Edward Carracher

A series of rather rambling mss. recollections (36pp), written in 1982, covering his service as a Corporal temporarily attached to the RAOC during the campaigns in Greece and Crete (February-May 1941), his escape from Crete (June 1941), his command of the anti-tank platoon of the 2nd Battalion Highland Light Infantry (5th Indian Division) during the Battle of the Cauldron in North Africa and capture a few weeks later (June 1942) and his experiences as a prisoner of war at four different Stalags in Germany from late 1943 until his escape to the American lines in spring 1945. With these reminiscences are a number of related documents written during the Second World War, notably a very vivid ms. letter (18pp) written by Carracher in June 1941 describing the fighting on Crete up to its surrender and his subsequent hazardous voyage across the Mediterranean on a barge to the Allied lines in North Africa.

Unrestricted

Edward Carracher was born in Scotland in January 1914, but spent some of his early years in Kent before enlisting in the Highland Light Infantry in January 1936. Between that time and the outbreak of the Second World War he saw service on the North West Frontier and in Palestine with the 2nd Battalion and in 1939-40 would appear to have been an instructor at Maryhill Barracks in Glasgow before rejoining his Battalion in the Middle East. In February 1941 Corporal Carracher was ordered from Egypt to Greece with a detachment of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and was attached to the Inspecting Officer of Ammunition whose headquarters were in Athens. He served through the campaigns in Greece and Crete, escaping capture on both occasions, and subsequently returned to his Battalion, a unit in the 5th Indian Division, with whom he served in the Western Desert until his capture on 27-28 June 1942. Carracher spent a year as a prisoner of war in Italy and escaped, but was soon recaptured by the Germans, when Italy surrendered in September 1943. From that time until his final successful escape in the spring of 1945, he was a prisoner of war in camps Stalag VIIA at Moosburg, Stalag VIIIB Lamsdorf, Stalag VIIIB Teschen and Stalag VIIIA at Gorlitz and was employed with working parties in coalmines. Carracher was invalided out of the Army in November 1945.