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Continued from A7299994

LIBERATION AND RETURN TO ENGLAND
30 April - 11 May 1945

Monday April 30

This is the Day!!

I shall remember this anniversary all the rest of my life for this morning the Americans arrived to free us. The time was 8.30 ... it is now 7.15 pm & I can't yet quite realise just what's happened to me. We have eaten as we liked, bacon, eggs, milk - all those things which we've starved for in 5 long years. It's more than strange to be able to walk around the fields a free man, to do what one likes without a guard's interference - oh to do everything one wishes, only stopped by one's sense of right & justice. Peculiar that one still has a sense of conscience regarding them.

Friday May 4

Am writing this in the former offices of ME in Regensburg - time 8.00 & a wet depressing sort of night.
I'll start at the beginning. We started out for Rottenburg on foot at 9.00 Tuesday morning & marched about 10 K or so before picking up an abandoned horse & trap by the roadside. Before we'd been going twenty minutes a figure came panting long I our wake waving a whip; this turned out to be a Russian worker after his property. So we simply drove to Rottenburg & gave up the trap - the horse couldn't go much further anyway, just a bag of bones.
Well anyway, we were told to go on to Regensburg (much to our disgust) a distance of around 50 K. The weather was wet, the road muddy & our feet sore - by 4.00 we'd done about 15K & were pretty fed up. Two reasons kept us going:- one that the Yanks in their super-rapid advance hadn't left any guards anywhere around & two, we heard that there were still shootings of civvies etc going on by SS men hiding in the many woods by the roadside. So we came to an isolated farm by the roadside & asked for cover against the night ... we were treated rather like prodigal sons & I shan't forget it. I personally had a grand night chatting to the old folks: we made cocoa - they supplied white bread & milk & a straw bed - down in the next room.
In the morning the old lady gave us a dozen eggs, some more bread & milk & bags more chatter. I fried bacon (which we still had left) & the eggs ... lovely! Then we set off, unwillingly, to the next village 3 K away (weather, snow) me limping with a bad blister in the middle of my foot. However, it wasn't so bad for after trying vainly to get transport there we'd just decided to start walking when along came a tractor & trailer with a load of Klimontow boys on it. So on we hopped & got carried right here. The best sight on the journey was a muddy field full of Jerries, who'd evidently been there all night, trying to make themselves comfortable in the driving rain. It did my heart good to see them ...
Well, we were told to register ourselves in the office at the airport so in we went & filled in a "Recovery Form for Allied POWs" & formed up into a group of 25 men - this had to be done before one could receive any form of status or even draw rations. Then, as the various buildings appeared to be full we departed into town to find billets for ourselves. We struck lucky at the second house after showing the strong arm & got a lovely little bachelor flat to ourselves complete with sprung beds running water & all the china, etc. we could want. So we stayed there Wednesday & Thursday but had to leave on Friday morning because our group had to be de-loused preparatory to being flown away. Needless to say we'd been deloused by 9.30 but I'm writing this at 10.00 pm & only six planes have gone out the whole day ...

Monday May 7

And still awaiting that plane!
But up to pres I can't say we've had a bad time for on Saturday morning we left here for a walk first visiting the cathedral & then an archway built during Roman times: then we went a little further & came upon the banks of the Danube, it most certainly wasn't blue - rather a sort of dirty marine-green - but then, of course, the weather was bad & rain wasn't very far away. Anyway, we walked along the bank a little way & came upon an AA gun guarded by three GI boys who'd lit a fire to warm themselves a bit. So we stopped & talked about everything in general & nothing in particular & when 12.00 came they invited us in to eat at their 'apartment'. So we did - in fact we stayed overnight - came back here for a couple of hours the next day & back again leaving Charlie behind in case anything turned up. Which it did - or rather didn't, for he came up before breakfast to tell us 100 planes were expected in & we naturally had to return.
But of course nothing has happened. 40 or so planes (Yankee) were in but, I understand, went out empty for some reason.
I don't know, the rumour is that the war is over & yet here we sit & wait as though we were still P.O.W.s - one dare not walk far away in case something happens & one lets the section down.
Everyone's getting very browned off now - sitting here I'm practically as browned off as I was a couple of weeks back, 8 K from here.
Another man has been added to the Klimontow death roll - he picked up a box in a derelict railway wagon & it happened to contain one of the Italian "Red Devils" which blew both his hands off, opened up his stomach & severely damaged his eyes. He died, I hear, today. R.I.P. ... another 5 year man.
Today the weather has at last decided in favour of summer than winter. It's been very hot & now it's a lovely golden evening & I should be rejoicing that I can go if I wish for a walk into the sun - but I'm not. I want a bath & clean clothes, I want to see my Bun, I want, oh I do want, some place to settle down!

Friday April 11 [error, should be May]

This entry will just about close an incident I think for last night I landed in England ... I give the Yankees & RAF full marks for efficiency & smoothness of organisation in getting us over here & on the whole until coming into this place which appears to be suffering from shortness both of rations & staff we've done pretty well. Regensburg was bad of course - especially hanging around waiting for a plane - but the place beside Rheims where the RAF landed us was lovely. I shan't forget it ... [...] we were only there overnight, more's the pity, then went by lorry to an aerodrome 15 miles the other side of Rheims. After waiting there a few hours Lancasters flown by Canadians took us over to Wescott. Inside half an hour we'd been checked up, deloused, given fags & chocolate & were sitting down to an English tea attended by heaps of WAJS, WAAFs & nurses. We were made to feel welcome there but the most touching was a 40 mile lorry ride afterwards to the reception camp besides Slough ... all along the route people waved their arms, flags & shouted greetings; tears came very near the surface.
And this is being written in the NAAFI here - 5 pounds have been paid out to all - it's full of people!

Continued on A7301044

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