Watercolour by GH Milne of POW Camp Schloss Spangenberg Offlag IX A/Z

George Douglas Milne (1909-2005), the 2nd Lord Milne, was the only son of Field Marshal Lord Milne. A pre-war Territorial, he was wounded and taken P.O.W. on Crete in May 1941, while serving in the 51st Anti-Aircraft Regiment, R.A. He was subsequently incarcerated in Oflag IX A/Z at Spangenberg, a 13th century fortress near Kassel from which very few escaped.

A talented artist, Milne formed an art club and taught other prisoners to paint. Milne‘s mother dispatched painting materials by Red Cross parcel and, in 1944, he sent back a package of portraits of fellow inmates, drawn on strips of cardboard. Two of these were accepted for the Royal Academy summer show, and two more were displayed in The Daily Telegraph Prisoner of War exhibition, organised at Clarence House to raise funds for the Red Cross.

Described as ‘a charming, sensitive man who was profoundly affected by his experience as a prisoner of war,‘ Milne was a painter of portraits, landscapes and nude studies, exhibiting at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.