大象传媒

April 5th.
We are living on rumours, and they are great; that the Germans are retreating on all fronts, and that there is trouble in Berlin. Our spirits are so high, we know the war is nearing its end. There are strong rumours that we are going to Stalag 4C - it seems there was an element of truth in what the two POWs had told me. I know that the future looks good.

April 8th.
No work today as it is Sunday, so we managed to get a shower and in general try to clean ourselves up. Then we were suddenly told to get our bits and pieces together and fall-in on parade outside. What for, we did not know. Then the usual thing - we were kept waiting for some considerable time. Finally we were given the order to march. We are going to Stalag 4C. It was not a long march, only about three hours. The huts were the same as the last camp, as were the conditions. Not only that, we still had to go to work at the same oil refinery.

April 10th.
Up at 3 am and moved off for the railway siding. Caught our open-truck and so travelled to work 1st class!
When I arrived at my workplace, told my foreman that I could not work as I could not hold a hammer. My hand hurt after I had given it a bang a couple of days before and it was swollen. He looked at me with a long, steady look, knowing that I would disappear as soon as his back was turned. He looked at my hand and told me to get up on the top beams and stop there until knocking-off time. I did as I was told!

April 11th.
A drop in the grub stakes! When we went to get our rations a loaf of bread had to go between 8 men, not 6. We were not pleased at that and there was much moaning and groaning and swearing amongst the multitude as they looked at a very small piece of bread and the bowl of soup, the likes of which it is hard to describe. There were a few bits of meat but what sort of meat, we didn't know; it have been a horse that had been dead for 100 years, who cares? We ate it in the knowledge that there was some hungry sod ready to pinch your grub if you left it for a while. I mean you could not trust yourself, never mind anybody else!

April 13th.
3 am. The guard came in as usual. I told him I was going sick as was Harry Shoesmith. When we arrived at the sick bay, there were about 100 chaps lined-up and we were at the end of the queue. I spoke to a chap who looked really ill. He was haggard and looked as if he was on his last legs. I asked him what was wrong. He had the sh*ts very bad and had been up all night. I was sorry for the bloke, but what could can we do? We are all in the same boat. It took the doctor all of ten minutes to see us sick-wallahs. Harry went in first. He told the doc that his back was so painful he could not bend, and his cough was worse. The doc looked at him and said "Fit for work." The man with a bad stomach was given two black pills and told to go to work; poor sod. I showed my arm to the doc. There was a nice red line running up my arm to my elbow. It was smothered in black ointment and wrapped up in paper bandage; it looked good! No work for two days! We returned to the hut with Harry moaning and telling us how ill he was. I said to him "As long as you can stand up and move, you are fit for work. But I have a poisonous arm and paper bandage. The guards know I am not fit for work." After the men left for work I stopped in my bunk until about 1.30 pm, then took a walk round to see if I could find any thing to scrounge. Behind the cook house, I spotted a pile of rotting, stinking cabbage leaves, onion tops, etc. I fetched a tin can and proceeded to sort out the best bits. It stunk to high heaven; slimy, stinking and wet, but who cares, I may find something to eat. I pulled out the green tops of turnips, carrots and rotten cabbage leaves. Come to think of it, I cannot recall having seen these objects in our soup. Then I looked for some dandelion leaves, the small ones. I finished up pulling the lot, roots as well. Then I looked for some wood, lit a fire and put all greens into some water and washed them. Ugh! The stink was enough to blind yer! I boiled them up and after they were nice and hot, I threw the water away, put in more fresh water, and boiled them again. When the lads came home from work, I told them I had something special for them add to their soup and it would give them the strength of life. Lofty said "What have we here Bertie boy?" "I have here the elixir of life." Put your soup in with mine and have a feast! Well, we ate it all. It was not too bad; it had a queer taste but we have eaten worse. The next day we all had the sh*ts, and the names the lads called me was anything but brotherly. It was nice to hear them cuss me because I knew they had not lost their spirit.

April 14th.
Harry and I reported sick at 3am. Once again, Harry told the doc that his back was painful and could not bend. Also, his chest was bad and he was suffering from diarrhoea. The doc gave him a black pill and told him he was fit for work. Poor Harry. I took the Bandage off my arm; the red line was still there - so more ointment, fresh paper bandage and no work! Back we went to the hut. What Harry was saying is not worth repeating. At 4am the guard who always woke us up with a bang on the door had been replaced by another who just walked into the room and balled has head off to get us out of bed. We told him to sod off and get knotted, but it made no difference; they were on their way to work. Me, I crept back in my bunk and stayed there.

April 15th.
My arm is better so I am fit for work. I reported to my old foreman. He was not too pleased to see me as trying to get me to work was a problem. I was given the job of fetching some bottles of pop that the POWs could buy at tenpence a bottle. Two us carried a tray to hold the bottles. We left the works at about 8 o'clock and it was a about half an hour there and back. We got back about 2.30! Many times we were asked where, in the bleeding name of hell had we been. Had we made the pop? Did we loose our way? but we toll them we had to rest every five minutes; to rest our weary bones as the bottles were so heavy. We did not say that we hid in a hut all morning.
Like the other POWs, I am beginning to get spells of dizziness and spots before the eyes. How much longer can we carry on at this rate? Once more we are told that Red Cross parcels are on the way. We could do with them. At the end of the day, on returning to the camp ... yes, the parcels had arrived, one parcel between two men. Did we have a feed that night! The grub was a dream and of course we had a smoke. These parcels were life savers. Boy, oh boy! I think there was many a silent prayer said to thank God for them. I look at my right hand. A couple of hours previously, I had banged it with a hammer while playing at work. Result, a red line up my arm. I would be reporting sick at 3 am.

April 16th
I duly told the guard I was reporting. He could not care less, so I got another couple of days off.

April 19th.
At about 3.30 am I was very rudely awoken by Lofty. "Get up Bert, there is a hell of an air-raid going on." "To hell with the raid, I ain't going anywhere." But Bunny and Lofty had other thoughts and they dragged me out of
my bunk. When we were outside, I looked up in the sky and saw a wonderful display of searchlights and flares. It looked quite near, and the roar of aircraft and the sound of bombs was very interesting. The problem was, were they coming our way? So we headed for the air-raid shelter stopped there until it was over. We did not go to work that day, and where the bombing took place, I did not get to know.

April 20th.
It is that bastard Hitler's birthday today. May he rot in Hell. I did not see any signs of celebrations going on. I don't think anybody was interested.

April 21st.
My birthday - 35 today. To honour the occasion, I baked a cake of flour, burnt barley 'coffee' grounds, spud, and a bit of sugar that a squaddie gave me, all mixed up. You never saw such a conglomeration in all your life but we ate it, like we would eat anything else, given the chance.

April 22nd.
Our fifth wedding anniversary, and I have been a POW for 4 years! We have had no news from home for nearly nine months now. The latest rumour is that letters and post are on the way but it was not true.

April 26th.
The weather is very wet these days but when the sun comes out it is lovely and warm, and we feel a lot better for it. I hate to say it but the grub is worse than ever. The bread is terrible, it is dry and it tastes like wood. I am sure that if things go on like this there is going to be a bust-up. There is a air of anger and frustration and we are nearing the end of our tethers. In other words, we have had enough!

April 28th.
Up at 4 am and off to work. The train is always there waiting for us and the truck we have today has been used for coal dust. The result is that we are as black as coal and covered with dust. What the hell. The sun is a-rising to welcome the day and we turned up at work looking like a lot of minstrels, but who cares? We had a air-raid warning at about midday and we were all herded into an old coal mine. We stopped there for a couple of hours and by the time the guards had got us all together, it was time to knock-off, so home we went.

April 29th.
I had a nice job today. Frank and I were picked to go to Br眉x on a lorry to get some material for one of the gaffers in the works. We found a crate with some bottles of beer in it so we put it on the lorry and covered it over. On the way back the guard saw us having a drink but, surprisingly, he said nothing. We gave him a bottle and all was OK! He also told us to keep it quiet, which we did. So Lofty ,Harry, Frank, Bunny and I had a nice drink. I have noticed that there has been a marked change in the behaviour of the guards. There is not so much shouting and telling us hurry up all the time, and if we worked or not made no difference to them. Yes, there was a wind of change!

April 30th.
Another day of suspense. The rumours are coming thick and fast; the Yanks are in Karlsbad, the Russians are near Berlin, Monty has crossed the Rhine, and Hitler has gone raving mad (he always was!) I have reached that stage. Why, oh why, am I writing this diary? Will anyone read it? What I have written is the true account of what I and my comrades have suffered in the past few months. When, oh when, is this bleeding bloody sodding war going to finish?
I have changed my job. We have been asked to empty some trucks at night and told that extra rations would be given, and as soon as we had unloaded a truck, we were finished. It sounded good. There were 24 men for the job. When we arrived at the siding, there was no ride on a train so we did not have a long way to go to get back to camp when we had done our job. We were split up into groups of four men to a truck. The guards said it was light work, the bastards! When we climbed inside, they were filled with mud, bricks and boulders and we were up too our knees in thick sticky mud - and we knew that we would not pack up until they all the trucks were clear. Getting the side doors of the truck open was a tricky job, as we did not want to get covered in mud. As we opened the door, the mud poured out in a torrent and then we climbed inside, slipping and sliding, and finding it hard to keep our feet. There was one particular boulder that weighted about 60 lb, and it took two of us to heave it out of the truck. We had agreed to all work together to get the job done and we had it finished in three hours. We were knackered! As we knew our way to the camp, the guard told us to float. Regarding work, I always found that, if you had a contract job and you finished it well inside the time limit, Jerry did not expect you to do any more work that day and he honoured the contract. I made my mind up that I was not going to do that work any more. Back to camp we went, tired, weary, and covered with mud. We crept into our lousy bunks, and I mean we were as lousy as one could be.
At 4 am the men were turned out for work but us night-workers stayed were in our bunks all day. I omitted to tell the guard that I would not be handy for the night shift. When they fell-in, I was missing. I hid in the latrine. At about 8.30 pm, I was picked up by one of the guards and taken to the Commandant's office. As he was an officer, I saluted him to the best of my ability. The CO returned my salute in a proper manner by standing up and returning my compliment with a military salute; shades of my days when I was put on a charge whilst serving abroad in The Rifle Brigade. The C0 asked me why I had not gone to work. "Sir, I was ready for work when, a quarter of an hour before I was to go on parade, my stomach was filled with pain. I was very sick and I felt as though the world had come to an end. It took me all my time to come to this office, as you can see, Sir," I held my grubby, stinking hands, "I am shaking like a leaf in the wind. I shall be OK for work tomorrow, Sir." He then told me I was to report sick when I felt ill. I did not tell him that as long as you could stand up without the wind blowing you over, you were "fit for work." So I was let off. At the same time, Lofty was doing 7 days in the nick for being out of the camp.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Genevieve Tudor of the 大象传媒 Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Mark Ruffle and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions

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