Harvey Spencer (RCA)

My Great Grandfather Harvey, another one who served in both World Wars.

During the First World War, Harvey served with the 26th Battalion (New Brunswick Overseas). He Joined in 1914 at the outbreak of war & spent four years in the trenches as an Infantryman. In 1939 (WW2) Harvey joined the Home Guard. He ended up being station near Fredericton at the Ripples POW camp. Ripples was a POW camp mostly for captured Kriegsmarine U-Boat & Merchant Seamen. I know very little about his time during the first war, never really had a chance to talk with him about it before he passed away in the early 1970's.

As a very interesting side note, I was contacted several months ago by a collector (Konrad Gunzel) wanting to know if I had any items or photos from the Ripples camp. As it turns out, his father (Kurt Gunzel) was a prisoner at Ripples during the war! There is no doubt in my mind that my Great Grandfather & Konrad’s father would have known each other. Kurt Gunzel (Kriegsmarine), was captured off of South America early in the war. Of course the first this we did was exchange photo. The below photo shows Konrads father while at ripples. (He is the one kneeling in the centre row with the shaved head). Just goes to show you how small the world really is. The other photo shows the POW uniform that he wore in ripples (now in his sons collection).

Kurt Gunzel while interned at the Ripples POW camp.

Kurt's POW uniform worn at Ripples