"On the 17th May 1942, I joined the S.S. Earlston as A.B. at Glasgow. About the 27th May 1942 we left Glasgow and arrived in Iceland on 1st June 1942. We left Iceland on or about the 27th June 1942 bound for Russia. On the 1st July 1942 we were attacked by enemy aircraft and these attacks continued off and on until 5th July, when our ship was sunk by bombs and torpedo. The skipper Captain Stenwick was taken onboard one of four submarines, which surfaced close to the sinking ship. The rest of the crew were in one lifeboat, and after ten days at sea, landed at North Cape, Norway. The remaining men were captured soon after landing and were taken by land and sea to a prison ship at Oslo and later to Aalborg, Denmark. We were later taken by stages to Marlag and Milag Prisoner of War camp arriving there by the end of August 1942". (War Crimes Files National Archives Kew. Extracts sourced from British and German documents).

29th April 1945: Liberation of Stalag XB Sandbostel Germany:

On the 29th of April 1945, members of the Irish Guards led by Lieutenant John Gorman were involved in the liberation of Stalag XB Sandbostel (Film Extract: Imperial War Museum): Sandbostel is also where Irish born British merchant seamen were held from 1941-1942: Former Ulster Unionist MP Sir John Gorman, spoke of witnessing the "barbarous" treatment of prisoners at Sandbostel concentration camp. Sir John recalled "We were trying to do something to keep some of the dying people alive."A hole had been dug to put dead bodies in. "The people running the camp behaved in a barbarous way". By the end of the war, more than 313,000 prisoners from around the world had passed through the camp complex of Stalag XB Sandbostel. Their treatment was regulated by international treaties, but systematic violations were common. The Wehrmacht denied the Soviet soldiers any protection under international law. Thousands of them died of hunger and diseases, the exact number, is not known. In April 1945, about 9,500 prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp, which had been evacuated shortly before, and some subcamps in the Bremen area arrived at Sandbostel. Despite the desperate efforts of the International Prisoner of War Resistance Committee to help the concentration camp prisoners in the days before liberation, thousands died of disease, exhaustion, and direct violence at the hands of the guards. The British Army liberated 14,000 POWs and 7,000 concentration camp prisoners on April 29, 1945. The soldiers found catastrophic conditions, especially in the area where the concentration camp prisoners were housed. After the liberation, the British Royal Army Medical Corps, (No 10 (British) Casualty Clearing Station), tried to help the liberated concentration camp prisoners, but more than 500 concentration camp prisoners still died of exhaustion, emaciation, and infectious diseases. The dead were initially buried in mass graves around the camp. These graves were opened between 1954 and 1956.