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BEHIND BARBED WIRE

BILL SMITH
Sherbourne Street, Cheltenham

I was called up when I was 17, (having given a false age) and joined the Fifth Batallion Gloucester Regiment. We went to France from there to Brussels. We were in machine gun fire from a fighter on the way and we had to fight our way back to take up positions at the Albert Canal. We ended up in a place called Ledringham where we were surrounded but fought our way out. The Sergeant Major was shot dead. My brother and I dropped down, exchanged fire and after a bit we crept away. Others in the group went the other way and got back to England but unfortunately my brother and I went on and were captured, taken prisoner.

We were taken back to Germany and to prison camp Stalag VIIIB. I joined a working party. We were in very bad conditions. There were about 100 of us shut in a barn at night. During this time we were lousy — we spent every evening delousing ourselves. We eventually got over that and I and a few others were picked up from this camp and taken to a bigger camp Blechammer — Upper Silesia. The man running the camp was a man from the Second Gloucester Regiment, CSM Haberfield. There were thousands of us there and we and to clear a forest of trees and we were quite well treated here. From this forest a huge factory was built. Into one end of the factory came in wagon loads of coal. This was processed and came out of the other end as tar and other coal by-products.

I was there for a year or so and then and again I was picked up and taken to another camp. This was called the Sonder Lager Stalag IIId/517 Genshagen which was by Berlin. This was run by BQMS John ‘Busty Brown who later, after the war received a medal for the work that he did at this time as a double agent. I was batman to him. This was what they called a ‘Holiday (Propaganda) Camp’ Over a period of time hundreds of prisoners of war were taken to this camp from the coal mines for rest and recuperation and there the staff in the camp entertained them with concert parties. After this they were sent away and another intake came. At one time three of us were given civilian clothes and we were taken into Berlin and we went to a theatre. This might seem funny but it actually happen. We went into a wood, changed into civilian clothes, left our uniform in the ditch, went by train into Berlin and went into a big club called the Deutchslander. This was one of the biggest theatres in Germany. It was used by high-class Germans and you can take it from me that it was a funny feeling to be there, sit down and have a bowl of soup with all those German officers looking at us. Later on war deteriorated and the camp was close down. We were marched back to Lamsdorf, Opper Silesia where we were kept a few weeks and then once again we went out on a working party to a small village called Odertal.

The Russians by this time had broken through and were advancing very quickly towards us. In was January and there was snow everywhere. We were told to pack up. The Red Cross parcels had just started to arrive. We were given one and a half parcels each and that is all we had for the next three months. We were marched on and on — everytime we left a village the Russians were taking it. We ended up three months marching and during that time, didn’t wash, take our clothes off or anything until we finally stopped just outside Dresden.

This was at the time they bombed Dresden towards the end of the war. My brother, a sergeant was also a prisoner or war, was in charge of the whole of the area of Dresden and I got word to him that I was on this march. A few days later a German guard came and collected me and took me to where my brother was in the camp. It was a big castle with a moat around it. They moved us out because the Russians were advancing again. We were suddenly we attacked by a Russian fighter bomber. We hid behind a wall and he missed us.

We went further on and we stopped in a quarry and there was quite big battle going on just up the road. The Russians were dive bombing and shooting. This quietened down and I managed to creep into a gully. I crept along the gully until I came to a village where there was a big block of flats. I went in, and inside, in the hall there was an old woman looking after a German who had been machine gunned. I went towards her and I heard a car draw up outside. I looked out and there was a jeep with some Russians in it. I took up a white towel and I went out and spoke to them — I speak a little Russian and German — and I said to him that there was a whole gang of prisoners just down the road.

As I was talking to them a car came up with a German officer in it. The Russian dumped him out of the car. I jumped in and drove back to where the others were waiting. I told them that the Russians were up the road. The Germans scarped and the German officer surrendered his revolver to my brother and through down his weapons at the sight of the Russians coming down the road towards us about ten abreast. We went on. Two of us got left behind from the others and as we were marching on, a woman came up to us who later took us into a huge block of flats in Karlsbad, Czechoslovakia, where we had a bath. We stayed there that night. During the night there was banging on the door and two Russians wanting to come in, but we told them we were British soldiers and they left us.

We had got some bicycles so the next day we went off on our bicycles we cycled on for a couple days until we came to the River Elbe. This was the demarcation line between the Russian and the Americans. We crossed the river to find Americans on the other side — an American tank outfit. We stayed with them and the next day they were moving back so we jumped in the tanks with them to an American camp. The next day we left them and went on our way to Nurenburg from there we were moved in groups of about 20 by plane to a Belgium transit camp. The Red Cross were there and they fitted us up with food and clean clothes.

We were then loaded into four-engine bombers and we flew back to England to a reception camp where we were completely re-kitted out with clean uniforms and everything. The women sewed our badges on. From there we were sent home on indefinite leave. I got back to Cheltenham — there was nobody there at the station but I shared a taxi to take me home to meet my mother and father. My brother Sergeant Ray Smith had been taken to the War Office in London where he was interrogated about the about the conditions in the prison camp and was awarded a Mention in Despatches for the work which he had done.

After a few weeks leave we were called back up again and I was sent to High Wycombe, where we were retrained to go to Japan, but fortunately the war ended and I was eventually demobbed.

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