Sgt Joseph Harold Barratt
657168 - Navigator, 102 Squadron
Born in Hednesford, Staffordshire on the 22 February 1917, the son of a coal miner, my father was one of eight children (the only boy). Excelling academically at school and captain of the school football team he joined the Royal Artillery in 1940 and then volunteered for Bomber Command in 1941. After training in Canada as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and then completing pre-combat ops operation training at RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Marston Moor he joined 102 Squadron, 4 Group, Bomber Command.
Shot down after raiding Dortmund in May 1943 he became a Prisoner of War, wounded, in German hands.
War Service
1943 - 1945
Stalag XIb Fallingbostel
Stalag Luft IV Gross Tychow
Stalag Luft VI Heydekrug
Stalag Luft I Barth
Dulag Luft Oberusel
1941 -1942
1652 (HCU) Marston Moor
20 (OTU) Lossiemouth
31 (ANS) Ontario, Canada
1939-1940
Royal Artillery
Territorial Army
Shot down on the night of 4/5 May 1943. Evacuated from Heydekrug in Nov 1944 and was held on the SS Insterburg and took part in the infamous 'Run Up The Road'. Participant on the Death March from Gross Tychow in the winter of 1944/45. Liberated at Fallingbostel in April 1945.
Volunteered for Bomber Command and joined the RAF in 1941, sent to Canada as part of the Air Crew Training programme before returning to the UK in 1942 for OTU Training and then Operational flying.
Joined the Territorial army in 1939 and then in 1940 Joined 22 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery.