大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War Website by Elizabeth Perez of Stockport Libraries on behalf of Fred Hirst and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

It was late April, and I was a POW in Munich, located in a school on the eastern side of the city near the East Station. We POWs had to work, and at this particular time I was attached to a party who were working in the centre of the city on a roof, salvaging tiles from a bombed-out building. News of the progress of the war managed to get through to us via the German guards, who were now getting more friendly each day, from civilians, foreign workers and from newspapers specially printed for dropping by the Allied bombers during air raids. The R.A.F. version was called 鈥淭he Night Raider鈥�. We were marched each day to our place of work, a matter of about four or five miles each way, and would return to the school to stay in the building until the next day. At the weekend we were kept in there from lunchtime Saturday until Monday morning.

Air raids were continually hitting the city, and at night-time we would be escorted down into the cellars under the school. During the day we sheltered in the same air raid shelters in the city as the German civilians. The very last day that we were taken to work, there was a raid by the Free French Airforce. We knew it was the French because it was the practice of the Germans to have a radio in the larger shelters, and Munich Radio used to broadcast details of the movement of the raiding aircraft, and warn when they were heading for the city. We heard three bombs drop, each one closer and louder until the fourth one of the stick dropped, thankfully, at the other side of the shelter, damaging the building above us. We were so lucky that it was not a direct hit.

The German guards decided to take it into their own hands to call it a day, and marched us back to the school. On the way we saw people hanging white sheets out of their windows, which the guards told us was in response to instructions by the Allies to indicate that they had surrendered. As we proceeded along the main road towards the school, suddenly we saw fighter aircraft diving and machine-gunning over that area. There was no air-raid warning siren, I don鈥檛 suppose there would be time. We thought that perhaps the target was the East Station and we hoped that the school had not been hit. However, when we finally got back all was well. The guards told us that we would not be going to work again and that we should stay in the building until we were liberated. The next day we heard that all except two of the guards had gone. The two remaining guards, who were Austrian, said that they would stay until the Americans came and would we speak up on their behalf. I don鈥檛 know what they expected would happen to them.

The next day, 30th April, I went up on to the top floor of the school. This had always been forbidden and we were always confined to our own floor. There was a small tower in the roof and from there I could see the red flashes from the tanks as they advanced into the city. Small arms fire could be heard coming from the city centre and I felt a feeling of anxious elation, for liberation would soon be at hand. Suddenly one of the guards, along with our German speaking British Camp Leader, came rushing along the corridors of the building shouting and indicating for us to come away from the windows. Instinctively, from a distance I looked out, to see a company of the dreaded German SS troops marching on to the open space in front of the school. We had always wondered what might happen as liberation came near, for we had heard that as the German Army retreated they would possibly take POWs with them as hostages in the hope of getting the best terms of surrender. Was this going to happen now? For the dreaded notorious SS were capable of anything. The guards were also afraid for their lives as they tried to protect us. Standing well back from the windows we watched as they marched from the road into the compound in front of the school. They looked tired as if they had marched hard for a good distance, and they sank to the ground to rest. I saw some of them drinking from their water bottles and eating some food. All the time we were being advised by our Camp Leader to keep as quiet as possible, for if they had suspected that the building was occupied by us, they would most certainly have come in if only for our Red Cross food. After what seemed hours but could only have been about 30 minutes we saw them get up and prepare to leave. Several of them glanced up at the building, but their suspicions were not aroused, and I expect that they were in a hurry to get moving before the advancing tanks caught up with the. They departed along the road towards Ingolstadt and we all heaved a sigh of relief as they disappeared out of sight. It had been a very anxious time.

That evening at about 7.30pm the Camp Leader, who had been out to do a reconnaissance, returned to say that he had established contact with the American Forces, whose tanks were only now a quarter of a mile down the road. He had told them about the school and they advised him that we should stay where we were until they arrived in the morning. Final freedom was, hopefully at last, only a few hours away. That night my thoughts wondered over the events leading up to this historic moment in my service life: the shock of being taken prisoner in Tunisia; the voyage to Italy in the hell hole of an Italian ship; the Italian Armistice in September 1943 when hopes of freedom were raised so high only to be dashed; fleeing the Italian POW Camp to avoid recapture by the Germans, only to be caught by Italian Fascists and handed over to them; jumping from a POW train on 5th November 1943 in an effort to reach Allied lines; recaptured in March 1944 with an organised party led by an Italian Allied agent, after a tremendous feat of endurance in having climbed over a 6,000 ft. mountain, Mt Morrone, in a blizzard.

Little sleep was possible, but I must have dozed off, because I was suddenly awakened by shouting and noise in the room. I sat up, and then realised that what I could hear was, 鈥淭he Yanks are here鈥�. Everyone was rushing about, trying to get down the stairs as quickly as possible to greet our liberators. Most of us had not changed out of our daytime clothes over the past three days, because of the uncertainty of the situation. It was about 5.30am and gentle flakes of snow were fluttering down, it was bitterly cold and it was the 1st May 1945. There they were, spread out along the road, these wonderful looking American tanks of the US Seventh Army with their beaming occupants waving back to us, obviously delighted to have helped. Some of them jumped down from their tanks and began chatting to us. They told us that they had also liberated the Dachau concentration camp a few miles NW of Munich, and that it had sickened them. We were handed a few bottles of Cognac and were told that we would soon receive sufficient American 鈥淜鈥� rations to supply all our needs. It was great to be talking to people who were on our side at last. Some of the Yanks pulled up wooden railings in front of the houses near by, poured on petrol and soon had a blazing warm fire going on the footpath. All these things I vividly remember, for this day, the 1st of May, was my VE Day. Three days later, the 4th, it was my 22nd birthday.

The American tanks departed a few hours later, towards Ingolstadt, in pursuit of the retreating Germans, and we were left to our own devices for a few days before further American troops arrived to take over the administration of the city. We were showered with food and we felt on top of the world. The weather improved and it became warm and sunny for the rest of the time we were there. But in those days law and order in the city was non-existent. We ex-POWs began to exercise our new found freedom and ventured into the city and found those shops, business premises and wine cellars still standing, were being looted. In one cellar I visited I saw large vats with their taps turned on, and queues of people holding bottles underneath and the floor almost ankle deep in wine. There were thousands of foreign wokrers in the city and they were also taking advantage of their freedom, although they had not been under guard in the same way as ourselves.

Eventually the Americans arrived in greater numbers and took control, confiscating all vehicles and placing a curfew on the city. Strict orders were passed to our Camp Leader by the Amercians, saying that if we were challenged by any of the American soldiers on guard in various parts of the city, our response was to be 鈥淏ritish (or Canadian, Australian etc) G.I.鈥� G.I. was the term used by the Americans for an American soldier, and means 鈥淕overnment Issue鈥�.

One day, as I passed an American small depot,a G.I. called me over to listen to their radio, which had a loud speaker on the wall. He told me that King George VI was about to speak from London. I listened to the broadcast and realised that it was finally the end of the war in Europe, and it was this day, 8th May, that was being celebrated in Britian. It was the 12th May that the Americans informed us that they were to send trucks to the school, and that we should be ready to move out by mid-day. There was great excitement, for we now knew that we were going home. They took us to an airfield a few miles from Munich where we flew, for me it was the first time, in a Dakota aircraft to Brussels. The following day the R.A.F. flew us. Also in a Dakota, back to England, where we landed near Horsham, and from there, after further documentation, the provision of a leave pass, travel warrant and pay, I boarded a special train into London. I made my way to Kings Cross and caught a train from there to Doncaster at about 11pm, arriving, unannounced, on my Mother鈥檚 doorstep at about 3.00am.

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