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In 1945 Nordhausen was a very small town in the Harz Mountains of Germany. The Nazis had set up a concentration camp near the town and had built underground tunnels —about 25 miles of them in total — which formed the factory where the V2’s were built. Some of these tunnels were wide enough to carry a road and the male inmates of the camp were forced to work in the factory, never seeing daylight or feeling fresh air, until they eventually died, only to be replaced by other inmates. It was like a town in these tunnels.

At the end of the war, the Americans were first into the Nordhausen factory, but we were ordered in to take away the V2’s. A number of us were marched into the camp through what appeared to be Nissen Huts with pipes in the ceiling, similar to a modern-day sprinker system. We now know that these were the gas chambers. We went into the tunnels with vehicles nicknamed ‘Queen Mary’s,’ a type of low-loader which usually carried ammunition to the planes, and loaded on the V2’s.

Unfortunately I can’t remember where we took the V2’s, but on the way back from Nordhausen we passed an American camp. We hadn’t eaten all day, so thought we would try our luck at getting a meal. We were waved straight into the camp (complete with Queen Mary’s and V2’s!) and made our way to the cookhouse. At first they questioned us — our uniforms were similar to those of the Nazis — but when they realized we were RAF there was much hand-shaking and back-slapping! The tables were laden with food for us — there were about 10 of us in all. This was a real feast, as we had been living on a type of vegetable stew-cum-soup (McConachie Stew?), and one of the lads commented that there was everything on the table except peanut butter! Some-one must have heard him — the next thing we knew, the peanut butter had arrived!

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