大象传媒

Our Cold War with the Russians started in 1945 in Austria. After fighting in North Africa and Italy we entered Austria. One of our tasks was to hand over to the Russian Army the White Russians whom we had captured and who had been fighting on the side of the Germans. The White Russians were from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.

The River Druw formed a natural boundary between the British and Russian Sectors. We were on one side of the bridge and the Russians occupied the other side.

Originally when we met in the middle of the bridge there was much hand shaking, back slapping an mutual congratulations. We gave them cigarettes and wished them well. They showed us the watches they had "won" from the civilian population three or four worn on each wrist!

We were then ordered to hand over the captured White Russians to the Russian Army.

We organised the White Russians into 3- ton trucks and drove them towards the Russian Sector. As we approached the bridge the prisoners threw away any means of their identification .

That night we heard spasmodic gun fire all night. The following morning the rumour spread like wild fire that the Russians had shot all the prisoners. This was confirmed by some of the civilian population next day who said that they had witnessed the carnage. Whether this rumour was true or not I shall never know. Suffice to say from that moment on we cooled towards the Russians. For this action offended our sense of fair play and moreover we felt that it was contrary to the Geneva Convention.

Another thing that soured our relations with the Russians was the way in which they treated the civilian population. For example, an Austrian man would cross to our side of the bridge to go to work and when he tried to return home at night he would be refused entry, the Russians would close their side of the bridge. We thought that this was spiteful and sheer bloodymindedness on their part.

Consequently. these events were to persuade us to not regard the Russians very favourably and thus this was the start of our mini cold war!

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