大象传媒

It was in February 1945 when the Big Three Wartime Leaders,Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin and Franklin Rooseveldt had their penultimate meeting in the Russian resort town of Yalta on the Crimea to discuss the future of Europe now that the end of the war was assured and, barring accidents, would end in the ultimate Victory for the Allied Nations. I use the term penultimate meeting as at the very last meeting of the Big Three,in August 1945, Rooseveldt was dead, Churchill had been ousted by the British People in the July elections and only Stalin was still in power in the U.S.S.R. The new Big Three was therefore Stalin, Trueman, and Clement Atlee the Socialist leader of the British Labour Party,who were the chief executives of the demise of the British Empirs and originators of the British Welfare State which would look after the ever increasing social and Health needs of the Great British Public, from the "Cradle to the Grave" as the master - mind phrased it, Professor William Beveridge.

Many far reaching decisions were made at Yalta, the defeat of Germany and Japan,the partition of Poland whom Briatain went to war to save from nazi Germany, was now handed over to Russia,the formation of the United Nations etc. However,most of these decisions did not come to light until thirty years later when the British Government allowed the publication on the grounds that most of the people involved in these decisions would,in most likelihood, either be dead or at least in a position to deny that it was NOT their fault / they could do nothing about it at the time,as Harold MacMillan, the erstwhile political commissar of the 8th Army at the time, did when challenged in 1976.

One request which was granted, came from Stalin that there should be an interchange of prisoners of war between the three nations at the meeing who were, by and large,most concerned with the winning of the war with most nationals being involved in the conflict. On the face of it, it was an innocuous request and basically went through, 'on the nod' as it were.In hindsight of course,the motive should have been suspect coming from such a man, as Churchill did not trust Stalin too far, but by then, Britain was almost bankrupt and both the USA and the USSR were on their way to becoming superpowers controlling the World scene as Britain had done for nearly three hundred years.

The other factor being, how could Russia have British and American p.o.w.'s when their fighting fronts were so far apart with little or no communication,it should be recalled that Russia had refused permission for the US Air Force to land in Russia after the bombings of the Ploesti Oil Refineries in Rumania,and the ball bearing factories in Schweinmunde in Eastern Germany with horrendous casualties owing to the fact that they had to take off from Foggia in Southern Italy, fly to Eastern Germany/Rumania and return to Italy. The writer witnessed what had been three squadrons of US Liberator Bombers return from one of the raids badly shot up and one aircraft finally went out of control, hit two others and all three crashed to the ground. There was very little could be done for the thirty six men involved.

This interchange of prisioners came to to fore for us in Austria in the spring of 1946 when we returned to our billets in Knittelfeld - Stiermark. We had spent the winter 'lumberjacking' at a camp near Leoben,for firewood in order that the population of Vienna had some warmth. We were already sharing our rations with the starving Austrians and so keeping them warm was just another task.

As "B" squadron of the 16 / 5th Lancers, we were ordered to drive our Sherman Tanks to Judenberg (Jews Mountain), a few miles north of Knittelfeld, and to mount guard on a camp containing - as we thought - Jewish Refugees who were making their way to Palestine, which was still illegal - but they were going anyway ! This was no luxury holiday camp - the future Butlins would have been rated very highly - but a very squalid place where thousands passed through on a daily basis.

Our orders were strange to say the least - we had to surround the camp and turn our 76mm gun and the two 300mm Browning machine guns inward - on the camp ! This was not at all usual as in guarding camps, dumps, laagers etc, the guns were invariably turned outwards - hedgehog style, in the expoectation of an attack from the outside - not inside ! Some questions were asked but it was then discovered that all Officers over the rank of Major were in Italy on a big meeting (sic) ! We were assured that everything was O.K. and that we would be relieved inside the thirty six hours as all squadrons of the Brigade were also doing thirty six hours stints.

As in all things, this too passed and we thought no more of it as the next task was the potentially more enjoyable Vienna Tattoo in the grounds of the Schoenbrunn Palace.

In 1976, the 大象传媒 reported that a decision taken at Yalta had been promulgated by the British Government in compliance with the thirty years rule,and that elements of the British 8th Army had been involved in rounding up some 50,000 Russian deserters both men and women, handing over to the Russians Army troops who loaded them onto trucks, drove them five miles North of Judenberg, shot and killed and buried them in mass graves.

As can be imagined, we were not happy with that news !

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