Friends of a Maidstone veteran gather tomorrow to remember a man who survived war, starvation and Nazi experiments at a death camp.

John Gale 97, was still making a difference in his later years, winning a national award in 2012 when he helped police collar two rogue traders.

The Chatham Road resident's charm and warm personality won him loyal friends who are holding his funeral tomorrow.

All are welcome to attend John's funeral, with Harry Potter author JK Rowling among those who have helped publicise the event by tweeting a link to his story.

Born in 1919, Mr Gale defied the wishes of his parents to join the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire regiment of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps after forging his father’s signature.

In 1940 he was captured along with 3,000 others during the defence of Calais and became one of the few British troops to be interned in the notorious concentration camp Auschwitz.

During this time Mr Gale was experimented on. He was forced into a tank of freezing cold water until he passed out, then he was injected with a solution to revive him.

The Germans were working on an idea to rescue their fighter pilots from the Channel if they got shot down. Mr Gale survived, but two comrades did not.

At another point, Mr Gale was forced to go to the camp's motorpool and get two motorbikes, place them outside a hut and full rev them until told to stop. Later he found out this was to muffle the screams of men, women and children who were being gassed.

In 1945, at the end of the war, Mr Gale was one of many Allied prisoners forced to march west as the Germans fled the Russian advance. It was at this time, during the heart of winter he managed to escape.

Braving freezing temperatures and starvation, the POW went on the run and forced to steal chickens from isolated farm houses to eat them raw.

During one foray while attempting to take food from the cook house at an airfield he was caught by a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF).

It only then he was told the war was over and the RAF had taken over the base. He was said to weigh only two-and-a-half stone when he was taken the airfield’s infirmary.

After the conflict Mr Gale worked as a fitter for formula one cars and as a heating engineer for Esso. He found himself in the limelight after helping police catch two men who forced him to hand over thousands of pounds for spurious guttering and fascia work at his home in Ringlestone.

Mr Gale, whose wife Hilda is buried in Medway Crematorium has a step-son called Robert Mintram, who lives in the Forest of Dean. Mr Mintram, who grew up in Snodland, said contact had been gradually lost with his stepfather, over 10 years, despite him trying to arrange visits to Maidstone.

Steve Bax, one of his friends who has written the eulogy, said: “I sadly did not know John for long but it was a privilege to know him for the time I did.”

Helen Kretzschmar stepped in to organise Mr Gale’s funeral.
She said: “I felt it was very important as John went through his life with no recognition for all he had done. I just wanted it to be special and about him.

“I think if he was looking down on us now he would be so happy there was some recognition of things in his life. He was such an amazing person.”

Mr Gale's funeral will be held from 10.15am at Vinters Park Crematorium on Thursday, February 9. All are welcome to attend.