大象传媒

Whilst returning to camp from early morning shift on the 8th May, 1945, an all-clear was sounding continuously and we all wondered for what reason it was doing so.
All the Germans in the camp were in a real panic whilst hurriedly donning their coats.
When we got inside, we noticed at first glance plenty of bread and eggs, which we had never seen in any POW camp before. 'The war' they said, 'Its over' It really did take a while to sink in! The extra supplies were obviously left behind by the Lagerfuhrer and our comrades had raided his quarters! It was said that the Germans had only recently expressed their preference of being taken a prisoner of the British rather than by the Russians, of whom they had great dread.

For a few hours we found ourselves in a 'No man's land' situation, Whilst the Russian Marshal Zhukov was busily engaged taking Berlin, Marshal Koniev ventured south, by-passing Dresden, owing to there having been so many bodies around and he and his tanks passed through those Erzgebirge Mountains and proceeded along the road which led to our camp. As they did so, they fired a warning shot at our camp.

Two of our men said to have been sun-bathing between the previously forbidden trip-wire and the perimeter fence had their feet blown off and bled to death. I was standing up peeling some of the potatoes when the shot was fired, ducked immediately and was then told to just look at the locker on the top of the bunk! Was shocked indeed to see the effect the flying debris had thrown up and marked them so badly. They all agreed that my face would certainly have been very badly marked.

We really were watching history being made that day, when as soon as the Russian tanks arrived, they hauled down the Swastika flag flying over the pit opposite and replaced it with their Hammer and Sickle flag.

This was later proclaimed as being VE Day, which was indeed an intensively exciting day of days! When eventually the head of the Russian column reached the gates of our camp I remember being so overjoyed, that upon making tracks for the entrance and our Allies, I fell over my own feet several times, tears of joy running down my face!

Those Russians were certainly very apologetic having fired that shot, but said that instead of hiding away in the shelters we should have shown ourselves against the perimeter fence, because they had taken us as being German. As it was, we had extreme difficulty convincing them that we were British, when they insisted that we were French.

All at once, they shouted to us to get back into camp, because they had spotted a German machine-gun nest just down the road. We were simply amazed to see women soldiers trudging along in front of those tanks brandishing machine-guns!

Apparenly CampIV at Muhlberg had already been relieved two or three weeks ago, so we were the very last Allied camp to have been relieved in Europe. 'For you, the war is over, but for us we must go on', said the Russians. There was spasmodic firing to be heard in the direction of Prague. to which Marshal Koniev now had to go in order to relieve the last capital in Europe.

During their halt at the gates of our camp, several Russian troops came into our camp and clasped hands with some of us and held them up into the air exclaiming 'Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt-Prima' Some opened their coats to reveal vast numbers of watches, which they had looted from cars abandoned along the roadside.

For the rest of the day, until well into the night, the vast column ventured onwards, with a Russian soldier often to be seen in the back of a truck playing an accordian, rendering possibly 'The Volga Boat Song' among others, throwing us cigarettes as they passed along - also looted no doubt.

All of the German officers and their wives from our branch camp down the road were all bundled into ours. One of the German officers begged me for some water for his wife, but I will not reveal just what I said to him!

Now we were to come to the proudest moment, when, by means of specially installed loudspeakers, those officers and their wives were forced to listen to the voices of both H.M King George VI and Winston Churchill proclaiming Victory in Europe. What a very special moment that truly was! Never to be forgotten.

Soon continuous streams of German soldiers had been booted out of Czechoslovakia, over those Erzgebirge Mountains and back into their own country. I derived very great pleasure in shouting to them to get going, as they sought to rest along the roadside, many having nothing on their feet.

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