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My father-in-law, Allan Wolfe was a Bren gunner in the 6 Btn Royal West Kents in May, 1940. His unit arrived in Doullens, France on 18th May, and on the 20th, was given the task of fighting a rearguard action to prevent the enemy from crossing the Doullens — Arras road from the south. Allan spoke very little about his experiences, and much of what we know comes from my researches and visits to Europe to retrace his steps. Allan sadly died in 1987.

His battalion was ill equipped to carry out the task it had been assigned. There was one rifle and 50 rounds per man, 18 Bren guns with 700 rounds each, no Bren gun carriers, mortars or grenades, and no machine gun or artillery support. They did not even have the right maps, and information about the enemy came from refugees.
By the afternoon, they were under shellfire, and their building was completely surrounded. When German tanks appeared, they had no option but to surrender.
At this point, he and his mates were lined up against a wall, and Allan was convinced from the tone of their captors, that they were about to be shot, (Allan spoke no German at this stage). However, a German officer arrived, barked out some orders, and they were marched off to begin several years of captivity. Only one officer and 7 men returned from the action.

A few years ago, my husband and I visited Doullens, sat in the town square where the battalion had had their last hot meal, and then went to find the graves of several very young Royal West Kents. As we left our poppies, we wondered how many of them Allan had known.

Allan was 19 years old when captured. He must have harboured a certainty that he would escape and retrace his route and rejoin the exodus as he kept a pencil note in his army pay book of the towns he went through. Alisey, Doullens, Frevort, Albert, Combles, Cambrai……..until the names become German sounding…….. and eventually, Posen in Poland. They marched for most of the way. Allan walked his boots off, and finished up tying rags round his feet. Meals often consisted of scrubbing up potatoes from farmers’ fields and eating them raw. When they did travel in trucks, there were no ‘toilet stops’ and as many of them were suffering stomach problems, (dysentery he said), a gap in one side of the truck had to suffice.

Allan’s home for the next few years was Fort Rauch in Stalag 21D, Posen, Poland. (Curiously, my assigned seat and desk number at the PRO when I was searching through the Red Cross reports on his prison camp was 21D.) The reports confirmed the few details he gave us on life in the camp — poor food and medical supplies, washing in a trough where you had to move away the scum of so many men’s ablutions, and so on. But, he considered that the British POWs were well treated compared with the Russians in the neighbouring compound. The bodies of hanged Russian prisoners would be left for several days.

Allan made 3 attempts to escape. On one occasion, he was put into solitary confinement as a punishment. As he sat trying to work out the date, he realised that it was his 21st birthday - a fine way to celebrate.

At last, while working on a road, he seized an opportunity to escape, and walked to Czechoslovakia, where he spent the rest of the war until liberated by the Russians. Among his keepsakes were some old photographs from his POW days, and also from Czechoslovakia. On the back of one picture of an older couple, a young boy, and 3 young men in civilian clothes (one of whom was Allan), was the name Holice. When my husband and I visited Prague to celebrate our Silver Wedding anniversary , we hired a car and found the little town of Holice. We knew that Allan had hidden in a wood, living in a hole in the ground. He had been brought food by a Czech family at night. We wondered if this was the family in the photograph. We left the photograph with the town’s archivist and months later received a letter from him saying that he had traced the family. The older couple had long since died, but the boy, now in his late 60s was alive, remembered Allan, and also the other 2 young men — Clifford and Leslie — who were also escaped British prisoners. We owe a great debt to this family.

Allan returned to England, married, and his legacy is 5 sons. He had a wonderful attitude to life - to look for the good in people, take nothing for granted, live simply and never, never waste food. I never remember him falling out with anyone.

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