Patrick Cahill with fellow servicemen. Patrick is the fellow leaning against the chair just left of center.

Notification of Pat’s capture and imprisonment at Camp 59, sent to his parents in August 1942.

Dean Cahill of Leicestershire, England, has provided some information for this site about his grandfather, Pvt. Patrick Cahill of the 12th Lancers. Pat was captured at Tobruk in North Africa. Information about Patrick’s war experience is sketchy because, as Dean put it, “He was the type that wanted to forget!”

Dean’s father, Ralph Cahill, said that the civilians in this picture somehow helped Pat with his escape. Pat Cahill is seated at far right, holding the dog.

According to Dean:

“Pat had escaped before and been re-captured. I’m not sure if this was from Camp 59. After the mass escape though the hole in the wall, Pat made his way, along with two other Brits to Switzerland, living for six months with a kind mountain farming family. He then passed though France and managed to reach Britain undetected.

G. Norman Davison recounts an early tunneling breakout from Hut 4 of Camp 59 in his published memoirs, In the Prison of His Days. All of the men were recaptured. Perhaps Pat took part in that breakout.