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Número del objetoM2019/057:003
DescripciónPhotograph of the Gym staff at 17 Primary Training Centre, G.S.C. in 1942. Corporal Harry Wigglesworth is pictured in the back row, second from the right. Harry Wigglesworth served in the British Army from 1939-1946. He was an instructor at a training camp in England from 1941-1943. He went on to serve in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany, and was part of the British forces who liberated Bergen Belsen concentration camp on 15 April 1945.
Pictured are: (back row) CPL. R. Davies, L/CPL. F. Lovett, CPL. J. Assirati, CPL. H. Wigglesworth, CPL. L. Buckingham, (front row) CPL. O. Watsham, Q.M.S.I. F. Wood, 2nd LT. H. Firth, CPL. S. Carter.
Harry was born 6 July 1916 in Leeds, Yorkshire County, England, to Thomas Henry and Mary Ellen Wigglesworth. Harry and his brother Harold joined the Army Reserves just before war broke out in August 1939. He volunteered to join a transport division as a dispatch rider. At end of 1941, Harry was sent to a training battalion as an instructor of an army camp in Wiltshire. In 1943 he joined an armoured division that experimented with new tanks, during which time he was badly injured in a motorbike accident. After recovering he was transferred to a light accac division in the Allied 21st Army Group, a combined British-Canadian unit including the British 11th Armoured Division. He arrived in Normandy and his group was attached to the 5th Tank Division of the Canadian army. It was his job to supply the tanks with ammunition and petrol.
When they came to Bergen-Belsen Harry recalls the “terrible smell,” which lingered in the air around the clock. “I saw all the ovens, all the skeletons, all the piles of bodies, I saw all that.” Harry recalls of his experience “We’d just done six years of war; we thought we’d seen everything. I had nightmares for over two years when I got home. Terrible.”
Pictured are: (back row) CPL. R. Davies, L/CPL. F. Lovett, CPL. J. Assirati, CPL. H. Wigglesworth, CPL. L. Buckingham, (front row) CPL. O. Watsham, Q.M.S.I. F. Wood, 2nd LT. H. Firth, CPL. S. Carter.
Harry was born 6 July 1916 in Leeds, Yorkshire County, England, to Thomas Henry and Mary Ellen Wigglesworth. Harry and his brother Harold joined the Army Reserves just before war broke out in August 1939. He volunteered to join a transport division as a dispatch rider. At end of 1941, Harry was sent to a training battalion as an instructor of an army camp in Wiltshire. In 1943 he joined an armoured division that experimented with new tanks, during which time he was badly injured in a motorbike accident. After recovering he was transferred to a light accac division in the Allied 21st Army Group, a combined British-Canadian unit including the British 11th Armoured Division. He arrived in Normandy and his group was attached to the 5th Tank Division of the Canadian army. It was his job to supply the tanks with ammunition and petrol.
When they came to Bergen-Belsen Harry recalls the “terrible smell,” which lingered in the air around the clock. “I saw all the ovens, all the skeletons, all the piles of bodies, I saw all that.” Harry recalls of his experience “We’d just done six years of war; we thought we’d seen everything. I had nightmares for over two years when I got home. Terrible.”
Lugar de producciónWiltshire, England
Fecha 1942 - 1942
Nombre del objetophotographs
Materialpaper
Dimensiones
- width: 139.00 mm
height: 88.00 mm
Línea de créditoSydney Jewish Museum Collection, Donated by Harry Wigglesworth