Pte Lewis Kemp

Leicestershire 21 Sep 1924 ◐ – ?

About: The No. 2 on Pte Leslie Grier's Bren gun at Arnhem, whom ⚠︎ Grier's page has carrying the fatally wounded Lt Donaldson, ◐ Murphy's platoon commander, to safety in a blanket with Grier. Wounded by shrapnel (in the ankle on Grier's page, in the foot in the account it gives of him) and taken prisoner, he was by that account held at Stalag XI-B, Fallingbostel, the camp Murphy was freed from in April 1945.

Unit or role: Private; "the no.2 on his Bren gun" to Grier of No. 11 Platoon, C Company, 156 Parachute Battalion (Grier), so ◐ of Grier's platoon, which was Donaldson's and Murphy's; ◐ "Airborne [Army Air Corps]", 14647785, if the German record card in Kew's catalogue is his (WO 416/206/333).

Where: Oosterbeek, September 1944; ◐ Stalag XII-A, Diez near Limburg (the card), "Frankfurt Stalag 11a" in his account; Stalag XI-B, Fallingbostel; Wing aerodrome, Buckinghamshire, on his return; Italy, before his demob.

Evidence: ⚠︎ Grier's page in The Battle of Arnhem Archive, which gives no source for the blanket carry and gives an account of Kemp's captivity, introduced as one in which he "recorded his experience as follows, much of which may be similar to Grier's", without saying where or when, and edited with bracketed glosses; the page's closing thanks to William Lawrence and Bob Hilton "for this account" do not say which part they cover (Grier); ◐ Kew's catalogue entry for a German record card of Lewis F Kemp, a private captured in Holland on 20 September 1944 (WO 416/206/333; the card itself not seen).

◐ Kew's catalogue of the German record cards of British prisoners has "Lewis F Kemp", born on 21 September 1924 in Leicestershire, a private, "Airborne [Army Air Corps]", service number 14647785 (WO 416/206/333). The name, the airborne unit, and a capture in Holland on 20 September 1944, the day Grier's page has the Donaldson carry (below; it gives no day for his wounding), fit; the identification is ours, and the card has not been seen.

Donaldson, 20 September 1944. Grier's page has the remnants of the 156th trying to reach the Oosterbeek perimeter on Wednesday 20 September, when Lt Donaldson, "the commander of No.11 Platoon, was fatally wounded. Grier and the no.2 on his Bren gun, Private Lewis Kemp, dashed out and carried him to safety by using a blanket as a stretcher" (Grier). ⚠︎ The page gives no source for this, and it does not put Murphy or Walsh with Donaldson.

Murphy, ◐ of the same platoon, told it otherwise. His memoir has the Germans shoot Donaldson in the house, "behind the ear", before he and Walsh were marched off (memoir, p. 7); Walsh's report has Walsh leave Donaldson in the house with the Germans, and hear one shot (Walsh). The day is not settled either: most of the Commission's records give 21 September and its website the 20th (the Commission's documents). The accounts are set side by side on William Donaldson and under Still open; his part is told on Arnhem. The carry is also on Grier's page.

The same camp. By the account Grier's page gives of him he was at Stalag XI-B, Fallingbostel, after a month under canvas at his first camp, and until the liberation in April 1945 (Grier); Murphy's own typed notes give his camp as "STALAG 11 B - FALLINBOSTEL", and his memoir has him released from the Stalag in April (typed pp. 1–3; memoir, p. 9; more on Captivity). No source puts the two together there.

Grier's page says both men "were subsequently wounded by shrapnel, Grier in the head, Kemp in the ankle, and taken prisoner", and that Kemp "was also taken to Stalag XIB and recorded his experience as follows, much of which may be similar to Grier's" (Grier). ⚠︎ The page says Kemp recorded it but not where or when, and the text carries bracketed glosses that are not his ("clearing railway lines of rubble, the result of allied bombing", "Yugoslav statesman and dictator…"), so the words are Kemp's account only as the page gives them. Its closing thanks to William Lawrence and Bob Hilton "for this account" come after Grier's later life and do not say which part of the page they cover. The account, as the page gives it:

• Capture. "25? Sep 1944": picked up by Waffen SS troops, and his wounded foot dressed at a first aid post only after an SS officer had taken his cigarettes; then four days of stop-start in locked cattle trucks into Germany, with the RAF bombing the line.
• The camps. "We arrived at Frankfurt Stalag 11a, interrogated by the Gestapo, who know more about the regiment than I." A month under canvas, "it rained every day", then Stalag 11b at Fallingbostel, "under the discipline of RSM Lord". His foot still weeping, he was not sent out to work, and the Germans said those who did not work would get no food. At Christmas four men shared a two-man Red Cross parcel.
• March 1945. Sent with others to clear a bombed railway station and siding by hand:

Having lost the other when I was wounded, I still had only one boot and had replaced it with a piece of wood bound onto my foot with a strip of cloth cut from a blanket. This was not the best solution because the snow was deep, and temperatures were in the minus 20s. We were held in open cattle pens with straw to cover us at night. Food was scarce, though the guards also didn’t have much for themselves. I said ‘Nix Arbeit, nix essen’ to one guard and he took me to an officer, who pulled out a revolver and pistol whipped me.

— Lewis Kemp, his account of his captivity, as given on Leslie Grier's page · The Battle of Arnhem Archive · Grier

The officer sent him back to Stalag 11b by civilian train, where "The German women travelling on the train spat at me all the way back, as he knew they would." In April 1945 "We were liberated by 30 Corps; the same unit as should have relieved us at Arnhem eight months previously." He came home through Wing aerodrome in Buckinghamshire, still with only one shoe, his weight "down to around seven stone", and was given twelve weeks' leave and double rations. "1947. Demobbed after six months keeping Tito out of Italy." (Grier).

• The day he was taken. 20 September 1944 on the card in Kew's catalogue (WO 416/206/333), the day Grier's page has the Donaldson carry, and gives no day for his wounding; "25? Sep 1944", with its own question mark, in his account of being picked up by the Waffen SS (Grier).
• His first camp. "Stalag XIIA Diez (bei Limburg)", prisoner 90184, on the card (WO 416/206/333); "Frankfurt Stalag 11a" in his account (Grier). ◐ Our reading is that his "11a" is the card's XII-A; nothing more settles it.
• XI-B or 357. He has himself at "Stalag 11b at Fallingbostel" under RSM Lord (Grier); Wikipedia has the Arnhem paratroops arriving in November 1944 at Stalag 357, the neighbouring camp, "Led by the formidable RSM John C. Lord" (Wikipedia); The Arrowhead Club page, quoting a source it cites, has the paratroops enter "the neighbouring Stalag XIB" under RSM Lord, who "took the conditions and discipline in Stalag XIB as a personal challenge" (The Arrowhead Club), which agrees with Kemp's XI-B.
• Who freed the camp. "30 Corps" in his account (Grier); B Squadron 11th Hussars and the Reconnaissance Troop of the 8th Hussars, of 7th Armoured Division, on 16 April 1945, in the accounts on Captivity (Wikipedia; The Arrowhead Club). Murphy's memoir has "I was released from STALAG by the 7th Armoured Div" (memoir, p. 9, read on the image), naming the same division as those accounts.
• How Donaldson died. Carried to safety by Grier and Kemp, on Grier's page; shot in the house after the Germans came, in Murphy's memoir; a single shot from the house, heard by Walsh (above, With Murphy).

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