大象传媒

After three days in cattle trucks without food or drink we arrived at Lamsdorf Stalag VIIIB (now called Lambinowice). This would be in early August 1940. It was the first time I had slept in a bed since I left Bordon.

The beds were three wooden tiers with straw mattresses and we were herded into single storey rooms 300 to a room, which in England would not have taken 20 men. Our rations were 10 men to a black loaf about as big as a small Hovis, a 50 cigarette size tin of watery soup and two tiny potatoes. At this time we were listed as POWs and my number was 16975 for which I was given a tag, which I had to wear and produce at all times.

So long as we did as we were told we were not badly treated, but as there were only 2 taps and 1 shower for 300 men the conditions were pretty bad. Later that month I was sent to a working party at Stubendorf, this is near Appelm on the Polish border.

We were billeted in an old sheep barn next to a German aerodrome. It had an earth floor and the beds were in two tiers made of wood with straw spread over them. We had 1 blanket each and slept 16 to a bed. There were 64 men in our bay, where at the most there should have been 12.

There was no night latrine, only a bucket and 3 taps for 200 men. Our lavatory was a partly open hut and it was in full view of the officers and hospital huts. I don鈥檛 now if the girls got a thrill, but it was most embarrassing to us. The loo was a hole dug in the ground, which we had to empty by means of a scoop into a tank on wheels which was then spread over a field.
We had three small stoves to cook on and to keep us warm. These were about 3鈥� high x 9鈥� x 9鈥�. We had a small supply of coal, but this certainly wasn鈥檛 enough. At that time the Germans used blocks of compressed coal about 6鈥� x 3鈥� x 3鈥�. Whenever we got near a dump we would steal as much as we could carry. The method was to tie our trousers at the bottom and fill them up with coal and march back to the barn as best we could. By this means we had a good supply of coal and how we got away with it I shall never know as we were never caught. The food was very poor and to help out we stole whatever we could, mostly potatoes. We used to thread these on to string them into the fire and eat them skin and all. Another method was to cut them into slices and stick them onto the side of the oven and cook them that way.

That first bitter winter I had no shirt, I had a battle dress blouse and trousers, no shirt, vest pants or socks. To make a shirt I stole a piece of blanket, folded it over, cut a hole in the top, put my head through and sewed up the sides. The ground was so hard that a pneumatic drill had no effect on it. I was employed in November 1940 in getting foundations ready for an extension to the cookhouse. We waited outside the cookhouse and when the women cleared the tables we were head first into the pig bin to get the scraps. They called us all the names under the sun, but when George the guard explained how much food we got they changed completely and brought us scraps of food when they could. At the time we had a Feldfable in charge who was a decent sort of chap, but he could do nothing to help us.
On New Year鈥檚 Eve 1940 the Feldfable left us and we had a bit of a party and sing song and the new Feldfable came to see us as we saw the New Year in. When we finished we sang 鈥淕od Save the King鈥� and he stood to attention with us. I thought, well here is a good soldier. Although he looked every inch of one, I am sure he was born of the devils guts; he was one of the most evil men I have ever known. We would be yanked out of bed two or three times a night. Made to stand for hours while the barn was searched and on the slightest excuse our small ration of bread cut.

I had a tooth removed at the time and the gum became poisoned. I reported sick, but he refused to allow me to do so. It was a Friday and he told me to report to the dentist on the following Tuesday. When I refused to go to work he pulled out his pistol and said 鈥淎rbut鈥� I said 鈥渘o鈥�, he pointed the pistol at me and said 鈥淎rbut鈥� and took off the safety catch. I then thought it more sensible to go to work. I was then working near the hospital in a garden. The officer who had pulled the tooth out saw me and asked how I was. I told him and showed him my face. He at once took me into the hospital to see the doctor and lanced the gum, cleaned it up and gave me an injection. He then sent me back to the barn with a note to say I was to be sent to bed for 7 days. Such is the Germans view of life that if an order is given it must be obeyed. I, therefore, had to stay on the bed for a week and by that time I could hardly move.
We were employed doing all sorts of jobs. Early in 1941 we had to help build a dummy aerodrome. We made guns from trees and old carts. It looked the real thing.

At the end of March I received a letter from my sister telling me that my wife had told her that they had sat my son up in his high chair to celebrate his first six months. This was the first news I had since I was taken prisoner. Shortly after that I received a letter from my wife. It contained a photograph of my wife and son.

In early May 1941 the drome we were working on was awakened to an invasion of aircraft of all shapes and sizes. Hermann Goering visited there and other high ranking officers all about the same time. Thousands of vehicles and trains loaded with troops went Eastwards into Poland. They were incessant for three weeks and then came the attack on Russia. It did not affect us too much, apart from seeing active aircraft, rather than just training aircraft. In September 1941 I heard that 100 men were to return to Lamsdorf and I arranged to get on the party. Owing to the bad food and dreadful conditions I has just about reached my lowest ebb.

I returned to Lamsdorf in November 1941. When R.S.M. Hall from my Provost Company managed to get me into what was the convalescent compound - the conditions were dreadful. There were over 300 to a room on 3 tier bunks with very poor rations, as many as ten to a loaf, Hovis type, and very little else. It was there I met up with Paddy Newman, a Surrey Police Officer. We were together until the end of the war.

The first issue of Red Cross food had arrived on the June 1941. We had aluminium wash bowls and we were told to collect the food. The Feldfable put tinned beef, soap flakes, best Polish powdered milk, pepper, salt, in fact everything in the bowl, stirred it up with a bayonet and said 鈥淭here Englanders eat it鈥�. Lt. Cpl. Adams of the Dorset Regiment refused to take it away and the Feldfable took out his pistol and fired at him, Adams, who ran away. The Feldfable fired about four shots in all and missed each time. At the time it was of course a very serious matter, but I have often thought of it since of how funny it was, a full fledged R.S.M. chasing a Lt. Corporal with a pistol. Despite this incident receiving these parcels gave us new heart.
There was much activity in the camp; a Concert Party, who put on a play called Paradise Alley, Church Groups and Escape Groups. One method of escape was to change identity at a football match and then go out on a working party. The British RSM in charge was named Sherriff. He was a first class man afraid of nothing. He even made the Germans stand to attention to him.

Our conditions were so bad that we bred millions of lice. I, at one time, was walking with them. I hung my blanket on a line and there were so many lice that it heaved. We were told that if we had fleas it would kill the lice and as lice carried typhus, which was fatal, we should try to get rid of them. From then on every time we caught a flea we would take it back to the billet in a match box. They in turn bred. We lost the lice, but the fleas were a real torment. A method of killing them was to get inside the blanket with a candle and pop them with the flame.

There was always a rush to get in the first ranks when going to work so that we could pick up the cigarette ends for a smoke. I used to cadge the ash trays when working near a hospital or office. The British Bible Society must have thought they had a lot of converts in us as we were always asking for New Testaments. The true fact was that the paper made first class cigarette paper.

Christmas 1941 was quiet and we had parcels for the day. The Germans thought we were all good. We were I suppose all except two men, one named Pape I believe, who cut his way through the wire and was gone. The next day two more tried it, one was killed on the wire and the other in the compound.

Early in 1942 Russian prisoners arrived. They were treated worse than we were. They arrived in cattle trucks, about 100 to a truck, and were lucky to get out alive. They were taken to a delousing centre and then to a barracks. They were so exhausted that they got down to sleep, pulled the blankets over them and a large number died from cyanide gas in the blankets. They had so little food that they would hold up dead comrades to be counted in order to get a little extra food. I saw a German officer shoot four Russians just because they tried to wipe the inside of a bowl to get a little food.
I was taken quite ill at that time and I was told that I should go out on a working party or it was very possible that I would die.

R.S.M. Hall arranged for me to go with a party of 50 men to Old Gottham, Nr. Breslaw. We left on 17th June 1942 and for me was the bleakest moment I have known. There was a news report about Rommell looking through his glasses at the fires at Alexandra. I remember thinking we have lost. Little did I know that that day was the turning point of the war and that the Germans had been stretched to the limit and were about to be broken.

We arrived at Gottham where conditions were a little better and we had more parcels. For a time I worked as a gardener. There was a stream full of trout, at least it was when we went there. This came about because when I was documented at Lamsdorf I told them I was a gardener thinking they might shoot me if I said I was a Police Officer. In the very cold weather of 42/43 I managed to get a job working in a carpenters shop. It was there that I met Packe, a German from the village of Mansdoff. He was a good man and I have always thought of him as my friend. He was a P.O.W. in France in 1917 and understood us. He brought his two sons and introduced them to me. Six weeks later one was dead, killed by underground troops in Poland, the other died as a parachutist at Brest. Never once did this man have a cross word for me. He did his best to make life just that little bit easier.

At this camp we learnt how to make our own spirits. We boiled up fruit, potatoes, anything at all and then distilled it by putting a bowl on top and letting the steam drop into a small bowl. Captain Mansly North Lanes drank so much that he went blind for a period.

We had the same sort of treatment, pulled out of bed and counted at all sorts of hours, tons of food perished and anything to try to upset us.

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