大象传媒

March 11th.
Tempers are running short. The civvies give us soap and bits of bread. We are crawling with lice, I have forgotten when we last saw water. Even the guards don't know when we shall get a bath or a shower.

March 12th.
Z谩lezlice. We got an issue of fags today from the Red Cross which we can use to barter with. A lot shouting and swearing is going on but I ain't interested. Two rabbits and six fowl are among the missing. I have one under my coat. Bunny cooked it, and it was great!

March 13th.
D臎dibaby. We were given three slices of bread today, nothing else. We are locked up in a large barn. Plenty of straw, lice, and the usual left overs from our friends. We are heading towards Karlsbad.

March 15th.
There is only one thought in the chaps minds and that is food. It is now three days and all we have had is a small bowl of liquid. God knows what it was.

March 16th.
Lunikov. The weather is improving. We are stopping here for a while, and at last the Germans have fixed up a long pipe with a lot of holes in so we can have a shower in cold water. It was great, and to see our bodies for the first for weeks, was a sight to behold. I found that I had gone very thin and could quite easily play a tune on my ribs. My feet were black and blue. Not only that, but something has gone wrong, we cannot believe it! Usually we line up for our grub and live in the hopes that you will get something but today we all received a bit of cheese, a spoonful of jam, a lump of bread, and some soup. What a feast! It was here that Harry sold his pullover.

March 17th.
We left Lunikov and a surprise awaited us. The guards had been changed and we now had the guards who had been in charge of the Russians. They are supposed to be a rough lot. We'll have to wait and see. Not only that, the Russian column has left us. It was as we were heading for Jedom臎lice that we had halted for a rest period near a farm.
Not more than twenty yards from the road was a pile of spuds and the men had their eyes on them. Now in all fairness, we had been warned to keep away from the spuds. The guards had orders to shoot anyone trying to steal them. We knew that these guards were not to be treated lightly, so we took notice of their of their orders. But there is always one ready to disobey orders, and one of our lads had a go. The guard saw him and shot him dead but what could we do? Nothing.
The men are beginning to feel the effects of the march. It was really tough going, one of the longest days we had marched. We had done about 30 miles from morning 'til night. We were exhausted but given a bowl of thick barley soup.

March 20th.
Moved off and after going for about 12 miles we had to turn back as the guards had lost the way, it was 'about two o'clock in the morning before we found that the guard had lost his way ... again! He had no idea where he was. We were in the middle of a forest we were exhausted. Even the guard had had enough! Eventually we came across a clearing with some buildings in it. It had started to rain so the guard knocked at the nearest door. The owner was a farmer, who cussed like hell at being woke up. Still, we were herded into a small school-room were we promptly dropped on the floor, too weary and exhausted for anything more.
It seemed only a matter of minutes before the guard came to turn us out. It was about six o'clock, our legs were stiff and bodies ached. Not only that, we were browned off, cold, hungry, and not at all interested in the beauty of the countryside as we started back to re-join the column.

March 21st.
Passed through Laun (Louny) where we stopped at a state barn, about 500 of us. We were given ersatz coffee, bread and water like soup. I am sure that the bread is made out of saw dust! There is a strong rumour that we are nearly at the end of the march. I should think so, considering the state we are in; our legs are beginning to buckle and wobble and we are weak as kittens.

March 22nd.
Br眉x (Most). We are at the end of our travels! It is a big town that has been well and truly battered by bombing. Nice work! It has turned out nice again. No grub. As we went through the outskirts of the town, I think there was more interest taken by the lads, looking at the devastation, than they had shown on the whole of the rest of the march. It was about 5 miles outside the town when we arrived at the Stalag which was a mostly French camp. As we neared the gates of the camp, there were quite a lot of Germans waiting for us. We had come to the end of a hellish march in which we had suffered humiliation, hunger, despair, degradation, filth, and sometimes the will to live. It was Hell. And now we had come to the end of it only, we soon found out, to enter a hellish camp. We were soon sorted out and split up into groups, then we were taken to small huts that had bunks for 24 men. The hut was clean and we soon picked out the bunks we wanted, hoping that we would be able to have a nice long rest.
We had not been in the hut long when the guards turned us out. They kept well away from us as we had to be de-loused. Then we showered in cold water; yes, we must have ponged a bit! After the shower we were given some clean clothes - a pair of trousers, shirt, socks and jacket. As weak as we were, feeling clean made us feel a hell of a lot better. All we were waiting for then was to see what the food was like. We would soon find out. The 24 of us were taken to the cook house where we received 4 loaves of bread (6 men to a loaf), a bowl of soup, and a few spuds which was to last us until the same time tomorrow. And as a good sign, we were given the next day off to rest, as we would be at work on Monday. Once again we were asked our particulars and trade. I told them I was a very good carpenter, first class. Well I could knock a nail in straight!

March 24th.
It made quite a change to have a decent night's sleep, but it did not stop the guards turning us out at 7.30 am to see we were all here. After being counted about six times, we returned to our bunks. The talk amongst us was about the possibility of getting any Red Cross parcels as from, what the French have told us, the Red Cross has not been for some time. After a short time we all went for a walk round the camp. It was not a big camp, only about twenty huts, and there were no watch towers about. The barbed wire around it was about eight feet high As we walked about, our legs were very shaky and weak, and we are very listless. To take an interest in anything is an effort for the brain-box. There was nothing else to look forward to so, back to our bunks. At six o'clock we went for our rations. It was the same as we had the day before. Bloody Lousy!

March 28th.
3 am. A guard came in the hut and asked if anyone wanted to see the doctor, he then left the room. 4 am. Crash, bang, wallop! The door was flung open and the guards came in like a herd of buffalo. "Raus, raus. Alle Mann raus!", and we were out of our bunks and standing outside in under ten minutes. Then we were marched off, our legs wobbly and shaking. We went through couple of villages and finished up in a railway siding. There we had to climb into open railway trucks. And we were not going to the sea side! After an hour we arrived at our destination. The place was huge, and as we walked on we could see what we were there for - repair works. Soon we arrived at a large hut where we were then detailed off to several workmen. My name was called out, and I followed a man of about 55 years of age. He took me into a large building and climbing two ladders and so we arrived at my place of work. I asked him in what German I knew if he expected me to work hard. He asked me if I was English. "Yes" I replied. He told me that his name was Hans and he was a Pole, from Warsaw, and had been forced to come here to work just after this place had been bombed in January. We shook hands and at the same time I told him I was not going to help the Jerries too much in their war effort. So for the remainder of the day, I did not do any work. I was too weary and in a mood to tell anybody to get the Hell out of my way.
At 6 pm the hooter went to finish work. We walked back to the camp, and there we waited until 6.30 pm. It took longer to get back than the morning trip and it was about 7.15 when we arrived at the siding. We still a long walk to the Stalag and it was about 8.15 to 8.45 before we got there. The men were knackered, and the curses and swear words were lovely to hear; they were not beaten yet. We received our watery soup. Only the one above knew what it was, because we didn't! There was only one place for it, but we ate it, plus the small slice of bread, as we would not get any more until tomorrow. At 9.30 pm we were turned out for checking to make sure that nobody had gone over the wire. And then to rest! We had been on our feet for seventeen and a half hours. Tired ain't the word! What with one thing and another, it was 10 o'clock before we got to sleep, only to be roused again at 4 am to go to work. No breakfast.
When I arrived at work, there was another man there, a German civvy. He measured off a few pieces of wood and told me to saw them off. I did but there was only one thing wrong; by the time I had finished, they were all different lengths - and was he mad?! Then he told me to get a bag of nails from the store. He told me where it was and to hurry up, it would only take me five minutes. It was a 7 pound bag of nails that I picked up, but I only just about managed to carry it on my shoulder. I proceeded to have a look round and was amazed at the damage I saw; huge craters were being filled by POWs, a railway engine lay about 50 yards from the track with trucks upended and oil tanks lying here, there and everywhere, railway lines were twisted and pointing in the air, and buildings were blown to hell and back. But the thing that amazed me was that this was an oil refinery, and that slap-bang in the middle, was a building and rising above it were three huge chimneys that were over 100 feet high. How were they were still standing after the bombing? I then met a couple chaps from Stalag 4c and they told me the history. It seems that way back in January 1945 this oil refinery, which had taken four years to build, was about to go into production. On the very first day, at 1.30 pm, smoke belched forth from the chimneys and it was now in production. It was to produce a million and half litres of oil a day for Hitler, and all the directors were very pleased and so they were having a booze-up to celebrate. There was only one thing wrong; other people had a better idea. At 2 pm the American Air Force came over to join in the party and dropped a few calling cards in the shape of bombs. This put the refinery out of action until the beginning of April, when it was again plastered by the RAF at night and the Yanks in the daytime. The two lads from Stalag 4C also told me that they had heard some POWS would be transferred from Stalag 22 to 4C, as it was an all-British camp. It was late in the afternoon when I arrived back at the place were I was supposed to work. When the carpenter saw me he went barmy and cussed, shouting, and waving his arms saying that he had not been able to do his work. All because I had been six hours doing a five minutes job. And then he really lost his top as I had got the wrong sized nails!
After a while he finished his ranting. Then, in my poor German, I said that the war was nearly over; the Russians were not too far away and would have his guts for garters, that the Yanks would be knocking on his door very shortly and asking him where was Hitler as they wanted to have a few words with him, as did the Russians, and Churchill, and a few more people. Whether he understood all I said, I don't know, but he got the message. When I asked him if he had any spare food in his bag as I was very hungry, I am glad to say that he gave me some bread and a bit of Sausage, which I promptly ate. After that we were the best of friends and I did not do any work that afternoon.
At six the hooter went to knock off work and we retraced the miserable journey back to the Lager. The men were glad to have a rest and there was no roll-call so we could get our heads down. Harry, with his bad cough, decided to go sick. We all told him it was a waste of time but at 3 am he went to the doctor, who promptly told him that he was fit for work. Poor Harry.
So the days passed, and the grub got worse. Not only that, the weather was improving; the sun was shining more and I think that this gave us quite a lift in our spirits and outlook on the future. We knew that the war could not last much longer.

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

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.