George Henry Thompson.<\/p>\n

Steve Foster said:<\/p>\n

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It was an honour to help find the grave of Private Thompson 70 years after he died in dreadful circumstance.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A new headstone bearing Private Thompson\u2019s name has been provided by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, who will now care for his final resting place in perpetuity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The final resting place of Private George Henry Thompson of the Green Howards, Yorkshire Regiment has been identified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80971"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}