大象传媒

A GUNNER, AND PRISONER OF WAR (Stalags and the Long March) by Doug Hawkins

Part 3 After The Long March, going home and 60 years on

This is an edited version of an interview by Derek Spruce on 22nd March 2004. The original recording and full transcript are held in the Wessex Film and Sound Archive, ref. BAHS 105 and BAHS 106. 漏 Basingstoke Talking History.

Part 1 describes Doug鈥檚 training and experiences as a no 2 gunner in Italy, and his capture. Part 2 describes Stalag 7a, Stalag 344 and The Long March.

[Three editions of the BASINGSTOKE GAZETTE (www.thisisbasingstoke.co.uk) carry interviews with Doug Hawkins by Richard Garfield on the Memories on Monday page, page 12: 鈥漋eteran鈥檚 Whirlwind Tour of Remembrance鈥� (July 25, 2005), 鈥淗ow I Survived as a Prisoner of War鈥� (August 1st, 2005) and 鈥淭he End of the Road for Prisoners of War鈥� (August 8th, 2005). On July 6th Doug attended the Prince of Wales鈥檚 reception for Second World War veterans at Buckingham Palace, and on July 10th he attended a service of prayer and thanksgiving in Westminster Abbey to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the war, where he sat right in front of the Archbishop of Canterbury, while he was giving his sermon. On July 22nd he attended a garden party at Buckingham Palace at the invitation of the 鈥淣ot Forgotten鈥� Association. The Gazette has photos of Doug at the VE/VJ Day commemoration in Basingstoke鈥檚 War Memorial Park, in his war-time days, on his wedding day and now wearing his medals.]

HOME TO UK
Then the Americans took us to a big aerodrome. I don't know where that was, I hadn't a clue, and we got into different buildings there and they told us that we weren't to touch any of the stuff in the surrounding buildings because there was a fear that it was booby trapped and there was one chap, I believe, killed because he went to get some stuff and he was killed from a booby trap they'd put in there. Probably all the huts were booby trapped. Anyway, they cleaned that up because at that time we were in a safe place. It was about a five mile wide area that the Americans had come to and they came out into a bowl and we were in the bowl, and of course the Germans were either side, so we couldn't get out, really. We were in this RAF place or this aerodrome and we stayed there for two or three weeks and they gradually got out, then they managed to open up the things and the Dakotas came in with fuel and things like that and they used to unload the fuel and gradually take the Prisoners of War home to England. Well, we went to Brussels first and then on to England.

There was medical attention because these Americans, they brought everything there. If anybody wanted medical attention they would get it. We saw the American band leader that was killed, Glen Miller, they brought his band there. These big aerodromes had big open Nissen huts where the aircraft used to go in and they played all this music and it was unforgettable, beautiful.

I suppose it was about three weeks before we got back to England, something like that. Because they got rid of all the wounded and the people that really needed medical treatment first. I had a friend, he lived in Derbyshire, and he went home and he went to a hospital in Derbyshire and he wrote to my father and said that Doug will be home in about three weeks' time. I went to see him in Derbyshire but I鈥檝e never been able to find him.

The Red Cross did notify families but, because at that particular time there were so many of us and we were in different places, they tried their level best to tell everybody, but there was such a lot of people there.

When I returned after the war I got a job at Cable and Wireless, it was night work, very, very different shifts so and I didn't like that. I got a job with a cigarette marketing company and I played cricket for them and then I went up to Yorkshire and played league cricket and thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought well, this was the release, really. I played sport and things like that, you were keen to forget the bad things.

Hundreds died on the Long March. I had a friend, George Stapleton, he was an RAF chap who lived in Borley in Leeds and when I came home I knew he was bad on the march because we tried to help him as much as we could but he was in such a bad way with dysentery and things, and the day I came home I wrote. I knew his address because he'd given it to me, so I wrote to that address and his mother replied, saying that he never made it. After, the following year, I got married in 1946 and we went down to Runnymede to see the RAF, memorial and we found his name. But his mother wrote and said he never made it, so it was unfortunate, because it brought it all back. There was lots of them like that, you know. They left them on the side of the road and they didn't make it.

SIXTY YEARS ON
I never wanted to go back for a visit but I鈥檝e had this thing sent to me Heroes Return. I could go back to Italy to see where I was captured. And it'll all be free of charge, and if I go back to Italy they even give me 拢500 if I go back, and I can take a carer with me, and if I took a carer that would be another amount that they would give. I'm thinking of it but I don't know yet. I'm 80 years of age and I'm a bit worried about going but I'm going to fill it in and send it and see what happens. So I might get my daughter to come with me.

My war experiences were really frightening. I didn't want to tell anybody. I wouldn't want to frighten them and they might not be able to understand. It has changed over the years. It wasn't really until the wife died about four years ago I thought, 鈥業'll get out now, I'm going to find these people and see if I can get this out of my system.鈥� Then the 大象传媒 took me down to Cardiff to meet this chap from Wales who was in the same camp, and that all came about through my bowls. We were going on a bowls tour to Cardiff and I knew that I was with a lot of these Welsh chaps so I wrote to them and two of them put a notice on their noticeboard. A woman wrote to me, or phoned me and said, 'My brother was in that camp and when you come down to play us he's coming down to meet you.鈥� Well, two days before I got down there, his wife had had a heart attack and he couldn't come but his sister came and we conversed. And then the 大象传媒 must have found out something about this. My experiences stayed with me and, well, you couldn't talk to people about it. This Welsh chap was the only one I've been able to find that was in the same camp. And yet they must be there, they must be. We used to have a Prisoner of War Reunion down at Hayling Island but they gradually disappeared because they're getting so few now.

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