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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by Suzanne Longstone and has been added to the website on behalf of Mr Harry van Buren with his permission and he fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Harry was 20 and living in Richmond, Surrey when war broke out. He was conscripted into the Queen Victoria Rifles and trained on a hop farm in Kent. The Battalion was sent to Calais in May 1940 as part of the Defence of Calais. They held out for 5 days, but were captured by the Germans. There was a short time looking after the wounded, then in July 1940 the captives started a march across Europe, through France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and into Poland, where they were put into train cattle trucks and taken to Torun Prisoner of War Camp, East Poland, arriving in Sept 1940. Here began four and a half years of captivity and deprivation in different POW camps and work parties in Poland and Germany. Connections with home were few and months would go by with no contact. Food was a bowl of thin soup per man per day, and a loaf of bread a day between 10 men. Food consumed their thoughts, dreams, conversation and plans! The Red Cross parcels they did receive were used to barter with the Polish civilians, though this could be tricky for everyone if the guards got wind of a deal. Work was pick and shovel hard graft building railways, or felling trees.

In 1942 Harry was moved to another camp near Danzig(presently Gdansk).While he was on a working party on the edge of a forest he and two others slipped away from the guards and into the forest. They spent days walking through the forest, eating what they could find growing wild, but when they reached another edge they were recaptured by guards and put into solitary confinement for three weeks as punishment. This meant that rations were a slice of bread a day and water, with one bowl of even thinner soup once every three days. Bed was just a wooden slab — no blankets or mattress. However, this didn’t stop Harry from looking out for the next escape opportunity! He had to wait until January 1945. The Russians were advancing into Poland, so everyone had to move west,back to Germany, including prisoners. They were marched through the deep snow, sleeping in barns overnight. As it was so cold they marched and slept in every piece of clothing they were issued with. If their boots had worn out they were given wooden clogs to march in. One day, as dusk approached, the guards were busy trying to sort out a billet for the night. While their attention was elsewhere Harry and 3 other men dived into an empty house. The guards didn’t get the billet and so, with a place to stay for the night uppermost in their mind, moved the hundreds of captive soldiers on in a rush without noticing that anyone was missing. Harry and his companions decided the best strategy would be to move eastwards, towards the advancing Russians. They holed up in another house for 5 or 6 days, only to be recaptured by a German officer walking into the house.

This time they were put in a POW camp with French soldiers. They weren’t there long when they were marched off again, ending at Stendal, Germany, and put to work on the railways again. It was now April 1945 and most prisoners were very weak, but the news that the Americans were advancing from the west as well as the Russians from the east made them more positive. The Germans marched them off again, this time east, back towards Berlin. Harry and another friend, who was very weak, got hold of some wire cutters and were able to use these to escape. It was hard for his companion to keep up, so they rested in an empty house, deserted by civilians on the move, and heard lots of heavy German Army transport all through the night. They decided to go back to Stendal where they saw a line of US Army tanks on the move. They jumped onto a tank to get it to stop and were taken on board by the US soldiers. The German soldiers by then were surrendering in huge numbers and, ironically, Harry was involved in guarding and interrogating his jailors as he could speak German! He ended up in Hannover and then got flown back to Chalfont St Giles in a Dakota transport plane with no seats. On VE Day he was in London and spent the evening celebrating in Trafalgar Square.

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