Colonel James A. Kilian at the 10th Replacement Depot, Lichfield, January 1944

The commandant of the US Army's 10th Replacement Depot at Whittington Barracks, Lichfield. The GI camp on the Pheasey estate, just north of Kingstanding, was a sub-depot of this headquarters.

US Army Signal Corps portrait of Col. James A. Kilian at his desk, flanked by the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack. The negative number ETO-HQ-44-778 and the print number 280171 are visible on the film.

Notes

NARA's caption places the photograph at 'an Army Replacement Depot "Somewhere in England." Lichfield Staffs, England', 28 January 1944. That is the 10th Replacement Depot at Whittington Barracks. The link to Kingstanding is organisational, not geographical. The Pheasey Farms estate camp (Great Barr, now Walsall borough, on Kingstanding's northern boundary) was a sub-depot of the 10th Replacement Depot, according to Fran and Martin Collins, 'They Also Serve Who Stand and Wait' (Brewin Books, 2001), as quoted on Voices of Kingstanding and Voices of Pheasey. Kilian was later court-martialled over prisoner abuse at the Lichfield guardhouse (the 1946 'Lichfield trials'). Lichfield is about 15 km north-east of Kingstanding, so it must not be captioned as Pheasey or Kingstanding.