大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Sue Russell of the 大象传媒 on behalf of Reginald Cleaver and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Continuation of Reginald Cleaver鈥檚 story after the crash in Holland

After the crash, I had apparently got a bang on the head and had concussion although was not aware of it at the time. The crew split up and headed in different directions. The navigator Ross MClachlan had been wounded in the night fighter attack and the Bomb Aimer, Bill Jaffrey stayed with him and managed to get him to a Dutch doctor. The two gunners went off together and I and the pilot George Neale and Jack Griffiths the Wireless Operator met a Dutch resistance girl who helped us. Unfortunately a Dutch collaborator tipped off the Germans and we were arrested. We were separated and I found myself in the hands of the S.S. and thrown into an underground cell in complete darkness in their headquarters in Arnhem. The cell was about 9 feet square, concrete floor, no furniture. There was just an open hole in the floor in the middle. If I wished to relieve myself, that鈥檚 where it went. The only light that entered was when they opened the steel door and some light came in from the passage outside. I had no choice but to sit or lie on the concrete floor. The S.S. appeared to be very well trained in brutality and in their rare visits to bring food and water usually threw it over me and hit me with a rifle butt. It is strange but in those circumstances, you lose all sense of time and hope to die. One day an S.S. officer came in and said I was a spy and saboteur and that I would be shot. Some time after this, I was taken outside into a yard, after the dark for so long, it was so bright I could barely see. After my eyes began to adjust to the light, I could see a firing squad of S.S. in their black uniforms and an officer in charge. They stood me in front of a wall. At this point a Luftwaffe officer appeared and started a very loud argument with the S.S Officer. I had learned a little German at school and roughly understood some of what they were saying. The Luftwaffe officer was saying if I was an R.A.F. airman, he wanted to interrogate me. The S.S. officer was saying no, I was a spy and saboteur and was going to shoot me.

The next I knew, I was dragged back into the underground cell. My thoughts at the time may seem strange to most people. But, at the time, I was disappointed. I thought rightly, everyone thinks I鈥檓 dead, anything is better than this. Some time afterwards, a Luftwaffe officer entered the cell and said that I was to be transferred to a Luftwaffe centre. He and two other Luftwaffe airmen took me out of the cell into a shower block where I was allowed to shower and get cleaned up as you can imagine I was very smelly and filthy. They produced some clean clothes and shoes. The Luftwaffe officer told me that they were the crew of a Junkers 88 bomber and had been detailed off to escort me to a place called Dulag Luft.

I was taken to Arnhem railway station and then on a train down the Rhine valley. When the train stopped at a station, one of them got out and came back with a bar of chocolate and an apple for me. They said they had great respect for the R.A.F. and we were all airmen doing our duty. I would like to think that they were decent people but I was very suspicious that they were trying to get me to unwittingly reveal information I should not. Whilst changing trains at a station in Germany, some of the people somehow knew I was R.A.F. The crowd became very hostile and started shouting Luftgangster and Terrorflieger. The three Luftwaffe escorts had to stand around me with drawn revolvers or I would have been lynched from the nearest lamppost. I was glad of their company.

We finally arrived at Frankfurt station, from there I was marched under armed escort to the tram station and onto a tram with two coaches. All the German passengers were ordered out of the coach. Then followed a 12 mile ride to Oberursel and the Luftwaffe interrogation centre for all captured aircrew. Conditions in huts were reasonable and we could meet other R.A.F. prisoners. The interrogation by a very well spoken Luftwaffe officer to my surprise was not violent and I was not knocked about. They seemed to have a lot of information concerning the R.A.F. which I believe was to impress me and perhaps get me to confirm something. I just gave misleading answers. They did surprise me by producing a full size drawing wiring diagram of a Decca G Box, our radar navigation equipment at the time. Stamped all over it: TOP SECRET in big red capitals. They said if you are a British airman, what do you know about this? My answer was I鈥檓 an airman not a bl**dy magician!

From there along with other captured aircrew we were forced into cattle trucks so tightly we could hardly move, one slop bucket in the centre. We travelled East for 5 days with little food and water. Finally arriving at a place called Hydekrug on the Baltic Coast in Lithuania Stalag Luft 6.

Life there as a Kriegsgefangener as we were called was tolerable if you could adjust to the cold in Winter and shortage of food.

In 1944, the Russian Army were heading west rapidly and threatening to overrun the camp. We were rushed out of the camp into more cattle trucks in appalling conditions and taken west into Poland and dumped in another prison camp called Stalag 357 Thorn. From there we were moved west to a concentration camp called Fallingbostel next to Belsen. It is well documented the terrible conditions suffered by British P.O.Ws as they were all moved further west away from the Russians (see the book The Last Escape by John Nichol and Tony Rennell).

At Fallingbostel the conditions were appalling, the camp was overcrowded with Russian P.O.Ws, Jews and German political prisoners etc. All of us starving. The Commandant was Joseph Kramer, Commandant of Belsen concentration camp.

In April 1945, Fallingbostel was overrun by the Guards Armoured Division of the British Army to our great delight at liberation. After some hospital treatment for malnutrition and dysentery I was flown home by the R.A.F. followed by a spell in the R.A.F hospital Cosford.

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