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Ex-Berliner Harry Brooke (Heinz Brück) was posted to No.76 Camp, Merrythought Camp, Calthwaite in Cumberland (now Cumbria). It was part of a group of POW camps in the north of England which came under Northern Command and constituted the furthest north of all the German POW camps. Brooke had been parachuted into Normandy just hours before D-Day with the 8th Parachute Battalion of the 6th Airborne Division. ‘When I was dropped into France,’ he commented, ‘in the early hours of D-Day, half of my Parachute Regiment did not survive to see freedom and live a full life. They did not make it to the ground alive. I was lucky and survived.’ When the fighting was over, Harry returned from Germany to a military base in Tilshead, Salisbury Plain. He was called into the CO’s office because the army was looking for interpreters to deal with the influx of Germans being held in camps across Britain. (continued)

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