Charles Frederick Colebrook was known as 'Dixie' to his fellow POWs. He was born on 3 Sep 1919 in Grimsby, Lincolnshire. In 1935, he joined the army aged 16 although his enlistment papers show 18. Charlie took his discharge after serving for three years that included a posting to Egypt. By 1940, Charlie was back in uniform serving with the British Expeditionary Force in France. His unit was near Arras when the order to withdraw came through. Charlie made the 100 km trip to Dunkirk safely. Dixie escaped Dunkirk by a British fishing trawler from his home port of Grimsby. Between his evacuation from Dunkirk and deployment to the Middle East, Charlie married Marjorie Jones.
Charlie, by then a driver with the Royal Army Service Corps, soon found himself in Greece. His diary shows that he was captured at Kalamata on 29 Apr 1941; he arrived at Corinth on 6 May; at Salonika on 13 June; at Wolfsberg on 2 July, and at Klagenfurt on 25 July.
After his discharge in 1946, Charlie joined the Police. He spent 30 years as a PC before retiring in 1976. Charley died from a heart attack in 1982 aged 61.Post Scripts
When en route to Dunkirk riding in the back of an army truck, a Panzer tank appeared out of cover and Charlie’s truck stopped suddenly, with everyone jumping out quickly. That is, all except Charlie. He was carrying the squad's Bren Gun and its barrel became caught in the camouflage netting. While trying to release it, the German tank got closer. The hatch popped up, and the tank commander stared straight at him, observing Charlie’s plight. Charlie gave him a stifled grin as he freed the gun. They both nodded at each other. With his weapon now disentangled, Charlie jumped off the truck and ran for cover. At that point, Charlie could hear and see the tank’s machine gun following his flight with a trail of bullets. The tank commander was laughing as he did it. A story of compassion for an enemy, I think.
Late in the war, while on a work detail near Klagenfurt, Charlie was riding on the back of a truck. A fighter aircraft flew low to strafe the truck. The vehicle braked so suddenly that Charlie was thrown over the top and landed on his face, taking off part of his nose and some of his ear. Taken to hospital, the doctors performed plastic surgery to repair his face.
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