大象传媒

President.
Mr. Edwin Horlington. MBE.
01255 677178

Annual Pilgrimage to Kalamata. May.

Annual Reunion at Leamington Spa. September.
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A Prisoners Tale Retold.

Prologue.

On may 7th. 1995 when Britain was preparing to commemorate the 50th. anniversary of the end of the war in Europe- VE Day-, a small group of ex-servicemen , with their wives, were travelling to Greece for their own commemorative service in Kalamata.

The defeat of Greece by the German and Italian armies in 1941 was a disaster for the retreating forces of Australia, New Zealand and Britain. They were exposed to bombing, strafing, lack of food and shelter with no rest and their experiences will last forever in their memories.

Chapter 1.

This is the story of D. Allan Slocombe, 292nd.Army Field Company, Royal Engineers as told during his visit to Kalamata more than 50 years ago. It recalls his capture and subsequent imprisonment for four and a half years, as a prisoner of war and is a tribute to his courage.

Having travelled throughout the length of Greece we ran into more trouble at Kalamata. The Germans had captured the Mole and part of the old Town and during the subsequent battle we were ordered to fix bayonets and counter attack. We never got close enough to the enemy to use bayonets, thank god, but a lot of shots were fired and the Mole was recaptured. We were eventually defeated by the enemy鈥檚 superior strength and this battle, on 28th. April, delayed the evacuation resulting in 10,000 men being left on the beach.

Our commander, Brigadier Parrington, ordered us to destroy all weapons and anything of value prior to surrender the next day, when it would be every man for himself. It so happened that, during my involvement in the desert campaign 40/41, I had acquired an Italian revolver with a good supply of ammo. and I was reluctant to discard my souvenir so stuck it un my trousers belt for safe keeping.

A number of us did not relish the thought of becoming prisoners of war so we set off along the coast and took shelter in a cave for the night. We were discovered by the Farmer on whose land we were hiding and, considering him to be friendly, gave him all our money with a request to find us a boat. Five worrying days had passed without news from the farmer when suddenly the scream of bullets and the horrendous noise of machine gun fire shattered our dreams of freedom. Fortunately there were no casualties and we moved out into the daylight to be met by a German patrol. I had forgotten about my revolver until the German Officer stuck a Mauser into my ribs, screamed at me in German and removed it from my belt; I was probably lucky he did not shoot me.

It was obvious that farmer had betrayed us and, as the Germans marched us towards the farmhouse, he appeared and showed them two large bins full of stolen British army food. By this gesture he was obviously hoping to secure his own safety but the German Officer was not impressed and shot him for looting. We were now expecting the guns to be turned on us but instead were given tins of corned beef from the farmers hoard; my God what a relief that was but we realised we were firmly in the bag and joined thousands of others back in Kalamata.

Our journey began to prisoner of war camps, some by Train and others by truck to a camp at Corinth. We were ordered to strip off our clothes and walk towards the beach, passing between two guards with canisters on their back; ahead of us others had already passed through the guards and appeared to be frolicking in the sea. As we passed through the guards they sprayed us with a disinfectant; it smelt like Carbolic and immediately started to burn our skin prompting an urgent dash to the cool waters of the sea and this was no frolic.

This camp at Corinth was really dreadful, living on a starvation diet and suffering from dysentery and other related diseases. During our four weeks stay we were reduced to mere skeletons and many died; it was apparently part of the strategy to reduce our strength and will to attempt escape during the long march that was to come. It was during our stay here that the German head of the SS. Heinrich Himmler and his entourage visited the camp and one could feel the evil emanating from him as he passed along our lines. One soldier failed to stand to attention as Himmler passed, he stopped, drew his revolver and shot him in the shoulder; probably as a warning to us all, behave or else.

We were eventually entrained to Athens and then on through central Greece to a point where the Allies had blown a tunnel and we were back on our feet for the next fifty miles. We were already tired, hungry and insufficiently clothed with many sick or wounded who died or were shot if they fell by the wayside; even two of the German guards, who were not fit for the rigours of the long march, died on the way. Those of us who survived continued our journey by train and truck to Salonica where at last we were given food and camped for the next two weeks. We wondered and wished that the worst was past but feared there was more to come.

Herded out like cattle and loaded into trucks, sixty men in each, packed in like sardines and the doors nailed up to prevent escapes. With a piece of dried fish as our rations, a large can of drinking water and another for a urinal, we travelled on for five or six days to Marburg in northern Yugoslavia. It was a mental and physical torture of unimaginable horror; trapped in that enclosed space in an atmosphere of the fear and reactions of others. Perhaps being tired, hungry and weak helped to accept and tolerate the hopelessness of our predicament; but for some it was too much, three men died in our truck on that journey. To move our aching limbs and breath fresh air, after our long ordeal in the stench and cramped conditions of those cattle trucks, was wonderful. We were also fed a small loaf of black bread between seven of us, washed down with a bowl of thin watery soup and that was a gourmet delight. I had survived and lived to spend the next two years in that camp.

We were lined up, photographed, fingerprinted and allocated a prisoner of war number; My German POW number was 5266. All this was very humiliating at the time, I felt like a criminal rather than a Soldier who had done his duty but been let down by his superiors who left him on the beach. However the stigma soon wore off a bit when we realised the benefits of being registered with the Red Cross and protected by the Geneva Convention, for what it was worth. But the German Guards appeared to have no intention of applying the convention and continued to degrade us at every opportunity. It was great sport for the guards to throw down crusts of bread from the windows above onto the crowds of starving POW鈥檚 below and watch them fight over the crumbs.

During our stay at this camp a train arrived one day at the sidings from the Ukraine. When the trucks were opened up we saw that all the occupants were dead; they had died from the cold, starvation and disease and the German guards refused to touch the bodies. We, along with the Australian and New Zealand prisoners, even though we were weak and ill, volunteered to bury the dead. The skeletal bodies were placed three to a box and carried by two prisoners to the burial site where they were tipped out beside a mass grave. The Guards, now clad in protective clothing, stripped the bodies of anything valuable, even wrenching out Gold teeth, before kicking the remains into the hole and knocking them with spades into shape for burial. This was a mass grave situated in a civilian cemetery.

By the time we had reached our destination here at Marburg, our clothes and boots were worn out. The Germans issued us with an assortment of Yugoslavian Army uniforms; however no boots or shoes were available so we were issued with wooden clogs. We did look a motley bunch but, provided you wrapped up your feet in some decent rags, it was surprising how warm and comfortable the clogs were.

At this time we were detailed at random to do work and I was detailed to work on a road in the mountains just a few miles from Marburg. At night we slept in a school hall with heat supplied by a wood burning stove in the centre of the room; the stack pipe rose vertically for about eight feet then, turning horizontally for a few feet, went out through the wall. The horizontal part was just the job for drying clothes and, on one occasion when soaked to the skin, we grabbed the opportunity to dry our trousers on the pipe. Unfortunately an overzealous prisoner stoked the fire up so high that the trousers burned through and some of us ended up with shorts, not exactly ideal in cold weather. Although some thought the incident rather funny, it was not funny being put on a charge for damaging German property. The punishment was seven days in the bunker (jail) which turned out to be much more comfortable than working outside, in shots in cold weather.

To be fair, some of the German guards and Officers were decent people, doing a job that was obviously distasteful to them but others were real swine, butting us with their rifles and being generally nasty at every opportunity. We always tried to get our own back on these people and often succeeded. A common routine was to offer a guard some English cigarettes and then inform on him to his superiors; the result was usually quite effective with the guard being moved to another camp. I was working in a squad of ten on the task of repairing a stretch of road above Marburg and the guard was a real swine, very fond of hitting us with his rifle butt. One day I was reluctant to cooperate with his orders and he hit me across the back of my neck with his rifle; it was a very severe blow from which I still suffer today.

Back at main camp I reported sick and was given a few days off after which I returned to the same job. The same guard was still in charge and I was determined to get my own back on that nasty brute so, on return to camp, I picked a daisy and stripped the stalk clean. All Germans carried their rifles slung over the shoulder with the gun hanging behind and, as we neared camp, I managed to thread the stalk into the rifle barrel and the flower looked lovely sitting on top. It was a great hoot, especially when the camp Commander saw it and the result was most satisfying; we never saw that guard again.

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