Jochen MahnckeJochen O.E.O. (John) Mahncke was born in Königsberg, East Prussia in 1926. While attending high school in Berlin, he was conscripted as an anti-aircraft auxiliary in the Flak defence of Berlin from February 1943 to mid-1944. He joined the Wehrmacht a a Panzergrenadier in 1944 and was despatched to Italy where he served as an NCO (Officer Cadet). He was taken Prisoner of War by American forces in May 1945 and handed over to the British later that year and was shipped to North Africa. He was held in various PoW camps at El Dabbah, near El Alamein, until 1947. In mid-1947 he was moved to Cairo and then to the Suez Canal Zone where he served in a guard unit intended to protect British troops in their camps. By the time he was repatriated to Germany at the end of 1948, he was working as an assistant paymaster for the British administration at Port Said/Port Fouad. Upon returning to Germany he took up an apprenticeship with an import/export business in Hamburg, but emigrated to South Africa in 1957 where he now lives with his wife and where he worked in the printing and packaging industry in Johannesburg and Cape Town until retirement in 1992. He has two sons and four grandchildren. Jochen Mahncke is author of U-Boats and Spies in Southern Africa: Anecdotes, Legends, Stories (Cape Town, 2007) and is an Honorary Life Member of the South African Military History Society. Read More Read Less