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Cecil Fisk was born, one of three children, to the building family of Fisks in Bedingfield in 1920.
His life changed however with the outbreak of the Second World War. As builders were a reserved trade, Cecil was not called up. In 1939, Cecil, then aged 19 volunteered for military service and joined the Territorial Army with his friend Bill Thompson. He was posted to Eye and then to Framlingham. At another time he was stationed at Finchley near the North Circular. Later he was stationed in Basildon in Berkshire .

One of his earliest secret assignments was when Intelligence was received advising of an imminent invasion by Germany. Troops were said to be massing along the French coast to attack Britain. Cecil was sent with his unit in a DUKW amphibious vehicle to spray flammable liquid onto the sea. They sprayed from Aldeburgh and then along the length of coast opposite France. It was then set fire to by others when the flotilla set off for the British coast. He thinks that many thousand Germans and Italians were killed in the fires.

Initially Cecil joined the 5th Suffolk regiment, but later because he was a skilled worker, he was transferred with Bill to the Royal Engineers. This may well have saved his life as the Suffolk regiment he initially joined were later almost wiped out when they were sent to the French battlefields.

With the Army he sailed from Liverpool and fell victim to seasickness on the six week long boat trip, particularly when they sailed round Cape Horn. He travelled to Lagos in Nigeria and Freetown in Sierra Leone. He also saw action in Egypt near the Pyramids helping to defend the Suez Canal because of the British Alliance with Egypt, and their agreement to protect Poland. Although some of the time the forces were merely there in a peace keeping capacity, they did have some skirmishes with the Italians.

In Africa and Egypt they travelled by train and boat, and the soldiers drove their army vehicles across Africa. In Africa he was part of Montgomery’s 8th Army which was a title given to all desert operation under Monty’s control. He remembers the wildlife of these far off places, particularly the cheetahs and tigers. In Sierra Leone he had a pet monkey that used to travel on the canvas top of his lorry. Because of censorship, when he wrote home he was not allowed to say where he was or what he could see, or even send a return address, in case the letters fell into enemy hands and gave away their position.

Whilst fighting against the united Italian and German forces in Operation Crusader which was to relieve Tubruk, in the dug outs in Tubruk on the coast of Libya, Cecil contracted pneumonia, and was taken to hospital. As he lay in hospital in Tubruk it was bombed and collapsed and the end nearly fell on Cecil but he managed to get out, and rejoined his troops. In all he travelled for 200 miles while he had pneumonia

At Tubruk, the front lines were in disarray after the Americans joined them. The Americans motto was ‘Smite your guns — every man for himself’ and they would shoot at random. The British were used to shooting on order, and there were bullets flying everywhere. The front lines broke up and the soldiers took cover in the local area. it was whilst hiding in a cave with Bill and another solider for the first weekend that Cecil and his companions were found by a sixteen year old Italian lad with a rifle, who caught them and took then to a camp in the Sahara desert. They were marched across the desert, and slept out in the open with guards all around them. There were about 30,000 prisoners in this camp. Water was very scarce and cost £1 a gallon, which was expensive when a weeks wages were only worth 14 shillings.

They were then taken to Tripoli by train, from where the worst part of Cecil’s experience took place. 50 prisoners were put in a battened down barge and made the sea journey to Naples which took a whole month. As they only had 2 guards, only 3 men were allowed up to go to the toilet at any one time, and for food they only had very hard dry biscuits. They took it in turns to eat the crumbs out of the bottom of the sacks as they were emptied.

They were taken by train from Naples to the prisoner of war camp which lay about 3 days journey from the mountains and which was to be Cecil’s home for the next 2 years. Because Italy was under attack the trains were often machine gunned and the roads were bombed. As they were a working party 75 men lived in a four roomed cottage, with 2 guards on the front door and 2 at the back. In Cecil’s words, it was ‘rough’. Whilst there he dropped in weight to 6 stone — not good for a man 5ft 8ins tall. They were given half a fruit can of rice and bully beef which was boiled in a 40 gallon drum, twice a day, with a bread roll, milk and salt, which was ‘not too bad’. They were expected to work for the Italians, doing mainly land work, hoeing and raking maize and rice for the cattle. Because of the climate they were able to get a crop each month. They also had to thresh rice, which Cecil remembers was a particularly dirty job because of the dust and shortage of water to wash in. They marched 5 miles to help with the wine making, treading grapes in a cattle trough with their bare feet until the wine ran out at the ends. They ended up with legs black to the knees as the grapes stained the skin. They were not allowed to look after the cattle, but did grow tomatoes which they were able to pinch to supplement their diet. In camp they were paid 5 francs a week wages which was equal to 1 shilling and sixpence at that time. They were still starving though as the food was not of good enough quality or quantity to keep them in good health. It was possible to earn extra rations by doing specific jobs, and Cecil remembers that his friend Bill helped him build his strength up by sharing his earned extra rations with him. Bill took on the job of camp barber to earn his extra rations.

Always looking for a chance to prepare for escape Cecil saved some of his earnings and also learned Italian, so that if he got out, he would be able to speak the local language. He picked up Italian from his captors, and they soon recognised that he understood a lot of what they were saying. They said ‘parle parle quisa qui, capische santo’ which meant ‘he talks and understands quite a bit’, and they used him to explain what they required the captives to do. His knowledge of the language caused a bit of a problem when he did escape, as Frank Brad who escaped with him had not learnt Italian and often demanded to know what Cecil was saying when he was trying to pass them off as Italians!

At last Cecil’s chance came — one night the guards left the back gate open, and he and Frank managed to slip away into the maize fields which surrounded the camp. Bill also escaped that night, but became separated from the others. I asked why only three of them left and Cecil explained that whilst they were prisoners, they were protected by the Geneva Convention, and were fed and clothed as long as they worked. If they escaped however the convention was invalid and they were considered fair game by any of the Nazi or Italian search parties who patrolled the area. On the night he escaped, he said he and Bill were going, and no one else apart from Frank Brad dared to go with them. Unfortunately Bill managed to lose his bearings and went South only to be caught by the Germans and have to face another camp.

Cecil and Frank were hidden from sight by the height of the maize, and those left behind tried to cover for them so their absence was not noticed. With no paperwork or forged documents and only their tropical army kit and boots, they made it to the nearest village called Vilanterio in the province of Pravea, where they hid in the church bell tower for two weeks. The Italian army searched the town below several times, but as the soldiers were Roman Catholics their faith did not allow them to take guns into the church, so they did not search the bell tower. With 7 bells pealing regularly they were lucky to escape with any hearing at all, but they were fortunate in that the lady who tolled the bells was a sympathiser, and she brought the two escapees bread and water, clothes and straw bags to sleep on, despite the great risk to herself.

Then began Cecil’s epic journey through the Alpine mountains, from Milan towards the neutral Switzerland, a journey of some 500 miles which they completed on foot. Between Milan and Switzerland the 2 escapees were helped by ex servicemen in the villages and by kind hearted villagers. One Roman Catholic lady who Cecil thinks was some sort of priest, near Naples gave Cecil a rosary, which she told him, would keep him safe on his journeys, and he still has it.

They walked through the mountains, sometimes in snow up to their waists. Cecil could not feel the ends of his fingers for some months, but luckily he did not lose any. They drank red wine which was easily available and stole eggs to improve their diet. From the camp they had taken half a petrol can and they used this to boil water from the stream, eating snails, lizards, frogs, cats and anything they could get hold of! Apparently snails and slugs when cooked in olive oil tasted like kidneys, and as Cecil is fond of kidney it wasn’t too bad to eat, and cats tasted good like chicken! There were a lot of rabbits but they were very quick on their feet, and proved far too difficult to catch. Fortunately Frank was an apprentice butcher before he joined up and so he was useful in preparing their catch! I asked Cecil if he caught wild cats, but he said that the ones from the villages were easier to catch! (Thankfully the village people did not seem to notice their pets were going missing!)

Their main problem was finding something to burn and also how to light it, although when they were in the villages they were able to buy matches with their saved wages. A man who had deserted from the Alpini army by the name of Papino proved invaluable as he knew which main paths were guarded and which ones were clear to use. Later on though he got fed up with his role of guide, and one morning he went into the local village to buy food for the escapees, and betrayed them to a Nazi search party. Fortunately a local sympathiser overhead his betrayal, and ran to the shack made of sticks like ‘faggots’ (a Suffolk term for hedge sticks) where they were staying and warned the two men. They ran for their lives and hid on a nearby barge on the river, just in time to see the Germans open fire with their machine guns. Cecil’s main regret of that day was that he lost his overcoat as his uniform was the summer one!

Cecil walked in his army boots which developed a hole in the bottom. He was unable to change his shirt for a year, and the travellers were infested with lice and fleas. It was on their way through the mountains that they discovered that the camp in Italy had been liberated when Italy had capitulated to the British. Ironically, had he have stayed in the camp he would have been home some two years sooner!

When they reached Shunnengrund in Switzerland they were helped by the Swiss (who were a neutral country in the war), who treated them royally. They were put up in a big hotel which had the walls boarded up and straw on the floor for them to sleep on. They received a parcel every week from the Red Cross, which contained tinned milk, tinned food and cigarettes. They were given clothing, food, tea coffee milk, and cigarettes. The Swiss also taught them to ski. By making friends with the Swiss in the outlying villages, they were given written invitations to visit Zurich one weekend every two months for like a holiday weekend, where they had a wonderful time while they were waiting to return home. There were about 20 other ex prisoners of war there too who had escaped by different routes from other places. Finally the local Red Cross with others arranged for 12 of them to be flown from Switzerland to France. From there they were flown by Dakota plane to London, which took 4 hours.

When they reached London they were asked who they were, as no one knew they were missing. They had been assumed either dead or AWOL When he got back to England he was given a little card which said ‘I am a prisoner of War, I have not been wounded, I have been slightly wounded,’ presumably so that people would know that he had not been AWOL.

I naively assumed that having had this epic adventure, when he returned home in 1942 Cecil would have been demobbed to join his family, but the War was still raging and his country needed him. Cecil was allowed a home leave of exactly 6 weeks. He then went up to Aldershot, where he was a corporal in charge of 14 men and 14 vehicles. Cecil was well liked in the army, and when he was due to go on leave, his men would ask him not to as they liked him being in charge of them. (He claims he was made a corporal because he had good contacts, but after hearing his story I think he was made a corporal because they recognised some outstanding qualities in him.)

May had waited for her handsome young soldier, and they married on 10th November 1945, with some of his soldier friends in attendance, particularly Bill who by this time was back from Germany, and who was Cecil’s best man. When he was stationed with the Engineers at Aldershot, May was in accommodation 3 miles away in Ushot, Surrey near Farnham and he obtained sleeping out passes to go home every night! Some of his comrades offered to take his turn on night duty so that he could get home more often, but not for free, they charged Cecil the princely sum of 10 shillings for the favour! Whilst stationed in Aldershot, he received instruction on an engineering course, how to defuse bombs with only 3 minute fuses. He was also trained as an engineer to keep his vehicle in tip top condition so that if he failed to defuse the bombs he could get as far away as possible as quickly as possible! His other main task was to be driving instructor to his men.

In his 7 years in the Army Cecil was awarded 5 medals, the 39 - 45 Good Conduct medal, the Efficient Service medal, the Defence medal, the African Star and the 39-45 Star and he showed them to us. They were awarded to him on his return.

At debriefing they were ordered not to tell anyone what had happened to them for at least 2 years, and after then they did not speak of it to anyone.
Of all his former army mates, Cecil is still in touch with Bill Thompson, originally from Horham, who was his best man 60 years ago, and who now lives in South Africa.

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