According to information on file with the Red Cross, Pte Charles Moore was captured in Tunisia on 27/2/43. This suggests that he was probably serving with either A or D Company 16 DLI, both of which suffered heavy casualties on the 27/2/43 at Sedjenane, Tunisia and were then amalgamated for the final DLI attack on 2/3/43 when further severe casualties were suffered. An eyewitness account of the 27/2/43 16 DLI action can be read here.
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According to Red Cross records, Pte Moore arrived at an Italian POW transit camp from Tunisia on 28/3/43. This would be either PG 66 at Capua or PG 98 in Sicily. He arrived at Camp PG 82 on 16/6/43. With hundreds of fellow PG 82 POWs, he was sent north to Germany after the Italian Armistice of 9/43 and is recorded as being sent from Stalag 4B to a workcamp of Stalag 4DZ on 11/10/43. His German POW number, 224734, was assigned at Stalag 4B. To see this POW number in the consecutive sequence of other known POWs, click here
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On 2/5/44, after over six months at a workcamp yet to be identified, he was transferred from Stalag 4DZ to Stalag 4C. Stalag 4C at Wistritz bei Teplitz was the administrative hub for the many smaller work camps in the nearby area.
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Pte Moore was sent to the 'Kommando Maltheuern' work camp at Brux which was part of the Sudetenländische Treibstoffwerke coal-to-oil synthetic fuel plant and was killed there less than two weeks later on 12/5/44.
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His death certificate, supplied by the Red Cross to Mrs Roberts, records 'bombensplitter verletzung' (bomb splinters) as the cause of death. This must have been as a result of the large US bombing raid on Brux that day. He was one of over 34 Allied POWs killed on that date, all of whom are now buried in Prague War Cemetery. Pte Alan Jackson (4470078) of 16 DLI, and Pte James Spink (6026790), 1 DLI, were also victims.
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One of several further raids took place on 21/7/44 and 14 Allied POWs, also re-interred in Prague postwar, are listed as having died on that day, including Pte John Gorman (2987658) 1 DLI and Pte Archibald William Burt (5440072), 9 DLI.
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The heavy POW death toll at 'Kommando Maltheuern' seems to have received scant media coverage and historical research in the seven decades since. A 2002 edition of the National Prisoner of War Newsletter asserts that the first serious loss of POW life at Brux was on 21/7/44:
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http://www.prisonerofwar.org.uk/spring_2002.htm (dead link 2023)
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‘The plant at Brux which was bombed by both American and British aircraft was the Sudentenlandische Treibstoff Werke (Hermann Goring Works), a coal hydrogenation plant involved in the processing of oil from coal. It was protected by 266 anti-aircraft guns. There were three chimneys in the centre of the target, nicknamed Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. The first raid took place on 12th July 1944 and during the second on 21st July, six British POWs were killed and 21 were injured. At least a dozen raids took place until the last raid in April 1945 by RAF Lancasters put an end to the plant's production. The holding stalag for the British slave labourers was Stalag 4C Wistritz.’
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Intriguingly the Winter 2001 issue of the same magazine prints the mass POW funeral photograph as reproduced on the previous page with a caption which links it to the 21/7/44 raid:
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http://www.prisonerofwar.org.uk/winter_2001cover.htm (dead link)
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A full listing on Allied raids on German oil targets can be read here:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_Campaign_chronology_of_World_War_II
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On the subject of Stalag 4C, at least two men who were in my father’s Stalag 4D workcamp, W603, were also transferred to 4C in May 1944 and many other of 1945 returned POW questionnaires I have researched also record a transfer to Stalag 4C from Stalag 4D and 4DZ workcamps in May 1944, so there must have been a general planned movement of POW labour by the Nazi authorities at this time to service the Brux coal and oil complex from men originally sent to other workcamps..
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Pte William Woolley, POW No 227762 and Gnr Joe Washington POW No 227988 were transferred from my father’s workcamp W603 to 4C in May 1944. Other known transfers are noted in my main POW (unfinished) listing for POW numbers circa 223000-228000.
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It’s probable that many of the victims of the 12/5/44 and 21/7/44 air raids had POW numbers very close to that of Pte Charles Moore. My on-going consecutive POW listing here has large gaps near his POW number. This indicates that possibly an entire working party was killed. It’s also significant that Gnr Stanley Raybould of the Royal Artillery, who died on 12/5/44, shares the same surname as Gnr J Raybould, RA, whose POW number 224736, is only two away from Pte Moore, but who stayed at Stalag 4DZ and survived the war
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I have listed the Allied POW casualties who died on 12/5/44 and 21/7/44 and who are buried in Prague War Cemetery on this page.
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The full story of the British Stalag 4C POWs who died on 12/5/44 and 21/7/44 has still to be written. Hopefully the notes here on Pte Charles Moore will link to material and stories that others have. If you can add anything at all, please get in touch
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16 DLI ROLL OF HONOUR INDEX PAGE.
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The Prague Headstone of Pte Charles Moore.
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