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PRISONER OF THE GERMANS

Prologue

This account has been typed from a handwritten version written by my Father sometime during the early 1990’s. I discovered it shortly before he died whilst sorting through the possessions. During his life he rarely talked about his war-time experiences and, therefore, much of this record was new to me.

His ‘souvenirs’ were stored in a box which also contained other mementos including medals and maps cut from newspapers. In his will he requested that the mementos were passed to the Imperial War Museum.

Robert Bennett Warren was born in Harold Wood, Essex on 4th February 1919. After attending Brentwood School he joined Royal Exchange Insurance as an Insurance Clerk.

He was called up on 16th October 1939 and joined the Royal West Kent Regiment. He was transferred to the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in May 1943 and after a period in North Africa joined the landing at Angio just south of Rome.

He was discharged from the army in May 1946 and on his return to civilian life went back to his job with Royal Exchange Insurance. He married Dorothy Ruth Jackman in 1949 and remained living in Harold Wood. He had two sons, Robert Geoffrey born in 1951 and David John born in 1954.

In October 1972 he moved Ipswich in Suffolk as his employer, now Guardian Royal Exchange, relocated out of London. He retired on his 60th birthday in February 1979 and in 1985 moved to Felixstowe. He died in 1st November 2003 after a long illness.

David Warren November 2004

Prisoner of the Germans

Introduction

This account is based on the following sources of information:
1. Memory (now getting dim)
2. Notes in a small pocket diary. The amount I could write was limited by space.
3. Letters sent home to mum by me and found by me when sorting out her effects after her death.

Naturally I had to be circumspect about the information written down in 2 & 3. Even so, a few of the letters bear the heavy hand of the censor.

Plan

Background.
General situation.
Capture.
The Film Studio, February 4th — 21st 1944. (outskirts of Rome).
Laterina (Florence area), February 22nd — March 21st 1944.
Moosburg, Bavaria (Stalag VIIB), March 22nd — May 1st 1944.
Sagan, Upper Silesia (Stalag VIIIC), May 3rd — 31st 1944.
Arbeitry-Kommando No 4032, May31st — 21st January 1945.
‘The March’, 21st January — March 14th 1945.
Hildersheim, March 14th — 20th 1945.
‘March’ part 2, March 20th -21st 1945.
Hanover, March 21st — April 10th 1045.
Release.

Background

At the end of February 1944 my mother received the attached form-letter from Infantry Record Office in York.

Mum naturally made desperate efforts to obtain further information and on 12th March she received the letter attached below from the Adjutant of my battalion — a remarkable letter seeing that the battalion was engaged in fierce fighting on the Angio beach-head and I was only one of many casualties.

What was it that led to the dispatch of these letters to my mother?
General Situation.

At the end of 1943 and the beginning of 1944 the Allied Forces had been slowly battering their way northward in Italy, but had come to a halt at Monte Cassino where some of the bitterest battles of the war were fought. In an endeavour to break the stalemate a landing was planned at Anzio and Nettuno just south of Rome. Anzio was a small port on a headland, and Nettuno immediately to the south with its long sweeping beach had been a prominent watering place. We in the task force were kept in the dark until the last moment; the strongest rumour was that we were going to invade the south of France.

The initial landings were achieved with negligible opposition by the 3rd American Division and the British 1st Division of which I was a member. We were expecting to have to wade ashore and because of this we were all given a tot of rum, but in the event we landed in Anzio harbour. After creating an initial bridgehead, 1st Division began probing attacks towards Rome. It is not my intention to expand fuller on the Campaign or the Bridgehead; a number of books have been written on the subject by persons better qualified than I am.

Capture.

At the time my story begins my Company had reached the furthest point the bridgehead ever reached before the break-out in May 1944, the outskirts of the little town of Campoleone. Our platoon positions were on the crest of a little rise with a narrow valley and a railway line to the north of us. Immediately to our right was a farmstead. We were in fact at the extreme point of the salient 1st Division created by their advance.

On the night of February 3rd/4th the Germans put in their first counter attack and they did the obvious thing; they nipped off the base of the Salient. My company was thus cut off from the rest of the battalion, though I didn’t appreciate this at the time.

It was like a gigantic fire-works night with coloured tracers flying in all directions. I could hear tanks moving in the valley below us and the sky was lit up when one went up in flames. The Germans then attacked us from the rear and we could hear them getting nearer and nearer. All the time they were shouting to each other, quite unlike our procedure at night. There was some answering rifle fire but not the amount I would have expected.

We (that is my section — I was section leader) were expecting it would be our turn at any moment, but it was not so; presumably they missed us in the darkness. So, one of the longest nights of my life dragged on. I remember trying to keep awake by very slowly getting through a packet of biscuits and a tin of syrup!

With the coming of daylight, the Germans apparently realised they had not mopped everyone up, because we were subjected to a sheet of machine-gun fire and a bombardment. All we could do was to crouch in our slit trenches; to have put our heads up would have been suicide. One bullet went right through my knapsack resting on the parapet of my slit trench. I thought my end had come.

The expected attack, however, did not materialise and all became deathly quiet. We had little idea as to what had happened in the night or what we were supposed to do, so as Section-leader I saw it as my duty to take some action. After a time of quiet I stealthily climbed out of my slit trench and crept on my stomach in best bird-stalking fashion back to my platoon HQ, but there was not a soul there. Carefully looking around I could see no signs of any other section either. It seemed all had gone bar the four of us.

I crept back on my stomach to my section and reported the situation as I understood it. We had no idea what to do next, but we did not have long to ponder. We became aware that a section of Germans was searching the farmstead 50 — 100 yards to our right and that there were a lot more Germans milling about at the bottom of the hill behind us. It was now quite clear that we were the last survivors and that we were well and truly behind enemy lines.

We were no suicide squad, so I gave instructions to the section to destroy their weapons as best they could. Then we put up our hands and shouted ‘Camarade’ in time-honoured fashion. The Germans searching the farmstead beckoned to us to come to them. As we dashed over to them the Germans at the bottom of the hill began firing at us. One of the section who had captured us ran out into the open and fired his rifle in the air as a signal for them to stop. I thought it was very brave of him.

They searched us for arms and ammunition, but made no attempt to take anything else from us such as watches and pens. They were far more disciplined in this respect than the average ‘Tommie’. We were then put into one of the rooms of the farmhouse with guards while they went to get instructions. The two or three guards proved very friendly. They tried to talk to us but we knew no German and they little English. All they could manage were such expressions as ‘war no good’ and ‘for you the war is over’.

After this we were given the job of carrying boxes of ammunition up to their front line. Whether this is permissible under the terms of the Geneva Convention I do not know, but we were in no position to argue the niceties of that Convention. At this point several of our shells came over. I remember thinking that the Germans seemed more scared than we were. A whole line of soldiers were strung out lying on the ground in the open and firing their rifles at random. We were told to pick up a stretcher bearing a wounded officer and carry him away from the line. As we began to do so a stray bullet from the battlefield hit and wounded one of the Germans escorting us. They were so upset that they threatened one of my section, but fortunately quickly realised it was nothing to do with us. The wounded man was given a pick-a-back out of the line.

As we walked along the German officer, quite a young man, started a conversation with me. He did not know any English and I no German, but we had both learnt French at school so we talked to each other in school-boy French. We only mentioned our homes and families, and of course did not touch on military matters. Later one or two presumably Intelligence staff joined us. They questioned us about our artillery and I was quite pleased I could honestly say I had no idea.

Eventually we reached their regimental H.Q. where we left the stretcher and its burden. An officer or Sergeant-Major gave instructions for one of the soldiers to escort us further. There then occurred an incident that caused us no little amusement (we were needing some light relief), though the Germans did not find it amusing. The soldier who had been detailed began to walk down the road with his rifle slung over his shoulder and kept looking back to make sure that we were following. The officer bellowed at the poor man and gave him a terrific dressing down. He should of course have walked behind us with his rifle at the ready.

So we walked along a long road away from the front. I had a number of letters in my pocket with the address referring to the 1st Battalion Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. As we had been instructed only to give our name rank and number if captured and not the name of our unit, as we walked along I slowly tore these envelopes to bits with my hand in my pocket, compressed each bit into a minute ball, and let it drop. In actual fact and to my surprise we were not searched again after the initial search for arms and ammunition when first captured.

At one point we passed a motorcycle lying by the road-side with a dead dispatch rider by it, presumably a victim of our shelling and a grim reminder that we were not yet out of danger. Eventually we came to a cave in the hill-side into which we were put and which was crowded with British Prisoners-of-war, presumably captured earlier.

So ended the 4th February my 25th birthday! At this point my memory conflicts with my diary entry. I seem clearly to remember spending the night in the cave and being taken away in ‘buses’ the following morning. During the night while I was asleep someone stole a bar of chocolate from my haversack which had been sent to me for my birthday — I could have done with that. However my diary records that we were taken away that night. A possible explanation for the discrepancy is that we were taken away very early in the morning before light.

After all this time it is difficult to remember exactly what my emotions were during and after the events of the day, but I do clearly remember thinking that I now had a good chance of surviving the war; I had practically given up hope before.

The Film Studio and camp, Rome.

Our first P.O.W. ‘home’ was a large film studio on the outskirts of Rome; conditions were very crowded. No form of bedding was provided so we stripped off sheets of the fibreglass noise insulation materials from the wall to lie on. It would probably have been better if we had not done so, as bits of glass penetrated our clothes and were highly irritating.

Our first meals from the Germans were given to us on February 5th:-
Breakfast: Ergaty coffee only without milk or sugar. This was the coffee we
continued to receive all the time I was a P.O.W. It was popularly
supposed to have been made from acorns but I have read that in
fact it was made from roast barley.
Lunch: Soup with vegetables in it (skilly in P.O.W. parlance).
Tea: A large square biscuit and butter.

One day we were put on to open trucks and driven round the street of Rome: a propaganda exercise to impress the Romans with the number of prisoners being taken. At least, I did have a wonderful view of the Coliseum; the road went right round it! My diary notes that the drive finished up at a prison camp, presumably in the outskirts of Rome. Memory is a funny thing; I have absolutely no recollections of this camp, though I do remember the film studio clearly. At this camp I made myself a set of playing cards out of paper, with which I played patience and which I still have among my souvenirs.

Some-one also lent me an encyclopaedia to read! One day I was put on a wood chopping fatigue and was given extra bread as a reward! It was at this camp that we were introduced to German Rye (‘black’) bread, our basic food all the time we were P.O.Ws. We considered it a special war-time bread, so I was astonished when we were given it on a holiday at Mitterwald, in the Bavarian Alps in 1985. We were given with it Margarine and Jam, and on one day a bit of cheese. The ration was four men to a loaf, more generous than we were to get much later on. At the tea meal one day we received green, scented (presumably herbal) tea.

There was a short service on Sunday February 13th, but who led it I have no record. On the 16th we were issued with pre-printed cards to send home. Whether mum ever received my one or not I do not know; it was not among her papers. My diary notes that men were trying tea leaves, coffee grains, and dried cabbage leaves in their desperation for a smoke. Weather during this period was mixed; warm sunshine, cold north wind, and some rain. We had a pair of Black Redstarts around the camp.

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