Chapter 10

HAPPY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY

Word filtered through the grapevine that George Grimson had been recaptured and was in ‘A’ Lager having served his time in the cooler. After his cheeky escape with a ladder from Stalag-Luft I at Barth, he had spent weeks in Poland moving from port to port along the Baltic coast trying to set up an escape route with the help of the Polish Resistance. He was playing an extremely dangerous game, but nevertheless he made some useful contacts before he was recaptured.

Soon George was on the run from Stalag-Luft VI. Again in uniform, he simply tagged on to the end of a squad of goons leaving ‘A’ Lager. Once he had got into the Vorlager, he nipped into one of the buildings and quickly got rid of his uniform, revealing civilian clothes. He then calmly strolled out of the main gate of the camp and was away again.

Just as the Germans had rounded up all Allied officers known to be habitual escapers and concentrated them in the maximum security of Colditz Castle, similarly all air force NCOs who were seasoned escapers were brought together in Barrack Block 12 in ‘A’ Lager of Stalag-Luft VI. Besides George, there were escapers named Flockhart, Leaman, Lascelles and at least a dozen others who had been Kriegies for many years. Most spoke German as well as the natives, and they were dedicated to escaping to freedom and causing the goons as much unpleasantness as possible.

Since the camp opened, the escape organization in ‘A’ Lager had endeavoured to establish some kind of escape route from a Baltic port, preferably Memel in Lithuania, or from Danzig, both of which were frequented by Swedish merchant ships. Escapees like George Grimson, and two other hut mates named Callender and Lewis, had been making some progress in this direction until their luck ran out. As all contact with them was lost, it could only be assumed that they had been recaptured and summarily shot.

It was about this time of the year, towards the end of April, that the goons clamped down on these irregular departures from the camp, following Warrant Officer Leaman’s thwarted escape bid. Dressed as a goon, Leaman managed to get past the guard on the gate between ‘A’ Lager and the Vorlager. However, as he was crossing the Vorlager, he was directed to go into the guardroom. He was instantly recognized and thrown into the cooler. From then on anyone leaving the camp by the main gate had to produce some means of identification.

During the long months of captivity certain Kriegies in ‘A’ Lager, and particularly the occupants of Barrack Block 12, had managed to cultivate one or two goons, said to be Ukrainians, who had become disenchanted with the way the war was progressing and wanted a good word put in for them when the day of reckoning came. These collaborators were of great assistance to people like Grimson when their guard duties were on Lager gates, particularly the main gate. They were also indispensable in many other ways, such as providing articles of uniform, local maps and railway timetables, etc. Once caught up in the web of intrigue, if necessary they would be blackmailed into fully cooperating; if the Abwehr were informed of their treachery it would mean a firing squad. Goons were known to commit suicide when pressure got too great for them – such were the stakes.

Compared to ‘A’ Lager, the escape organizations in our Lager and the American ‘E’ Lager were quite amateurish affairs. When it came to trying to get goons to perform favours for us, we were not in the same league. It was for this reason many of us in ‘K’ Lager were quite envious of Dixie Deans and his closed shop.

On Saturday, 12 February, 1944, I can remember the day so well, we stood in the wind and cold for morning appell. While waiting for the Commandant and his staff to appear from the Vorlager, we had our morning snowball fight. Each side was a thousand Kriegies strong. With the best aimers in the front ranks, and the logistics crews maintaining stockpiles of snowballs at the back, soon there were nothing less than flying avalanches arching through the air. Around two thousand snowballs airborne at any one time was a lot of snow moving about, and it was inevitable that a goon would become a target. One minute he was enjoying watching the snowballing, the next he looked like a snowman himself – with the barrel of a rifle protruding from the top.

There was always a ceasefire during the count. The parade was called to attention by Vic Clarke and I was then surprised to hear Oberst Hörbach shout out my christian and surnames as I was called forward. I was at a loss to know what was in store for me as I trudged over to stand before the Commandant. Vic Clarke’s face gave no clue. Oberst Hörbach’s face broke into a benign smile as he brought a silver key from behind his back. He handed the key to me, shook my hand, and then wished me a very happy twenty-first birthday. The goons grinned, Vic grinned – and I grinned with sheer relief as I realized that it was indeed my birthday. With a feeling of embarrassment, I saluted, about turned, and rejoined my squad – to a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday to You’. This chorus was slowly taken up by the occupants of the other Lagers who, apart from Dixie, would not know who all the fuss was about. With over 5,000 Kriegies wishing me a happy birthday in a snowbound POW camp in East Prussia, I felt very humble – but it made my day!

It was a one off presentation which, so far as can be ascertained, was something that had not previously happened in the camp, nor happened again for anyone’s birthday before the time we were evacuated in July 1944. The key was about two feet long, and made from a piece of wood. It was then covered with silver paper. My room mates and crew had got together to make the key and, with the help of Vic Clarke and Dixie Deans, managed to talk the Camp Commandant into making the unusual presentation. I treasured the thought and the key, and I have never received a more surprising birthday present.

With the Wehrmacht on the retreat from the Red Army in the Ukraine, they brought with them many Russian prisoners who were being put in the spare Lager. The prisoners were skin and bone, having trudged through all weathers with so little food that they were starving. We learned that many had died as a result of starvation and the atrocious treatment by the Germans on the terrible journey to the camp. They did not receive Red Cross parcels and the little that we could spare, we threw into their Lager at the risk of being shot. In turn, the Russians would scramble for the scraps of food at an even greater risk of being shot by the merciless goons. It was so pitiful to see how the Russians were being treated and yet be unable to do very much to alleviate their suffering.

The consignments of Red Cross parcels reached the camp less regularly due to the disruption of the German transport system by the Allied air forces and, as a result, we were having to tighten our belts even more to eke out the rations. Not only were the parcels having to be shared amongst two or more persons per week, but the German food issue was also at a minimum. We had all passed a stringent medical examination before being accepted for aircrew duties, and enjoyed strong constitutions which undoubtedly helped us to cope extraordinarily well with the increasingly difficult conditions at Stalag-Luft VI. Surprisingly few Kriegies were seriously ill. They dared not be – the sick bay would be unable to manage.

We would often see Luftwaffe aircraft fly over the camp towards the east to support their troops locked in combat with the Russians. Occasionally a crippled fighter aircraft would return from the arena, its pilot probably wounded and just managing to keep the aircraft in the air. The sight of one of these shot up aircraft would result in a loud cheer.

With the approach of the warm weather, I spent hours in the gym skipping, and generally having a good workout within my limitations, to build up sufficient stamina to survive three rounds. Bob was still as enthusiastic as ever for his team to gain supremacy over the teams in the other two Lagers, in particular the ‘E’ Lager team of Americans with its loud mouthed trainer. Bob would have us exercising and sparring until we were ready to drop, usually offering himself as a human punchbag in the ring. On one occasion he took such a hefty punch on the side of his head that it burst an eardrum. We kidded him that from that moment on he always appeared just a little punch drunk.

After one highly entertaining and successful boxing contest, the loud mouthed American boasted that he had a fighter that could lick anyone in the camp. He threw out a challenge that Bob could not refuse to accept. Bob felt that he had just the right man to beat anyone the Yanks put in the ring: an ex-public schoolboy who was an orthodox boxer with a rapier-like straight left and a devastating right cross which was necessary for him to use only once or twice to put his opponent on the canvas, out for the count. His style would have made the 8th Marquis of Queensberry ecstatic.

During the weeks before the contest we tried to find out what kind of opposition we were up against, but the Americans were not prepared to give anything away except that he was to be billed as the ‘Bearded Marvel’ and was a welterweight.

The night of the ‘big fight’ was soon upon us. I boxed in one of the supporting bouts and, although I won, it was by no means an easy win and I was glad to hear the bell in the final round. I was unable to repeat the performance at Barth when I was able to produce a knockout punch – however technical.

When the ‘Bearded Marvel’ climbed into the ring he looked like a trained gorilla. Short, thickset, with beady eyes glowering from a head of black hair. His demeanour in his corner while waiting for the bell suggested that, rather than being an amateur, he was in the professional class. There was no way that this could be proved, and I thanked my lucky stars that I was a flyweight and no contest for this animal. He could have been eating T-bone steaks at an airbase in Cambridgeshire no more than a couple of months before the ‘big fight’.

In the event, the fight turned out to be an excellent contest between a shrewd orthodox boxer and a streetfighter. For two ninety-second rounds there was little to choose between them except their different styles. We felt that at any moment our boy was going to produce a right to finish the fight, but the Yank’s beard must have softened the blow. In the third round the Yank’s stamina and punching power won him the fight on a technical knockout after an onslaught of haymakers. Bob Waddy was inconsolable. So far as he was concerned, the Americans would boast about beating the goddamned Limey for weeks to come.

Another tunnel was being excavated in the Lager. The same architects and contractors were in charge of the project. This time the entrance would be in the latrine, with the tunnel running under the boundary fence to surface in the open near some trees. The site had been selected near the fence where a little road roller could not get although, being in the latrine the air was foul right to the working surface of the tunnel.

Many Kriegies thought up schemes to escape which they wanted to put into practice. However, even if a scheme was approved by the camp Escape Committee, which comprised Dixie Deans and a number of ‘elders’ in ‘A’ Lager, they would have to wait for the OK to put the plan into action. Staff Sergeant Walker in ‘E’ Lager, and a pal, were presumably given the OK to try their scheme out. They joined the morning sick parade to the sick bay in the Vorlager, where they concealed themselves in one of the buildings to wait for darkness to fall. Steps were taken to cover for their absence on the evening appell. Around 02.15 hours they left their place of concealment and, making good use of the buildings for cover, they stealthfully made their way to the fence which they intended cutting their way through. They had nearly reached the fence, when they were suddenly bathed in the glaring beam of a spotlight shining from one of the Posten towers. There was nowhere for them to run and hide. Instead of being cut down by a burst of machine-gun fire as they stood with their hands raised in surrender, an Abwehr sergeant came out of the shadows, held a Luger to Walker’s stomach and pulled the trigger. The American died almost instantly.

It remains a mystery why, after a period in the cooler, the other American was allowed to return to ‘E’ Lager to tell the tale. From the information we received in ‘K’ Lager, the incident had all the hallmarks of a set up, meaning the goons had prior warning of the escape plan and had been waiting in ambush. There was always more than one enemy to beware of in a prisoner of war camp.

Of course, through Dixie Deans, Frank Paules made a formal complaint to the Camp Commandant, and the crime was also reported to a visiting ICRC representative. It was also stressed that the Germans had tried to cover the murder up by not giving Walker a formal burial. Life went on.

Half a dozen Kriegies managed to climb out of the tunnel and make for the trees before the goons closed in and greatly disappointed a group still waiting in the latrine for the signal to crawl to freedom. They were all suitably dressed to mingle unobtrusively with the local populace outside the wire. It was a terrible disappointment to all concerned in the project. I had even less faith in tunnels, although for many they were the only hope of freedom. The warm summer weather began to bring out those Kriegies who had been in semi-hibernation during the winter months. And with the increasing numbers pounding the circuit, there was also an eye-catching selection of spring fashions on show, particularly in leisurewear. A pipe-smoking, bearded, Yank skinhead, sporting the latest Johnny Weissmuller style briefs and flying bootees, did not look out of place on the circuit. Uniform trousers in shades of blue and khaki, cut and shaped to make chic shorts together with a whole range of silly hats, some being just brims cut out of cardboard and pulled over bald heads, while others were fashioned from cardboard boxes to keep the sun from those who turned red and burnt easily.

I was one of those skinheads who had my head shaved to discourage fleas and lice, and to see if my hair would eventually grow more curly. German lice seemed to prefer head hair rather than facial hair, but most of their bloodsucking energies were concentrated about the waist, the ankles and the crotch. The spiteful little blighters would use their hypodermic lances twenty-four hours a day, but were more active at night when their hosts and providers were trying to sleep. Heydekrug lice were the most voracious of parasites and survived my every effort to exterminate them.

One morning in May, while assembling for appell, we were puzzled to find that the guard had been doubled as though the goons anticipated trouble. When the Camp Commandant and his usual entourage appeared on the parade ground, his greeting with Vic Clarke seemed more formal than at other times. The parade was called to attention, and there followed a brief pause while the Commandant, head bowed, nervously shuffled some papers. With some embarrassment, he then informed the parade that there had been a mass escape from a tunnel at Stalag-Luft III, despite many warnings of the consequences. Our outburst of cheering was short-lived as he continued with the terrible news that forty-seven (later amended to fifty) Allied officers had been recaptured but, regrettably, were killed ‘while again trying to escape’.

It took little imagination to realize that there had been a mass execution. The probability that every shot fired at forty-seven escaping officers proved fatal was very remote indeed. The men had been murdered in cold blood. Feelings were running dangerously high in the camp, and only the firmness of Dixie Deans prevented what could have been a very nasty situation. Commonsense prevailed.

Instead, the camp embarked upon a campaign of goon baiting, and frustrating the counts on appells. We tried to keep the goons busy all day by having Kriegies hide themselves so that they were overlooked when the sick in the huts were counted, or by squad jumping to make it appear that there were more in the camp than there should be. All good fun and it annoyed the goons tremendously. On one occasion they had to resort to a sheep count by herding us all to one end of the Lager, and then get us to walk to the other end in batches of five. Only when the Kriegies who had hidden themselves were eventually found and marched off to the cooler, were the goons able to satisfy themselves that the head count was correct.

Signwriters in the Vorlager got busy and new notices appeared against the tripwire and on the notice boards to the effect that escaping was no longer a sport, and the Führer had given strict orders that in future any prisoner found trying to escape, or at large, would be shot on sight and without warning.

Once again Dixie lodged a formal complaint, and once again it was completely ignored by the Germans.

On the slightly brighter side: a good day for me was when I received a fifth instead of a sixth or seventh of a loaf of bread, or Johnny Hooley and I managed a grand slam at bridge at a fag a point. In the mail from home our folks forecast that ‘it’ would not be long now, or ‘it’ would soon be all over. We had to keep our chins and peckers up and, what with all the fighting going on, we were in the best place until ‘it’ was over.

During the summer months there was an extended curfew from 22.00 to 06.00 hours, and the goons were generally punctual in barring and unbarring the doors and windows. For some unknown reason, or unless he was anticipating the events to follow, a goon unbarred the door of a barrack block in ‘K’ Lager at 05.50 hours one morning. An American, Staff Sergeant Nies, thought he would take advantage of an early morning wash before the rush. Wearing only shorts and carrying a towel, he left the barrack block only a few minutes before the end of the curfew at 06.00 hours, and strolled casually across the Lager towards the latrine. Whilst Nies had not paid too much attention to the time, a goon in one of the Posten towers had. He raised his rife, took careful aim, and shot the unsuspecting Kriegie in the stomach. As the fatally wounded man lay on the ground, his life ebbing away, the goons threatened to shoot anyone leaving the barrack blocks to go to his aid. He died as he was being carried to the sick bay on a stretcher.

Reg Goodenough, a Kriegie I was to escape with ten months later, was so moved by this latest atrocity, that he composed the following poignant poem:

THE EARLY MORNING WASH

The early morning chorus

Of birds seemed strangely hushed,

As that silent lonely figure

Lies crumpled in the dust.

The towel across his naked chest

Will dry a different hue,

But he will not be caring

His washing days are through.

But who will tell his mother

That he died today because,

He left his hut too early

For his daily morning wash?

In the murder of Sergeant Nies, the Germans had once again demonstrated their complete disregard for human life and the evil bastard who pulled the trigger would feel safe in the knowledge that he was obeying orders.

The ‘Canary’ chirped out the wonderful news that the Allies had gained a foothold in Normandy, acting, of course on the master plan by the Kriegie strategists. We were not concerned whether the Supreme Commander was Eisenhower, Montgomery or Shirley Temple, just so long as we were home for Christmas. With the Russians advancing from the east, and now a Second Front, Hitler and his army were now between a rock and a hard place, and we hoped the German High Command would convince their Führer that it was futile to fight on. It was another forlorn hope but, at least, the end was now in sight.

As soon as we were dismissed, we returned to the barrack blocks and celebrated with the hidden stocks of illicit brew.

The goons were visibly shaken by the news of the invasion and, with prohibition still in force, they were at a loss to understand the antics of some of the drunken Kriegies. Goons boasted that their Panzers would soon push our armies back into the sea, just as they had done at Dunkirk and Dieppe. Of course we laughed in their faces, but we could not dismiss the possibility out of hand. We were satisfied that the Allied air forces had air supremacy, and this would dictate how soon the ground forces would be able to break out of the beach-heads to take the offensive to the heart of Germany. And the barrack block war strategists would plan every move. We dare not contemplate another Dunkirk.

The months of June and July were sunny and warm, but despite the hot weather the goons had neglected to empty the latrine sump. It was beginning to hum. The latrine sump was normally emptied by two Russian prisoners under the supervision of a goon. They would come into the Lager with a horse drawn four-wheeled cart, on which was bolted a large cylindrical tank with a round glass observation window at the rear end. The tank was fitted with two valves, a one-way unit at the top, and a simple two-way gate valve at the bottom rear. A number of spectators would gather around the cart to watch the goon carry out the procedure necessary to draw off a tankful of foul effluent. And while the goon was engrossed in preparing the Heath Robinson sludge gulper, the hub nuts on the cart would be loosened so that a wheel, perhaps two wheels, would come off on the way to the spreading fields. We were sabotage specialists.

A Russian would connect one end of a hose to the bottom valve, and drop the other end through a trapdoor into the sump. Opening the top valve, the goon would squirt in some petrol and follow it with a lighted match. The gases from the internal explosion would exit through the top valve which, in turn, would seal the tank to create a vacuum. The other Russian would then open the bottom valve and the best part of a tankful of effluent would be drawn from the sump. It would take several trips to drain a latrine sump.

It was a lovely day and some Kriegies were sunning themselves, some pounding the circuit, and others playing or watching football. Suddenly there was a violent explosion which shook the camp – the latrine had blown up. The force of the explosion had flattened the walls and the roof had caved in. Those of us in the open were showered by some of the contents of the latrine sump arcing indiscriminately through the air. It was disgusting. Barrack blocks were instantly camouflaged. The referee blew his whistle, believing that for the time being at any rate, the football match should be abandoned.

Over the weeks of warm weather the latrine had filled to capacity, and a build up of methane gas had made the structure into a latent bomb just waiting to be detonated. All Kriegies were prone to flatulence to some degree, and were attuned to the sounds ranging from thunderclaps to barely audible wheezes, but this was something altogether different. Those of us who had been christened with the contents of the sump were not very pleased and less so those sitting hunched in the cubicles, either in deep meditation or reading their paperbacks, when some careless wally lit a cigarette and dropped a lighted match into the sump to ignite the gases. The building had collapsed like a deck of cards, and there were a number of casualties with later unconfirmed reports that two of the victims had died from their injuries.

I was at the wrong side of the football field when the explosion occurred, and the blast, with its accompanying waste matter almost blew me off my feet. Some moments passed before any of us could fully comprehend what had happened and, as we ran to the latrine, I was amazed to see a stark naked man, completely unrecognizable because he was covered from head to foot in sewage, emerge from the wreckage and stagger about blindly. The first priority was to rescue anyone trapped in what was left of the latrine, and this perhaps explained why the bewildered man was initially bypassed by those first on the scene. His hut mates arrived and commiserated with him, but from a distance.

After we had satisfied ourselves that nobody was still trapped in the latrine and the traumatized and otherwise poorly were allowed to the sick bay, those of us who had only been be splattered rinsed down in the static water tank.

Three Russian POWs were allocated the unsavoury task of clearing and rebuilding the latrine. As it took a few days to restore the much needed building, it provided the opportunity to pass them a few hundred cigarettes and what little food we had to spare.

In July 1944 we were notified that we were to prepare to evacuate the camp at short notice. With the Red Army offensive gathering momentum and rolling back the Wehrmacht, and Vilna in neighbouring Lithuania falling to the Russians, the German presence at Stalag-Luft VI had become untenable, especially as there was still a Lager crammed with Russian POWs who were treated terribly by their guards and were no more than skeletons in what clothing they had. We were to move as soon as transport became available.

The American airmen in ‘E’ Lager were the first to leave the camp and, as they marched out they were treated like conquering heroes by those still in the camp.

The day after the Americans left, I was one of a batch of 800 British and Commonwealth airmen from ‘K’ Lager to move out. Like the Americans we would finish up at Stalag-Luft IV at Gross Tychow in Pomerania. The inmates of ‘A’ Lager, along with those left in ‘K’ Lager headed for Stalag 357, a huge mostly army POW camp at Thorn in Poland. Gross Tychow was eighty miles southwest, and Thorn ninety miles due south of the port of Danzig.

As we ambled out of the camp en route to Heydekrug railway station shouldering our DIY rucksacks, Johnny Hooley carried our food supply, while I looked after the clothing and other essentials such as they were. It was a parting of the ways so far as the rest of my crew, Geoff, Bill and Albert were concerned as they were in the contingent bound for Thorn, it being just a question of which hut you were living in when the goons split ‘K’ Lager. These Kriegies set light to their barrack blocks before passing out through the gates. It annoyed the goons but not to the extent that any punishment was meted out – they were not inclined to want to hang about any longer than necessary.

Although we were not aware of it at the time, our real suffering at the hands of the airmen and sailors of the Reich was about to begin, and many of my fellow Kriegies, some close friends, would be executed or die as a result of maltreatment at the hands of our captors. Some during the last days of the war would lose their lives, becoming the casualties of ‘friendly fire’ from the RAF 2nd Tactical Air Force.

From this time on there would occur many incidents that would stress many of the men touched by them, and there would be obvious signs that whatever syndrome they suffered they would have to live with them for the rest of their lives – without compensation.