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Auction: 23112 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 625

'Another campaign is over,
another battle won,
no more do we hear the cannon,
beneath the African sun.

But do not let this victory,
dazzle too much our eyes,
and make us forget our comrades,
who now in Africa lie.

Those men with whom we soldiered,
in blood and sweat and toil,
must stay now forever,
enriching African soil.

Each one a bit of England,
and so they will remain,
never to be forgotten,
until we meet again.'

A tribute to his fallen comrades by a soldier of the 2nd Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment, as penned in May 1943 in the P.O.W. notebook kept by Lance-Corporal A. G. Phypers at Campo P.G. 66 in Italy

A well-documented Second World War campaign group of three awarded to Lance-Corporal A. G. Phypers, 2nd Battalion, The Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment, who was taken P.O.W. in North Africa

1939-45 Star; Africa Star; War Medal 1939-45, together with wartime regimental cap badge and his metal P.O.W. identity disc, extremely fine (5)

Albert George Phypers was born in Ware, Hertfordshire on 17 February 1915 and enlisted in the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment in June 1940.

Drafted to the 2nd Battalion and embarked for the Middle East in March 1943, he was taken P.O.W. in Tunisia on 13 April 1943; WO 417/62, refers.

On that date, the Battalion carried out a costly assault on Point 344 near Djebel Aoud, and 'B' and 'C' Companies 'were violently counter-attacked and suffered heavily. By the evening the Battalion had lost about 234 men'; The Story of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment, Volume II, 1914-1958, refers.

Initially interned in Italy - at P.G. 66 at Capua and P.G. 53 at Macerata - Phypers was transferred to Stalag IV-B at Muhlberg in Saxony in September 1943, from whence he was employed at a working camp at Reinsdorf, until his liberation in April 1945.

He died in Ware, Hertfordshire on 11 April 2006.

Sold with a large quantity of original documentation and photographs, including the recipient's Soldier's Service and Pay Books (2); his demob pass and rail tickets; a German language manual with camp stamps to front page; handwritten camp news sheet - 'The Wired World'; National Registration Card, with enclosed returned P.O.W. slip; a selection of British Red Cross Society and Order of St. John parcel content slips; around 20 photographs, a dozen of them scenes from his P.O.W. camp, including German personnel, and his P.O.W.'s notebook, containing a number of poetic entries, often of a poignant nature and written in captivity in Italy and Germany.

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Estimate
£200 to £300

Starting price
£140