大象传媒

I met the amazing Mr Stevens at a Victory tea dance in Bishops Stortford, Herts where I was storygathering for 大象传媒 Essex. He had so many fascinating stories to tell about his time as both a prisoner of war, and as a member of 35 Squadron, he recalled his friends with great affection and named those he'd lost. Mr Stevens joined up in 1935 as land crew, and stayed in until 1948. He was based at North Weald airfield during the Battle of Britain servicing Hurricanes, these memories are recorded elsewhere on the site.

We ended up in a POW camp called 鈥楩alling bottle鈥�, in 9 months no Red Cross parcels had got through so we had to exist on German rations which were very small. One evening the Commandant came in and told our rep, Dixie Dean, that we were all to be put on the march straight away. Dixie said 鈥渢hese men are starving, you must give them time to prepare鈥�, so the commandant said 鈥淥k, I鈥檒l give them until 10 am the next day鈥�. Well my friend Oggie Ogden and me decided that we weren鈥檛 going so in the morning we hid under a hut. When the others had set off on the march we went to the cook house, there were about 20 of us, and suddenly we were surrounded by Germans and dogs. They said that we had to join up with our column, we set off at about 2pm, and marched until midnight. It was the blackest night.
We ended up in a tiny village and we all collapsed in a barn at about 1.30am. I woke up at 7.30 with a chicken on my chest, I chased after it and killed it. We saw this German farmer looking through at us. We saw sausages literally hanging everywhere. We ate so many sausages and stuffed our pockets and jackets with food. At about 10.30 we'd set off again and joined up with our column when Germans surrounded us, the whole village had also turned out including children, some were crying. A blanket was laid down and we were told to 鈥済ive it back鈥� the food we had taken was the villages whole Winter supply. We laid down the food and chickens. We were all court marshalled.

I remember the end of the war. Oggie Ogden and a few of us dropped back with just one German guarding us. Oggie said to me "I think I'll escape, I'll say goodbye because you wont see me go". I didn't, but I did meet him much later. We came to this place and I had a queer feeling, I knew that something had happened to Hew Loman - 50 of us were killed.
The Germans guarding us had just gone and left us. We walked along this road and a tank stopped, out came an English Captain, he said "how many pow's, is it just you?" I laughed and said "Theres thousands of us!" he came with around the corner and there they all were. He commandered this great big mansion for us. Well we had been told what to do for so long as POW's, when to eat, what to do and when, we were really mentally and emotionally like children not grown men. You should have see us all sliding down the banisters!

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