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Memories of Flight Sergeant Harry Tenny
Part nine 9 By Tom Barker

Another thing that happened in the punishment block was some Russian POW had refused to do something or other and the Germans took advantage of the fact that they had no protection from Geneva.
The Germans loosed two big dogs on them but when they called the dogs to come out they didn't, because the Russians had killed them both and were preparing to eat them.
We were not around to see the fate of these POWs but I think they would suffer a terrible slow death.
We were called out one day and given our old uniforms back and told to wait for the camp Commandant to tell us where we would be going next. It turned out to be our old camp at Elstaverde and we once again met our old pals.
We were soon planning another escape but this time we had to be better organized so it was going to take longer to do.
Luckily we were overtaken by events and one day we were shaken to hear gunfire in the distance and a lot of uneasy faces on the German civilians in the factory. Some muttered they were Russian guns and they were getting ever closer.
After three days we were all assembled and marched out of the Camp and through the Villages and Towns guarded by remnants of the Guards some of which had took off on hearing the guns so close, but they were caught and shot for deserting their post.
If anyone lagged behind the column they got left behind because the Guards were just as anxious to put more miles between us and the guns. A few of the men risked running off, but Georges leg began to ooze pus as the prolonged marching opened up old desert sores that took years to heal.
We marched for about five days being joined by thousands of other POW from all the working commandos as we passed them until eventually we all returned to Muhlberg.
We were left pretty much on our own as the Guards began to run on the second night.
In the morning there was one hell of a commotion as about two hundred fully armed Cossacks on horseback raced through our camp. One voice drawled lazily, "Shute, looks like Doncaster bloody race course on a Saturday afternoon"
The riders soon herded up what was left of the Guards and the Russian POW soon were very busy paying back old scores.

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Memories of Flight Sergeant Harry Tenny
Part 10 By Tom Barker

I was busy in the woods foraging for food I was amazed to see a lot of trees were bearing Germans instead of fruit. The Russians indeed got their revenge but it was not a pretty sight to see as the bodies swung to and fro in the wind.
The Russians had not finished yet, they did not take lightly to being taken POW and some were even shot for being taken POW. Some classed it as cowardice.
Some thought better to be shot fighting than finish up in a Gulag in Siberia and a living death.
I had more unique experiences during these few days when I was looking for food for George and myself than the rest of my time as a Kreigsgefangener, or as we say in English a Prisoner of War.
I will jot these down here as they come back to me.
This period of the war was probably the most dangerous for yours truly as the great Russian Army did not seem to have any kind of order.
It did not in fact have an Army catering Corps; I never saw evidence of field kitchens or any evidence of a cook house to feed the Troops.
When George and I were out rummaging for food we came upon a group of Soldiers with a beast on a spit above a fire while the Russian Soldiers, Men and Women, sat around drinking Vodka.
They seemed to exist on this diet and smoked horrible cigarettes. The best way to smoke these cigarettes was to pinch the cardboard tube that kept the tobacco and dust from entering the lungs, it also prevented the mouth from becoming mummified.
This was a dangerous time also because some German Soldiers having stolen civilian clothes had kept their hand guns which were concealed.
Some Russian Women peasants who had never before seen a water toilet began to use them as a washing bowl. Since the cookhouse in the camp was no longer manned there was no longer any soup being made, it was suggested that all the food had been taken by the Russians which meant it was every Man for himself.
Since food finding was my first priority I set about it with determination. I made friends with two Gurka Soldiers who were also out scrounging anything that could be eaten, and we eventually ended up at a Farm where a lot of grunting and squealing of pigs could be heard.
But the only way to get to the pigs was through a tiny window high up.
I agreed to help one of them climb in, after which the other was to help me up. Then we could dispatch the pigs at our leisure.
But by the time I got in the Gurka chap had dispatched the lot. All we had to do now was to lift the pigs out then climb out ourselves and get away as quickly as possible.
I was sure glad the Gurka were allies and not enemies, I have never seen animals dispatched as quickly and efficiently as those pigs.
I presumed the German farmer had seen us coming and had hidden away thinking his life was in danger.
But there was a sequel to this escapade. Unknown to us the whole farm had been taken over by the local Russian Commissar. Warning posters informed all and sundry that it was protected property and anyone found degrading or looting would be shot.

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Memories of Flight Sergeant Harry Tenny
Part 11 By Tom Barker

It would be very difficult to find the culprits in a camp this size, more so because we had distributed the meat among friends and it was cooked and eaten.
The carcasses were disposed of and the beautiful meat was eaten. But once again we were thwarted in the shape of dysentery.
We were told by one of our friends that the meat should have been hung for awhile. We felt like hanging him.
Can you imagine the pole at the swamp with a line of miserable looking blokes squatting on it looking like a flock of parrots dribbling while waiting for the signal to fly south for the summer.
The poor Farmer as promised, was shot. We felt a bit guilty about it but had we opened our mouths we could also have perished. This gives an insight as to how cheap life had become.
A little food was trickling into the Camp by now, but after listening to some of the broadcasts from England and hearing the squabbles of the Russians and Yanks we felt like the pig in the middle and some rumours had us down as Russian Prisoners already.
On another of my forages I came to a small Village and there was a water pump like any one might find in any old English village. There was also a pretty girl Russian soldier who was pumping water into the big bucket.
On seeing me she bid me advance and pump the water to fill her bucket, but I walked past ignoring her. She quickly let go the pump handle and whipped up the Tommy gun that was slung over one shoulder and she levelled it at me. Suddenly I had the pump handle moving like an electric bell hammer and water over flowed the bucket.
About a fortnight later I saw her again and she burst out laughing and spoke to her friends who had a good laugh.
Another incident was when a lorry was travelling along a causeway that did not look wide enough for two and another lorry came from the opposite direction at speed.
I held my breath as the two sped together and one was forced off the road.
The speeding one did not stop, but the irate driver of the one now in the ditch jumped out and fired burst after burst from his Tommy gun after the other fleeing lorry.

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Memories of Flight Sergeant Harry Tenny
Part 12 By Tom Barker

Later the same day a Russian soldier on his bike with the usual load of vodka on the rear carrier got his back wheel stuck in a wagon wheel rut and the bike finished up in the ditch. I rushed to help, but the Russian shrugged me off and noting his damaged back wheel picked up his vodka and offered me a drink from the bottle he was using.
He leered at me briefly with a weak smile, then after a couple of hiccups while trying to focus on me with half glazed eyes he turned and staggered off down the road.
This does give the reader some idea of what a Russian Soldier was like then. The Officers were somewhat more civilized but they still had a distinctive way different to us, as I was to find out when I went to the door of a Farmhouse to see if I could do anything to get food.
A Russian Officer who knew a little German also a little English answered the door. He asked me in and I gathered the Farmer was absent.
He then told the Farmer's wife we would be having two German aircraft for dinner. I thought he had meant flyers until he went out and bagged two plump hens from the hen house and shot their heads off with his pistol.
He handed then to the Farmer's wife and she cleaned them and put them in the oven to cook. While they were cooking the Officer took the Farmer鈥檚 wife upstairs and had his dessert first.
I stayed at the Farmhouse and was eating like there was no tomorrow. I managed to scrounge some for George but felt a bit guilty about it.
Another daylight reccy had been spoiled by two things and I came back to George a much more sober man. I had seen a large empty house and I decided to look for anything that could be bartered for food. I searched all the downstairs rooms but it had already been vandalized. I went up stairs and the first thing I saw was the owner sitting in the bath with his throat cut from ear to ear.
I beat a hasty retreat. That afternoon I had tagged onto a mate and we were looking in this field for potatoes when we almost tripped over the body of a young girl.
She had picked up a Panzer Faust weapon which exploded killing her instantly. Such was life at that time.
Food was running out and even the Russians were feeling the pinch.
Then a burst of cheering from the front gate made us run to see what was happening and we saw the first American ground Troops who had met up with the Russians at Torgau and were releasing all the Allied POW from the camps as they went along.

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Memories of Flight Sergeant Harry Tenny
Part 13 By Tom Barker

This was the beginning of the end of captivity for us as the Americans were able to feed us K rations and also fresh veg that we had so missed. Erzats bread was suddenly off the menu and replaced by white fresh bread. Strangely enough we had to get used to it again and some preferred the blackbread.
We were then packed on a train that took us to Halle, a large town and made the Germans house us whilst we were fed in a large hanger. In fact it was the Herman Goering barracks and very large.
George was feeling better now having had treatment for the desert sores. They were getting better by the day.
George and I were put into the house of a couple in their fifties, of course they did not want the War like a lot of other civvies we met.
We were given their bedroom and they had to sleep anywhere they could. The Officer in charge of the Americans had no time for Germans dead or alive.
I wondered why he had such a hatred one day and found out he had seen one of the many concentration camps, it was not one of the big ones, but he was sickened and appalled at what he saw.
There were dead and dying everywhere and he could not accept that being so close to the town the public knew nothing of what was going on here.
After attending to all the sick, he had posters posted that informed all the people from the Villages to bring spades or other tools to a meeting point on pain of death to clean up the Camp and bury the dead. They turned up in old clothes but were sent back home with instruction to wear their Sunday best.
The Officers troops kept them there until all were buried and the place cleaned up. Only after he had inspected the area were the Civilians allowed to go home.
We were in Halle for about a week when one day a fleet of Dakotas landed. We were loaded and transported to Brussels where we were issued clean uniforms and money. Then we were let loose in Brussels for the night, but since it rained all the night all we saw was the peeing man in the middle of the square. I always tell people about Belgium with my fingers crossed.
On the following morning after a very shallow sleep as the excitement of actually being on ones way home after two traumatic years away, and in captivity to boot, was enough to excite the so called tough guys.
We once again boarded the old Dakotas and set off for Blighty, and when we saw the white cliffs of Dover at last we knew we were home.
The good old R.A.F. did us proud and after a hurried interrogation we were on our way to dear old Rochdale with double rations for eight weeks and eight weeks leave after which I had to report for a medical and any airman who had lost weight with out an explanation had to end his leave and report to a hospital.
I had lost a lot of weight and most of what I was carrying now was potato water fat. With better food it soon began to disappear. Our Butcher could not do enough for me and on having one medical I let slip I had got married. That led to me being sent home again. About a month later I was summoned again and for my final interrogation to find out if anyone had helped us during our escapes, but there was only one unknown peasant who gave George and I some spuds. We were unable to help and went home.

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Memories of F.S. Harry Tenny R.A.F. By Tom Barker

A former prisoner-of-war hero has been back to Germany for the first time in fifty years. Flight-Sergeant Harry Tenny was 18 when he took part in a combined Squadron bombing raid on Berlin.
His plane was shot down and three of the seven-man crew died. Harry's parachute got caught in the branches of a "dirty big tree" and he hid in a wood for three days before being taken prisoner by a member of the Volksturm (home guard).
At the German P.O.W. Camp known as Stammlager 4 B Muhlberg Harry swapped identity disks with Tom Barker and helped to sabotage four transport barges and then escaped.
Mr Tenny aged 69 of Oak Close, Shawforth, returned on Monday from a five day trip to Germany with his wife, Dorothy, and daughter, Vivien.
They travelled 900 miles to revisit the sites of the former prison camps he was held in, and also went to the most famous of all - Colditz.
Mr Tenny had suffered a stroke in November, and Vivien persuaded him to type out the story of his exploits for her three daughters.
Mr Tenny said, "She thought it would keep my brain active". When he had finished, Vivien suggested the trip.
He had been unable to go back earlier because the Camps were in what became East Germany after the Second World War.
Mr Tenny said, "It has been a really wonderful experience. It might sound strange but I enjoyed every moment of the war-apart from the killing of course, I didn't enjoy that at all."
While in Germany he presented a map of Torgau Camp, "Liberated" from the Camp Commandant's office when he was freed - to the Museum that has been opened there.
Another notice he has was warning the POW that they would be shot on sight.
That will go to the museum later.
He said, "The Russians took over the camp and filled it with Germans." They killed 8000 of the 12000 German prisoners there.

Story submitted by Tom Barker in memory of Harry Tenny.
Harry and Tom swapped P.O.W. identity disks for the last two years of WW2 so that Harry could get back to England and fly again to bomb Germany as a fully trained F.S. Engineer.
Slainte Harry.

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