大象传媒

This story was submitted to the WW2 People鈥檚 War Website by the London Borough of Harrow Housebound Library Service on behalf of Mrs Joyce Allwright, and has been added with her permission.

Gordon Allwright, who was to become my second husband, was one of the first to join up when war started. Before the war he used to go to RAF school in Reading, and had wanted to be a pilot. He joined the RAF as a warrant officer and became a rear gunner. On one of his missions he was shot down over Holland. He survived and was taken prisoner, and put into Amsterdam jail for a while, and then taken on to Stalag Luft 3 POW camp, 100 miles southeast of Berlin in what is now Poland. They were taken there in trucks, all the men crushed in together. He was there for three years. He used to help other men to escape, though he never tried to escape himself, and he helped with the wooden horse escape. A fellow prisoner called Dickie Dixon used to organize the escapes as he spoke perfect German.

From Stalag Luft 3 he went on a long march to another camp. The men had to dive into ditches to avoid the bombers flying over. On one occasion British planes flew over and started bombing, and some men were killed, but then they realized that these were British prisoners on the march and stopped bombing. While Gordon was on the march he went temporarily blind and a friend had to lead him. His sight did eventually come back. When he returned home he weighed five stone, just skin and bone, it was terrible.

He could tell you some tales about his time in Stalag Luft 3. The men used to put on a lot of shows. Gordon was very clever at making costumes, and they would all dress up and perform in pantomimes. Some of the other prisoners could speak German perfectly, and were able to get away with a lot of things. They were able to get certain things for the costumes, but only from some of the guards who were easily bribed.

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