- Contributed by听
- Family History Day - The National Archives
- People in story:听
- John Wilson - Sgt 55 Squadron
- Location of story:听
- The Luneberg Heath? Germany during the Last Escape
- Background to story:听
- Royal Air Force
- Article ID:听
- A3365534
- Contributed on:听
- 04 December 2004
This story was submitted to the People's War site by Kathryn Haslam of CSV Media on behalf of Sue Shields and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
John Wilson had been a POW at Stalag Luft 6 (the furthest east) and in the Last Escape(1945) westwards at the end of the war they spent the nights whereever they could and felt lucky if they were under cover. This was a forced march of POW by the Germans as the Russians advanced from the East.
One night they found a barn, with hundreds of men sheltering there and John Wilson was up in the hay loft and needed to spend a penny.
Others blithely peed from the loft down onto the sleeping bodies below but he was too decent a chap to do that so used his metal mug.
In the morning he emptied it and found it shining clean wheras previously it had been stained with years of tea.
John Wilson eventually made it back to London but his wife did not initially recognise him as his appearance had aged considerably.
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