POW Sgt P J Bemrose

[andy j]

In my research into my fathers time spent in Bomber Command (raf-bombercommand - Home) I have attempted to trace the surviving member of the crew who were shot down over Hamblin 8th Oct 1943 in Lancaster Bomber ED 995 PH-X
This plane carried my father through his complete first tour ( 30 operations) in the summer of 1943.
The only surviving member of the crew was Sgt P J Bemrose who was imprisoned in the POW camp at Muhlberg, Stalag IVB.
During the time spent a Stalag IVB he joined a group of men headed up by Tom Swallow to form the Muhlberg Motor Club and produced monthly magazines on all things motoring with everything handwritten and hand-DRAWN in vegetable inks, ink from lamp-black and soot etc)
Each edition was circulated around the camp from May 1944 to March 1945.
P J Bemrose’s contributions were poems and landscape drawings one being titled The Awakening. It’s the view from the childhood bedroom of P.J. Bemrose, and is a view of the Wye Valley.
This view kept Tom Swallow going through four years of captivity when he first saw the original drawing, and after the war - and onother fifteen years of searching on every family holiday he could afford - he finally located the house with that view out of the top bedroom window and bought it to later retire to!
Many of these monthly magazines have been produced in a book Memories Of The Open Road by Tom Swallow and Arthur H Pill
If anyone has information on St P J Bemrose please contact me andy@raf-bombercommand.co.uk