大象传媒

This story has been submitted by Alison Tebbutt, Derby CSV Action Desk on behalf of Ernest Winfield. The author has given his permission and fully understands the site's terms and conditions

I had learnt about WW1 from my father who was a retired marine. He even applied to serve in the Second World War, but was turned down as he was deemed as unfit. He had been torpedoed twice and was wounded in France.

When WW2 broke out I was about eighteen years old, and was working as a Joiner. I wasn鈥檛 very keen on getting involved. I didn鈥檛 fancy the Navy and even though I liked motorcycles, I didn鈥檛 want to be a dispatch rider either.

After meeting a number of soldiers, I volunteered as Air Crew. I鈥檓 still amazed that I made that choice looking back on it now. So I gave up my job, and joined the services on 17th September 1940. I still know the dates of where I was and when, as I still have my log book.

I went to Morecambe for training as a Wireless Air Gunner. I went to Blackpool as well and eventually qualified in Wiltshire on the 29th August 1941.

At this time there were a lot of wireless operators posted abroad. I worked in Yorkshire and Wiltshire. I worked on flying control, point-to-point (morse code) and direction finding. I was lucky as I got a lot of training.

I worked in Cambrai, France for a while. On the tenth of February 1943, we were trying to find our way back. We went out to transmit information to the RAF and to the Met Office. It was often distributed to every command. The information we found on the way out would be transmitted on the way back.

We were having some trouble coming home as we couldn鈥檛 break out of the clouds. When we were eventually successful, we came right over the top of a German Convoy. We crashed on the beach and were actually saved from the aircraft by the French. They were very brave men as they weren鈥檛 to know whether we had bombs on board, or if the petrol was going to blow the whole thing up.

Unfortunately, our skipper died, leaving three of us now left in German hands. On the 25th February 1943 we were transferred to Paris. We were there until 19th March 1943 before being taken to Frankfurt in Germany for interrogation. We were them taken to Lamsdorf in Poland on the 26th March 1943. We ended up in one of the Stalag camps, where we were hand shackled on Hitler鈥檚 orders.

I was there for about eighteen months. On the 20th January, we started the marches. The Russians were coming from both the North and South at that point. We walked right across Germany. This was a very grim time. It was utterly freezing and we were walking through snow and ice. I remember my boots. I took them off for a while only to find them completely solid later on. After that I never took them off, but I struggled to keep up the pace.

I suspected I had frost bite on the outer two fingers of both hands. One night we stayed at a camp where some polish girls were. One girl I met told me that we should massage snow onto my fingers. I had heard of this before, but was unsure if it would in fact help. That girl massaged my fingers for at least two hours. I鈥檓 sure she saved my fingers. I asked her if she wanted anything for her trouble and she asked for my Air Gunners badge. It was lucky she wanted that, as I didn鈥檛 have anything else. So, of course I gave that to her.

It was the end of March 1945 when the march ended and we were eventually released on the 16th April 1945 by the First Highland Division. We were extremely ill. We all had dysentery.

We were eventually flown back to the UK. Then I went straight to Hospital with an infected foot. I was there for about a month.

I also had burns on my face from when we suffered the airplane crash. So I had to keep going to the burns unit for grafting. I wasn鈥檛 very happy, but I was very lucky compared to others.

I went on a resettlement course near Preston in Lancashire before being demobbed on the 9th of August, 1946. I had served for six years.

Several years later, I was on a television program called Hearts of Gold with my three friends from our shared crash. On that program we were reunited with one of the French men who saved our lives on that day so long ago.

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