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CHAPTER NINE
MAKING THE BEST OF IT
A tip passed around the camp regarding solitary confinement was to take a handful of pebbles in with you. Once closed up you counted them then scattered the pebbles across the cell floor then scramble about on the floor looking for them. Sounds daft but it kept you sane and your mind occupied. In the main camp at night if you wanted to go to the toilet you had to either clap your hands or whistle so the guards knew where you were in case you attempted to escape. It was years later that it crossed my mind that had there been a serious outbreak of Dysentery it would have been quite amusing to some extent? Eventually we were transported by trucks to a camp near Eblag a few miles from Gdansk. A few months later another move further South to (Thorn Stalag 20B) close to Wloclawek on the Vistula. It was here that we saw our first Red Cross parcels. The camp had about a hundred inmates and it wasn't too bad. There was very little containment fencing and the guards were very few on the ground.
This offered temptation to three inmates who decided they had had enough and under cover of darkness slipped away into the night. My attention was alerted at the sound of a single rifle shot and shouting in German. Those better informed of this attempt informed me of the situation so I went out to make enquires. One of the sentries told me they had shot a prisoner attempting to escape. I demanded to see the body as was my privilege but I was refused. I kept insisting until an officer approached and embarrassingly informed me that three prisoners had escaped and that the shot I heard was fired into the air in an attempt to get them to halt. I never discovered who these men were or if they did get away but I would have been very surprised if they got very far since German troops were everywhere. There were requests for outside working parties so a few others and myself put our names on the list. Had I not removed my stripes on my capture I would have been excused but like the rest, we were glad to have something to occupy us during the day. The work was land work and a little work on repairing roads that really was hard work, but at least you were working with friendly Poles and you were outside. Our Guards were of the older generation, possibly veterans of the First war and were quite decent to us, a far cry from some of the younger guards I was to experience later. By this time we were able to look after ourselves a little better. We were paid a small pittance for our labours where once a week clutching our small collective cash and under the supervision of a guard I was escorted into the closest town where I was able to purchase a few items of food to keep us alive. The winters were very harsh and with no great coat to wear I fear these trips took their toll on my health not to mention that of many others.

Getting out of the camp to work was a moral booster to all of us but at a cost to our health as I and many others were soon to realise. I was still not officially recognised as an NCO by the Germans but after a chat with our group we decided to march out of the camp in platoon order with myself leading. (Evidently there was a great deal of switching ranks via uniform at the delousing centres) Our guards walked beside us. Those locals we passed were obviously impressed at our turn out and it certainly boosted our own moral. On our marches to our places of work in wintertime, it always fascinated me that the roads were always clear of snow whilst all around were deep drifts. On the days we spent in camp certain scams were put into action to keep our own moral up and add to our German guard's mystification. One I recall was a small group returned from their day's labours going through the actions of setting up a table tennis table then playing a game of table tennis on this imaginary table. The look of amusement on the faces of our guards who must have though we were quite mad?
Being in a position of trust and involved in the organisation within the camp it was here I became acquainted with the Pole who delivered the rations for the Germans and us. At first I thought he was a German himself due to his close relationship with some of the Germans but this was a scam. He was a Pole. He used to invite Germans to his home where he gleaned snippets of information on how the war was going which he passed on to me. He was also the source of additional rations for us. I made full use of this position of trust in being able to sneak out of the camp under darkness, crossing fields to get to his house to collect these extra rations. Unfortunately on one of my visits a German turned up unexpectedly and I had to spend two hours shut in a cupboard until he left. We suspected the war was not going so well for the Germans and their off duty drinking brought forth abuse from them as we marched back and forth to camp each evening. Marching through the town on the way to work in the fields one noticed the Germans still greeted each other with "Hiel Hitler" and the single arm salute. Signs appeared in shop fronts stating "German must be spoken before you are served". I felt sorry for the many elderly Poles. One point that made us all think of home were the flags flying from the buildings, all German, they were everywhere. Memories flooded one's mind of public days in England where our own flag took pride of place. It was very depressing. In the camp the Germans produced a paper called "The Camp". The news it contained whilst boastful in it's content didn't upset us much. I think we were all amazed that Germany had also invaded Russia in July 1941 on a front stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Naturally the paper was very boastful of its armies successes on all fronts. But we were shocked and amazed at the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour Christmas 1941.

The camp was again swept with depression when we read of the fall of Singapore. It was the 15th February 1942. To hear of the capture of such an important base really hit home with us. There were numerous reports of the fighting in North Africa, Romell was the man of the moment and the battle for Tobruck was featured strongly. As suddenly as the paper appeared it disappeared. It was only later that I understood why. The War was not going to well for the Germans in Africa or in Russia? We already knew from the camp paper that England was being bombed so it was a double edge sword, you never knew if they would survive back home. It's difficult to say what goes through your mind during these times. You knew England was still free and you were in a Country under occupation so you felt your situation was shared. It did worry us during our short stop over in Germany seeing flights of German bombers passing overhead and the guards jibes that they were on their way to England.
The guards in our camp were very lax and some of our men who had befriended females amongst the Polish field workers sneaked out under cover of darkness to continue their relationships. As long as they returned before roll call nothing was ever said. From here some of us were moved to smaller camps of about 50 men. Here we worked on Farms taken over by the Germans and where again we worked side by side with the Poles. Some of us were moved so many times it was impossible to keep track of place names. As for pronouncing some of the places we ended, even attempting to spell them was out of the question. All we were interested in was staying alive.
Letters began to arrive from home which; to many it was a great moral booster. Although heavily censored we shared our letters. Many of the letters contained personal news, which made me glad I was single. Certain well wishers in a man's family had written that their wives or girl friends had met someone else. All you could offer was "What would you do in this situation, with all these young troops roaming England you can't expect a young woman to remain faithful not knowing if they would ever see you again"? After the war I was acquainted with another's experience of a Dear John letter which will give the reader some idea of this type of letter received by so many but this was in a much lighter vein. A Sergeant received a letter from his girl friend; it was short and sweet. "Sorry I married your Father, love Mum".

Another move, this time to a larger camp of around 150 men under a German Commandant another first war veteran? I fear all this poor diet together with the bad winters began to take its toll on me, I went down with pneumonia. Had it not been for the care given me by many of lads in our quarters I think I would have died.
As it was my recovery left me very weak and I was unable to work in the fields. My health didn't improve so I was removed from the list of working parties permanently. Here I was picked out as a go between by the Germans in assisting them to run the camp. I guess it was partly their noticing my handling of our men and partly my deteriorating health that brought about a certain trust from the Commandant. I well recall the Guard, who came up to me one afternoon, saluted and handed me the note in his hand. Since I was almost alone in the camp due to my health whilst working parties were out of the camp, I was invited to watch a German film show. I watched from the projection room with the officers and other ranks seated below. Whilst the feature was in German I did find it entertaining. What interested me most were the newsreels which were very biased towards moral building for those watching and one read between the lines some of the news featured on the screen that day.
In 1943 the Germans finally officially recognised me as Sergeant but now far too ill to work, but as an NCO I no longer had to. I was moved to a non-working camp at Fallingbostal 70 or so kilometres North of Hanover in Germany. Here one felt safer from the guards we encountered on our work party marches in Poland. Red Cross parcels began to arrive. We organised parties of 2 or 3 men to share a parcel between them. For instance a tin of meat roll would easily make a meal for three. These parcels measured 10 inches square and 4 inches deep to conform to German postal regulations and weighed 11 pounds. Each parcel contained dried fruits, canned meat and fish, crackers, cheese, margarine, dried milk. Extras such as jam cigarettes and soap. I discovered after the war that we were to receive a parcel each week but we were lucky if we saw one a Month and that had to be shared, still we were always grateful when they did arrive. Hence the invention of the greatest aid to prison life-'The Blower'. Joining a selection of varying sized tins together, a large tin for the fireplace then affix a place to put a smaller can then fix a small propeller in a cocoa tin attach a grooved wheel. Add string and cranking away adding small chips of fuel we soon had a cup of Red Cross tea. People back home could not imagine how these parcels boosted our moral. Nothing was ever wasted. There were also parcels sent out to us whilst in Poland by other organisations which contained toiletries and items of warm clothing. Included in the clothing were gloves, warm but totally useless in our work on the land which must seem rather selfish of us but they were greatly appreciated. Many cut off the fingers of these gloves thus turning them into mittens.
We heard rumours that the Germans had taken a beating at Stalingrad but I was unable to confirm it, still it cheered us up a little knowing they were getting back some of their own medicine. We paraded every day for roll call or I should say a head count. These parades set us up moral wise for the day. Lined up in lines of four, a guard would move down the front counting heads and almost at the end of the line someone would offer him chocolate in exchange for eggs causing him to loose count and having to start all over again. Some times the odd wag would duck out of sight thus causing a miss count. The officer would scream at the guard inducing a pantomime of "Heils" and "siegs" and right hand salutes before he began the count again. These young guards were scared stiff of their officers. It was about this time that we heard news of the failed Dieppe raid. We felt the 2nd front had been attempted and failed. The German newspapers played this to the full with great headlines, "Not a single allied soldier was left active on German soil", that’s of course unless they were captured? In this non-workers camp there was no chance of extra rations but we thanked God for the 'Blowers'. There must have been thousands of these contraptions in the camp but without the Red Cross-parcels they were useless. After four years of imprisonment one learns how to adapt. We ran the camp like a small town.
We had our own shops where you could exchange any Red Cross items for clothing and the like. Anyone fortunate enough to have cigarettes sent them from home was indeed rich. They could buy anything depending on the number of cigarettes circulating in the camp at the time, under a sort of fluctuating rate of exchange system. We knew from the hundreds of planes flying into Germany that England was giving as good as it got and that some guards had lost families in this retaliation. Watching the vapour trails streaming from these silver aircraft miles high certainly excited us. This was the first time we had seen these aircraft. (This must have been one of the first American daylight raids?)

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