Home World War Two Stories from the War Soldier – Wise, William James – POW On Way Back From Germany

Soldier – Wise, William James – POW On Way Back From Germany

October 1943

South Yorkshire Times, October 23rd 1943

On Way Back From Germany

Goldthorpe Prisoner of War

Among the British prisoners of war being repatriated from German prison camps by way of Gothenburg, Sweden, is L/Cpl. William James Wise, of 78, Probert Avenue, Goldthorpe, 52-year-old veteran of two wars, wounded and taken prisoner in France in 1940.

Mrs. Wise received news of her husband’s homecoming from the authorities on Wednesday morning. Remarking that it was the best news she had heard, as she had never expected to see her husband before the end of the war, she told a “Times” reporter that her husband joined the R.A.M.C. at Easter, 1940, and within a few days of landing was wounded by flying shrapnel which resulted in paralysis to the right side of his face, and he was taken prisoner at Boulogne.  He was taken to hospital in Germany, and later transferred to Stalag XXId.

L/Cpl. Wise served in the last war in France, until he was demobilised in 1919. He came from his native Reading to Goldthorpe 22 years ago and worked for a long time at Barnburgh Main Colliery, then as an A.R.P. worker, until he volunteered. Keenly interested in football, he trained the Comrades’ Club football team at one time, and is very well known in Goldthorpe. L/Cpl. and Mrs. Wise have an adopted daughter.