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Search forBlown up, presumed dead then torpedoed, but I'm ok
Thursday, November 27, 2008, 00:00
But 67 years after they last set eyes on each other, soldier Gerry Solomon on Wednesday, November 19 was reunited with his wartime pal Harry Finlayson, after being told he was killed in 1941.
Mr Finlayson, 93, from Woolavington near Bridgwater, was a tank commander fighting in the bitter battle of Sidi Rezeh when he was captured. His superiors assumed he was dead, even holding a funeral for him and awarding his wife a war pension.
A few months later it emerged he had survived but his old pal Gerry was not told.
Mr Solomon, 92, from Suffolk, had an emotional reunion with Mr Finlayson at a hotel in Colchester, Essex where they are due to receive veterans' badges on Thursday.
They embraced and were soon sharing memories and finding out what has happened to each in the years between.
The remarkable reunion took place thanks to Mr Finlayson's daughter's decision to advertise for Mr Solomon in the Royal Tank Corps magazine.
Mr Solomon could be forgiven for assuming his friend was dead, not only was Mr Finlayson reported missing after a German Afrika Korps tank destroyed his tank, but his funeral was held in Tobruk.
In fact, Mr Finlayson's tank radio was damaged and he did not hear an order to withdraw. He carried on fighting until his tank was disabled and he and his three-man crew were captured.
It was not until three months after the fearful battle of November 23, 1941, that he was able to send his wife a letter telling her he had survived. Tank Corps comrades, moving on in the fight to defeat the Nazis and their allies, had no idea of the good news.
"It will be wonderful to see him after all these years, but I am afraid I look different, I have lost my hair," said Mr Finlayson, a retired telephone engineer, before setting off from Woolavington.
It was a miracle that he survived the battle, part of the 8th Army's Operation Crusader attempt to relieve the siege of Tobruk in the North African campaign.
As he told Mr Solomon: "We were advancing but my radio mast had been blown off and when we were told to retire I didn't hear and went straight on into the German lines.
"We realised what had happened and the driver said we were running out of petrol.
"I said, 'There are our lines head back' but before we could get there a German tank hit us and blew the engine right out.
"We were taken prisoner and after the battle I was reported missing presumed dead.
"After the war I met a friend who told me he had attended my funeral in Tobruk. I don't know how that happened but they must have found a body near the tank.
"My wife was getting a widow's pension. I was put on a ship with other prisoners to be sent to Italy, but a submarine torpedoed the ship which had 1,000 people aboard.
"Six-hundred were killed. I was in the water for some time but managed to get ashore, where the Italians were waiting."
He was sent to Italy, then to Germany where he was moved from camp to camp as the end of the war neared and the Russians began to approach. He was eventually liberated by the Americans.
A professional soldier, he joined the Tank Corps in 1934 and served on the North West Frontier. In World War II he served in France and was evacuated from Dunkirk.
The Services Personnel and Veterans Agency, part of the Ministry of Defence, has helped to arrange the reunion, and Mr Finlayson travelled to Colchester in style, in a Royal Tank Corps staff car, to give him a more comfortable ride than he used to enjoy 67 years ago.
