{"id":656,"date":"2020-06-29T16:04:21","date_gmt":"2020-06-29T04:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stark.gen.nz\/wordpress\/?page_id=656"},"modified":"2022-06-25T16:36:13","modified_gmt":"2022-06-25T04:36:13","slug":"charles-arthur-chambers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.stark.gen.nz\/wordpress\/chambers\/charles-arthur-chambers\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Arthur Chambers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Charles Arthur CHAMBERS was the youngest of Victor and Eliza’s 4 children. He came into this world at Camerons on the West Coast of New Zealand on the 11 Jul 1918. Not only was Charlie one of my favourite uncles, he also lead a colourful life including time flying warplanes over Europe in WW2 and consequently time in a German POW camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And towards the end of his life, I remember visiting his place and his enormous garage was full of stuff including a rare car, but the name of it eludes me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Harold and Charlie CHAMBERS at 40 Searells Road in Christchurch.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Charles CHAMBERS, front row, first from right.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Flight Sargeant C A Chambers PoW #42771 was held at Stalag 357, Kopernikus, in Germany and was released from the POW camp and was back in England by the 15 April 1945 as “The Press” covered his arrival in an article. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The family have stated that he was shot down over Europe on the 12\/13 Jun 1943 and then marched to the PoW camp to see out the war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charlie was interviewed on film by the National History unit and provides a really interesting insight into what it was like to be force-marched across Europe, as well as how it was to deal with very little in the PoW camp and bartering for other things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charles at left during PoW internment.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n