CHILDS – Private Albert – Return from the War
Return from the War: Private Albert Childs
Last month, I included an item about VE day in Leigh May 1945 and quoted an article from the Tonbridge Free Press of 18 May 1945. However, in that edition, there was also another remarkable story about a Leigh resident to remind everyone what the war had been about
Tonbridge Free Press Friday 18 May 1945
LEIGH
Returned P.O.W. One evening recently Private Albert Childs (1st Battalion Highland Light Infantry), of Lower Green, walked home from Tonbridge to greet his mother and brother. This was the fortunate ending of a long journey which commenced in a prisoner of war camp at Ulzen and included a flight from the Continent in a Dakota plane. Prior to joining up in October 1941, Private Childs was a baker’s roundsman. Landing in Normandy on June 25, 1944 he was wounded in both legs by a grenade and was taken prisoner and sent to a Dutch hospital, where life was not too bad, as the Dutch nurses could not do enough for their patients. The treatment in a German hospital, to which Private Childs was transferred, was of a very different character. On recovering he was moved to P.O.W. Camp 11B and then to Ulzen, where he was employed with a working party on repairing railroads. He was liberated by the 15th Scottish Division on April 19.
A little additional information that I have been able to glean on-line is that there was an Albert Childs, pte, number 3422, British, located at Fallingbostel, in Lower Saxony, where Stalag 11B was situated (see Allied Prisoner of War Registers at Ancestry.com). The Uelzen camp mentioned above was again in Lower Saxony and to where he must then been transferred. It was a satellite camp of Neuengamme concentration camp until 17 April 1945.
A little background to the Childs family: in 1911 they were living at Finch Green, Chiddingstone. In 1921 the family had moved to Foster Farm, Upper Haysden, with father Arthur William aged 64 working as a farm labourer for Mr Hammond. Annie Childs (née Ford), his son Arthur Edward (b. 1901), George (b. 1904) and daughter Elizabeth (b. 1911) were living there, too. By the time of the 1939 Register (Findmypast), Albert Frank had been born (in 1922) and the family were at Lower Green: Annie Childs was by then a widow, living with her son, George born in 1904 and Albert Frank born in 1922. This is where Albert made for on his trek home.
Joyce Field (Parish Magazine June 2025)