大象传媒

P.O.W.

When I limped out of the first aid post at Arnhem, and joined a long parade of prisoners, I had mixed feelings. Firstly, that I had got away so lightly, and a strange feeling that it wasn鈥檛 me at all; it was a dream and I was watching this drama being enacted from the outside. Some rather edgy Germans with nasty looking guns soon brought me back to reality. They had managed to gather together some Lorries to carry the walking wounded, and the prospect of getting a lift brought a sudden worsening of my war wound; in fact it got so bad I could scarcely walk. The ploy worked, and we scrambled aboard and were carted to a huge shed in a town called Apeldoorn some miles north of Arnhem. There we were sorted into other ranks and officers; the other ranks marched off to a Stalag somewhere and the officers locked into cattle trucks and taken off on a tour of Germany that ended in Offlag 79 at Brunswick.

Offlag 79 was a very large group of barracks that had been the home of a German parachute regiment, and after being photographed, finger printed, and given our name rank and number, we were allocated to a room in one of the large three storied buildings.

I recall with some amusement how we had it drummed into us that never were we obliged to give the Germans any information other than our names, rank, and number. In spite of torture and death, our lips were to be sealed. The Germans didn鈥檛 seem to be interested in any information apart from our names, ranks, and numbers which they were required to pass on to the International Red Cross. They had separate camps for Army, RAF, and navel personnel and I was more than a little surprised to see standing in front of me in the queue at the table to give our names, ranks etc, a sailor! Complete with bell bottoms. The look on the face of the German officer when he looked up and saw him was worth at least three months of my incarceration. An airborne sailor? It appeared that he was on leave while his brother was piloting a Dakota that was dropping supplies at Arnhem, and he had been invited to go along for the ride. Some ride, they were shot down and captured! The poor soul was absent without leave until he got back home.

There were some poor soldiers, who had been prisoners for a long time, as long as five years in some cases, for some it became just too much, and they slowly mentally declined. When they were eventually released they were afraid of freedom and took a long, long time to recover. Some never did.

If my army career was a joke, my time as a prisoner was a sick joke. It seems incredible that my six months as a guest of a crowd of pantomime Germans really happened, and I haven鈥檛 made it all up. The futher one gets away from the events of the past, the more one wonders about their authenticity; but I couldn鈥檛 have made all this up, could I? I have tried my best not to be economical with the truth, but it may be that some of these events as I describe then are but an approximation. Which is true of all autobiography. Anyway, why make such a big deal of it any way? After all I was a prisoner for only six months out of a life, so far, of 73 years. Well, you may be interested; it鈥檚 good for a laugh.

The camp was in one of three woods that were about half a mile away from each other. Of the other woods, one was empty, and the other had a Herman Goering aircraft engine factory, the latter being a target for American bombers. Unfortunately the yanks chose the wrong wood. Our camp was bombed and the aircraft factory left intact. They knocked hell out of Offlag 79, fortunately before I arrived, but a considerable amount of damage was done; worst of all, the cookhouse was flattened, which meant that we had no hot food except German coffee which was made from acorns and tasted vile. Miraculously no prisoners were killed, indeed one of them saved the life of a German soldier, for which he was awarded the Iron Cross! Imagine fighting a war and the most prestigious medal you get is from the enemy.

Our name for the Germans was Goon, and most of them were unfit for active service because of age, or had been wounded. Some had very nasty frost bites from service in Russia, missing fingers and toes and ears hidden beneath black patches. One of them spoke to me in quite good English and, after searching in his pocket while I held his rifle (!!) he produced a photograph of his wife and children and told me their names. I told him of my two girls, and then looked him straight in the eyes and said, 鈥淲hy are we fighting each other?鈥� He hesitated for a long while, as if he had never asked that question before, then his eyes began to fill with tears, I touched his arm and walked away. To tell the truth I was damn near to tears myself. What utter stupidity. There were we, ordinary family men what ever language we spoke, trying to kill each other. What madness had we come to? We smiled and admired each others children, and then done our best to make them orphans. If that doesn鈥檛 qualify us for the Looney bin, what the hell does?

The rest of the time in the camp would have been very enjoyable if we hadn鈥檛 been so bloody hungry. We had nothing else to do, so we spent most of our time just making a nuisance of ourselves. Every morning and evening we had to parade our barracks and were counted, and about once a fortnight were kept from going back to our rooms while they searched looking for any forbidden belongings. We had three radio sets hidden away, and were told every day of the content of the 大象传媒 news, which displeased the goons no end because it meant we were learning the one thing the goods never wanted broadcasting; that the Allies were winning. The amazing thing is that the radios were never discovered. We also used to make ourselves a little stove to heat up some of the food from the Red Cross parcels, and the occasional cup of cocoa. These were forbidden because they operated on wood, and since the only wood around was in their buildings, we were gradually pulling the barracks apart. Had the war gone on for another year the entire set of barracks would have collapsed. On some occasions, before they let us back in the buildings they would check us against their files. For each of us they had a card on which was recorded our names, finger prints and photograph, and it was this last that they wanted to check. They would often find that though the photo showed a clean shaven man, there stood before them a fellow sporting a splendid beard. He was marched off to the photographer and soon another photo adorned his card, this time with a beard. Alas, the next time they checked the photo boasted a beard but he didn鈥檛. Off to the photographers again, and so it went on.

At least twice a day a couple of goons would wander into a building, hoping to catch somebody up to no good, but as they were spotted cries of 鈥淕oon up鈥� would be heard all over the building, warning anybody who was up to some nefarious activity. Even the goons would join in the fun, and upon entering would themselves shout out 鈥滸oon up鈥� before starting on their tour. Whether they realised that they were warning us of their presence I don鈥檛 know. They must have been incredibly stupid if they didn鈥檛. But food was the problem. There was nothing to do all day but think about being hungry. The rations dealt out to us from our captors were a bare minimum; a few boiled potatoes a day and a small piece of black bread once a week. And once a week was enough; it tested awful. However, with the Red Cross parcel every week, which about the size of a shoe box and contained all sorts of goodies like cigarettes, corned beef, dried milk, spam which made life bearable. But it couldn鈥檛 last. By Christmas the country was in such a state that no trains from Switzerland, or Lorries from Sweden could get through, and soon the number of parcels dwindled first to one a fortnight, then to one a month, and finally stopped completely. Life was no longer a joke and some astonishing trading went on. Those who didn鈥檛 smoke had saved up their cigarette ration and now began to trade them in the most avaricious way. I saw gold watches worth hundreds of pounds change hands for a packet of fags. These so called officers and gentlemen indulged in the kind of greedy behaviour that no private would have dreamed of sinking to.

In the same room as me were six Canadians, and while we were getting our parcels we all set aside the packet of sultanas that each parcel contained that we eventually put into a globe shaped lamp shade with sugar and left them to ferment. The theory was that in a month or two we would have some delicious white wine. It worked! We found some bottles and decanted the precious liquid into them, to discover later that the bottles had been used before to store paraffin. Came the day for our booze up, we got stoned out of our minds and created some mayhem, but no ill effects, except scowls from our fellow inmates. One chap, a South African Colonel, ventured to protest, but when the six Canadians advanced on him he took to his heels.

If we were to accept all that one sees in films and on TV, then we should have spent every moment of the day in planning escapes, but towards the end of the war it just wasn鈥檛 like that. Mind you, there was what was known as the cloak and dagger dept., who seemed to be able to get up to the most amazing antics. There were even two men in the camp that the goons didn鈥檛 know were there. I knew because I found them tucked away in the corner of the attic when I was up there trying to find some wood for my stewfor. They hadn鈥檛 seen me so I made my way to the office of the SBO (Senior British Officer) to warn them of the two shady characters who were hiding in the roof, only to be told politely but firmly to keep my big mouth shut or else. I later discovered that these two guys had been planted there to help in any possible escape plan. If somebody wanted to escape one of them would take his place in the roll call for two or three days, and then disappear back to his hidey-hole. This left the goons starting to search for a runaway who had actually taken off days before. While I was there one chap made the attempt but he didn鈥檛 get far; he was brought back and spent a month in solitary for his impudence.

Another, and only other attempt, was a laughable mass escape that literally collapsed. In the basement the walls consisted of large stone blocks about two feet square, and a group managed to lever two of the blocks out and started digging a tunnel. They were fortunate in that they were able to surreptitiously dispose of the earth into the bomb craters left by the yanks. It turned out to be an appalling wet winter, and when they had dug themselves under the fencing a whole section of the barbed wire fencing, and the poles that supported it slowly subsided and leaned over at an angle of 45掳. We were all lined up for roll call at the time, and captors and captives alike watched fascinated as the twenty foot high fences collapsed. And that was the end of any bursts for freedom. Without decent food we were too weak to try a breakout, and we just sat back and tried to survive until our liberators arrived, which they did in the form of a huge red-headed Irish American Sergeant and a squad of GI鈥檚. The guards trotted off happily to the guard room and dumped their arms, and then vanished. All night long we had heard the sounds of battle going on in the distance, but fortunately the fighting by-passed Brunswick. The freedom we now had was a bit of an anti climax; we had nowhere to go. One or two brave spirits set off to find food, without much success, and another chap and I went and had a look at the Herman Goering works. It was a mess. Workers, who had been drafted in from countries the Germans had overrun, wreaked their revenge on that place and then set off in search of some of their tormentors. They found one or two.

Cont.

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