大象传媒

(Continued from part 2)

After a few days the Jerries opened a sort of Ordnance depot in some of the buildings with the stuff they'd rescued from Benghazi, and some of us used to go over and unload trucks or make shelves,and such like odd jobs - it broke the monotony a bit. There were some pretty bad scenes over the food, people used to fight to get any scraps left over in the dixies - it made one absolutely disgusted. There were also a good many cases of people's bread being stolen, so we used to carry ours about with us.

We were joined by a few other prisoners, but they brought very little news, except that the fighting still seemed to be around El Aghueila. A few S.A. joined us from Tripoli hospital too. We were at Tarhuna about a month, but on the evening of the 27th January we heard that some boxes of bully and biscuits were waiting outside the gate - probably, we guessed, for us to take when we moved out.

Sure enough, the next day we had our coffee, collected six biscuits and three tins of bully each (what we surmised to be three days rations) and boarded big Italian lorries, each holding about thirty. We travelled about thirty miles to Tripoli through very hilly country, and drove through the outskirts straight to the docks.

We could see the damage done by our bombers on every side - hardly a warehouse seemed intact, and all appeared empty. We sat in the lorries for about three hours - roughly from 11.30 until 2.30pm, and then got out and marched into an empty coal yard. The weather by this time was quite warm - so warm in fact that one of the chaps collapsed, both from the heat and under-nourishment I suppose. We waited in the coal yard about half-an-hour and were joined meanwhile by about twenty other prisoners, the majority of whom were officers.

Eventually we moved down on to the quay, and we could see more evidence of our bombers' work in the sunken ships in the harbour. I should imagine there were only about four ships in the harbour of any size, apart from a destroyer, and one of these ships was unloading petrol in the usual Italian 40 gallon drums, and was flying the German flag. We were all loaded onto a small motor tender (guards as well), and moved out to the centre of the harbour where there was a ship camouflaged blue and white - The Napoli of Naples.

She appeared quite a decent boat as we came up on her Port side, but as we rounded the stern we could see a pretty large hole just on the water line by the rudder. The pumps must have been working continuously as there were several hoses hanging over the side, spouting water all the time. After much shouting and arguing in the usual Italian fashion we got on board and went down a ladder into the first hold below deck in the stern.

We lay down on the boards and waited to see what was going to happen. Nothing did happen until just before dark, when the ship began to move and we were allowed on deck six at a time. We cruised about for a while outside the harbour, and then went inside againand dropped anchor. We went to sleep, and in the morning we were still in the harbour, the ship apparently being unseaworthy.

We stayed on board until about dinner time, when a small fishing boat came alongside and took us all off again. Again we were loaded into trucks, but this time we went only about ten miles before we came to a kind of fort (this was on January 26th 1942). Here we were taken to a sort of semi-underground passage made of concrete, with a concrete fire-step and small slit windows. We spent a very wretched night - no one could sleep for cold and the hardness of the floor, or for the fact that people kept tripping over you as they walked up and down.

The next day water was brought in kind of skin bags, and we got two meals - the same stuff, but much more of it than we had had at Tarhuna, two loaves and some wine. We managed to sleep a bit at night, but it was still very hard, cold and cramped. Next day we our usual meal at mid-day and almost immediately afterwards we had an issue of wine and thirty-five cigarettes - at Tarhuna we'd never had more than ten!

As soon as the excitement ofthe cigarette issue had died away we were loaded into ambulances and motor coaches, and away we went to Tripoli once more. We got down onto the road parallel with the sea, but as we came level with a sort of Italian check point, we all turned round and went back to the fort (I never found out why this happened).

That night we were issued with rush mats, similar to the Tarhuna ones, for sleeping on,sowe had a fairly decent night. On the 29th just before the mid-day meal weagain set off in motor coaches and this time we were taken straight on board a sister ship of the Napoli - lying right against the dock side. This time we were in a forwardhold, and were not allowed on deck for any purpose.

We sailed almost immediately, and were given two biscuits and a tin of bully for the day's rations. We slept intermittently - some of the chaps got pretty wet from seas which came up over the bows and down the open hatchway. Next day we stayed below all day but the officers, who were allowed on deck, raided the ration stores and collected quite a good stock of food - all of which, of course, they ate themselves.

They were also given plenty of maccaroni and bread on deck, but that didn't prevent them stopping the chaps from raiding the food store, or from drawing their bully and biscuits, which they might easily have given to some of the men.

We spent another night on board - the ship running at top speed through pretty heavy seas all the while. Next day (31st January) we had our issue of two biscuits and a tin of bully, and shortly afterwards, about 12 o'clock, we entered the Bay of naples escorted by a destroyer. It wasa lovely sight - the black cloud of smoke above the snow covered Vesuvius - the sweeping curve of the harbour, and Naples itself nestling up against the hills to the left of the volcano.

We dropped anchor, andthe quarantine doctor came on board. He just ambled around,asking if anyone was sick, and as no-one was, he just vanished again. We then collected our few belongings and went down the gangway, managing to collect a few small slices of brown bread from a steward along the way. About a third of uswere loaded onto a small steam tender, and ferried across to the other side of the docks, where there was a bath house and fumigation centre. There I had the first shower I'd had for about five months, and gave my desert sores a good washing.

Our clothers were taken from us and steamed in a small canvas bag - that was the end of my braces, and a good many peoples' leather articles, they just snapped off when any strain was put on them. We had to wait at the bath house for the other two thirds of our party to arrive and have their baths, so it was about four o'clock before everyone was ready.

By this time we were feeling the cold quite a bit - there was a strong wind, and it was appreciably colder than Libya. We marched about 500 yards, and then came to a sort of level crossing, where we boarded a train consisting of one coach (for the officers, poor little things), and cattle trucks with wooden sets inside for us.

We moved off at about 2 miles an hour, and just after we started, a hospital train filled with German wounded passed us. We ambled along, were shunted backwards and forwards, while it grew steadily darker and colder. At last we set off in the right direction, and even reached a speed of about 25 miles an hour at times. After about thirty miles, the train stopped - the engine disappeared, the guards got out - locked us into our trucks - got into the officer's coach (the officers had been removed), and there we were for the night.

I think it was the worst night I've ever spent. We were too crowded to lie down, it was bitterly cold, and we'd had practically nothing to eat for the last four days. I was absolutely dead from the waist down - and not very much alive from the waist up. Even so, I believe I slept for about 11/2 hours.

About six o'clock the guards came and unlocked the doors, and we marched off as quick as we could to get warm. On the way we passed a stream of people - mainly women on their way to work, evidently at some large factory nearby. After about a mile we halted outside the camp,and waited in the biting cold for about an hour. It was getting light by this time, and we could see a range of mountains at the back of the camp covered with snow - I guessed them to be the Appenines - and a milestone with the name Capua on it.

Eventually we moved off into the camp, and marched into a disused cookhouse, whose floor was about knee-deep in straw. Here we were issued with two magnificent blankets, and the usual 1/4 pint of coffee. We stayed in the cookhouse all the morning, and began to fear we would have to sleep there, but after a very good meal of maccaroni - during which we learned that Capua was a transit camp for quarantine, and that the food wasn't too bad (our most urgent interest) - a party of Italian soldiers arrived and put up about a dozen tents, composed of the Italian ground sheets we had seen so often lying about in Libya.

Meanwhile, we had collected pallias covers and filled them with the straw from the cookhouse,and also drawn bed-boards. We moved into the tents as soon as they were up - it was rather cramped with sixteen in a tent, but the beds were comfortable. We had another very good meal of rice, and into bed early for the best nights sleep we'd had since we'd been captured.

Postscript by Brian Horseman
Ken's journal continues, but I have been unable to adequately decipher his faded tiny handwriting to date. I doubt if I will be able to make significant additions to this account prior to termination of access to this web-site in December.

In summary, Ken was moved to a labour camp in Italy (via Milan jail)and was in Italy until the country capitulated. At that point the Italian guards wnt home, and the prisoners went on the run - on the wrong side of the front line.

After three weeks with a couple of friends as fugitives, they were betrayed to the Germans and recaptured. He was transported to Germany and ended the war in Stalag IVB (a particularly grim period), before being repatriated when the war finished.

The follwing letter was sent to Ken's father, my grandfather, on 29th May 1943:-

Dear Mr. Horseman,

I am writing to ask you if you have any recent news of your son, whom I last saw in the Western desert eighteen months ago. He was captured with me by the Germans on 29th December 1941, but as I was wounded I was evacuated trhough various hospitals, and I have not seen him again.

I got your address from the Guaranty Trust and I would be most grateful if you can send me more news.

I had been his Company Comander for about two years, and for the last six months he had been my personal driver, a duty which he performed to perfection. He had a real flair for driving a truck over the desert and could find his way about without maps or compasses in a most miraculous fashion. Apart from this he kept the truck in excellent condition and was always helpful and cheerful.

I tried to persuade him to take promotion on many occasions, but he always refused. I am not writing this as a polite letter to his father, but quite sincerely to tell you that I appreciate all that he did for me in the time he was in my Company.

I should be most grateful for any information you can give me. I was lucky enough to be repatriated beacause of my wound, but am now quite fit again apart from a rather battered arm.

Yours very sincerely,

Mark G. Clayton (Major)

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