大象传媒

Continuation of report written by George Whalley

At the end of June the ALLENDE crew were removed from the camp for exchange and we were told by the officer who brought them their instructions that the CRITON crew were to make themselves ready to follow. Great was our excitement over the weekend, but equally great was our disappointment on the Monday morning when the commandant denied all knowledge of an exchange, and said that the ALLENDE crew were only being moved to Koulikoro and that we were to follow them when adequate accommodation was available. This move, he said, might take place within a month, or it might be delayed for a considerable period.

During the month of July the river steamers came into service again and it was expected that the sick men would be sent to Bamako. Various excuses were found for delaying the departure of these men and then it was stated that the whole camp was to be moved to Koulikoro and that the invalids would be sent on to Bamako from there. Eventually the day did arrive when we were to leave Timbuctoo and the Commandant gave instructions that all the men were to walk to Port Carron, a distance of 10 miles, with the exception of the invalids who could go down with the baggage on a lorry. I was in the lorry party. When the main party had walked half the distance and had arrived at Kabara, they were halted in the roadway and told that they were to have half an hour's rest. They were then in charge of the lieutenant of the Barracks at Kabara and he refused them permission to sit in the shade of the buildings out of the fierce sun. The day temperature at this time of the year is about 125 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. After they had been sitting in the sun a little while one of the party asked for some drinking water, but this was refused with the remark that "we have no drinking water for the swine of Englishmen".

On boarding the barge alongside the steamer we were pleasantly surprised to find that the police official in charge of our party had only a nominal guard of two policemen with him. He told us that it was his duty to take us to Bamako and he would then learn where our destination was to be. As Bamako is beyond Koulikoro from Timbuctoo, and as this same official told us that the ALLENDE crew had been released, our hopes were very high that we were being sent to the border. We were given every reasonable liberty on the passage, which took eight days, and arrived at Bamako station at 3.30 a.m. to find a good meal ready for us at the station buffet. On passing through Kouliloro a Canadian aviator who had joined us at Timbuctoo after being forced down, together with a naval sub-lieutenant, who had been part of the CRITON's personnel, were separated from us and taken to join the other service men in the camp at Koulikoro.

For some months we had known that the British Red Cross had been sending us parcels of clothing, etc., and that these consignments had started as far back as the previous November, but this was August and so far they had not reached us. When we passed through Koulikoro we were able to trace these packages, which had been delivered to the Koulikoro camp and were awaiting shipment on the river. We took these parcels with us and opened them at Bamako where we were to spend several days. The clothing situation had been really acute at Timbuctoo, and some of the men had been reduced to cutting pieces off the bottom of their bedsheets to make skirts to cover their nakedness. A number of shirts and shorts were distributed by the authorities at Timbuctoo shortly before we were due to leave that camp. When we opened these long-awaited Red Cross bales we found shorts, shirts, towels, soap, books, playing cards, toothbrushes, toothpaste, Milton, etc. - every item of which was a veritable luxury to us and we could not help but think how much happier we could have been at Timbuctoo if we had had these comforts.

The building in which we were billeted in Bamako was a large school which had been taken over as a barracks. Here we had ample bathing facilities and our food was supplied by the station buffet. The beds, however, were crawling with bugs and it was impossible to get any sleep for them. The invalids were put into hospital for observation but no treatment was given. We were very disappointed to learn that we were going to the internment camp at Kan Kan, and not to Freetown as we had hoped. Our misery was not reduced in any way when we discovered that we were to continue our journey on the Niger and that these bug-ridden mattresses were to go with us. During the six or seven days which we spent on the river we suffered extreme discomfort because mosquitoes and bugs kept us awake all night, and the covering of the barge was not watertight, allowing the rain to drip in on us most of the time. During the ten months that we had been in Timbuctoo it had only rained three or four times.

Earlier in the year we had heard that the eight men whom we left in hospital at Conakry in September 1941 had been moved to Kan Kan, in French Guinea, and were interned in a farm building a few kilometres out of the town. On arrival at Kan Kan we rejoined these men and were pleased to find that the Kan Kan camp was superior in many ways to either Conakry or Timbuctoo. The sight of trees, grass, etc., after the sandy waste of Timbuctoo was very restful.

The accommodation at Kan Kan was quite adequate for the number of men when we first arrived there, but before very long we heard rumours that a large party of men was coming up from Conakry, and although our party only numbered 32 British plus 10 Freetown natives we were told that the camp would eventually hold about 150 men. The Kan Kan camp was well supplied with books from various sources such as the Prisoners of War Books and Games Fund, and we had quite a number of packs of cards and other games. This was a great delight to us after the many months we had spent in Timbuctoo with only a very few books and no diversions whatsoever. The original eight men at Kan Kan seemed fairly well provided with tinned food, soap, etc., and this, they told us had come from the Red Cross at Bathurst and Freetown. They also told us that a large consignment had recently been dispatched from that camp to Timbuctoo and we were fortunate enough to be able to recall these packages before they were despatched by the authorities. The food at Kan Kan was very much better in quality than that at Timbuctoo, but at times there was barely enough for the number of men. In this camp the food was supplied by the station buffet at Kan Kan and brought out to the camp where it was warmed up by a native cook. After we had been in Kan Kan a short time we received invoices from the Bathurst Red Cross for supplies of Army clothing which had been addressed to Timbuctoo but which had been intercepted and re-addressed to Kan Kan by the French Red Cross at Dakar. These clothes consisted of khaki shirts, shorts, socks, singlets, underpants, topees, boots and battledress for each man of the party from Timbuctoo. Some original Kan Kan internees had already received their consignment. When the crates arrived in Kan Kan they were placed in the office of the Commissar of Police, together with a large number of parcels of food from the Red Cross. These packages were withheld by the authorities from the internees for almost three months. The excuse given for this action was that it was under instructions from the French Red Cross at Conakry. An American missionary, who often acted as our intermediary with the authorities, took the matter up and pointed out that these parcels of clothing were addressed to the Timbuctoo men and that they were entitled to the contents, and that the French were exceeding their powers in withholding clothing which had been expressly addressed to a certain group of internees, because of the expected arrival of other internees who were non-British. He also pointed out that the Timbuctoo group of men had had practically nothing during their fifteen months of internment and were therefore more in need of these clothes than any new arrivals could be. The Commissar of Police, however, showed the missionary a letter from the Conakry Red Cross and said that he was acting upon its instructions. The missionary was convinced that the police commissar was purposely misconstruing the Red Cross instructions because he was full of rancour at the sight of so much good clothing and food coming to the internees when he himself could not buy these items in the shops of Kan Kan. These crates and personal food parcels were only released to the internees when the French at Algiers had come over to the Allied cause and it was obvious that it was only a matter of time before French West Africa also fell into line. When I was in Conakry on my way home I met the Secretary of the French Red Cross there, and she assured me that the letter written to the Kan Kan police was only to the effect that if a large number of food parcels arrived at one time some of them should be held back in order to bridge over any interval between further deliveries. She was greatly concerned to hear of the way her instructions had been purposely and spitefully mis-read, and stated that it was never the intention of the Red Cross to withhold clothing, etc. During the few days following the Algiers incident we received over 180 food parcels together with the Army clothing previously mentioned and a quantity of other clothing. It was significant that the release of these commodities coincided with the rapidly improving Franco-British relationship and the possibility of our being released at an early date.

From Kan Kan we were allowed to write letters and send telegrams home. The mails were much better to Kan Kan than to Timbuctoo and many private parcels were received from England.

After we had been in Kan Kan some weeks our Captain and the same sailor who had accompanied him before escaped, and were at liberty five days. They had almost reached the border before they were recaptured and brought back to the camp. Following this escape all the internees were bolted in their rooms at night and the windows were also locked. This prevented all ventilation in the rooms and the men suffered greatly from the stuffiness of the atmosphere as we were locked in for twelve hours each night. Another precaution taken was the collection of all leather shoes and boots. The authorities maintained that they would make escape easier, but they completely closed their eyes to the fact that the two men who escaped had walked about 150 miles in five nights wearing sandshoes.

Eventually the men from Conakry arrived at Kan Kan and they turned out to be the crews of a Dutch and Norwegian ship. At about the same time all persons suspected of pro-Allied sympathies in French Guinea were rounded up and put in the same camp. These men comprised Greeks, Cypriots, suspected de Gaullists and the American Missionaries. With all these men in the camp the accommodation became very crowded indeed and the stuffiness at night was therefore very much worse. We had repeatedly requested the authorities to leave the windows open at night or, failing that, to fit wire netting or bars across the windows so that we could obtain a circulation of air. Eventually the military did fit iron bars across the windows and this was a great improvement. This was only done, however, after the Algiers incident and at that time the authorities were beginning to pacify us and keep us quiet.

The latrine accommodation which had been quite adequate for 32 men was, of course, hopeless for over 100 men and it was some time before this matter was rectified. During the last fortnight that I was there latrines and wash-houses were being erected, and we gained a certain amount of amusement by telling the sergeants in charge of the work that if they did not hurry on with the jobs we would all be released and they would then be useless. Another line would be to go and inspect the work and then express the opinion that these jobs could not be done in time for the British internees but would be ready for the Germans who we hoped would take our place in the camp! When the lieutenant in charge of the camp was busy taking photographs of these new buildings from all angles I was amused to anger him by calling to a friend to come and stand with me so that we might be included in the "propaganda photos" which were being taken.

It was about this time that I was released together with the other invalids mentioned earlier and I commenced my journey home. After two days travelling in the train we arrived at Conakry and were put up in an hotel to await the final arrangements for our repatriation. We stayed in this hotel three days and enjoyed perfect liberty of movement during this time. On the fourth day we boarded a lorry at 6 a.m. and arrived at the frontier of Sierra Leone at 2 p.m. and were searched for any letters which we might be smuggling out of French territory. At 3 p.m. we were met by British army officials and taken to a camp not many miles from the border where we were entertained for the night. The next day we travelled another 140 miles by Army lorry and arrived at Freetown in the evening.

There were many men in Freetown awaiting berths for England but I was fortunate enough to be considered a "deserving case" and was given priority with my companions, which meant that we boarded ship immediately and within a few days left Freetown for an uneventful trip to the United Kingdom.

In the foregoing paragraphs I have been able only to give you a brief summary of the events during my twenty one months of internment in Vichy hands, which may give you some slight appreciation of our physical sufferings. It would be impossible to convey to you the mental cruelty which we suffered as a result of our treatment; the frustrated hopes of release; the unfulfilled promises of the authorities; ignorance of the true state of the war situation and anxiety as to the safety and welfare of our relatives at home all combined to produce a state of mental anguish which has to be experienced to be realised. Had it not been for the sustained efforts of the Red Cross, in spite of obstruction and opposition, our lot would indeed have been intolerable.

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