My ex husbands father George Altimas was killed after the war ended,he was in Germany,his death certificate said 'killed in action'.
About 10 years I wrote to the War records dept. and they told me he died in Dushorn as an act of violence but no records remained.
My ex has visited his fathers grave in Germany.
We left it at that and researched Georges past life ,he was born into a military family in Belfast.His father John fought in the Sudan conflict 1882-1886,as a member of the Royal Irish Regiment.
A few nights ago I put Dushorn 1945 into my search engine and guess what? I got the records of the 179 Field regiment RA.
On the 1st August 1945 the men of the Regiment were all very sorry to leave Mellendorf, to which we had become very attached, and move to Dushorn to take, over the unpleasant job of the Divisional Artillery, which was the policing of the area of the large D.P. Camp at Fallingbostel, which contained 28,000 persons of all nationalities, mostly Poles. Many of these D.P.'s were law-abiding, but many also were not; those who had no respect for the law caused us a lot of trouble. Their motives were twofold: first, to increase their ration of food by stealing from nearby German farmers, and, secondly, revenging themselves on the Germans for the bad treatment that had been meted out to them in the past when they had been employed as slave labour. Nearly every night there was an “incident” of some sort at one of the lonely farms within 5 to 10 miles of the Camp. One night a pig would be stolen from a farmer, another night would find an old German couple murdered in their bed. To stop this sort of thing was the job of the Regiment for the months of August and September. The method was to patrol the area thoroughly by night, to establish posts at likely points in the area, and in exceptional cases to station pairs of British soldiers in particularly lonely farms. It was in one of the latter situations that Bombardier Altimas was shot dead by a raiding Pole, who in turn was killed by Gunner Entwistle. Gunner Entwistle was awarded a Commander-in-Chief’s Certificate for Gallantry for this action.
As a direct result of this murder, on the 27th September 1945, 3000 British troops carried out a full search of all the rooms, Poles, and their baggage in the camp. The object was to find loot, bicycles and particularly weapons, and to bring the offenders to book. The haul of weapons was very encouraging, and there was a very quiet period just after the search. On November 17th another similar search was carried out, and after that D.P. ‘s gave the men very little further trouble.
About 10 years I wrote to the War records dept. and they told me he died in Dushorn as an act of violence but no records remained.
My ex has visited his fathers grave in Germany.
We left it at that and researched Georges past life ,he was born into a military family in Belfast.His father John fought in the Sudan conflict 1882-1886,as a member of the Royal Irish Regiment.
A few nights ago I put Dushorn 1945 into my search engine and guess what? I got the records of the 179 Field regiment RA.
On the 1st August 1945 the men of the Regiment were all very sorry to leave Mellendorf, to which we had become very attached, and move to Dushorn to take, over the unpleasant job of the Divisional Artillery, which was the policing of the area of the large D.P. Camp at Fallingbostel, which contained 28,000 persons of all nationalities, mostly Poles. Many of these D.P.'s were law-abiding, but many also were not; those who had no respect for the law caused us a lot of trouble. Their motives were twofold: first, to increase their ration of food by stealing from nearby German farmers, and, secondly, revenging themselves on the Germans for the bad treatment that had been meted out to them in the past when they had been employed as slave labour. Nearly every night there was an “incident” of some sort at one of the lonely farms within 5 to 10 miles of the Camp. One night a pig would be stolen from a farmer, another night would find an old German couple murdered in their bed. To stop this sort of thing was the job of the Regiment for the months of August and September. The method was to patrol the area thoroughly by night, to establish posts at likely points in the area, and in exceptional cases to station pairs of British soldiers in particularly lonely farms. It was in one of the latter situations that Bombardier Altimas was shot dead by a raiding Pole, who in turn was killed by Gunner Entwistle. Gunner Entwistle was awarded a Commander-in-Chief’s Certificate for Gallantry for this action.
As a direct result of this murder, on the 27th September 1945, 3000 British troops carried out a full search of all the rooms, Poles, and their baggage in the camp. The object was to find loot, bicycles and particularly weapons, and to bring the offenders to book. The haul of weapons was very encouraging, and there was a very quiet period just after the search. On November 17th another similar search was carried out, and after that D.P. ‘s gave the men very little further trouble.
