Frank Denham was born in 1915, he was in the Territory Army in the Northumberland Hussars and was mobilised at the start of the war. The regiment went to Greece first and the Germans pushed them all the way through Greece into Crete where he was involved in heavy fighting. He was evacuated to "Libya in North Africa and while fighting in the desert, near a place called Knightsbridge that was surrounded by tanks he was captured, he was then taken to Italy where he went into a transit camp in June 1942 and then onto another camp and unlike the officers, the soldiers had to work and he worked on a farm." In about September 1943, he was no longer detained by the Italians as a POW but was still "on the run from the Germans". The Italians gave him food and shelter and in early 1944 he went to Milan and was with the partisans and then on to Switzerland where he was then repatriated back to England. Frank spent about one year on the run from the Germans and as a consequence he was interviewed by MI9, (Military Intelligence) his son Trevor has these interview papers. In 1946 he was also awarded a medal for helping save a mother and her two children. Another relative: "Robert Shirley, he was in the Merchant Navy. He was only 20 and he was on board the Hartlebury when it sailed on PQ 17. The ship was sunk and when the order was given from the admiralty for the Royal Navy ships to, well for the Royal Navy ships to leave the convoy to its fate really, because they thought the Tirpitz was going to come out. The Royal Navy left them basically unescorted and they were just picked off by U-boats and dive bombers. And unfortunately, my Uncle Robert, who obviously I never ever met, died on that convoy." Trevor then talks of his wife's side of the family about the five Trosh Brothers from 5 Dacre Street, Laygate, South Shields who all were in the armed forces in World War 2: "Louis Albert, Harry, Matthew, Norman Valentine, and Gren all served at some capacity during the Second World War." Harry Trosh was a driver carrying mortars up ...