大象传媒

I must have lost consciousness and I have no memory of how long we were swimming or what sort of boat picked us up. I awoke to see German soldiers around my bed in a hospital ward on the upper floor. One soldier said in English "For you the war is over."
I had a very sore back and left ankle, and I struggled to sit up when offered a cup of coffee; my first cup of "ersatz" coffee made me very sick, but I guess I was pretty full of sea water as well.
As my mind cleared, I realised that I could see horse chestnut trees through the window, and they were in full leaf. I thought "How long have I been here", because I had remarked the morning before on the same sort of trees in Yorkshire just showing the first tips of green from the buds; I'd said "Spring is here at last after a hard winter." It was only the next day, but we were some 300 miles south-west of Yorkshire, and spring came earlier here.
My leg was X-rayed and put into plaster, and a man from the Red Cross, Dr Shone, called and promised to send news to our next of kin that we were alive and PoWs. He fixed us up with some toiletries: razor, toothbrush, towels, and some cigarettes. A nurse brought me a tin with some homemade cake in it, but she could not stay to talk because of the guard. Her address was on the tin, written on a piece of sticking plaster. I wrote to her from the PoW camp, but received no reply. I have since found her (then) address which I'd thought was lost some 47 years ago (Joyce Villain, Cannon Tower, Pierson Road, St Helier.) I have just found out that the cake and tin were given by a lady now married and living in Swindon, after serving in the WAAF (postwar) where she met her husband. Her name now is Mrs Norah Rankin.
We were only kept on St Helier for a few days, and then we travelled to St Malo on a night crossing. We were stopped for a long time because of air raid warnings before we left the harbour.
My pilot and bomb aimer were in the prison at Newgate Street during my stay in hospital; now they had to carry me on a stretcher during the rest of our journey. On the boat trip to St Malo, I travelled on my stretcher in a passage at the top of a stairway from the engine room; it was hot and smelly from the diesel fumes. Hearing someone come up the stairs, I was surprised to hear a voice speaking to me in a rich cockney accent; "Hello, mate, are you all right?" He sounded quite friendly and concerned. He brought me a packet of cigarettes and gave me some matches. I asked him how he came to speak like a Londoner; he told me he worked in London for some years before the war, and came back for a visit in 1938-39, but couldn't get out again. Wishing me luck, and hoping the war would soon be over, he disappeared into the dark below. While I was waiting on the quay at St Malo the next morning, he came ashore looking very smart in his Kriegsmarine uniform; he peered all around to see who was watching, and then approached me, repeated his best wishes, and gave me tobacco and cigarette papers for the three of us, and left without looking back. I have often thought it was an amazing way to treat the enemy, and wondered what became of him...
Our next stop was at Rennes in Brittany, where we were taken to some large terraced property which was housing troops of the Indian Army captured at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation. It was in a wide square with a carriageway either side and lined with two rows of horse chestnut trees; this time their red and white candlelike blossoms were in full bloom on a bright summery day. They were vastly different from the cold early spring of Yorkshire, one week before.
The Indians, mostly Sikh, were very respectful and advised us not to trust the Germans at all and to tell them nothing. They seemed to have a fair amount of privileges and they cooked us food like bacon and eggs, and provided a bottle of beer for each of us. Their headman, a sergeant major, said that the Germans were trying to subvert them into fighting the British, but they would not do so, as they were loyal to their British officers who they considered to be the best in the world.
Our stay at Rennes was just for two nights, and then we left for the next part of our journey. This started when the German guards arrived after a drinking session; they were quite merry and insisted on carrying me, on my stretcher, down the stairs from a second or third level floor. I was more than a little scared as they wavered from side to side, and I thought that I would be tipped over the banister into the stairwell in the basement. They thought it hilarious in their drunken state.
The next part of our journey ended in Paris. My crew mates were now compelled to carry my stretcher from the train out to the truck which was to take us to a large prison. French girls in and around the station greeted us with cries of "Vive la RAF" and "Vive le Tommy", while French men gazed on with deadpan faces, quite inscrutable.
This one night in the cold hard comfort of this Paris jail, with wooden platform beds and just a sloping board to rest my head on, metalplate doors with a peephole opening every hour, which were slammed shut after a quick peep, and the studded boots of the guard patrolling on concrete floors, left me with a lifelong determination to stay out of prison!
Early next morning, a Luftwaffe officer came into the cell, and he thought from my name that I could understand German; he verbally assaulted me with a meaningless tirade. An inspired phrase learned from my grandfather when I was seven years old, "NEIN ICHE NICHT SPRECHAN SIE DEUTCH", did not convince him, but he eventually gave up and left, still ranting on, and slamming the door. I felt he was not pleased that anyone with German ancestors should be in the RAF.
We travelled on by train to Frankfurt where we were to be interrogated at Dulagluft. Once again I became separated from my companions when I was put in the sick quarters and they were put in the camp. It was to be about a year before we met again, and we were then able to discuss the interrogation. For me it had consisted of daily visits by the German officer to my very comfortable room where I was kept in solitary confinement. Each day I refused any information except my name, rank and serial number, in spite of the threat of a long time in solitary.
About the third or fourth day, the German officer said "If you will not tell me, then I will tell you", and he produced a file containing photos of several men from different crews on our squadron already reported missing and presumably PoWs, but I did not meet any of these people in any of the camps I was in.
After this, we were allowed to mix with other prisoners for a day or two, before being transferred to the appropriate camp for NCOs or commissioned officers, or, as in my case, to hospital. Obermassfeld PoW hospital, attached to Stalag IX C was my nect destination. It had a German army doctor in charge, but treatment was carried out by officers and orderlies of the RAMC captured before Dunkirk.
Major Tucker RAMC (formerly orthopaedic consultant in Harley Street, and ex-England Rugby Union captain) had the plaster removed from my leg, and after X-rays he reset it. I spent another six to eight weeks in plaster. I thus avoided my being disabled with a stiff ankle, because it had not been set properly in St Helier by the German doctor. When the plaster was removed, several of us were transferred to KLOISTER HAINA STALAG IX A/H which was part of an old monastery. Most of the prisoners here were DUs (Definitely Unfit for further military service) and living in hope of repatriation to the UK. These men had all been seriously wounded and had been prisoners for up to three years already. They were blind, limbless, disfigured, and burned. Some of them had more than one of these afflictions to cope with. Their courage and good spirits had to be seen to be appreciated. The RAF prisoners who were not so seriously injured were anxious to assist the other prisoners whenever possible, but the latter were extremely independent.
A number of times, we went out into the woods to gather firewood for the communal kitchen stove. We were under guard, of course, and had the use of a cart on which we loaded the wood, but we did not have the horse, so the load was limited to what six or eight semi-fit men could push and pull back to the compound. In the communal dining hall was a stage with a piano and curtains. A German officer on the staff used to come in some afternoons, and behind closed curtains would sit and play popular tunes and music from the shows, from the pre-war era. He was very good in the style of the then-popular "Charles Kunz" who was well-known at home. We found him very entertaining but we doubted that the Fuhrer would have approved.
Some of us helped to put on entertainment once a week. Some of the prisoners had formed a band with instruments provided by the International Red Cross, which they had learned to play reasonably well. Some could also sing and had formed a choir.
What was needed was a few laughs, and three of us from the RAF groups used to give our version of a popular radio act at home, "Ramsbottom and Enoch and Me"; the scripts were mostly from what we remembered of the radio shows at home, but it was all new to the longer-term PoWs. A Guernsey man called "Dickie Levant" was one of our trio. A three-act play in which I had a small female part as a lady's maid was our grand finale.

The third and final part of this story, 'Ditching at St Ouen's Bay: Part 3.', can be found at A4666025

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.