Pte Syd Shutt of Thornley Colliery, Co Durham was called up into the 16th DLI at the very start of the Battalion’s existence in July 1940, with the Army Number 4465664. Serving in Lt H Dorrian’s platoon in B Company in 1942-43--click here to see the 1942 group photograph on which he features and here to see his photograph in the Sunderland Echo’s 1943 casualty listings, Pte Shutt was taken POW on March 2nd 1943 during the last DLI attack at Sedjenane. For some reason, the War Office, which misspells his name here as ‘Shutts’, records him as being posted missing between Feb 27th and March 1st 1943. This very vague date range is also true of many other 16 DLI casualty records that I have seen and this is one of the reasons why there remains so much confusion about the both the events and the exact dates of the Sedjenane action. Pte Shutt was held in Camps 66 and 53 in Italy and Stalag 17B (German POW Number 154689) in Austria. Courtesy of Mr and Mrs Shutt.
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