Period:

Second World War (1939-1945)

Rank:

Private

Unit:

4th City of Aberdeen Battalion, The Gordon Highlanders

Awarded on:

November 4th, 1941

Taken form the MI-9 report:
Cpl H Lovegrove (464) was attached to C Company HQ of 4 Bn Gordon Highlanders near Asche in Belgium when they were overrun on 18 May 1940 by German troops. Lovegrove and five others managed to escape but were betrayed and captured the following day. He (with others) was marched through Brussels and across Holland to Stalag VIF (Bocholt). After a week at Bocholt, he was taken by cattle-truck to Stalag XXA at Thorn where he spent the first ten days in hospital suffering from exhaustion and debilitation, sharing his room with sailors HM Submarine Seal. At the beginning of July, POWs were sorted into groups and Lovegrove joined a party of about 200 sent to Gruppe (Grupa) where they were building a school for parachutists and Lovegrove worked at his trade as an ornamental plasterer.
On 28 August 1940, Lovegrove escaped from Grupa after knocking out the solitary guard and crossed the road to rendezvous with Pte John Finley (Queen's Royal Regt) and another (unnamed) private. They had a map and compass, given to Lovegrove by a Polish professor who was employed by the Germans as a labourer. They cut across country to the Vistula but the other two men decided against trying to cross and Lovegrove swam across alone. He stayed two days at an address in Lwalle given him by the professor before carrying on through Soldau, Groudenz and Ostrelenka to cross the river Bug. A few hours after crossing into Russia, Lovegrove was picked up by a group of Cossacks and spent the next five months in a series of prisons in "appalling conditions" until being taken to Smolensk in February. He remained at Smolensk until the end of June when he was taken to a hotel in Moscow and a week later, handed over to the British Embassy.

Period:

Second World War (1939-1945)

Period:

Second World War (1939-1945)