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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by a volunteer from Lincolnshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Mr Raymond Smith and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Smith fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Early May and things were going very well for the Allies. Unconditional surrender of all the German military and nothing less were the Allied terms and it was accepted when it took place by Field Marshal Montgomery o May 7th in a tent on Luneberg Heath. Having been on the road in my lorry in this area I had seen the tent but did not realise at the time of it importance.

After this, our squadron with two others were ordered to proceed through the forward defence area to the airfield of Flensburg which was situated in the north of Schleswig-Holstein near the German/Danish border. When driving in convoy on the road to Flensburg, my flight commander was sitting beside me as he always did and was interested in obtaining a German Luger pistol. He gave order to our two dispatch riders, Bob and Alan to get one from the first armed German they saw. This was done and resulted in them passing several through the truck windows and when we arrived the officer had half a dozen.

After a delay of some two hours, presumably whilst senior officers were talking to the German commandant, we were eventually allowed in. When moving forward again, German military personnel were also making their way to the airfield not knowing that we had arrived to take over. They were stopped, searched and relieved of certain items. We stayed here for two of three days during which we accepted small arms which were placed in aeroplane hangars. Luger pistols and Walther automatics were placed into empty barrel shaped containers. These were in demand by many chaps, myself included. After they had all been surrendered, I decided to get a pistol for myself. The containers were very tall, so I climbed on top of one and stood across it, legs astride. Bending down and searching, I got hold of one half out of its leather holster. As I lifted it out, it fired. Luckily it was pointed downwards and no one was injured. The pistol had been set to fire, or in other words, booby trapped.

After a few more days, the squadron was on the move again, this time to Celle, then after two more days, to Husum which is situated on the west coast of Germany. We passed by the main entrance of Belsen concentration camp but could not stop. Notices had been erected by British forces warning of Typhus. German military personnel, watched over by British soldiers with Tommy guns were made to do labouring work. Once could see numerous camp inmates dressed in their special striped clothing, waving and cheering as our transport moved by. A group of these people crossed over the road to another part of camp carrying a huge wooden cross which they had made, intent on saying prayers and giving thanks to the Almighty for their liberation. I don’t think any of our squadron knew anything about these holocaust camps. The only knowledge I had was that camps did exist for labour purposes only, not extermination.

We arrived at Husum camp for another very short stay, and then proceeded to Fuhlsbuttel airfield, near Hamburg. Next through Hamburg witnessing the damage caused by our bombers. Everywhere, heaps of rubble with the roads bulldozed through them. I was amazed at how our Flight Commander did the map reading, with my lorry leading. We received orders to proceed to Westerland, Isle of Sylt. This island is connected to the mainland by a causeway which is quite some distance in length, along which a railway operates. No railway service was in operation the day we were due to cross over to Westerland. We had to drive the lorries over along one of the gently sloping stone sides of the causeway. When we reached there we found our lorries could not get across the muddy terrain at the end of the causeway and resulted in their becoming bogged down. A German driver with his half track vehicle was found and he pulled each vehicle out to the island roadway, which we found quite amusing.

Lined up on the airfield were numerous Junkers 52 transport planes and Focke-Wulf fighters, all or most of which would be destroyed. We were housed in the wooden huts vacated by the Germans who had left for POW camps. Have an electric light bulb was as good as having a gold nugget so it had a special place in my lorry whenever we moved. Watches and Leica cameras were in great demand and I obtained several watches and a camera.

My Flight, No. 4, was detached to the small harbour town or Hornum, and duties were to guard the power station. Billets were at the top of large hangar type building facing the sea. In front of the buildings was an oblong iron construction which I think could have been used for ‘E’ boats. The Flight Commander arranged for us to have a journey out into the North Sea and very enjoyable it was. I found some long canes complete with fish hooks, and once again was soon able to supply the cookhouse with fresh sea fish. I also located a cobblers shop and had a pair of civilian shoes repaired and had made a pair of slippers with leather taken from around the fuel tanks of a crashed Junkers plane.

The stay on the Isle of Sylt was very pleasant and the weather warm. Westerland was a prime seaside resort. The beaches were of very fine sand and taking advantage of the very hot days, we spent much off duty time swimming in the sea.

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