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After our forced march into Poland we arrived at a camp at a place called Sczubin Its funny really that although conditions were so bad everywhere we were all interested to know where it was that we were. As if it made any difference to our plight, I guess its like taking any journey you always want to know where it is that you have arrived at.

Anyway we were in a camp at Sczubin and life could not get much worse. Tired, hungry, clothes and boots threadbare and in poor repair and lacking in medical supplies. We also had to face the totally awful unsanitary conditions plus lice and the rigors of the Polish winter with no adequate clothing or means to keep warm or properly sheltered from the elements. We were housed in old farm buildings and our only means of taking our ablutions was one hand lever operated tap in the yard which for much of the time was frozen owing to the worsening weather of the winter months.

It was totally and utterly degrading and added to that we all worried that our loved ones had no idea if we lived or had died in the desperate retreat and exodus of Dunkirk. I heard latter that it was October before my own parents heard of my captor and were given some reassurance that their son was still in the land of the living.

It was to my great joy that I got a letter from my parents in the November of 1940. With all the brutality we endured it might seem strange that we had letters and even had our photos taken but it could be thought that this can be more attributed to the crafty Germans wanting their forces, who were taken prisoner by us, to be treated well rather than any humanitarian thoughts they may have had for us. I will give some examples of their treatment of us as their helpless prisoners which will explain the way the Germans really cared? about their prisoners!

In the spring of 1941 we were moved to Pozan situated in Northern Poland on the banks of the river Worthe which flows into the Baltic. Pozan has a circle of forts surrounding it one of which is Fort Rauch which is quite pleasant and situated on a hill over looking the town. However there are several other forts which are partly underground these were the ones used to house the P O W. They were dank, smelly, rat ridden and unsanitary.

I was to return there in 1980 with my wife Iris, we placed a wreath on the war memorial to all those who died in that place. Amongst those who have found their final resting place in the British and Commonwealth Cemetery in Poznan were those whose escape was portrayed in the film ‘The Great Escape’. After capture they were shoot (murdered!) and now rest in peace in Poznan.

It was while a prisoner in Poznan that on a work party one day a guard accused me of not working hard enough. The guard was a nasty piece of work and he took it into his head to charge me with sabotage. I was sentenced to 14 day bread and water in the cells. I think that was why in August I was singled out with several others to be sent to Stalag VIII B at Lansdorf the infamous ’Hell Camp of Eastern Europe’. We travelled through Poland and stopping off at a transit camp for a few days were aimlessly milling about in the compound when the guards bought in some more P O W’s. We had no idea why, maybe a bad mood, boredom, arrogance, madness or just plain cruel brutality but a guard suddenly started firing his machine gun wildly spraying all in the compound with bullets. He hit one chap in the back who sadly dead a few days latter. I can recall that happening a couple of times before while I when we were on the long march to Poland and at the Sczubin camp. A group of lads in some huts got up a bit of sing-song to lift their spirits. Both times our guards fired through the huts that were only really paper thin, I think there were several wounded. Of course any wound or illness meant that you would not be able to keep going and this cut down your survival odds. It was survival of the fittest in that situation, any illness or injury was almost a death sentence.

By that time Russia and Germany were at war and we were soon put to work at Lansdorf putting up huts, wire compounds and stockades for the Russian prisoners the Germans were expecting. The Germans were expecting a huge influx of prisoners but with the miles they had marched, malnutrition and disease the poor souls died in droves. Not for them a Christian burial but rather a long trench and lime pumps. It breaks the hart to think of how many Russian lads died on their way or when they reached there. Possible a mirror image of Napoleons retreat from Moscow.

By September 1941 Lansdorf was getting a bit more bearable and we were more able to tolerate our captivity. We had books, fresh clothing, parcels from home and more regular mail. We even had some entertainment supplied for us by the talents of our comrades, we had musical instruments either through the Red Cross or through a bartering system with our guards. Jimmy Howe latter promoted Major formed the VIIIB Dance Orchestra al the members were very good musicians and what a lovely Glen Miller sound they made! It lifted of harts and spirits and helped to raise our moral no end.

The P O W were from all walks of life and although their skills were not appreciated in civilian life the criminal elements amongst us made life a bit more bearable in using their skills to our advantage. In civilian life picking a lock would be beyond most of us but for the ex burglars amongst us picking locks was no problem. This came in very handy for the Canadians as mentioned above.

Other prisoners could make radios, given that they could acquire the parts. With a radio we could keep up with the news from outside of the camp and so we could keep up our spirits with the knowledge that freedom would soon be on its way. The Germans know we had radios but they just could not find them. We hide them in the most ingenious and unusual places

Other difficulties could be overcome as in the heating of water for a hot drink, a ’blower’ was made, in fact it was a small bellows stove made from a small wooden base and a Red Cross tin. Using the minimal amount of combustible material i.e. wood shavings or cardboard you could heat water enough to make a hot drink which was to us a wonderful luxury after a hard day underground.
At the mine one of the lad obtained a piece of round shaped wood just right for a dart board. The darts were made with paper flights and it all worked very well. Darts is not a German game and unfortunately when the guards saw how accurately some of the lads could throw the darts they confiscated them and stopped the game which was a great shame.

It was possible if you had some kind of trade to wangle a permanent job in the camp, this was the best place to be as some of the work parties could be very hard indeed, as my experience in the coal mines which I was very hard and dangerous work.

We had all sorts of trades and skills in the camp cobblers, barbers, tailors, cooks and perhaps most important of all medical staff. If you were one of these go were vulnerable to be collared for a work party. There were parties for heavy industry in the petrochemical factories, war supplies and for me the mines.

However by September 1941 a party of about a hundred of us were rounded up and marched off to work in the mines. Before we were taken to the mines we were kept in a compound where one day we saw Canadian prisoners arriving. They were survivors who had come from the ill fated Dieppe Raid. It seemed the Germans had got word that the Canadians were allegedly not treating German prisoners very well it was alleged that the Canadians were supposed to be tying up their prisoners by the wrists for hours. As a reprisal for this the Germans retaliated by tying up the Canadian prisoners for hours on end. This became a farce as the crafty Canadians worked out ways of getting loss from their bonds. It all started with the Germans using short pieces of rope, chaps were merely rounding a corner getting untied and then rejoining the queue again. The Germans got wise to this and began using metal manacles which the ever ingenious prisoners could unlock using metal keys made from tins taken from Red Cross parcels. So the whole episode descended into a farce, you might call it a black comedy.

What was not at all funny was the work at the mine, the mine was situated on the outskirts of Beuthen, one of a cluster of industrial town in Upper Silesia. There were three levels to the mine I worked on the middle level 500metres down, the main haulage way was lit by electricity otherwise we had to carry personal carbide lamps which needed to be conserved for 8-10 hours. Rules on health and safety of course did not exist and it could be very dangerous in the pitch black darkness.

We lost two good comrades in the mines, both were in my hut, we lost one in 1942 and one in 1943. The first lad was in The Royal Sussex Regiment the second was a New Zealander taken prisoner on Crete he was a smashing lad, an only son if I remember rightly, they both died as a result of roof falls.

We were so far underground as not to know when one night in 1943 the area was heavily bombed. The Russian U S and the R A F gave the place a real plastering fortunately our huts were some distance from the pithead and both the 2pm and 10 pm shifts had showered and returned to camp so we did not suffer any fatalities. It was the Poles and the Germans who suffered from the raid, it’s a strange thing to be bombed from your own side but we understood that they had a job to do and we were just glad that we hadn’t come to any harm ourselves.

People have asked about escapes from the camp and did I have a chance to get involved with an escape plan. The answer to that is that I did escape in 1945 but not from the camp itself however there were four escapes from the camp while I was there. One escape was made over the wire from the top of the ablution block. Two fellow prisoners worked on loosening the wire from their hut window, during the day they would use some kind of paste to keep the wire in place while at night they would work away at getting the window open when they were ready to go.

Another attempt was made by one prisoner diving into a water filled culvert on a bend in the road as we came back one dark night from the late shift. After the dive into the culvert escape bid when we were back at the camp we went through the usual shuffling about to confuse our guards while being berated as ’Englander Dumnkofts’ and ’Shwienhounds’ it was all designed to be a nuisance but it delayed our dismissal. After this the Germans reacted by making the last man in the column carry a large spotlight which was shone along the ranks.

But it was not until latter when we heard the blessed sound of the Russian guns that there was any real point of trying to escape as before then there was no where really for us to go. If there were escape bids made we all suffered because of the inevitable lack of privileges i.e. no mail or parcels from home or the Red Cross and a cut in food when we were already on starvation rations.

At the end of things there was an MI5 team working on our repatriation but their main efforts were to recover crashed pilots and air crew. I can remember being at the dock in Odessa with a young liaison officer who was checking us on board he turned out to be the actor Michael Denison, he was used I suspect for his linguistic abilities.

It was always wonderful to get a letter from home but one sad part of this was for those with wives and fiances was the prospect that they might write them a ‘Dear John’ letter. This was obviously depressing for some as they were powerless to do anything about it. Even so there was a dark humour of sorts in this situation, the funniest letter I heard of went something like this - Dear John, We hope you are well and getting along O K I’m now staying with your father, we married a couple of weeks ago. Love mum.

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