Great uncle prisoner of war

[sunnyfizzo]

I've traced my great uncle to a prisoner of war camp, until 1945. But there the trail ends, how can I find out if he was repatriated or not? Family rumor is he drowned. He has a common name unfortunately but I know his d.o.b and service number, and p.o.w number. Any help or tips where to look will be so so appreciated 🙏

If I had to find him, I would try to get his documents via his service number - I'd assume there's an archive and - if it is known where he was POW - I'd go via their records.

Was he in Europe or the Far East? I traced quite a lot of my grandfather’s story as a POW in Singapore and Japan.
The first port of call is the Forces War Records website - you give in his name and it calls up all entries of that name along with their army number - so having that is invaluable for identification.
From this you will get his unit/division, and you use that to find out the route that the POWs in that unit took throughout the war. In my grandfather‘s case quite a few of his fellow POWs published memoirs, which gave me loads of details of what he must have endured. He was a talented amateur artist who designed ‚thank you’ scrolls for his commanding officers after the war was over in August 1945, while they were waiting to be evacuated. Rather touchingly, one of the officers‘ sons managed to track me down via a genealogy site last year, and the scroll has now been published in the book of his father‘s letters.
if your relative was in the Far East, the FEPOW website is invaluable, documenting all the camps and the prisoners there at any particular time.
sorry, I can’t help at all if he was a POW in Europe, I know nothing about that.
Best of luck!

Thanks @Prokupatuscrakedatus

@ItsOnlyWordsInnit thank you. Yes it was Europe, but most details I have so far are from Forces war records too so that's been a great help (but so sad). I can't find any records post 1945 after the camp was liberated to see if he made it home. With his name, there's hundreds of death records so no clues. That's incredible about your grandfather's art 🙂

Have you checked the FEPOW online database to see if he completed a liberation questionnaire? www.cofepow.org.uk/research-database

Have you taken a look at this website too?

www.fepow.family/Research/British_FEPOWs/