Stanley Gordon Ramsey was born on the 25th January 1919. He lived at 64 George Potts Street, South Shields. He enlisted on the 1st of December 1939: "He didn't have to enlist as he was a skilled man, a joiner and could have been on reserved occupation". He was sent to Boulogne in early 1940. "His job was to drive the lorries and the motorbikes. This was the period of the"phoney war". He said it was total confusion they were left to fend for themselves, they weren't getting any food, the uniform was inadequate, they were running round in circles, they had about four bullets, it was complete disorder." "He was a good looking man he dated the daughter of a cafe owner in France so he got better rations. She later sent him letters in the POW camp." "He was bored one day and he said, 'Bugger this, I'm going to Le Touquet.' So he jumped on his motorcycle and went and looked around Le Touquet." He took the Royal West Kent's into action as part of the British Expeditionary Force in France. They first went to Cléry but were met with German tanks whilst they had rifles and an old 1914 Lewis gun which jammed. He managed to escape on the last lorry leaving Cléry. They retreated and went to Albert a small market town in northern France with a classic French market square. The lorries were parked around the market square. Stanley was at the front of the lorries in the corner near a ditch. "He heard a Panzer tank roaring really like you see in films and it came into this classic French square. The barrel of the tank just swung around and the noise was like a little hymn, they just put a line of tracer's right across the square. He said they killed nearly everybody he dived into a ditch so he survived. But he said he heard the lads screaming for their mam." Stanley and some of the other soldier escaped to a nearby field. A sergeant had his leg blown off because of the bombing, Stanley strapped him on a door and they hid on a farm but the sergeant died the next day. Stanley was then taken prisoner on the 20th May 1940 and forced ...