大象传媒

My story is not about heroes, or about armies, or about the many great battles that were fought, but about ordinary people like you and me, people of different nationalities who were drawn together in the confusion and conflict of W.W.2.
As I look back it seems not to belong to this world but to a world of its own.
It all started in June 1944 at the time of the invasion, during one of the attacks on one of the German batteries. I was among 17 other British soldiers who were captured by the Germans. We were dispirited, tired and very hungry but our plight was lightened by the chance remark 鈥榳e were alive鈥� and that could not be said for the remainder of our troop who had fallen at the battery.
We were marched back through the German lines, helping the wounded as best we could. We arrived at a small French village and taken to the School House where we were joined by more prisoners. It was here that we had our first real meal since our capture, and was provided by the people of the village who sent food to us.
At the German Barracks in Challon we were manacled and put in solitary confinement and interrogated for 5 days. During the time in my cell I used to read my New Testament and I would like to read a small inscription that I wrote on the 23rd Sept.1944 : 鈥淭his little book has been an inspiration and a guide, and my best friend in days of trial and danger, and most of all when I鈥檝e felt lonely鈥�.
We were later sent to a huge P.O.W Camp in Lynnburg. There were 2,000 of us in all, five hundred to a Marque. Rations were bad, and this was my first contact with the black market. A gold watch would fetch 2 loaves, and a gold ring one loaf. It was while we were in this Camp that we were sorted out, and sent by box cart through Germany to Gorlitz in Czechoslovakia, where we encountered our own British prisoners. Veterans of Al-Alamaine, and received our first Red Cross parcel. There were many good Samaritans at Gorlitz who shared all their parcels with us, clothed us and fed us. In fact nothing was too much for them to do for us. These Australians and New Zealanders were the most wonderful people we had yet to meet.
Once more we were on the move. Three hundred this time. Our destination, Breslow, on the borders of Poland. Here we were made to work in a sugar factory for 12 hours a day and 16 hours on Sunday, but were allowed to eat as much sugar as we wanted, and it proved a blessing indeed. Here we came in contact with German slave labour. Polish girls who were brought from their homes and families on Warsaw to work for the Germans. Their hours were the same as ours, and their rations very meagre. It was heart breaking to see them trudging to work at half five in the morning through the snow and icy wind with an old sack as a shawl as a protection against the cold. Their hands used to bleed with the rough sacks that they had to handle, but their complaints were few, and always they used to pity us and made light of their hardships. It was here that I saw many acts of kindness and met many Good Samaritans. The Polish girl who sold her mother鈥檚 rings so that she could give a little food to two of the boys she worked with at Christmas, and the Polish girl who smuggled a Christmas tree and decorated it beautifully so as to bring happiness at this Yuletide. I remember how 60 Red Cross parcels which were saved over from August as our supplies had ceased, were now divided at Christmas. One parcel between five prisoners, and how five boys took out of their parcel just enough for a brew of tea, and gave the rest of the parcel to a Polish family so that they could have a good feed on Christmas Day.
After Christmas we heard the Russian guns as they drew near Breslow. Then the great treck Westward started, through the blizzards of Eastern Europe. We with thousands more prisoners joined the long columns of Refugees, women, children and wounded. Long columns of humanity. All wandering aimlessly along but with one thought in common 鈥� to stear clear of the Russians.
It was during these awful marches that the first of our 300 died, and we laid him to rest in a little churchyard in one of the small villages near Dresden. Food was short and many of the boys were ill and suffering from frostbite. At one of the farms in the village we were herded into a stable, but what a Good Samaritan the old lady in the farm house turned out to be鈥� she took us all into her cosy kitchen, and there before a blazing fire she made the most lovely broth, and later killed some chickens and cooked them for us to eat.
One night we sat by the fire she would tell us of the happy times we had spent with her family before this dreadful war, and now her husband was dead and her two boys were fighting on the Russian front, but her one thought at that particular moment was that we should be well cared for. For she had learned the true meaning of goodness and kindness.
We were on the move once again. During the coming days my friend was very ill, and as we lay in a barn he took a turn for the worse, so I spoke to the Captain in charge of the P.O.W鈥檚 and was allowed next morning to take him to the nearest town. We had a make-shift cart for a boy who was seriously ill, but as we trudged wearily along the road, there came a motor from behind us and ran into our cart, not bothering to stop. One of the boys had had his leg broken and we were all badly shaken up, but somehow we managed to get to the hospital.
We were met by the most terrible man who called himself a doctor who would only accept the one boy with his leg broken, stating that the rest of us were all sabators, and threatened to shoot us if we did not get on the march. My friend was too ill to argue.
In despair and desperation my friend and I left the others and returned to the same hospital after seeing that horrible doctor had ridden away in a car. It was in this hospital that I met the last Samaritan in my story, a wonderful German doctor who not only took my friend in hospital, but myself also, and cared for us and nurtured us back to health again. These three weeks in that hospital were the happiest I had spent as a prisoner. the doctor proved a friend, and the nurses were goodness itself, and when we had to leave for a British Stalag, we felt sad at the thought of having to leave such good folk.
The last stage of our journey was the release from the British Stalag by the Russians and our first meeting with the Americans. Days passed quickly and one beautiful May morning as I gazed once more on the shores of England my heart was filled with a great thankfulness to God for my safe return and to the many Good Samaritans whom I had the privilege to meet.
But today our hearts are filled with sadness as we remember those men and women who did not return.

'This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by 大象传媒 Radio Merseyside鈥檚 People鈥檚 War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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