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July 1944 saw Luft VI, situated at the eastern extremity of East Prussia, threatened by the advancing Russian army the sound of heavy artillery fire clearly heard in the distance and immediate evacuation was ordered. Told we could only take what we could carry, food left from Red Cross parcels and other items were thrown into the compound cess-pit to ensure they didn't fall into other hands.

Carrying all our personal possessions we entrained in cattle trucks at Heydekrug station and taken to the port of Memel to embark on a dirty and rusty old tramp steamer called Insterburg. Climbing down vertical steel ladders and packed into the filthy holds like sardines without sanitation or fresh air, conditions were extremely and distinctively uncomfortable. The midsummer heat combined with thirst and the sweltering hold made suffering hardly bearable for several prisoners causing great distress.

For 3 nights and 4 days we were held in these conditions and being ever mindful of the mines dropped into the sea made tension even greater for the journey to the Baltic port of Swinemunde. Unbeknown to us however worse was to follow. At the port we were handcuffed and herded into cattle trucks when aircraft flew overhead causing a commotion among the guards who locked the doors and fled to safety. A battleship anchored at the quay-side opened fire, the trucks then bouncing on the rails made us wonder what next could happen.

The train journey took us to Kiefheide in Pomerania with the camp Stalag Luft IV Gross Tychow, three miles from the station, the worst part of the journey was yet to come. After spending a day and night in the trucks without water we detrained and were counted and handcuffed in pairs. The waiting guards who were dressed in running shorts, singlets and shoes and carried rifles with fixed bayonets, apparently they were submarine trainees. The Luftwaffe guards who had been with us from Heydekrug took up positions at the roadside armed with machine guns.

The march to the camp began when Hauptmann Pickard who had previously been making inflammatory speeches to the guards calling us "terror airman" fired his pistol and the guards went among us stabbing with their bayonets and striking with the rifle butts forcing all to run as best as they could, so began the "infamous run up the hill". Already exhausted and weary from the journey many fell. With pistol shots being fired and guards running in and out with their bayonets, dogs were then sent in to add to the confusion and misery, being actively encouraged to be vicious and bite.

Being handcuffed to a taller man who was already very exhausted I more or less had to hold him up to avoid being brought down, I also had all my personal possessions in a pack on my back. The stampede seemed never ending and the 3 miles to the camp more like 30. Many who reached the camp had multiple wounds and so we arrived at the gates of what became known as the "notoriously brutal Luft IV". We were then made to sit down for a considerable time before being allocated into accommodation that included for some over sized kennels that measured 16 x 8 x 4ft high and housed 10 men.

Life in Luft IV, considering the type of officers in charge, was more difficult and certainly with greater tension than at other camps, combined with the expectancy of the unknown liable to happen at any time.

At one period during the Autumn of 1944, rumour had it that preparations were being made to shoot all prisoners. I think that fortunately, the German camp officers had sudden thoughts of their own survival with the war nearing its end. Fate however decided, with the help of the Russian advance again, that within a few months we would once again be on the move, but that is another story.

Mr Martin’s story continues in ‘The Long March to Freedom’. For other stories by Mr Martin, see ‘1st 1000 plane bomber raid, Cologne 30th /31st May 1942’; and ‘2nd & 3rd 1000 Plane Bomber Raids & capture by the Germans’.

This story was entered by Jenni Waugh, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Outreach Officer, on behalf of Victor Arthur Martin, who accepts the site’s terms and conditions.

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