大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Scott Anderson from Netherlee Primary and has been added to the site with the permission of Thomas Anderson. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

Prisoner of War
My Grandad, Thomas Anderson, was a bricklayer in Larkhall untilhe was nineteen when he joined the Gordon Highlanders at the start of World war II.
The local Larkhall reported on 31st August1940, that Private Thomas Anderson, who was reported missing in June 1940, was a Prisoner of War in the French Unoccupied Territory.

During a night patrol he came under heavy enemy fire and when he came back to camp he found bullet holes down the length of his trouser leg and his lapel had been shot off.

After a long march they were told to dig in for the night on one side of a railway track so they set about digging fox holes. Grandad found old corrugated iron sheeting from an old chicken hut and used that as a roof in case it rained at night. He made a small shelf, so he could set his alarm clock on it. That night the area was bombed in order to destroy the railway line but the bombers were unaware of the British below.

After the raid most of his friends in foxholes around him were dead. He survived because of the old etal sheet, the glass in the clock was shattered and the clock had stopped at the time the first bomb had fallen.

After he was captured, he made his first bid for freedom when he escaped from a POW Camp at Tournai in Belgium. Lt. General Sir Derek Lang escaped on the same night as Grandad and from the same toilet roof. Lt. General Sir Derek Lang wrote a book about all this.

Grandad took a bicycle and rode 2000 miles and ate what he could get from the fields. He would usually ask in local farms if he could see their calendar because there was a map of the area on the back.

Avoiding main roads and large towns, he was only once stopped at a German checkpoint and asked for his papers. He offered the German sentry a cigarette and asked for a light in French. By then the sentry had forgotten why he had stopped hima nd he went on his way only to be betrayed when he reached Marseille and sent back. It was a French Minister who betrayed him and a lot of other British soldiers.

He was sent to Stalag XVIIIC (317) at Markt Pongua in Austria and that was the last camp he was held in. He was liberated by the Americans shortly before the end of the War in 1944. He spent some time with the Americans but he couldn't eat their rich food that they provided after being in the camp living on potatoes and bread for such a long time. So Grandad and his friend left and went their own way staying in empty grand houses, having wine from their cellars - or what was left of them - before they made their way to the Franch coast and were flown hom in a Lancaster bomber.

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