Sgt Patrick Joyce

Sunderland 9 Nov 1914 – ?

Sgt Patrick Joyce (4448773)

About: ◐ By the Pegasus compiler's identification, the "Sjt. JOYCE" who was acting platoon sergeant of 11 Platoon, C Company, 156 Parachute Battalion, and was hit through the chest in the same burst as Lt Donaldson on 21 September 1944. Walsh's report says he died; the Kew prisoner-of-war index has a Sgt Patrick Joyce, 4448773, a prisoner at Stalag 357 with the number 50325.

Unit or role: Sergeant, Parachute Regiment (the second Kew entry has "Army Air Corps"); "acting Platoon Serjeant", 11 Platoon, C Company, 156 Para Bn, under Lt Donaldson (Walsh).

Where: Born at Sunderland; a prisoner at Stalag 357, the date of arrival not given (the Kew entries).

Evidence: ✓ the two Kew prisoner-of-war index entries, WO 416/203/272 and WO 416/365/298, seven cards between them, neither digitised; ✓ Walsh's report.

Both Kew entries give his date of birth as 9 November 1914 and his place of birth as Sunderland, service number 4448773; the first has him in the Parachute Regiment, the second in the "[Army Air Corps]", the brackets being the catalogue's (WO 416/203/272; WO 416/365/298). The second gives his name as "Patrick [P] Joyce"; the Pegasus Archive's compiler has him "Patrick Peter Joyce" (Walsh's page), ◐ the same man by the number, and the source of the middle name is not stated. Nothing else about his life before 1944 is held: no service record, no unit history before the 156th, no family.

Walsh was a Bren gunner in his platoon. By his report, on "THURS 21 SEP" C Company attacked a German machine-gun position near Oosterbeek, and he was beside Lt Donaldson "and Sjt. JOYCE […] who was acting Platoon Serjeant":

we were manoeuvring to a flank in order to get a site for my Bren Gun when we received a burst of fire. Lt. DONALDSON was shot through the leg and arm and JOYCE through the chest while I sustained a scalp wound which laid me out for ten or fifteen minutes. When I recovered I did what I could for JOYCE, giving him his morphia, but he died shortly afterwards.

— MI9 · Pte S. Walsh, C Company, 156 Parachute Battalion · report of 7 March 1945 · the report

The compiler's note at the name reads: "He survived as a POW at Stalag 357" (Walsh's page). Walsh went on to get Donaldson into a house; the rest of the episode, Walsh's capture and Murphy's own account, are on Walsh's page and Donaldson's. Murphy's memoir does not name Joyce in that passage (page 7).

✗ Walsh was wrong about Joyce, if his Joyce is this man. ◐ Walsh gives no first name or number: the link to Sgt Patrick Joyce 4448773 is the Pegasus Archive compiler's bracket at the name, and no other source ties the two. He wrote that Joyce was shot through the chest, that he gave him his morphia and that "he died shortly afterwards". Kew's prisoner-of-war index has a Sergeant Patrick Joyce, 4448773, Parachute Regiment, born at Sunderland on 9 November 1914, at Stalag 357, POW number 50325, in seven cards under two entries, with a fingerprint on the first and the date of death "[unspecified]" on both (WO 416/203/272; WO 416/365/298). ✓ A man with a camp number at Stalag 357 was alive when he reached the camp, which is after the minutes Walsh describes. The first entry, "Stalag 357 Thorn", gives the theatre as Holland and the date of capture as 19 September 1944 (WO 416/203/272); the second leaves both blank (WO 416/365/298).

Stalag 357 was moved in September 1944 from Toruń, which the catalogue calls Thorn, to the Fallingbostel site, and Arnhem paratroops arrived there in November 1944 (Wikipedia). Murphy's camp was Stalag XI-B, at the same Fallingbostel complex (his typed narrative, page 2, "STALAG 11B"). ⚠︎ The cards themselves have not been seen: what a "Date of Capture" on a German card records is not known, and nothing held says why the first has 19 September, two days before Walsh's Thursday.

Nothing has been found on him after the cards. The cards are not digitised and can be had from Kew by post (the copies still to get); the date of his liberation, whether he was marched out of the camp in April 1945, and his death are not held.

• Whether he died of his wound. Walsh's report says he did, "shortly afterwards"; the Kew entries have him a prisoner with a number at Stalag 357, and the Pegasus Archive's note says he survived. ✓ He lived long enough to be registered at a camp.
• The day of capture. 21 September, if the burst was the minute of his capture, by Walsh's Thursday; 19 September on the first Kew entry (WO 416/203/272). Not settled.

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