Measures, Derek K
Name: Derek Kenneth MEASURES
Born 6 July 1922
Birthplace: Steyning, Sussex
Age at arrival in Buchenwald: 22
Died 9 December 1992 in Surrey, UK, age 70
Service: Royal Air Force
Service ID: 1320887
Service Rank: Flight Sergeant
Duties: Observer
Air Group: 77 Squsdron
Airbase: Elvington, Yorkshire
Aircraft: Halifax bomber HR949
Date shot down: 20 February 1944
Fate of crew: 5 captured quickly, 2 evaded, one of them captured (Measures).
Evasion summary:
Date captured: 6 April 1944
Capture summary: Denounced by local people while staying with Mrs Arsenie Bezayrie. Imprisoned for 7 days in Amiens, then transferred to Fresnes. Bezayrie was sentenced to a year in a concentration camp but survived the war. An interesting account of his experiences can be found by scrolling down the page at https://gmic.co.uk/topic/67225-my-prisoner-of-war-collection/page/8/#comment-703666
Boxcar Transport: 15-20 August 1944, in boxcar #1 or #3
Buchenwald ID: 78413
Notes on Buchenwald internment:
Transferred from Buchenwald to: Stalag Luft III
Kriege ID: 8107
Notes on SLIII internment:
Subsequent transfer to: Marlag und Milag Nord
Notes on internment: Many POWs including Measures were marched out by the SS in early April 1945, headed to Lubek. The column was attacked repeatedly by Allied aircraft.
Liberation: Those at Lubek were freed by the the 11th British Guards Armored Division on 2 May 1945, but Measures was taken from Lubek by Germans just before liberation and held in a barn overnight, so he was not "liberated" until 3 May 1945. Those POWs remaining at Marlag-Milag were liberated by the British 2nd Army on 2 May 1945, and airlifted to the UK by 15 May 1945.
Repatriation from ETO:
Discharged:
Veteran status:
Notes on Post-War period: From his grandson: He bought a house in Surrey with land where my father started a pig farm. They lived in what became known as "the large house" for a while but sold it and moved to a small cottage on Holmwood Common that is really isolated aside from a couple for neighbours up the same long unmade track. My parents still lived on the farm that my father built on the land but the pig farm (that my grandfather did help with when he wasn't doing his own job) did not pan out and the pigs are long gone. I remember him running a small tie supply business out of his office in his cottage. He also had a small yacht moored at Christchurch on the south coast which I stayed on a few times and was a member of the a Masonic lodge. So to me he had a pretty good life later on but never got rid of the night terrors from the torture in Amies and Fresnes and couldn't visit the dentist due to the gag reflex the Gestapo left him with having attached mains electricity to a kitchen whisk and forced it into his mouth. He sold his medals saying that no one should get them for being involved with killing civilians and I think the guilt stayed with him also.
