´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by Suzanne Longstone and has been added to the website on behalf of Mr Ivor Lipscombe with his permission and he fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

In September 1939, in a small French village called Rumegies — about two miles from the French-Belgium border — my regiment, the 2nd Battalion Dorsetshires were billeted throughout the village in barns, sheds and pigsties. Myself and thirty others were in the local theatre where we slept between the rows of fixed seats. From Sept to April, when not on guard duty, we marched to the border where we created an improvised extension to the Maginot Line, digging deep anti-tank trenches and constructing concrete pill boxes, sometimes up to our knees in cold, wet, sticky mud.

May 4th 1940 at 1.30am I was roused from my slumbers and told to report to Bn HQ at the double. There I was passed on to the Intelligence Officer (IO) who briefed me on a large wall map (which I had previously enlarged). I was also given a map to plot my journey through Belgium to a town called Ath. I set off around 6am with my wordly possessions in a pack on my back to place route markers on the way to Ath for the Battalion to follow me. When the Brigade was assembled around Ath we advanced further to what appeared to be a holiday camp, around a large lake. It looked so peaceful, but that was where we came under fire. Out-numbered by manpower and armour we retreated under cover of darkness, marching for three nights — no smoking or talking.

We reached the French village of Gore on La Bassee Canal - the same village where my Regiment were almost wiped out in the First World War - and I was put on night guard duty. The next day the Battalion moved on, leaving me and four men to follow as rear guard. By mid-day the five of us were surrounded by German tanks, and in the afternoon we made a quick decision to use our small truck and try to break through to join the rest of the Battalion. We tried — but we failed! The truck was raked with shell and machine guns. Our driver was killed, I received bullets and shrapnel in my right thigh, and we were all taken Prisoner of War. (I later found out that our CO, Lt.Col. Stephenson, had led the Battalion on foot to the Dunkirk beaches)

A German arrived in a motor-cycle combination and took charge. He was obviously a high-ranking officer. After making sure we were all disarmed he came over to me, looked at the damage to my thigh and ordered in English that two of our lads should put me in his side-car. He spoke to his driver and I was taken to an ambulance, then on to a field dressing station — a building on top of a coal mine. Two German officers interrogated me that evening. They eventually looked at each other, shook their heads and left, probably thinking I was also wounded in the head. I spent the night on stretcher and was taken to a room where two German doctors removed a lump of shrapnel and two bullets.

I came-to in a large shed which I took to be the changing room for the miners, because there were many hooks on chains slung from the roof on which clothes were hanging. There were probably thirty British soldiers lying on the floor. Later on we were taken by lorry to ‘Cambria’ hospital. There were no beds available, so we were put on the floor of the hospital chapel. Here, in the quiet of the night I silently hoped that the German officer who helped me would survive and return to his family. I still wonder if he did. Two days later I had an operation to remove gangrene from the wound. The French Medic told me that if the operation was not successful I could lose my leg. I make no apologies for crying when I came round to find my leg still attached to my body.

Our next move came about seven days later when we were packed into closed in cattle wagons and sent to Poland by rail. Each wagon had two louvred air vents. Some of the lads had developed dysentery and God, the stench was terrible. We spent two days in those wagons and then checked into Stalag 1A - a deserted Polish barracks on the outskirts of Toran. Being unable to do any physical work at the time, the Germans put me in charge of issuing ‘Dinner Tickets’. The barracks were split into sections with the highest-ranking person as ‘Section Leader’. I had to give them the dinner tickets — one per person in their section — in seven different colours. Each section had a different colour every day. Tickets were exchanged for a daily ration of watery soup, generally swede and potato. All went well until the Germans realised that they were feeding about twenty extra POW’s who didn’t exist. I had been handing out tickets for the sick and badly wounded who were in a different place! I got the boot and was sent to Stalag 20B, a punishment camp near the German-Russian border. This had been a POW camp in WW1 and an elderly chap in our Pioneer Corps had actually served in that war. On arrival we were counted, checked and photographed with a board around our necks. Yours truly became POW 20890 and would stay there for the next four years.

Parts 2 and 3 of Ivor's story can be read at A7812100 and A7817817.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.