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Les Birch attended the People's War Reminiscence session held at Cheriton Library on 12/08/03. The eight of us attending were captivated by his accounts of a five-year ordeal as a Prisoner of War. Les refused to stay in a POW camp in Germany, and was made to march across Europe (staying in ten different camps). The forced labour that he undertook included work on the railway line into Auschwitz.

Les brought memorabilia to Cheriton Library, including artefacts that he carried with him across Europe and material that he collected on subsequent return visits after the war. Photographs, maps, leaflets, pamphlets, letters, diaries gave his stories an extra poignancy. Somehow, Les kept a slim diary of his own, recording details of his long march. The first page was headed 'From Captivity to Freedom'.

The extracts below are taken from the recording we made, and added to the WW2 People's War site with his permission.

Unexpected conscription

What I would like to say Sir is, I was thrashing for Mr Heritage. It was the time I joined the TA in 1939, in April, and I didn't realise it was an expeditionary force - I was in a reserved occupation [farm work].

I started out with the engine, and I got as far as Monks Horton - I drove the engine in through the gates, parked it up, sheeted up and I arrived home about half past nine, quarter to ten, and my dear old mum came down the path and she said, 'Son, there's a letter here OMS [On Her Majesty's Service]'.

... and she was booing and crying, and she said, 'I believe it's your calling up papers.' I said, 'No it can't be, I'm in a reserved occupation.' So I opened it there and then, and true enough - 'You will report tonight!'

[My mother]... said to me, 'Well, what are we going to do? You haven't had much [to eat] all day ... you'll have to get the fire going, time you had something to eat, and a noggin [drink].' Her and I went and got the old tin bath, put it in the old scullery in the cottage, I gets in and has a bath.

The old chap comes in and says, 'What's up, mate?' And we told him.

From then on it started, and my feet never hit the ground. I went to Ashford Drill Hall … I'd been up since half past five that morning ...

Capture

…[Les shows us a remarkable diary, written by his sergeant major]…The sergeant major who managed to get back like I did from the BEF [British Expeditionary Force] gave me this book before he died, and he was the very man who said, ‘Birch, you’re on guard tonight’ … and I had to do a twelve-hour stint, and I can tell you that was a bit stiff. Anyway it progressed on from there and away we went…

… [After Les had been captured] - the Germans walked us all along the cliffs, marching us all the way along the top from Boulogne to Calais - and they said: ‘You see that little place over there?’ [Pointing to Folkestone] … In the early mornings, when the sun was shining, it nearly broke my heart, you could see those trenches, you could see the cliffs and they kept saying: ‘We're going to sink that pimple!’

We said, ‘When you sink that pimple you won't be around!’ - and they’re not are they?

Photos carried through the war years

… [Les shows us photographs] - This was my girlfriend, she was 16 at the time, and I was 17, and that photograph went right through the war years. … Now that one too has been smuggled under my arm, it's been in my crotch (you don't mind, do you, ladies?), and that is original. And that’s a German officer because, after I was captured, that’s the doctor that sat over me when I had dysentery...

That little photograph is very historical, it’s been through every POW camp … This man here, that's me. That one, have you heard of the massacre of the men? One hundred and only two survived at Le Paradis. He was one of them, he was from Norfolk, one of the Norfolks.

Le Paradis (Pas-de-Calais, 26 May 1940)

A company of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, trapped in a cowshed, surrendered to the 2nd Infantry Regiment, SS Totenkopf (Death's Head) Division, under the command of 28-year-old SS Obersturmfuhrer Fritz Knoechlein. Marched to a group of farm buildings, they were lined up in the meadow along side the barn wall. When the 99 prisoners were in position, two machine guns opened fire, killing 97 of them. The bodies were then buried in a mass grave on the farm property.

Two managed to escape - privates Albert Pooley and William O'Callaghan emerged from the slaughter, wounded but alive. When the SS troops moved on, the two wounded soldiers were discovered, having hidden in a pig-sty for three days and nights, by Madame Castel of Le Paradis, who then cared for them until they were captured again by another Wehrmacht unit to spend the rest of the war as POWs.

Kindness through illness

Now the story of this, why I succeeded and got this [photograph] … [the German doctor] did it for me. He was in England, he was in college in Oxford in February, April time, and he had notification. He had perfect English and he helped me to get over my dysentery. For weeks I was under him in hospital … he said he would keep me there as long as he could, until I think it was July, he had the final notice telling him if he did not come home he would lose his wife and two daughters. He showed me a beautiful picture of them. And it’s sad, but I've never met him since the war, but he befriended me, a very fine German. You can't say otherwise, or I would not be here talking to you. And that [photo] went right through the war years.

Some help for the prisoners

Because when we got through, the French … weren't very kind to us … then we got to the Belgians who were, then we got to Holland, they were brilliant, they did everything. When we knew we were getting near the Rhine, I said to some guys - ‘Look, there’s a cow out there being milked by a young lady … I can milk a cow, and I'm going [to milk it].’

And they said, ‘You'll get shot.’

I said, ‘I will take that chance, I am so hungry.’

It was terrible, we had nothing to eat, they only gave us bags of old potatoes with dirt and everything, just enough to keep you alive. So when we got along where we could see there was a bit of river, I couldn't swim but I went down there, and swam of an evening time. The young lady was milking the cow, so I crept along and sat the other side, and that’s the best milk I've ever had, I'll never forget that, the best milk I've ever had in my life!

[After some persuasion, the young woman] … took me back to the little old farmstead - but she said, ‘you can't come in’, and I said, ‘well where do I stay?’ She could speak perfect English.

I was bleeding from the back, I was in a terrible state, my clothes were all torn, my feet were sore, my shoes were worn out … and I had a week in the pig house. Then I gradually crept indoors, they [the young woman and her mother] tried to help me. I was all upset, the medicine didn't do me any good, I was there somewhere in the region of nearly six weeks and they really tried to do everything for me.

'You've got to go!'

Then all of a sudden [the mother] said, ‘You've got to go, you've got to go, you've go to go, that’s a German [approaching the house,] you've got to go.’

It was 10 o'clock in the morning, we had just had a little something, nice fresh bread and all that, so I said, ‘Well I must go then. I don't want to get you shot.’ She had lost her husband and two sons, they had all been shot. She said, ‘You must go, I've only got my daughter.’

So out I went. In come these Germans. [One] smashed the door in, waving his revolver, shouting, ‘You've got an Englishman in here’, he was shouting in English.

I went out the back door, and there was a chicken pen, and they had a few shrubs, and I thought ‘God Almighty he is going to shoot me!’ I looked over my shoulder, and he shouted ‘Englander! You stop or I'll blow your brains out!’ I didn't take no notice, I went down on my all fours pulled up the wire netting, underneath it, down through, up the stream, joined the column of march (there was still thousands of men about, on the road) - and got away.

It’s true I done that, that wasn't the first time. The second time I did it in Poland, well I did three [escapes] actually, but I got rather hurt down in [Czechoslovakia].

Lost comrade

[Les shows us a letter from the mother of a fellow POW that he received in a camp via the Red Cross]

‘It was very nice of you and your companion to write so nicely of Nelson, but as time passes I will be comforted in the knowledge that he died amongst such nice companions who I’m sure did all they could to help him. Should any parcel addressed to Nelson arrive, I would like it if you and Alex would manage to get it shared between you. When peace comes again, I will be very pleased to receive a visit from you. My heartfelt thanks to all the boys for their sympathy, some day I might be able to visit Nelson’s resting place. I wish you all the best of luck and a speedy return to your own homes. I am sincerely yours. M Duncan.’

And you won’t believe it, do you know what I did? When we was asked where would we like our passes made out to, I said Aberdeen. And when they said, ‘But you come from Kent!’ I said, ‘It doesn’t matter, I have a special reason, I lost my comrade.’

And I had that pass, and I had one week at home and - three of us - went up to Dundee, and then we went up to Aberdeen to see his mother. That was a very sad meeting, very sad. We couldn’t talk for ten minutes.

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