Nickname: Alfie or Bill
Born: 13 June 1914, England
Died: 3 January 2013 (at the age of 98)
Bournemouth, Dorset, Great Britain
Service: Royal Airforce
Years of service: 1930 -1969
Rank: Squadron Leader
Service Number: 565033
Unit; No. 57 Squadron RAF
War: Second World War
Spouse: Vera Violet Allen (m. 1939)
Relationships: Robert Fripp (nephew)
Worked: In the laboratory at Brockenhurst College
Alfred George Fripp (13 June 1914 - 3 January 2013), known as ‘Alfie “ or ”Bill ’, was a squadron leader in the British Royal Air Force and a flight sergeant in World War II. He was shot down by a German Luftwaffe ME-109 in October 1939 and held in twelve different prisoner of war camps, including Stalag Luft III, later the scene of the ‘Great Escape’. The last of the ‘39s’ (who were captured in the first year of the war), he was the oldest surviving and longest serving British POW.
Early years of life:
Fripp was born on 13 June 1914 in Alverstoke (Hampshire, England). He grew up in Wimborne (Dorset, England).
Career in the Royal Air Force:
Tunnel Harry is now a memorial site, marked with stones bearing the names of prisoners who escaped and were murdered as part of a war crime ordered by Hitler.
As a prisoner of war, Fripp supplied maps and tools for tunnelling during the great escape from Stalag Luft III.
Fripp's father was a career soldier in the Royal Marines and from the age of twelve Fripp had intended to train as an artisan in the Royal Navy. However, he failed the medical examination because he was almost ten centimetres shorter than required. When he learnt that the Royal Air Force was recruiting apprentices of all sizes, he sat the RAF entrance exam to become an apprentice electrician. Fripp enlisted in the RAF at Halton base on 30 September 1930 and transferred in 1932 to train as a radio operator. In 1939 he joined No. 57 Squadron of the RAF. Three days after the declaration of war on 3 September 1939, shortly before 57 Squadron was called up for service, Fripp married Vera Violet Allen.
Prisoner of war:
On 13 October 1939, while on a reconnaissance flight as an observer, the Bristol Blenheim aircraft he was in was fired upon, pursued and forced to make an emergency landing in Germany. Fripp and the pilot, Flight Lieutenant Mike Casey, as well as Aircraftsman 1st class J Nelson were captured, and all escaped with bruises and abrasions. Fripp was a prisoner of war from 1939 to 1945. On 25 October, Fripp wrote a letter to his wife from the prisoner-of-war crew camp VII-A in Moosburg, Germany. Fripp assured his wife of his well-being and said that Germany might be a nice destination for their honeymoon. He and six other airmen were allowed to record 30-second Christmas greetings to their families, which were sent from Berlin via shortwave. Fripp sent greetings to his mother and told his wife, ‘Although I won't be home with you in person, I'll be with you in spirit.’ His wife lived in his mother's house in Wimborne.
Fripp was imprisoned in Stalag Luft III, the site of an escape attempt by an international group of prisoners of war in March 1944. A fictionalised version of the escape was depicted in the 1963 film Broken Chains. Before the escape, Fripp collected packages from the Red Cross, some of which contained maps and equipment such as radio parts. While Fripp was collecting the packages, he occasionally ‘liberated’ tools such as steel files and wire cutters that were used to dig the tunnel. Fripp was transferred to another stalag two months before the escape. His pilot Casey escaped from Stalag Luft III, but was recaptured on the orders of Adolf Hitler and murdered (along with 49 other escaped prisoners).
Fripp was held in eleven other prison camps, where he often acted as a representative of the Red Cross. At the end of the war, he and other POWs were forced on the ‘long march’ from Poland to Germany as German troops retreated before the Soviet Union army.
It is nothing short of a miracle that he survived for so long, from an emergency landing in the Bay of Biscay in 1936 on his way to Alexandria in a Scapa flying boat, to a pre-war crash in 1938 in a Blenheim Mk I, to my experiences in the Second World War and to the present day.
Alfie Fripp:
Fripp served in the RAF until 1969, reaching the rank of Squadron Leader.
In 2009, Fripp returned to Stalag Luft III where he and others commemorated his fallen comrades. On that occasion he said: ‘I'm glad I came to remember Mike - you think back to all the memories and the people you knew. As for the Germans, I have forgiven them, but not forgotten.’
Civilian career:
After leaving the RAF, Fripp moved to Bournemouth in Dorset and attended the Sixth Form College in Brockenhurst, where he supervised the science lab. He worked for ten years before retiring at the age of 65.
Personal life:
Fripp and his wife Vera had two daughters. He was a grandfather and great-grandfather.
His nephew Robert Fripp is a guitarist and founding member of King Crimson.
Death:
Fripp died on 3 January 2013 at the age of 98 in hospital in Bournemouth. He was the oldest surviving British prisoner of war of the Second World War. His wife had previously died at the age of 84. BBC Radio 2 broadcast a tribute to Fripp that ended with David Bowie's song ‘Heroes “, in which Fripp's nephew Robert Fripp played guitar; in this programme, the guitarist gave recorded interviews with his ”Uncle Bill’.
Source: Wikpedia
Stalag Luft III
