CHAPTER TEN

DECEMBER 1944, TRUPPEN 51-56

1-19 DECEMBER 1944. Truppen 51-54 arrived. German records are, at this point, again obscure, and it has not been possible to identify who arrived with which Trupp on which date.

2 DECEMBER 1944. Very cold. Over 250 American B-17 Flying Fortress bombers were counted by the prisoners as they flew over the camp at barely 10,000 feet. ‘It lifted our morale. No flak, no fighters.’ (Fred Brown), but one was seen to lag behind with engine trouble.

An International Trial soccer match between England and Scotland ended in a 0-0 draw.

3 DECEMBER 1944. A lot of activity was observed on the railway, and the sounds of gunfire could be heard away to the east. Surely the Russians were getting closer? Morale took another upward turn.

Great Britain lost 0-4 to the Dominions at rugby.

Padré Captain Collins gave a talk on the University Boat Races 1928-30.

The 1933 film The Private Life of Henry VIII was shown. Starring Charles Laughton, Merle Oberon and others, the many scenes of feasting proved too much for the hungry prisoners – ‘we all felt worse after seeing it’.

4 DECEMBER 1944. Rained for twenty-four hours. The Little Theatre put on a play reading of Journey’s End. It was banned by the Germans because one of the actors said ‘Boche’ instead of ‘Jerry’.

5 DECEMBER 1944. Second reading of Journey’s End.

6 DECEMBER 1944. Very cold. It took the POWs a long time to get out of bed in the morning. A number of them were also suffering from ’flu.

Three films arrived with mini-projector. First film shown – The Corsican Brothers (1941), with Douglas Fairbanks Jnr and Ruth Warwick. Apart from the sound apparatus not working properly due to insufficient power and, again, too much food on display in the movie, it was much enjoyed. The film was shown again over the next two days.

7 DECEMBER 1944. Very cold. Parcel situation apparently becoming grim. Potato ration cut by a quarter.

9 DECEMBER 1944. Getting colder and colder.

11 DECEMBER 1944. England beat Canada 6-0 at rugby.

12 DECEMBER 1944. An air raid was heard in the morning, bombs exploding.

13 DECEMBER 1944. Second film – Life Begins For Andy Hardy (1941), starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland – given its first showing.

At evening Appell, the Camp Leader, adjutant, and Man of Confidence announced that they had resigned. No reason was given, but the prisoners held a meeting and a vote of confidence in their leaders was passed.

14 DECEMBER 1944. It had been freezing hard all night, and a gale was blowing from the east. Going outside the huts in the very low temperature was not recommended. By tea-time the temperature was minus 5º C.

By mid-December the total of POWs in the camp had risen to 1,475.

15 DECEMBER 1944. Again very cold, with snow all night. Temperature down to minus 18° C. The Canadians built two ice rinks, which were well used despite the cold. A party of kriegies left the camp to gather wood for the stoves.

16 DECEMBER 1944. The show Moods Modernistic was put on by Bob Burns and his orchestra. The feeling was that there was a big improvement thanks to the addition of new instruments and more time in which to practise. Some of the POWs, however, preferred Leo Maki’s band, and one thought the performance was ‘bloody awful’.

17 DECEMBER 1944. SS officers arrived early in the morning to carry out an inspection, but did not complete it because of an air raid. ‘36 Forts circled the camp at about 8,000 feet and dropped leaflets. All kriegies were already inside. Ferrets and goons came into the compound to pick up the leaflets that landed within the camp.’ (Fred Brown.) Another aircraft jettisoned bombs on Bankau village, killing six people and destroying their farm.

Unrest amongst the POWs resulted in accusations being made against the Man of Confidence, W/O Richard Greene RCAF, and the adjutant. The charges, amongst others, included slackness, inability, using YMCA and Red Cross equipment that did not belong to them, the mis-use of personal property, and Greene not giving proper attention and courtesy to those wanting advice. Matters came to a head when, after the Germans had mistakenly confiscated a number of personal blankets, Greene allegedly did nothing to get them back. The owners of the blankets retrieved them themselves, but in the process discovered that Red Cross receipts had not been checked for two months and other details had not been notified to the Red Cross in formal reports. Those charged agreed to resign from their posts, but it was decided that they should remain in office until word had been received from the Red Cross in Geneva as to what should be done.

18 DECEMBER 1944. More air raids heard to the south. Snow thawing.

19 DECEMBER 1944. After the ‘All Clear’ had sounded after yet another air raid, two shots were fired at someone looking out of a lavatory window. Two holes were found at the end of the building near the roof. Camp guards now had orders to shoot to kill: ‘Tensions and uncertainties continue to grow. The guards were very much on edge. Perhaps the Russians were closer than we thought.’

A Vote of Confidence was taken on the leaders. Camp Leader, Peter Thomson, was voted back into office by a vast majority of 971. The Man of Confidence lost the vote by 750 to 560.

20 DECEMBER 1944. Bitterly cold. Third and last film shown – Dixie Dugan (1943), starring Lois Andrews and James Ellison. Also shown was a reel of the USAAF Band which had somehow been passed by the German censor.

Trupp 55 (fifty-five-eighty men?) arrived. Captain The Reverend John Berry, a Roman Catholic padré, also arrived at this time. He had been captured in Greece on 27 April 1941, the day on which German forces entered Athens. He had been at Stalag VIIIB (Lamsdorf) until transferred to Luft 7. On the night of 16/17 August 1944 Johnny Shields and crew, in Lancaster, PB384, 57 Squadron, were laying mines in the Stettin/Swinemünde channel to prevent German troops from being evacuated by sea from East Prussia to Stettin when they were shot down. Brief details of the Bomber Command operation were recorded by 97 (PFF) Squadron:

‘At 1:01 the flare force came in and dropped their blind bombing apparatus over the channel. Illumination was hardly necessary as the Germans had guessed what was happening and had criss-crossed the bay with searchlights… In the face of great batteries of light flak guns from all sides of the bay, although they were coned the whole time, they [the 97 Squadron crews] located the buoys and flew down the channel…’

It was to prove a costly operation, with several aircraft from other squadrons failing to return.

Johnny Shields (mid-upper gunner) landed in a tree and split his pelvis. He had a spell in a hospital before arriving at Luft 7 in Trupp 55. The nineteen-year-old flight engineer, Malcolm Crapper, baled out and landed in the sea. Swimming ashore, he was picked up by a flak-gun crew, and went to Luft 7 in Trupp 28. There was only one other survivor, F/O Ron Trindall (bomb aimer), who went to Stalag Luft III.

*

Operation Dragoon, the Allied landings on the south coast of France which had begun on 15 August 1944, was called ‘The Champagne Campaign’ on account of the apparent lack of enemy resistance to it. Ten days later, good progress northwards having been made by the Allies, F/O Mead, 2788 Squadron, RAF Regiment, and his small force of two armoured cars and a truck carrying twelve men ran into strong German opposition near the town of Valence (Drôme), and were captured. Some escaped from the train taking them north and had rejoined their unit within days.171 But eleven of the non-escapers eventually arrived at Luft 7, eight with Trupp 37, two more with Trupp 38, and, lastly, Sgt Myrddin L. Davies with Trupp 55.

Another member of the RAF Regiment, LAC R.H. Hutchison, had already been at Bankau for four months before Myrddin Davies’s arrival. His active service had come to an abrupt end on 3 October 1943 on the Greek island of Kos, when it was attacked by a strong German force. Robert Hutchison was on 2901 Squadron, RAF Regiment, which had been flown to Kos from Beirut, in the British Mandate of Palestine, with 2909 Squadron on 15 September 1943. The two squadrons were armed with Hispano-Suiza HS.404 guns for anti-aircraft defence in support of 1 Battalion, Durham Light Infantry.

At 4.30 am on the morning of 3 October the German invasion of Kos began. By midday, 1,200 Germans, well-armed with light artillery and armoured cars, were ashore, supported by Ju87 dive-bombers, and by the evening German strength had been increased to an estimated 4,000 men. By 6 am on 4 October 1,388 British and 3,145 Italians (of the island’s original garrison) had been taken prisoner, including Robert Hutchison, who arrived at Luft 7 in Trupp 27 on 22 August 1944 from Stalag Luft VI.

*

‘About ten minutes after leaving the target I heard the rear gunner’s voice over the intercom giving the order to “Corkscrew Starboard”. At the same time he opened fire with his guns. A few seconds later both our starboard engines were hit by cannon fire from an e/a. They both caught fire and the plane went into a dive.’ This was the beginning of the end of Halifax MZ806, 192 (Special Duties) Squadron, that had been flying in support of main force on 21/22 November 1944 (Aschaffenburg marshalling yards).

Four of the crew baled out. The aircraft ‘kept on its course for about thirty seconds then turned to port, and then to an uncontrolled diving turn to port again. It crashed into the ground about a mile from me and immediately exploded.’ The witness to the end of MZ806 was its wireless operator, F/S J.G. ‘Jack’ Smith RAAF, who, a few seconds later, found himself standing in the middle of a wood: ‘The trees had broken my fall and the ’chute had caught in the branches just high enough to allow me to touch the ground.’

Walking for a few hours in a westerly direction, despite a twisted ankle and knee, he was crossing a road when he ‘ran into a patrol of Wehrmacht [soldiers]’, who called on him to halt. Pretending not to hear them he carried on, but they were already after him, and easily caught him. On 23 November he was taken to a railway station, where he was joined by his navigator, Sgt Stan Wharton. They were briefly taken to Darmstadt hospital but Stan, who had also injured himself landing, was not treated – they ‘only looked at him’.

At Dulag Luft Jack was told that the rest of the crew were dead: ‘It seems incredible that I was the only one to escape alive and uninjured out of eight.’ Along with Jack and Stan, however, F/S A.P. Bloomfield (bomb aimer) and Sgt R.B. Hales (flight engineer) had also safely baled out, but were murdered by local police, one of whom, Friedrich Horn, hanged himself ten days before his trial for the murders. On 9 June 1945 the bodies of Bloomfield and Hales were exhumed. An examination by an officer of the US Army Medical Corps revealed that Hales had probably been wounded in the aircraft – a metal fragment was found in his left thigh – and had then been killed by a pistol shot to the chest, fired from a distance of no greater than three feet. Bloomfield, wounded in the left foot and ankle, had been shot four times. For their complicity in the murders four Germans received terms of imprisonment ranging from five to fifteen years. Two more were killed in a car crash before the end of the war, and one was never traced. (For further details of this incident see Footprints on the Sands of Time, pages 208-9).

Jack and Stan, after six days and nights on the train, arrived at Luft 7 on 20 December.

*

When the German army was preparing to retreat from the Balkans in late 1944 it was clear that they would have to use the railway through the Hungarian town of Szombathely, a dozen kilometres east of the Austrian border. On the night of 22/23 November 1944 seventy-nine Halifaxes, Wellingtons and Liberators of 205 Group RAF were despatched from Italian airfields to bomb its marshalling yards and railway junction.

The attack got off to a bad start when the town was found to be blanketted by mist: ‘No target indicators were dropped, and the bombing was very scattered. A few aircraft identified the town and river, and eight claimed to have located and bombed the target, but the majority aimed at flares and the glow of incendiaries.’172 Luftwaffe night-fighters took advantage of the prevailing conditions of moonlight above and haze below and shot down six of the bombers, including Halifax JP323, ‘I’, 614 Squadron, based at Amendola (Foggia), Italy. Skippered by P/O John L. ‘Nick’ Nicholson the five other crew were (there was no mid-upper turret): F/S R.B. Hitchings (navigator); F/S R.R. Cartwright (bomb aimer); F/S Sydney Barlow (wireless operator); F/S J. Wiles (flight engineer); and F/S R.A. Bennett (rear gunner).

They were an experienced crew, having flown bombing raids over the eight previous months from North Africa, firstly on 150 Squadron in Wellingtons and then in Halifax B.IIs on 614, and had attacked targets in Tunisia, Sicily, Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece and now all the way to Hungary.

At 11.30 am on the morning of 22 November, the Nicholson crew read on the operations board that they were detailed to lead the Pathfinder Force to Szombathely that night with the responsible duty of ‘target marker’. This would be the last operation of their tour, their thirty-seventh altogether. Roy Bennett (rear gunner): ‘There were a number of crews standing by and remarks were made, “Sod your luck, they don’t want us tonight”, from those who were not going.’

In Roy Bennetts’s words, the crew then went to their tent:

‘to prepare for the night and get a couple of hours sleep. Just before five that afternoon the twenty-odd crews from 614 Squadron were on the ’drome checking the plane, guns, bombs, flares and every piece of equipment, because for the next few hours this plane was to be our pigeon there and back.

‘Our turn for take-off, we lined up at the end of the runway, but a fuel pipe burst, we had to change kites… We took off twenty minutes behind the others, and from then on it was flat out until we got in front, as the bombing force had to wait until we had marked the target. We were also carrying 10 × 1,000lb bombs…

‘About thirty miles to go and as black as your hat outside, from out of nowhere came a burst of machine-gun fire. The plane shuddered – I yelled down my intercom – violent weaving and the skipper really threw that plane around. We all took up our attack positions. I was sitting there with four machine-guns that could knock the guts out of any other plane, but what could I see? Sweet ---- ---. We jettisoned our bombs and turned for home as the old kite was not acting too well to the controls. There was a strange silence even above the roar of the engines.

‘Then once again the bullets came into the plane, tearing her to pieces. She staggered like a half knocked-out boxer and both starboard engines burst into flames. The skipper and engineer tried to put them out, but without success. Nick then gave the order “Prepare to abandon aircraft”…

‘I moved back into the fuselage, the engineer opened the exit, and the flames came belting through. I sat on the edge [of the escape hatch] and stuck my feet out, then turned around to plug in the intercom to see if there were any more orders, but at that moment the starboard wing came off the plane. All my training was then forgotten. I went out like a ball and not waiting to count three I pulled the ripcord straight away.’

Sydney Barlow and John Wiles recall that they were shot down by an FW190.

The loss of a target marker was most unfortunate, as the recommendation for the award of the DFC to W/O T.C. Shiel, pilot of a 37 Squadron Wellington on the same raid, explains:

‘One of the target-marking aircraft having been shot down by night-fighters, the bombing aircraft were forced to locate the target for themselves and it was soon evident that there was considerable night-fighter activity in the area, no fewer than five aircraft were seen to be shot down. Warrant Officer Shiel, however, remained in the target area and eventually bombed as accurately as he could under the very poor conditions of illumination and visibility.’173

Roy Bennett landed flat on his face in a muddy field, but was not injured. Burying his equipment, including his .38 revolver which, he said, was ‘no good to me as I could not hit a barn door with it!’, he heard a dog barking. Walking towards the sound he saw an old man come out of a small house. Explaining as best he could who he was, the man took Roy indoors. The ‘house’ was just a single room, with three women in it, ‘all the wrong ages! The old man then gave me a glass of wine and offered me his bed, which I took as I was pretty tired by then.’

In the morning Roy was joined by John Wiles, the flight engineer, and they were just debating what to do next ‘when the door flew open and in came a bayonet followed by Hungarian soldiers, who chained us together and led us to the remains of our crashed plane, and there we saw the skipper’s body – a sight that will always stay in my memory’. Twenty-three-year-old Pilot Officer John Leonard Nicholson (179800), the only one to be killed, now rests in Budapest War Cemetery.

While Roy and John were standing by the wreckage:

‘a young Hungarian girl offered us a bottle of wine. By signs we got the guards to unchain our hands so that we could drink in comfort. We both noticed that the guards were more interested in the girl than us, so we took a chance and calmly walked away. Approximately three hours later, walking through a small village we turned a corner and ran smack into the SS who, with drawn revolvers, made short work of our freedom.’

Sydney Barlow was captured on 23 November near Zalaegerszeg, some fifty kilometres south of the target, by ‘two teenaged LDV types’. Cartwright and Hitchings were also caught, and at some point the five survivors were taken to the civilian jail in Budapest. Not long afterwards they were on the last train to leave the Hungarian capital before the bridge across the Danube was blown up. Within a week or so they had arrived at Luft 7.

At Luft 7, Sydney Barlow met a rear gunner on 150 Squadron, Sgt A.P. ‘Mac’ McTeer, who had also been flying from Italy. Explaining that he was on 614 Squadron Sydney asked Mac when he had been shot down. When he heard that it was on 3 April Sydney replied: ‘Your pilot was Sergeant Pemberton, and I slept in your bed.’ Sydney explained to the suitably amazed gunner that the Nicholson crew had ferried a brand new Wellington from the Hawarden works, England, to the aircraft pool at Foggia, Italy, before being posted to 150 Squadron: ‘The first night we slept in the parachute room as there were no more tents available, but after the first night 150 lost a crew. The pilot was Sgt Pemberton, whose crew’s tent we took over.’

Mac McTeer had indeed been flying on 150 Squadron with F/S George Gordon Pemberton, pilot of Wellington LN858, when it went missing. It was one of the seventy-nine Wimpys and eight Liberators detailed to bomb the Manfred Weiss armaments factory on Csepel Island, just to the south of Budapest, on the night of 3/4 April 1944. As LN858 was approaching Lake Balaton174 shortly before midnight it was attacked by a Do217 flown by Oberleutnant Hans Krause, 6./NJG101. McTeer managed to hit Krause’s aircraft in its port wing, but not fatally. LN858, however, was finished, and Pemberton decided to ditch the stricken Wellington on Lake Balaton. Pemberton had been hit in the leg by Krause’s bullets so severely that he bled to death. He, too, now lies in Budapest War Cemetery.

Anthony ‘Mac’ McTeer was wounded in the attack, when a bullet shot off his left ear before lodging in his head (where it stayed until the day he died). Following hospitalisation in Budapest, he went for further treatment to Lazarett IXC before being sent to Luft 7 in Trupp 3.

Also wounded in LN858 was F/S Harry Redpath RAAF, who lost an eye. Initially held for a week at a ‘Jewish-Communist concentration camp’ in Budapest he was moved, after a fortnight at Hildburghausen, Germany, to the eye-specialist hospital at Lazarett IXB (Bad Soden – the ‘Braille School’), under the care of the Scottish ophthalmic surgeon Major David L. Charters RAMC (captured in the Greek campaign in 1941), where he was given a glass eye. Five months later he arrived at Luft 7 in Trupp 37. The two others of the crew, F/S W.R. Bennett and F/S L.L. Taylor, were taken prisoner and went to Stalag Luft VI (Heydekrug).

Map from ‘RAF Mediterranean Review No. 10’, August 1945.

Another victim of the Szombathely raid on 22/23 November was Wellington LP547, 37 Squadron. Attacked by fighters after bombing the target, with both engines out of action, the aircraft on fire, and the bomb aimer and rear gunner killed, the pilot, F/O J.H. Sutcliffe RNZAF, gave the order to bale out. At 6,000 feet, only W/O W.A.H. Board RAAF (wireless operator) and F/O W.F. Woolfrey (navigator) were able to do so. In the words of Bill Board: ‘When I left the aircraft the skipper was the only one alive and he was still at the controls. I saw the plane explode just as I left it and am sure he never got out. Plane crashed approx. 20 miles south of the target. I was told three bodies were found in the wreckage of the plane.’

Injuring his legs on landing and unable to walk, Bill was picked up by Hungarian police. A few days later he was at Luft 7 in Trupp 55. Woolfrey was captured, and went to Stalag Luft I (Barth).

*

21 DECEMBER 1944. Seven candidates had been put forward for the post of Man of Confidence to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of W/O Greene RCAF. W/O Ron Mead was duly elected after he had received 1,017 of the 1,250 votes cast. He was to remain in that post until the camp was evacuated on 19 January 1945.

Dixie Dugan film shown again.

In December 1944 five American aircrew arrived at Luft 7 from Stalag XIB (Fallingbostel): T/Sgt James E. Swanson; T/Sgt Charles E. Patterson; S/Sgt George S. Burford; S/Sgt Osbon M. Malone; and S/Sgt Eugene H. Shabatura.

Douglas C-47 Skytrain 43-15098, 442nd TCG/306th TCS, was hit by flak at around 2,000 feet, some twenty kilometres south west of Eindhoven, whilst on Operation Market on 17 September 1944. The pilot of 43-15098, 1st Lt John Corsetti USAAF, remained at the controls to allow the four others of his crew to jump, but paid for his gallant action with his life.175 Swanson, the Skytrain’s crew chief, was first to jump, and was captured. The three who baled out after him were hidden in a nearby village, and were liberated a week later by British troops.

Charles Patterson was also a crew chief of Douglas C-47 Skytrain 42-93098, 439th TCG/94th TCS, flown by Major Joseph A. Beck II USAAF, CO of the 94th TCS. With him, as co-pilot, was Captain Fred O. Lorimor, the 94th’s operations officer. They were on the second Market lift, on 18 September 1944, towing a Waco CG-4A glider flown by 2nd Lt George T. Hall USAAF and carrying men of the 82nd Airborne.

Slightly off course approaching the Dutch coast, Major Beck made a slight correction, but no sooner had he done so, at around 1420 hours, than 42-93098 came under accurate fire from flak batteries near Haamstede on Schouwen Island. Damage to the Skytrain’s port engine was sufficient for the glider to be cast off. Both aircraft made safe landings on Schouwen Island.

Major Beck made a perfect wheels-up landing in the middle of a large field:

‘After landing we were fired upon from bunkers. T/Sgt Charles E. Patterson – the crew chief – was lying beside Captain Lorimor and after we were captured Sgt Patterson told me that Captain Lorimor had been hit by mortar or artillery shell and had died in a few minutes. I did not see Capt Lorimor’s body myself but after we had been captured and taken into the bunkers, the Germans told me that the other officer was dead. This was about twenty minutes after the crash.’

Beck went to Stalag Luft III, and the navigator, Lt Vincent J. Paterno, to Stalag Luft I. Patterson and the wireless operator, Sgt Vernon E. Gillespie, went to Stalag XIB, though Gillespie, hit in his left side by rifle fire, was first taken to the hospital on Schouwen Island, where a doctor pronounced that the wound was not very serious.

Burford, Malone and Shabatura were, respectively, right waist, tail, and left waist gunners of B-24J 42-100416 Baggy Maggy, 93rd BG/409th BS, lost on a supply drop to the US Airborne forces in the Nijmegen-Eindhoven area on 18 September.¹⁷⁶ They came down near Castelré, just to the north of Hoogstraten, in Belgium, and very close to the Dutch border.

At Luft 7 the five Americans shared the same room in Hut 49-13, before being moved to another camp, possibly Stalag XIIID (Nuremberg), sometime prior to Luft 7’s evacuation in January 1945.

*

24 DECEMBER 1944. Great was the elation when a truck arrived loaded with Argentine Red Cross food, mainly cheese and sugar. The cheeses, which were about 12 inches high and ‘round in proportion’, were distributed one to approximately every thirty prisoners: ‘With great ceremony we gathered round the table to make the share between the combines. In went the knife, and then, to our shock and utter dismay, the cheese had a huge cavity in the centre and only a 3-inch skin of cheese.’ (Fred Brown.)

Mass was held at 8 pm in the library and at 10.15 pm in the theatre. As a concession, lights stayed on in the barracks until 1.30 am on Christmas Day.

25 DECEMBER 1944. A number of POWs went to Midnight Mass. The only parade of the day took place at 0800 hours. The ice rink was again well used, and a football match took place between ‘Best 11’ and ‘The Rest’.

Padré John Collins wrote home to tell his family about Christmas at Luft 7:

‘It was not at all a bad one considering that Xmas parcels had not arrived. The weather was bright & frosty, with a little snow on the ground, & every room seemed to have its home-made cake, some of which had a disastrous effect on the eaters! For me it was a busy time, which kept me from dwelling too much on the might-have-beens. On Xmas Eve we had a carol service, on the lines of the broadcast from King’s Chapel, Cambridge & then someone had asked for a midnight communion, which I arranged at first in our little chapel; after a bit we thought this might not be big enough & decided on the quiet room; then at the last moment we transferred it to the theatre. Eventually, to my dismay, 200 turned up & I had to get through this number single-handed in time for the R.C’s to hold theirs too! It was an inspiring service; we had candles from the local church & one of our fellows had made a lovely cross & candlesticks; another had made paper flowers & 2 more a crib, on which they had directed the stage lighting. The effect was lovely.’177

There were rumours that the Germans’ Ardennes offensive had been stopped, and that the Russians had taken Kraków. Lights out at 10 pm ‘after a most enjoyable day’.

26 DECEMBER 1944. Parade was held at 10 am. An arts and crafts exhibition was held in the morning. Exhibits included water colours, pencil drawings, oil paintings, models made of soap, wood and tin, embroidery and clothwork, etc. The Australians beat the South Africans 2-0 at soccer.

Trupp 56 (forty to forty-four men) arrived, bringing the total of POWs to 1,508.

*

F/S Paul Decroix was on an armed reconnaissance on the morning of 3 November 1944 looking for active German guns between the waters of the Hollands Diep and Oude Maas. He was flying in Spitfire PV134 in Blue Section of 349 (Belgian) Squadron when the section flew into a heavy flak barrage over Strijensas, a few miles south of Dordrecht in Zuid-Holland. A 20mm shell hit PV134 fair and square in the oil tank and propeller, forcing Paul to land. Captured within half an hour, having been fired at by machine guns and rifles, German troops took him to a Dutch farm, where he was attacked again, this time by RAF rocket-firing Typhoons. His own side had not yet finished trying to eliminate him, for he was then shelled at another farm by British guns.

Paul Hippoliet Decroix, born in Courtrai, Belgium, on 23 March 1921, had moved with his family to Canada in 1929 before settling in the USA. On 28 September 1941 he enrolled in the Belgian Fusiliers (Canada) as a private soldier. Soon on his way to England, he arrived aboard the SS Orcades at Liverpool on 24 November 1941. On 10 June 1942 he joined the RAF as an aircraftman 2nd class, but early in 1943 was back in Canada learning to fly. On 1 February 1944 he was in England again at the AFU at Ternhill, Shropshire, before being posted to 349 (Belgian) Squadron on 1 August 1944, then stationed in Sussex.

Three months later he was a prisoner of the Germans in Holland who, on the night of 3 November, moved him over the River Maas to Dordrecht, and locked him up in a cellar. Taken to a schoolhouse on 4 November, he received the same rations as the soldiers. From there, at 11.30 pm on the night of 6 November, he and eighteen guards walked in torrential rain to Rotterdam, several kilometres away. Soaked to the skin he was given nothing on arrival but half a cup of lukewarm coffee. Put in another, ice-cold, schoolroom, he was held there for the next fortnight, existing on meagre rations of half a loaf of bread, soup at noon, and two cups of coffee per day. Moved to Utrecht, where he was given his first decent meal, he was put in a car with another POW on 21 November and driven to Amersfoort.

Next day they and twenty-seven other prisoners were put on a goods wagon in a space ‘about eight foot square with a bit of dry bread’. A hole was made in the wagon, and five of the prisoners squeezed through, but they made so much noise getting out that the guards heard them and raised the alarm. Paul, sixth in line, never got out, perhaps just as well, for he was told that three of the escapers had been caught and shot.

Twenty-four hours later they were in Oldenzaal, and locked up in a shirt factory. Paul was searched for the third time: ‘Rations were ⅛ of a loaf of bread and as much potato soup as one can eat at noon.’ On 26 November the prisoners were:

‘put on a bus and crossed border into Germany at Gronau. Got on train and went to Dortmund. Saw real bomb damage here. Every building as far as one could see was gutted. Rode through Ruhr changed trains seven times to reach Oberursel... Took thirty hours to do 300 kilo. Here was searched again, given shower, deloused and locked in solitary. Ration two slices bread and jam and cup of coffee in morning, plate of thin soup at noon and two slices of bread and marge and cup of coffee for tea. Was interrogated every day and always kept in solitary. Not allowed to wash or anything.’178

At Dulag Luft Paul met another 349 Squadron pilot, W/O Ken Brant, who had been shot down on 6 October. Also looking for enemy transport Ken, having dived onto a target, pulled-up directly over a gun-post. At barely 200 feet he was a sitting duck for the German gunners. With his propeller also drilled through, Ken landed his badly-vibrating Spitfire in a narrow Dutch field. After a series of close calls with the Dutch underground, he was one of the many evaders and escapers gathered together after the failure at Arnhem to make the crossing of the River Rhine in Operation Pegasus I. Although nearly 140 men were ferried across to safety on the night of 22/23 October 1944 Ken was not one of them, though he did try to swim the cold river. Later captured, he arrived at Dulag Luft on 31 October, though it is unclear why he and others were detained there for the unusually long time of over a month. He went on to Wetzlar on 8 December, two days before Paul.

Germany’s transportation system was under such strain by this time that it took Paul and others fifteen hours on 10 DECEMBER to reach Wetzlar, having had to change trains four times to cover the sixty kilometres from Oberursel. Compared to his earlier, poor diet, Paul was now well fed: ‘Had food parcels here and got ten cigs a day and a bar of chocolate once a week. Felt better than since I was POW.’

Ken was in the group released to Bankau on 14 December. They were at Kassel on 15 December when the US 8th Air Force paid the place a visit. The POW’s train was moved out of the town and, locking the wagon doors, the guards left the prisoners to their fate. The bombing was uncomfortably close, with explosions violently shaking the wagons, but more terrifying was the fact that the Americans were dropping their bombs through overcast skies.179 Happily, the shaken prisoners reached the safety of Luft 7 five days later in Trupp 55.

Paul began the last leg of his long journey to Luft 7 on 23 December. Christmas Day was spent on the train: ‘Very crowded but we had half an American parcel each and were able to make coffee. Did about 400 kilo through southern Germany. Arrived at Bankau on Boxing Day. Were left in station locked in train during air raid. Searched again on arrival at Bankau, Stalag Luft 7.’ Trupp 56 had made it at last.

*

Heilbronn was visited by RAF Bomber Command for the first and only time during the war on the night of 4/5 DECEMBER 1944. The job of flattening a relatively unimportant place on a main railway line was given to 282 Lancasters and ten supporting Mosquitos of 5 Group. In the event, the raid was vastly destructive – over 350 acres of the built-up area were destroyed and over 7,000 inhabitants killed. The damage was not one-sided, though, as thirteen Lancasters failed to return, including PB740, ‘O-Oboe’, 467 (RAAF) Squadron.

O-Oboe had taken off from RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, at 1642 hours on 4 December, an all-RAAF crew bar the RAF flight engineer: P/O J.B. ‘Jack’ Plumridge (pilot); Sgt J.L. ‘Johnny’ Wood (flight engineer) RAF; F/O G.F. Sinden (navigator); F/S J.E. Penman (bomb aimer); F/O G.D. Rawson (wireless operator); F/S C.L. ‘Charlie’ George (mid-upper gunner); and F/S G. ‘Happy’ Hayman (rear gunner).

The bombers’ route to Heilbronn, a few kilometres north of Stuttgart, took them over Strasbourg in liberated France. John Penman:

‘We crossed the lines into German territory in the Strassburg [sic] area shortly after 7 pm and at 7.15 pm, right on zero hour, I saw the illuminating flares and TIs lighting up Heilbronn, our target. About ten minutes from the target we had our first attack, Happy giving us a corkscrew. I heard him firing over the intercom. The fighter broke away and I put Jack onto the “Reds”. We were attacked again. I didn’t hear much but both Happy and Charlie were on the intercom, but after the fighter broke away I never heard Happy again.

‘I put Jack back onto our markers and once again we were attacked, Charlie giving the commentary. After the breakaway I put Jack quickly back onto the TIs and we got a good release. There was a bit of natter all this time and I could see tracer shooting past. We must have got our packet then. I did my panel check and sent Johnny back and resumed windowing. Meanwhile I could hear George Sinden counting off the seconds for the camera steady, when George Rawson’s voice rather urgently started talking about the port motors. I didn’t make out what he said but I put on my ’chute just in case. Then came Jack’s voice “Abandon aircraft – abandon aircraft”. I didn’t delay but it took an interminable time to get the hatch clear and I dived out, forgetting the instructions re helmet etc.

‘I pulled and the ’chute opened – I ripped off my helmet and mask which had twisted around my face and looked around. I could see burning Heilbronn and a kite burning on the ground – I guess it was poor old O-Oboe. Then I saw the ground and prepared for it and landed safely and rolled in a ploughed field – it was just before 8 pm.’

John Penman was not to know it at the time, but he was the only survivor. Gone in an instant were his six comrades, their average age only twenty, shot down at 7.33 pm, ten to fifteen kilometres south of Heilbronn, by Oberleutnant Peter Spoden, Stab II./NJG6, for his fifteenth victory. Spoden would claim two more Lancasters – PD373 (44 Squadron) and LM259 (227 Squadron) – within the next nine minutes.

John Penman had lost one of his flying boots when his parachute opened and, having hidden his equipment under a bush, fashioned a slipper out of his surviving boot for the other foot. At a village a few hundred yards away, most of its inhabitants were out in the street watching the end of the raid on Heilbronn and, though John attracted a few glances, he was nearly clear of the far end of the village when ‘I found my way barred again by two bods in NFS outfit. I had no alternative but to try and brazen it through in the dark. However, I must have been conspicuous abroad during the alert, because they challenged me. I grunted in reply and apparently aroused suspicion as I was immediately seized and taken into the nearest house.’

He was not badly treated, indeed he was given a glass of lager, and as he was being taken outside indicated that he would like one of the buns that he saw on a nearby tray. Instead of a bun he ‘received half a dozen hefty kicks in the pants from an evil-looking, black-haired brute who later similarly treated me’. He was marched down the road to the Bürgermeister’s office and thrown into the gaol. One German who had learnt a little English when he was a prisoner in the First World War tried to question John, who kept repeating “Nix verstehn” (“Don’t understand”). The Germans gave up at this point ‘and left me alone. I had a straw mattress on a cot, two light blankets and some canvas. I rolled myself in these coverings and slept well!’

John spent the next six days in the gaol, and was usually well treated, except by the black-haired brute who gave him ‘a hefty sock over the head’ for refusing to answer questions. On the evening of 9 DECEMBER the gaol’s caretaker secretly took John back to his house ‘for supper with him and his wife. I shared their meal – soup, a square inch of meat, helped myself to bread, butter and jam, and then some white “cake” loaf. Café au lait and some red wine. I stayed listening to the radio until about 9pm.’ For a nation that had been so utterly brainwashed into such a brutal hatred of the Terrorflieger, this was a truly remarkable act of kindness by the caretaker and his wife.

On 11 December, as two Luftwaffe men collected him from the gaol, John was told by the German former POW that his aircraft ‘had been found with five bodies’. On that sad note John and his Luftwaffe escort walked to Heilbronn, a distance of about ten kilometres, ‘pretty grim in the snow in my slippers’. At the Bürgermeister’s office, whither taken, he met Sergeant John J. Willis.180 The two guards then took the two airmen through the ruins of Heilbronn to the damaged railway station, where they caught a train to Hessenthall, several kilometres north. From the station it was a mile or so to the nearby Luftwaffe aerodrome, where they were locked into cells for the night: ‘Here we got bread and soup, interrogated at 8pm and 1am – unsuccessfully. Each cell had a heater, stool and board bed – no palliasse or blankets.’ Also there was another POW, simply referred to by John as ‘Ted’ (possibly F/S Edward L. Wolff).

After a hasty meal of bread and margarine the three airmen were ‘rushed off to the station with three guards’. They travelled through the night and on through the next day (13 December) until, after ‘nine trains in twenty-four hours’ they reached Oberursel. After a depressing time there John Penman was moved to Wetzlar on 17 December ‘with thirty-eight others, mainly Yanks’, and on 23 December entrained, with forty-two RAF NCOs (including John Willis, Edward Wolff, and Paul Decroix), for Bankau.

*

Another to leave Wetzlar on 23 December was F/S H.W. ‘Hank’ Pankratz RCAF. He was on his sixth operation when shot down on 6/7 December 1944 (Osnabrück) in Halifax NP945, 424 Squadron. He and his crew were on their way home from the target when a night-fighter set the Halifax on fire. The skipper, F/O D.L.C. McCullough RCAF, gave the order to bale out. Third to leave was Hank, but only after his parachute had opened inside the aircraft. Nevertheless, he managed to jump from the aircraft, which was now effectively out of control: ‘I hung in the air, stationary it seemed, for a long time. Falling not far away from me was a big ball of fire. It was the aircraft I had just vacated, and a moment later it blew up and went hurtling to the ground.’181 It took with it the pilot and both gunners.

Hank, landing in the darkness and the cold December rain with a bit of a thump, wrapped his parachute around him, and decided to stay put until daylight. He had a vague idea that he must have fallen near the German-Dutch border, for he remembered the navigator saying as much to the pilot just before the fighter attack. Going to a nearby farmhouse German-speaking Hank was welcomed by the farmer and his family, who told him that he was near the town of Uelsen, half a dozen kilometres from the Dutch border. Although the family were Germans, they were fed up with the war and wanted to hide Hank until it was all over. They mentioned, however, that a woman who lived with them was a strong Nazi sympathiser and so, when the decision was taken to hand Hank over to the authorities, the farmer duly escorted him to the police station in Uelsen, just over a kilometre away.

As there was no jail there Hank was marched off past a jeering mob to Hellingo, where there was a prison, and was locked in his own cell. Hearing a voice from a nearby cell shouting “I’m hungry”, he recognised it as that of his bomb aimer, F/O A.A.J. Low RCAF. After a loud, shouted conversation – the walls were thick – Hank learnt that Sgt Robert Atkinson, their flight engineer, was also with Low, the two having found each other soon after landing, with both having lost their flying boots. They, nevertheless, managed to walk for five or six agonising miles in their socks before they were captured.

An hour or so later the three airmen were bundled onto the back of a lorry, which they shared with three coffins. Convinced that the coffins were for them, they were driven for miles before turning off the main road. This, they thought, was it! In fact, the Germans were only collecting more coffins which, judging by the effort required to load them, had bodies in them. In due course the airmen were deposited at a Luftwaffe airfield near Lingen, where they were joined by their navigator, F/O A.M. Garner RCAF, who had a badly-sprained ankle, and was all in. When he said that the Germans had told him that three of their crew had been killed, it dawned on Hank that the first three coffins had contained the bodies of his pilot and the two gunners.

With eight others, the prisoners were taken back to Lingen and put on a train. Stopping at Salzbergen, a few kilometres down the line, they had to wait twelve hours for another train, which took them to Minden, over 100 kilometres distant. It was packed, and the airmen were forced to stand all the way – if they tried to sit down German soldiers and other passengers kicked them. Another change of trains at Minden took them to Hannover, where they arrived at around 6 am on the second day of their journey. The city was still in flames in places following earlier bombing, and the locals, decidedly unfriendly, gave the guards a hard time as they protected their prisoners.

Leaving unscathed for Göttingen, a long way south, they again changed trains, at the junction at Bebra, for the final run to Frankfurt-am-Main. It was now about 5 am on the third day of their travels, and they, ‘along with a score of other prisoners who had been waiting there, were herded into a street car which took us to a small town called Oberursel’.

Hank recalls that he was interrogated by a German who said that his name was Nicholas Hall. He also told Hank that he had lived in England for fifteen years, had graduated from Oxford and had married an English girl. Furthermore, he had been shot down over England earlier in the war, had been held in a POW camp in northern Ontario, Canada, and had been brought back to Germany in an exchange of prisoners. Whether any of this was true, Hank was unable to tell, but in the course of the interrogation Hank realised that the German seemed to know more about the RAF and RCAF than he did.

With about forty-five others, mostly USAAF NCOs, Hank went to the transit camp at Wetzlar. Four days later, with forty-three others – mostly RAF this time, he headed for Bankau. The journey was, as ever, slow, and it was not until 1 pm on the afternoon of 26 DECEMBER that the train pulled in to Bankau station.

*

‘It is with the deepest regret that I have to confirm the news already conveyed to you, that your son, A.410929 Warrant Officer R. Whiddon, failed to return from an operational flight over enemy territory. He was the wireless operator of an aircraft which took part in an attack on Osnabrück on the night of the 6th December, 1944. As a result of an emergency which occurred over the target area, your son, together with two of his companions, saw fit to abandon the aircraft. The captain, however, managed to overcome the emergency and landed safely at a British aerodrome with the remaining members of the crew.’182

The tone of this letter, to Reginald Whiddon’s father, is clear enough, that a dim view was taken of the three crew who ‘saw fit to abandon the aircraft’ – Halifax NP962, 51 Squadron – leaving the rest to their fate. On 9 December the squadron commander sent a letter to the Under Secretary of State at the Air Ministry in London giving further details of the incident:

‘The outward trip was uneventful, but at 19.45 hours whilst running into the target the starboard inner engine began to give trouble. He [P/O F. Fairweather, the pilot] decided not to feather the engine until the bombs had been dropped and in fact the bombs went at 19.46 hours. At 19.47 hours the Captain ordered the Engineer to feather the Starboard Inner. Whilst the Starboard Inner was being feathered the engine over-revved, and while the Captain and Engineer were dealing with this the Captain noticed that a severe draught was blowing through the aircraft, and at 19.48 hours the Engineer reported to the captain that the Wireless Operator [Whiddon], Navigator [F/S David J. Jenkins] and Bomb Aimer [F/S Robert Allen] had left the aircraft and that the main forward escape hatch was open.’

With the hatch closed, Fairweather and the three remaining crew set an emergency course for England, losing height all the way until crossing the English coast at 2,000 feet ‘at approximately 22.00 hours’ and landing at the first aerodrome they saw. Fairweather reported that he was convinced that, at the time of the short emergency, he had not given any order that might have been misconstrued as an order to bale out. The letter to the Under Secretary of State ended: ‘It would seem that the only conclusion that can be drawn is that one or more of the three men who left the aircraft on hearing the Starboard Inner engine over-revving thought that the aircraft was out of control and abandoned without orders.’

Whiddon, Allen and Jenkins also arrived at Luft 7 in Trupp 56.

*

The arrival at Bankau of Warrant Officer David De Renzy RNZAF marked the end, temporarily, of a long journey. Sailing from New Zealand, his native country, he underwent training in Canada before joining 488 (NZ) Squadron at Bradwell Bay, Essex, England. Some while later he collected a new Mosquito aircraft, and he and his navigator, NZ.416214 W/O Rex Frederick Cottrell RNZAF, flew it to Algiers in North Africa, and were thereafter detached to 256 Squadron, with its night-flying Mosquitos, at Alghero on Sardinia. One of the squadron’s roles was to hunt for Luftwaffe bombers over France.

On the evening of 2 July 1944 RAF intelligence suggested that David and Rex should make their way to an area near Lyon, France, and patrol a certain wooded area to await returning Ju88 bombers. Taking off at around 7.30 to 8 pm in Mosquito NF.XIII HK399, JT-D, they flew to the suggested location, unaware that the Germans had installed a flak battery in the immediate vicinity. Flying below 500 feet, they presented an easy target to the enemy gunners. With the Mosquito’s engines and cockpit ablaze, Rex baled out. David, though, was so busy with the aircraft that he never saw him leave, and by the time he thought about baling out he was too low, and was left with no choice but to effect a landing as best he could in the dark.

Seeing both light and dark patches on the ground, and correctly assuming that the light ones were open ground and the dark ones were trees, David ‘headed for the largest light patch and cut my throttles. I touched down quite nicely and was lucky enough to finish just in front of some trees.’

He had landed between the towns of Faramans and Bourg-St Christophe, some thirty kilometres north east of Lyon, in the Ain Département. In his own words he...

‘was not in very good shape but I had enough sense to walk away when the cannon shells started exploding. I managed to find a French farmhouse where I was bandaged with torn-up sheets, filled up with wine and put to bed. I woke the next morning feeling it was my duty to escape but only managed to fall down a flight of stairs. The owners were kindness itself, but they insisted that I was in need of hospital treatment.

‘I was taken by the Germans to a hospital in Lyon where treatment was minimal in the extreme. After a month I was sent to hospital in Dijon where the German doctor, although lacking in equipment, was at least kindly. When my wounds healed I was sent to Germany, but for some reason I spent a few days in a nunnery at Donaueschingen, where I had my twenty-first birthday.

‘I went from there to a holding camp at Rottweil183 and then the usual places –

interrogation at Oberursel, holding camp at Wetzlar, and finally prison camp.’

Rex, however, had been killed after baling out, and was buried in the Lyon-La Guillotière Cemetery, before being re-interred at La Doua national cemetery at Villeurbanne. Rex, too, was only 21.

*

In late August 1944, radar operator 919538 Corporal Albert Austin was posted from an RAF radar station in Norfolk to join a new unit that was forming at RAF Harwell – No. 6080 Light Warning Unit (LWU). Forming at the same time was No. 6341 LWU, both units under the command of W/C John Laurence Brown MBE, known throughout the intimate world of controllers as ‘The Great Brown’.

During the planning of Operation Market Garden, intelligence had learnt of the presence in the Arnhem area of German Ju88 night-fighters which, it was thought, would pose a threat to the proposed Arnhem bridgehead. To counter this, therefore, two LWUs with their mobile-radar sets would be flown in by glider on the first lift to act as forward director posts for a flight of night-flying Beaufighters. A landing strip would be built clear of the drop zones used on the first lift and between Wolfheze and Oosterbeek. Once the radar equipment had been brought in by RAF glider, US Waco gliders would then bring in the necessary rolls of wire mesh and engineers to build the airstrip for the Beaufighters. S/Sgt John Kennedy GPR thought that ‘the whole operation appeared… to have been very hastily conceived’.

Whether or not a correct summation, matters were certainly not helped when, on 16 September, the day before the first lift to Arnhem was due to take place, forty gliders were earmarked for General ‘Boy’ Browning’s HQ to be flown over on the first lift. Of lower priority, the LWUs were cancelled. This did not please ‘The Great Brown’, however, who pleaded with General Browning for the two LWUs to be reinstated on the first lift, but the best deal he could get was that they would be included on the second lift, on 18 September.

A highly-experienced radar controller working with ground control interception (GCI) sets, Brown had had a highly successful tour at Sopley GCI, where he controlled the first successful night interception of a German bomber, on the night of 26 February 1941.184 It was to Sopley on 7 May 1941 that King George VI paid a visit. Brown was concentrating on vectoring the night-fighter of John Cunningham and his radio operator Jimmy Rawnsley onto an enemy bomber when the king leant forward to ask Brown a question – and was promptly told to shut up!

Brown then had a long run of successes with the Beaufighters of 604 Squadron at RAF Middle Wallop, and it was for this that he was awarded the MBE.¹⁸⁵ He joined the Americans in the North African landings in November 1942, before taking part in the invasions of Sicily and Italy in July 1943. Recalled for the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, he had spent a very uncomfortable time on an American ship that had stuck fast on a sandbank and which had then been shelled for twenty-four hours before it was towed off. Although officially on the Air Staff of 85 (Base) Group (2nd Tactical Air Force), for the impending Arnhem operation he was attached as Liaison Officer to 38 Group (Air Defence of Great Britain).

On 17 September W/C Brown flew to Nijmegen on the River Waal, a dozen kilometres south of Arnhem, not with his LWU personnel but with General Browning’s Corps HQ in a GPR ‘A’ Squadron Horsa glider, which came down in an orchard. It was sheer bad luck that just as W/C Brown had gone back to his glider to retrieve his sleeping-bag a number of Bf109s strafed the landing zone, wounding The Great Brown. Dying of his wounds on the following day thus passed, in the words of a fellow controller, ‘probably the most famous GCI controller of the war’.¹⁸⁶

As for the LWUs themselves, five officers and twenty airmen were flown over in the second lift, in four gliders of ‘A’ Squadron GPR, the four gliders bearing Chalk Numbers 5000 to 5003 inclusive (the number marked in chalk on the side of the glider for identification). As a result of the day’s delay in flying them in they would suffer the catastrophic loss of one officer and eight airmen killed in action. All those aboard Chalk 5003 were killed when the glider’s tail was shot off and it plunged into the ground. A further eleven airmen were taken prisoner of war, including Albert Austin, who had been severely wounded. He was in a glider with the officer commanding 6080 LWU, twenty-eight-year-old S/L H.W. Coxon. In the same glider were 1st Lieutenant Bruce Davis USAAF; F/S Semon ‘Blondie’ Lievense RCAF (from 6110 Servicing Echelon); LAC Roffer James Eden; and LAC G.R. Thomas. Bruce Davis, a ground controller from the US IXth Air Force, who ‘decided to go along in case American fighters were used’, was there to act as a liaison between the RAF ground stations and their opposite numbers of the 306th Fighter Control Squadron. In the event, only five LWU personnel returned to Allied lines from Arnhem having evaded capture: Coxon and Davis (see below); and three from 6341 LWU – S/L Wheeler; F/L Richardson; and LAC W.H. Scott.

The Stirling tugs for the personnel and heavy wireless equipment of the two LWUs were provided by four crews of 295 and 570 Squadrons from RAF Harwell. Coxon briefly mentioned in his MI9 interrogation report that their ‘tug was shot down. We cast off and crash landed at Randwijk.’ Coxon and company were aboard glider Chalk 5000, which was flown by S/Sgt ‘Lofty’ Cummings and Sgt Jimmy McInnes, ‘A’ Squadron, GPR. Their tug, Stirling LK121, 570 Squadron, flown by P/O C.W. Culling, crashed near a farm at Opheusden, with all the crew losing their lives.

A dozen kilometres west of Arnhem the Chalk 5000 men joined forces with the personnel of two other gliders that had landed nearby. They had with them ‘a field gun, a couple of jeeps and motorcycles’. Unable to move all the heavy LWU material, however, Albert Austin was ordered to destroy the radar equipment by Sten-gun fire. As the other glider similarly loaded with radar parts had been lost when its tail was shot off, there were now no radar units to operate.

With the help of the Dutch Resistance the group, as previously instructed, made their way to division HQ at the Hartenstein Hotel in Arnhem. On the morning of 19 September the Germans began a fearful mortar bombardment. When the radio jeep of the American Air Support team on loan to HQ was damaged, Lieutenant Davis asked thirty-one-year-old LAC Roffer Eden to repair it but, as he did so, another salvo of mortar bombs was launched, and a splinter severed Eden’s jugular vein. Davis applied first aid, but to no avail. His wife was now a widow.

Another of several Jews to perish at Arnhem was W/O Mark Azouz DFC, pilot of Stirling LJ810, 196 Squadron, which, hit by flak on 21 September 1944, was then attacked by four or five FW190s: ‘He kept the plane in the air whilst all but one of his crew (the rear gunner, [F/S P.H. Bode]) escaped. It being Yom Kippor, he could have taken leave that day but refused as men at Arnhem were waiting for supplies.’187 He was killed before his DFC was announced in the London Gazette on 27 October 1944.

Moments after Eden had been hit there was a second fatality when F/S Lievense RCAF was hit in the back by three splinters from an 88mm shell burst. The shelling continued, and another burst caught Albert Austin, who ‘was hit three times, in the head, the back and the buttocks and had to be taken to a hospital that was in German hands’.¹⁸⁸

As to the others of Chalk 5000, both Coxon and Davis evaded capture when the time came to evacuate Arnhem on 25 September. Coxon was one of the many waiting on the banks of the Rhine to be ferried across to safety but, as there were insufficient boats, he swam across. Sent to Brussels, he was flown back to England on 28 September, and was debriefed on the following day.

As Bruce Davis had been hit in the foot and had damaged his hip on 20 September, all that he ‘could do from now on was to man a Sten gun from a window’. Despite his wounds he, too, found his way to safety when the time came to leave. He had met up with Marek Swiecicki, a Polish war correspondent attached to the Polish Parachute Brigade, who had gone in with them on the second Arnhem lift. Swiecicki wrote: ‘Bruce Davis is an optimist, and a friend of mine. As an optimist he had been declaring for a day or two past that the Second Army was some three miles away. As a friend he had brought me exultantly a single biscuit from an American field ration… We all had thick growths of hair, and Bruce with his beard looked like an old, bearded monk.’¹⁸⁹ On the night of 25/26 September 1944 they withdrew from the north bank of the River Lek under cover of artillery fire from the British Second Army.

LAC Thomas, the last of Chalk 5000 to be mentioned, was also wounded and, captured, went to Stalag IVB (Mühlberg).

Albert Austin, meanwhile, was sent to the hospital at Stalag XIB (Fallingbostel), and then to Luft 7. Joining him there was LAC David Foster, also of 6080 LWU, who had been in the group with Albert and the others when they were shelled. Hit by splinters to his upper right arm, right hand (splinters still there many years later), right knee and back, David Foster was taken to a first-aid post. Though his injuries were not fatal, S/L Coxon had reported at his interrogation after his safe return that David Foster had been killed. As a result, David’s mother received a telegram saying that her son had been killed in action on 22 September. It was not until 10 October that she was informed, via the local constabulary, that he was a prisoner of war.

Also turning up at Luft 7 in various Truppen were three of No. 6341 LWU’s personnel: Sgt Edmund ‘Ted’ Quigley; LAC S. Britland; and LAC B.B. Mowat RCAF. Writing to his brother on 31 May 1945, shortly after his return to England, Ted Quigley briefly described the events leading up to his capture:

‘I was in the do at Arnhem last September and now it appears that out of twenty-four of us only five for certain, and possibly three others, remain alive. It was a ghastly experience, and the twenty-seven hours or so I was at large seem like a nightmare now. The Jerries gave us a very hot reception and did their damndest to obliterate the lot of us in record time.’

Having landed in a potato field, Ted dragged a comrade, LAC Young, who had been wounded in the leg, to the safety of a hedge, but they were caught next morning when German tanks appeared over the field. In the confusion, Ted can be forgiven for believing that LWU casualties were so high.

Back in England after his evasion LAC W.H. Scott contacted William Samwells, father of LAC Eric A. Samwells, to ask for Eric’s whereabouts, saying that he ‘was with Eric four days & then lost contact with him. After a patrol they went on, he seems to think the last he saw of Eric he was bending over a chap who had been hit, as he (Eric) was carrying the first-aid kit.’

Then, early in June 1945, Ted Quigley, who had managed to get home a little earlier than some of the others, received a letter from William Samwells, asking about Eric:

‘I was very pleased to hear you are safely back in the old country & free from hateful captivity. I only wish I could tell you the same about Eric. Unfortunately he is completely untraceable. I believe they accounted for every one of the crew, except him, either POW or killed in action… I still clung to the hope that Eric might turn up when the ex POW were brought back, but I am afraid that hope has gone now. I only hope if he has been taken it was quick.’

One cannot even begin to imagine the anguish that must have been felt by William Samwells and his wife who had heard nothing about their son’s fate for nine months. Desperate for any news of him, William wrote: ‘…anything is better now than this awful suspense’. Sadly, Eric had long since been killed, on 22 September 1944, the very day on which LAC Scott last saw him.

*

27 DECEMBER 1944. Cold, but bright and sunny. There was another air raid just after midday. As ordered, all POWs were confined to their huts until the all clear had sounded. At around 12.30 pm the wail of air raid sirens was heard in the distance. Believing that that was the all clear for the camp, twenty-year-old Sergeant Leslie Howard Stevenson RCAF left barrack 52, Room 14, apparently to go to the latrines. But what he and everyone else had heard was the all clear sounding at Kreuzburg, some seven or eight kilometres away.

Two fellow prisoners, realising this, tried to attract Stevenson’s attention, but were too late. Camp Leader Peter Thomson was standing at the west-facing window of his barrack hut when he:

‘heard one of the guards, standing on the road outside the camp, call out and at the same time he raised his rifle and fired. I immediately looked through the other [south-facing] window in my room and saw a body, later found to be Sgt Stevenson, lying on the ground about thirty feet or maybe more from the door of one of the barracks. The guard raised his rifle to fire again and I called through the window and told him to stop at once. Stevenson managed to get on to his hands and knees and crawl back to the steps of the barracks where he was helped in by some of the inmates.’190

Den Blackford was reading by the window of his hut when he heard the shot. Looking out, he ‘saw a chap lying outside on the ground, over by 8 Division. As we watched him he lifted his head and then rolled over and started to crawl. He got to his feet and sort of staggered towards 8 Division. One of the chaps in the building ran out waving a white handkerchief and reached him just as he was falling.’

Syd Barlow was another witness to the shooting: ‘1 was only 6 feet away, and also running to go to the toilets on the other side of the parade ground. The cold-water pipes had frozen on our side of the camp... When the all clear went most of us dashed out to pay a call, but for two or three days the only ablutions were on the far side of the square.’

As soon as they could, Den Blackford and several others went to try to help Stevenson, only to find ‘that the bullet had gone through his chest on the left side and out again underneath his right shoulder blade’. With Stevenson’s chest opened by the fatal bullet, part of his right lung was hanging out, both lungs having been pierced. Captain Howatson RAMC, who had been hastily summoned to Hut 52 by Peter Thomson, found the still-conscious Canadian lying on a bed with some of the men endeavouring to give him first aid. The padré was there, too, and Stevenson asked him to pray for his family, especially his mother and father, saying: ‘I send my love to mother, father, and brothers and sisters. Tell her I love her.’

While Thomson went to ask the Germans for an ambulance, Stevenson was removed on a stretcher to the camp’s Revier (hospital), but died half an hour later. No ambulance was forthcoming. Stevenson’s personal effects, just one fountain pen, were sent to the camp at Meiningen. His parents were informed that he had died in an air raid.

From enquiries made by Peter Thomson it was discovered that the guard’s name was Dollesal, and that he was from Dortmund, but no description of the man was ever forthcoming. Apparently, to avoid any retribution from the prisoners, the Camp Commandant told the POWs that Dollesal was to be immediately posted.

As one of the Canadians said: ‘This latest incident has shook up the whole camp.’

28 DECEMBER 1944. Weather fine and cold. 500 Argentinian Red Cross parcels issued.

There was yet another local air raid. When the all clear sounded in the camp, none of the POWs dared to leave his barrack hut: ‘Our Confidence man finally came around and said it was okay. Even then we didn’t trust the Jerries. Tensions in the camp continued to increase. We didn’t know what to expect.’ (John McConnell.)

29 DECEMBER 1944. A post mortem examination of Stevenson revealed that ‘death was due to being shot through the right breast, left epigastrium [upper central region of the abdomen], with injuries to the liver, stomach, spleen and diaphragm.’ (Library and Archives Canada.)

30 DECEMBER 1944. Heavy snow; very cold. A short service for Stevenson was held in the open at 7.30 am at Kreuzburg Cemetery. The funeral party comprised, inter alia, Frank Bishop, Bill Chandler RCAF, and Allan MacNaught RCAF. The guard Ludwig brought a wreath. The bugler tried to play The Last Post, but his spit froze in his bugle. Snow fell on bowed heads as Stevenson was buried in Field 10, Grave 68, Kreuzburg Cemetery.

After the war, no trace of the grave could be found. The cemetery had been obliterated by ‘vandals, believed to be either Russian or Polish. All crosses and grave markings had been removed and cemetery records destroyed.’191 Stevenson is now commemorated on Panel 255 of the Runnymede Memorial.

31 DECEMBER 1944. Heavy snow all day. The Germans wanted to put all Jewish prisoners in a hut by themselves. The whole camp said ‘No’, and for the time being the status quo prevailed.

Lights remained on in the barracks until 1 am on New Year’s Day.