CHAPTER TWELVE

19 JANUARY-5 FEBRUARY, 1945: EVACUATION

The following table, showing the route of the march from Bankau to Goldberg, is largely based on ‘best evidence’ from a number of diaries kept by the POWs, and from a 2009 Michelin map of Poland (scale 1:300,000). The times given for departures and arrivals are approximate, and vary according to a person’s position in the long column of march – those at the front obviously left a lot earlier, and arrived earlier, than those at the rear. Where there was insufficient room for the entire column to stay the night in a certain place, other accommodation was found as close by as possible, as would appear to have been the case on the night of 21/22 January 1945. Distances, too, vary, with some diaries giving a total walked of 256 kilometres (160 miles).

There is consensus as to the route taken on the first day, but that taken on the second and third days is less clear, as some of the diaries tend to differ one from the other not only as to dates and times but also as to place names. One author, for example, noted Beurich and Akzleuz, neither of which appears on the modern map, but which may have been Buchitz and Alzenau. The picture becomes less clear beyond Karlsruhe late on the evening of 20 January (Day 2). Most diarists mention the short halt at Karlsmarkt (Karłowice in Polish), and it is more or less clear that, once across the Oder river, the next stop was at Buchitz (Buszyce) and also at Dom Waldhaus, on 21 January (Day 3). The Oder was crossed by the bridge between Alt Poppelau (Popielów) and Nikoline (Mikolin).

The march continued on the morning of 22 January (Day 4). The Thomson/Howatson joint report204 mentions stopping at Schönfeld (Obórki) on the evening of 22 January, others that the stop was at Gross Jenkwitz (Jankowice Wielkie), three kilometres to the south. The likely route for the column to have taken from Nikoline to Schönfeld was via Schurgast, Buchitz, Lossen, Johnsdorf (Janów), Alzenau (Olszanka), and Kreisewitz (Krzyzowice). The distance from Karlsruhe (Pokój) to Schönfeld was (and still is) around thirty-seven kilometres.

Some of the column passed through Schönfeld on 23 January (Day 5), which suggests that they spent the night elsewhere (i.e. Gross Jenkwitz) before going via Konradswaldau (Przylesie), Zindel (Mlodoszowice), another Bankau, and Körchendorf (Kucharzowice) to Wansen (Wiazów).

The route from Wansen to the train at Goldberg (Złotoryja) – with stops at Heidersdorf, Pfaffendorf, Standorf, Peterwitz and Prausnitz – is not in dispute, nor is the track taken by the train to Luckenwalde in Germany.

*

FRIDAY, 19 JANUARY 1945 – DAY 1. A bitterly cold wind blew from the south-east when the camp was paraded at 4 am in readiness for the evacuation. The men were to march off in ‘divisions’, each hut being a division. With the sound of gunfire in the distance to the east, the head of the 1,565-strong column of prisoners shuffled out of the camp two or three hours later, pulling their precious food ration and other treasured possessions on hastily-prepared sledges or carrying them in packs and sacks. Leading the way were the cookhouse staff, pulling a sled with emergency Red Cross rations and the POW records on it. Some of the musicians, Bob Burns among them, took their musical instruments. With guards counting the prisoners as they left, it took over an hour and a half for the last man to clear the camp gates, by which time those at the front were already a mile up the road. With guards and dogs every twenty yards or so, the Germans were taking no chances, though anyone foolish enough to escape in the harsh winter conditions would have stood little chance of surviving for long on his own. Heading in the same direction as the prisoners were scores of refugees, fleeing before ‘Uncle Joe’, and these poor souls, too, were pushing, pulling or carrying all their last remaining worldly possessions.

*

Back at the camp the guards had failed to notice in all the confusion that Sergeants Winton and Darwin, crew mates shot down in September 1941, were missing. When two recent arrivals had died and graves had been dug for them, Peter Darwin and Andrew Winton came up with the idea of having two extra ‘graves’ dug: ‘Such was the shambles generally around us, with the wounded being carried to over-loaded wagons and the walking wounded being helped to the parade for counting, that we were able to slip our gear into the graves, slide in ourselves, were covered, and the grass sod carefully laid on top.’²⁰⁵ It was bitterly cold under the earth.

Only when he heard the guards opening and closing doors to the huts, and then silence, did Andrew push away the covering clods of earth ‘and looked at the sky… I eased my cold body out into the warm air. There was no movement from Pete.’ No wonder, for he was frozen stiff. Quickly pulling him out, Andrew rolled him on the grass until there was some sign of life. Regaining some feeling in their limbs the two made their way to the cookhouse, reasoning that that would be the warmest place in the camp. After a long, warm drink, and having each donned a pair of overalls to make themselves look like workmen, they headed out of the camp.

After five kilometres or so they came to a house. A knock on the door was answered by a woman to whom nothing they could say in English, French or German had any effect. But when Andrew took a calculated gamble and quietly said ‘Baranowski’, she suddenly sprang into action. Shouting to someone in the house, her husband and daughter appeared, and the two airmen were pulled inside.

W/O Tadeusz ‘Baron’ Baranowski PAF had been with Andrew and Pete at Stalags VIIIB and 383 before they all moved to Luft 7 on 30 July 1944. Baranowski, a Polish Spitfire pilot on 317 Squadron, had been shot down into the English Channel on 30 DECEMBER 1941. He described his subsequent capture in a rubber dinghy thus: ‘I sit on the water. Water is all I see. I listen. What do I hear? A ploop, ploop. I move my foot. A hole in the boat! I put my finger in the hole… water stops. Then I think, what if little fish come and bite my finger? Then boat comes and here I am.’206

As it happened, Luft 7 was not all that far from his parents’ home. Understandably anxious to see how they were, ‘Baron’ planned to escape, with Andrew’s help. They selected a spot in a corner of the wire, ‘where two poles were only two yards apart. This meant that the position of the watchtower lights threw a heavy shadow under the double wire lasting for forty-seven seconds before swinging away and then coming back.’ (Winton, p.123). Despite a patrolling guard with his dog, Baron temporarily escaped, while Andrew covered his tracks by bending the cut wire back into place.

By chance it would seem that Andrew and Pete had stumbled upon a Polish family who knew, or who knew of, the Baranowski family. In due course the two escapers were escorted to Warsaw and, with the help of Polish railway workers, were put onto a goods train. After several hours travelling hopefully in the direction of the Black Sea port of Odessa, they got off when the train came to a halt in a siding in the middle of nowhere. Spending the night in a hay barn, they awoke in the morning to see a Russian armoured column heading towards them, and joined it in the advance to the Oder river. A female Russian tank commander insisted that Andrew, a Scotsman, celebrate Burns Night by reciting The Bard’s poetry, which she translated to an approving gallery of hardened tank men.

After the column’s tanks and assorted vehicles had been ferried across the Oder by barge, the two RAF men were in a van looking for working parties to join when, as they entered a small town looking for something to eat, shots rang out, and their Russian van driver was killed. Discretion being the better part of valour Andrew and Peter rapidly abandoned the vehicle. After three days hiding in a cellar they had had enough, and on 1 February joined a long column of resting prisoners at Peterwitz. To their amazement, they had rejoined the column from Bankau!

*

The main column, meanwhile, having left Bankau, plodded on in the icy wind through Kreuzburg (Kluczbork) to Konstadt (Wołczyn), walking past dead horses, shattered tanks and vehicles. It was not long before tired men began to discard much of their unwanted impedimenta: ‘It was impossible to keep in line and march steadily. The roads were coated with ice and the wind kept blowing across the road’ (Keith Campbell). There was a brief stop at 11.30 am, long enough to eat some bread and jam or whatever was at hand, and to smoke a cigarette. As these were beginning to run out, some resorted to the German tea leaves, better smoked than drunk.

At Konstadt the column turned south-west, away from Brieg and towards Winterfeld (Zawisc). At around 5 pm that evening, having covered some twenty-eight kilometres, they halted, having walked ‘under extremely trying weather conditions and severe cold’.²⁰⁷ Most of the men, packed into sheds and barns, burrowed into what little straw there was in an attempt to warm up. George Cross and about fifty others were put into a barn which they thought was rather crowded but would just about do – until another 150 were pushed in.

Sgt Doug Grant RCAF recalled that he and his mates couldn’t ‘find room to get in out of the snow’ so knocked on the door of a house. The lady of the house, knowing perfectly well who they were, let them in. She was sympathetic, even though she ‘had lost two sons over London’. She made them sleep in the loft, and fed them gruel, but insisted that they kept absolutely quiet as Major Peschel was billetted in the house too! As Doug said: ‘Now there was a very brave woman and God bless her!’

Less fortunate were Harold Bennett and W/O Harold ‘Ginger’ Holmes. Finding the barn they were in to be too crowded they ‘slept in snow outside – boots wet and frozen solid’. And Bill Cleeve, unable to get into the barn to which he had been allocated, ‘spent the night huddled up in the doorway absolutely frozen’. Ben Couchman ‘slept (?) sitting up’.

SATURDAY, 20 JANUARY – DAY 2. Gunfire could still be clearly heard when the second day began in a howling gale at around 4 am (it had subsided by noon). After a rough count of the POWs the guards realised that six men were missing. Just in case they were still hiding in the barns, they gave them a good burst of machine-gun fire, but the six were long gone.208 They were soon caught by members of the Volkssturm and sent to Stalag VIIIC at Brieg. It was not long, though, before that camp, too, was evacuated, and they escaped once again by hiding in a cellar. Soon liberated by the Russians, they were repatriated in due course to the UK via Odessa.²⁰⁹

Another man, unidentified, was apparently left behind with a broken leg when the bulk of the frozen POWs, their clothes covered in frost, and with no issue of food or drink, set off at around 6 am on the short march into about six inches of snow. Even though it was only ten kilometres from Winterfeld to Karlsruhe-im-Oberschlessien (Pokój), it still took five or six hours to cover that distance. By 11 am the men were billetted in a disused brick factory where, for the first time since leaving Luft 7, they were allowed to light fires for a brew. The field kitchen that accompanied the column produced, for some, welcome cups of acorn coffee. Norman Oates, though, has no recollection that he ever received any food: ‘All I can remember was wandering aimlessly round the brickyard trying to find somewhere to rest.’

Everyone was feeling sorry for himself, including the guard dogs which ‘covered the farm entrance. Who wanted to escape?’

Later in the day Oberstleutnant Behr informed the Camp Leader, Peter Thomson, that they had to cross the Oder (Odra) river that same night as sappers were preparing to blow it up early next morning. Thomson and Howatson ‘protested against further marching until the men were adequately fed and rested’. But the Germans were in no mood for arguing, and said ‘that it was an order and must be complied with’.

Canadian Laird MacLean noted: ‘At the moment we are stopped in a factory in Carlsruhe [sic]. Tonight we hit the road again. We have no smokes or food, so we can just pray that something turns up. Most of the boys are half dead now.’

David De Renzy, still suffering from burns incurred when his Mosquito had crashed in flames (see page 215), found the going hard: ‘On the march I had quite a bit of difficulty in keeping up as, like many others, I had not fully recovered and, in addition, I had effective use of only one arm.’ It was a measure of his poor condition that, as soon as he had been returned to England, he was sent to the famous burns unit at East Grinstead, ‘where the treatment was wonderful and I made many friends. I also got into quite a lot of mischief during the convalescent periods.’ It wasn’t until January 1946 that he was back in New Zealand.

During the halt at Karlsruhe a horse and cart was commandeered for transporting the sick. The cart was big enough to carry only six sitting men.

The POWs were preparing to set off again in the evening, when an air-raid alarm sent them back inside, everyone fervently hoping that the Russians would not be tempted to bomb the place. Their prayers were answered, and two hours later, at around 7 to 8 pm, the prisoners were forced to their feet again and set off into the freezing cold night.

With the rumour flying around that the Russians were close by, Peter Thomson ‘spread the word by mouth that we were to walk as slowly as possible and so enhance our chances of being recaptured’.

Keith Campbell reckoned that what followed, ‘was one of the worst experiences I ever hope to go through’.

*

For a few, though, the opportunities for escaping were too tempting to be ignored, and three GPR men, according to Ron Watkinson, bricked themselves in ‘until all the rest and guards had gone and then sat back to wait for the Russians’. They were found by the Russians, given passes, and told to make their own way down to Odessa: ‘They had to live off the land or scrounge or beg food and a few lifts on Russian transports.’ But they made it.

Two more men – Sgt T.W. Greene and F/S Donald Meese – decided to escape from the brickworks. Tom Greene was recaptured in the afternoon of the following day by a German patrol: ‘The Germans took me to Brieg, but when Brieg was evacuated a few days later I hid under a sort of stage with several others. The Germans did not discover us and we remained in Brieg until the Russians liberated us on 6 February 1945.’

Donald Meese managed to reach the Russian lines and freedom. Falling in love with a nineteen-year-old German girl, they were married by a Polish priest on their way to Odessa.

Nine more POWs also decided to escape. In one group of six were W/O A.D. Naysmith, Flight Sergeants W.S. McPhail, F.J. Such and Albert Tweddle, Sgt F.R.W. Waters, and F/S D.R. Grant RCAF; in the other F/S W. Dyson, and Warrant Officers M.J. Muirhead RAAF and J.H. Marini RCAF. Ron Mead, in charge of escaping, gave them the go-ahead, and said that he would juggle the count when the time came to leave.210

Making their way up to the top floor of the brick factory, the nine men crawled on top of the large ovens in the hope that they would not be noticed when the column moved off. McPhail: ‘We were dressed in RAF uniform, but for the purposes of bettering the chances of our escape we took off our NCO badges and took officers’ rank.’ Fortunately the dust, which lay everywhere an inch thick, was covered in boot tracks, and when the guards returned that night their dogs were unable to find any scent in all the dust.

The group of six was found next morning by Polish workmen, who told the airmen to stay in hiding as there were still German patrols in the area. They returned with blankets and food, and were back again in the evening with the news that Dyson, Muirhead and Marini were outside with a Russian tank. With all nine airmen aboard the tank headed back towards Karlsruhe: ‘The tanks were firing all the time, engaging the fast-retreating enemy.’ Spending the night in a large house in Karlsruhe, they had an interview on the following day with ‘high staff officers including a general (name unknown), who treated us very politely’. That morning they were put in a truck and driven to Laski, 100 kilometres east of Breslau. On 26 January they left for the POW collection centre that had been established by the Russians at Lublin, not far from Majdanek concentration camp.²¹¹

Before he left Lublin F/S McPhail was handed a roll of ‘undeveloped film containing photographs of Mydanik [sic] (murder) camp in Lublin, portraying human remains, shoes of all description, and various parts of the camp’. On his return to England McPhail handed over the film to the RAF photographic section, ‘but [it] proved too fogged to be printable’. Another escaped POW, British soldier Sam Kydd, also visited Majdanek: ‘We saw the ovens, the gas chambers, the bleached bones and the dentures, but even with all this evidence I don’t think the enormity of it hit us until some time afterwards.’²¹²

On 23 February 1945 some 500 escaped POWs were sent by train from Lublin to Odessa. The officer in charge, F/O P.J. Anderson RCAF, described it as a journey made ‘in bitter cold that took six days and nights’.

Anderson was the navigator of Halifax JP162, 148 (Special Duties) Squadron, that had taken off from Campo Casale airfield at Brindisi, Italy, on the night of 4/5 August 1944 with supplies for the Armia Krajowa (AK, Polish Home Army) on DZ Kanarek 211 at Miechowa near Kraków. On the way home, after a successful drop, JP162 was attacked and shot down by a German Bf110 night-fighter. Though the pilot, rear gunner, and despatcher were killed, Anderson, Sgt A. Jolly (wireless operator), Sgt R.G. Peterson RCAF (bomb aimer), and F/S W.C. Underwood (flight engineer) survived, and fought with the AK until the Russian advance put an end to their activities.

On arrival at Odessa, on 28 February 1945, the officers and men from Lublin were separated and, according to Anderson:

‘were issued with one blanket apiece and were deloused – showers and baths were available. Three American Liberty ships in port provided us with what food they could to supplement the Russian ration. Members of the British Military Mission arrived on 1 March and on 3 March British personnel were transferred to what was designated the British camp. It then appeared that the Russians were giving the Americans preferential treatment as the Russian ration provided in the British camp was not as good as that in the American camp nor were the messing facilities as good.’

On 7 March F/O Anderson and ‘about 1,700 all ranks’ – which total must have included a second train-load of Allied ex-POWs from Kraków – embarked on the Moreton Bay. Anderson was appointed messing officer, and was assisted in his duties by Naysmith, Dyson, McPhail, and Such: ‘These NCOs,’ in Anderson’s words, ‘while acting in the capacity of officers during our stay in Lublin and until we reached Port Said did outstanding work. They were excellent in maintaining the morale of the men, showed a great deal of initiative, and were a credit to the air force.’213

Making friends with McPhail aboard the Moreton Bay was WO1 Hubert Brooks RCAF, 419 (RCAF) Squadron. Shot down on 8/9 April 1942 (Hamburg) Brooks had been on the run since escaping from a work party at Tost on 10 May 1943, and had fought with the AK. So distinguished was his service with them that he was awarded the Polish Cross of Valour. He was later Mentioned in Despatches (1/1/46) and awarded the MC (8/10/46) for his escape.

Sailing across the Black Sea the Moreton Bay reached Port Said on 12 March, via the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, the Dardanelles, the Aegean Sea, and the Mediterranean. Its passengers, though, were not allowed to disembark until 15 March, ‘when the RAF personnel were taken off and sent to Cairo. We remained in Cairo until 18 March and were housed at No. 22 PTC under canvas.’ From there aircrew were dispersed to their respective countries, for most of them their war done.

SUNDAY, 21 JANUARY – DAY 3. Some time in the small hours there was a short stop at the village of Karlsmarkt (Karłowice). The men rested for a while before continuing towards the frozen River Oder. Everyone was affected by the extreme cold, and many were hallucinating. At around 1 am ‘the temperature really plumetted – to about 35-40° below’ (Bill Cleeve), and by 2 am or so was reckoned to have fallen to 42º below.²¹⁴ Eventually the vague outlines of the bridge, estimated to be about 500 yards long, could be seen in the eerie, misty white light of dawn. They ‘crossed the bridge at a place called Nikolas Ferry [sic]. Not much could be seen of the river though on the further bank you could make out the dim outline of trenches and concrete pillboxes.’ (Joe Walkty.)

‘About 5 am we reached the Oder river and they made us line up in single file in order to cross the bridge on the side walk. You can imagine the amount of time this took, [as] there were fifteen hundred men. We finally started across the bridge, [and] as we were crossing I noticed on the road itself there were large holes with bars of metal across, and at each of these holes they had a guard. I found out later the reason for this. The bridge was mined, and if the Russians came before they had a chance to blow it up, when the wheels of their vehicle hit the bars in the road it would blow up. At 9.30 am we had finished our march of forty-one kilometres and stayed in big barns (500 men in each) at Lossen. Here the cookhouse got busy and made a brew of coffee. We got equivalent to a cup per man ...’ (Bill Niven RCAF).215

As the POWs trudged across, the surface full of holes ‘possibly made by small bombs’, they were watched by the German engineers, who had everything in readiness for the bridge’s demolition. Joe Walkty again: ‘On the further side of the bridge we met one solitary, dejected-looking army corporal. He was armed with a gun, and at his feet he had two German anti-tank rocket bombs. With this he was to guard the further approaches of the bridge against attack by the Russians.’

At some point after the crossing Bruce Smith RAAF decided to rest his back-pack on one of the white posts that marked the side of the road: ‘I selected one such post and rested myself by standing with my back to that post and taking the weight of my load on it. Some time after doing that I was awakened by our Roman Catholic padré [John Berry], who was picking up stragglers. I had, quite clearly, been sound asleep, standing up, and might well have frozen stiff where I was if I had not been roused by that padré, who walked with me for a kilometre or so to be sure that I was awake.’

Across the Oder, at Schurgast (Skorogoszcz), the men stood about in the freezing cold for an hour or more until it was decided that there was nowhere there for them to stay. It was 9 am before the column stopped at Waldhaus (Buszyce), five kilometres down the road.²¹⁶ Oberfeldwebel Frank was keen to get everyone settled so that he too could have some time in which to relax. All by now were feeling the strain, and when Frank gave some of the kriegies a push to hurry them up one of them, who spoke German well, took exception to being pushed and told Frank that he would not tolerate being manhandled. At this Frank ‘became very agitated indeed, took his sidearm out of its holster, and fired two rounds into the air’. This had little effect but, now safely across the Oder, the men were given the rest of the day off. Bill Cleeve noted that their ‘billet proved to be a state farm, and here we shared the barn with the cows and other animals, but no one minded as the atmosphere, although a trifle “high”, was warm especially after the arctic temperatures experienced during the previous night’.

Once over the river, Neil Ostrom recalls ‘feeling sorry for a column of, they even looked young to us, Germans going the other way, and spoiling their day with remarks such as “Joe Stalin kommt” and pointing to the front we had been marching from’.

It was about now that Captain Howatson carried out an examination on Sgt Jim Morgan, who had a large boil on his leg: ‘I with five other chaps were marched to a military hospital where I had it lanced.’ After what Jim described as a long trek the six arrived at Stalag Luft III (Sagan): ‘Fortunately for me, I left there with quite a large stock of cigs. The hut was half full of the remains of parcels sent to these chaps (officers). They must have lived like lords, which even included silk swimming shorts.’ The six were eventually evacuated to Stalag IIIA, where they ‘were bundled in with the Irish boys (all army and navy). I saw more fights there than in the whole of the war!’

*

After Captain Howatson had made strong representations to Behr, fourteen of the men, suffering with badly-blistered feet, swollen knees, or dysentery, were given transport to the schloss (castle) at Lossen (Łosiów), which Behr knew was a German army command post. Howatson and a German medical orderly accompanied the men with instructions from Behr that the fourteen sick men were to be taken from the castle to an SS field hospital at Schurgast in the morning.

At the SS field hospital they found numerous German wounded, casualties of the fierce fighting across the Oder beyond Oppeln (Opole). Before long nine more Luft 7 prisoners, who had been unable to continue, were given permission by Behr to join the fourteen now at Schurgast. Captain Howatson returned to the main column.

Thanks in part to the research undertaken by author Michael Hingston for his gripping book Into Enemy Arms, the names of twenty-one of the twenty-three are known: J.A. Cakebread; K. Chapman; G.R. Claydon; C.M. Dawson; G. Fallon; F.A. Giles; P.P. Hardwick RAAF; F. Jenkinson; C.S. Joce; T.W.M. Kemp; T.B. Lewis; L.R. Maki RCAF; W.J. McCoombs RCAF; R. Mead; C.A.F. Murray RAAF; M.J. O’Leary RAAF; W.A. Poulton; S.W. Simes; J.G. Slowey (Michael Hingston’s uncle); D. Yardley; and Petty Officer Victor Smyth. The other two men may have been S/Sgt Hugh C. ‘Paddy’ Clenaghan and S/Sgt Herbert Ranfield, two of the three glider pilots mentioned by Ron Watkinson (see page 241), who were evacuated via Odessa. According to Vic Smyth the ‘Roman Catholic padré, Father Berry’ was also in the party.

With the rapid advance of the Russian forces, these twenty-three men were uncomfortably close to the front line, and in the immediate vicinity of units of an SS Division, whose commander ordered the non-combatant airmen to be taken to the civilian hospital in Brieg. Ron Mead somehow persuaded their driver to return to the castle at Lossen because, he said, a few of the sick were so ill that they were in danger of dying from the cold. The castle had by now been evacuated by the German troops, and so the ‘sick’ personnel ‘settled down there pretty well’. (Vic Smyth.)

Vic Smyth also said that it was Father Berry who then made contact in Lossen with the local Roman Catholic priest. This was Father Richter, ‘who promptly took us to his house and gave us the best meal we ever had in Germany’. Word of the presence of the twenty-three came to the ears of retreating SS soldiers, who had taken over the castle. According to Vic Smyth, Father Richter told the escapers that the SS ‘wanted to shoot us as escapees. A service was actually held in the [Lossen] church for us and the priest, with several women, approached the officer in charge to ask him to spare our lives as we were all sick men.’ The next few days in Lossen were tense for the twenty-three as they waited to see what their fate might be.

Father Berry probably returned to the main column of POWs, for his name appears on the nominal roll compiled at Stalag IIIA in April, though how he accomplished this is unclear.

Fortunately for the twenty-three in Lossen there were two people who were prepared to help them – Ditha Bruncel, the nineteen-year-old daughter of hotelkeepers in Lossen, and Gefreiter Krumpeck, an Austrian soldier in the German army. Krumpeck was in charge of a working party of twenty-one Frenchmen billetted on the village inn at Lossen. On 26 January, after Ditha Bruncel had spoken with him, Krumpeck appeared at the house. He told the twenty-three that he was taking them to join the French, where they would be under his protection and where he would be better able to provide food and medication, however meagre. The French, even though they would now become very cramped in their quarters, welcomed the twenty-three ‘airmen’, and even found jackets for some to cover their uniforms.

As the fighting approached the SS unit that was dug in at Schurgast, some ten kilometres away, not then knowing of the presence of the ‘RAF’ prisoners, ordered Krumpeck to evacuate Lossen. This, to his eternal credit, he refused to do.

On the afternoon of 1 February, Lossen came under Russian attack, first from relays of aircraft that shot at everything in sight, and then from the artillery that pounded away all through the night and on into the next day. Finally, at around 4.30 am on 4 February, Russian T-34 tanks arrived. The twenty-three men warily left their refuge, a cellar, and made themselves known to a Russian officer, who fortunately spoke good German. But there was a serious moment when the Russians discovered a radio that the group had hidden in the cellar: ‘As most of us were telegraphists we were able to fix it up so as to listen to the BBC news… When the Russians found it they thought we were spies and treated us very suspiciously at first. But when a Russian major came along we were able to establish our identity.’ (Vic Smyth.)

With other matters to attend to, the Russians left the group to its own devices. Having fallen in love with Ditha (and vice-versa), Gordon Slowey found a hiding space for her in their quarters in the village inn. The dangerous nature of the men’s position was highlighted when two of the French workers appeared with tears in their eyes. They had gone back to their own quarters after visiting their Polish girlfriends only to find that the rest of their group had been shot. It was not the Russians, they believed, but the SS.

Sad to relate, also killed was Father Richter. There is a somewhat confused story about the shooting of a ‘monk’, who may well have been Father Richter, that was told by Dave Yardley when he was at RAF Cosford after repatriation. Bumping into Bill Taylor, he told him about the shooting of a monk at Lossen. Dave and some of the others had been put into a cellar which had a small grill looking out ‘at ground level onto a lawn. Dave saw the SS put the monk against a wall and shouted at him to tell them where the British prisoners were. He refused and they shot him.’

*

Fate was also to decree that The Reverend John Berry would not live to see old age. On 14 August 1959, then the Rector of St Mary’s Monastery at Kinnoull, in Fife, Scotland, and aged forty-eight,217 he was with a group from the monastery who went for a swim near the small fishing village of East Haven. When one of the novices got into difficulties in the rough sea, the Very Reverend John Berry, as he had now become, unhesitatingly plunged into the sea to rescue the novice, and took him to shallower water. A few moments later John Berry ‘was seen to be floating head downwards in the water’. A doctor who was summoned too late to help ‘gave his opinion that death was due to a heart attack… The certificate [of death] issued later gave asphyxia as the immediate cause of death.’

*

On 11 February, after the Russians had made arrangements, the twenty-three at Lossen were ordered to pack and to be ready to go within a few hours. When three open lorries appeared the men, and Ditha, piled aboard one, while the surviving French and Krumpeck boarded the other two. The lorries made for the Oder river which, in the absence of any bridge, was crossed by the simple expedient of driving across its frozen waters. That night they were in Oppeln, and on the following day were formally registered by the Russians. After a stay of two or three days the group continued to Gleiwitz and, after a further two days, to Katowice in Poland. Their next move came on 23 February, to Kraków, having been joined by a dozen more stragglers – either evaders or escapers – bringing the size of the party to around thirty-five.

Already working in Kraków was F/O Wlodzimierz Bernhardt, 301 Squadron, a Polish airman who had been shot down in his Halifax by three Ju88s on 16 August 1944 and who had managed to evade capture. The Russians had set him up in an office to register POWs as and when they arrived.

Another party from Czestochowa was soon to arrive at Kraków, in the charge of F/L A.H. Hammet DFM, RAAF (see page 158 and Appendix IV). Being of higher rank than Bernhardt, Allan Hammet became the senior officer in charge of the escaped POWs at Kraków.

On 25 February the British joint party was put aboard a long train of coaches and, after a tediously slow journey, finally reached Odessa on 3 March. The rest of their journey back to their home countries was much as recorded by Doug Grant in Appendix III.

For their comrades left behind on the march from Luft 7, however, freedom was still a long way off…

*

MONDAY, 22 JANUARY – DAY 4. Having been roused at 1.30 am – the Germans said that the Russians had crossed the Oder to the north of them – the men were on the road by 5 am, as they made the long haul to Gross Jenkwitz. A further thirty-one sick men were evacuated to, it was thought, Stalag 344 (Lamsdorf). Just after setting off, two large explosions were heard seconds after flashes had been seen to the north. Most reckoned that it was the bridge over the Oder being demolished.

Meanwhile Oberfeldwebel Frank had made a point of finding the kriegie who had resented being pushed and apologised for his unsoldierly behaviour on the previous day. As Bruce Davis said, ‘that incident enhanced the respect which we already had for that man’. Frank’s stock would rise further with the prisoners over the coming days. Another of the Germans to impress the prisoners was ‘Otto’, the interpreter (Richard Erffinger), who was a kindly and thoughtful man. Bruce Davis, on behalf of his food ‘syndicate’, mentioned to Otto that they were in need of a kitchen knife to help ‘with the preparation of food. A day or two later Otto called me aside and handed me just such an item, simply as a friendly gesture, and certainly without any thought of any requirement for recompense.’

Gross Jenkwitz was reached by early afternoon, a distance of seventeen kilometres having been covered. Billetted in large barns, the men received a meagre food ration – ‘one biscuit between two and a pound of margarine to last five days. We dug in the frozen earth and found pieces of potatoes, carrots and peas and made ourselves a cup of soup, and then to our blankets. We had two blankets and slept fully dressed with every bit of clothing we possessed.’218

At Schönfeld Bill Taylor sneaked out into a cow byre and helped himself to a Klim tin of milk from the cows’ full udders. He was filling up his tin for a second time ‘when a guard came in and fired his rifle at me. He chased me round the cows until I finally escaped through the door as he fired again. I managed to get most of the milk back to my friends.’

Meanwhile, four more POWs had slipped away during the night of 21/22 January. The first two to leave, accompanied by a hail of bullets, none of which hit their mark, were W/O E.E. East and F/S R.J. Hansford, followed by W/O M. Holloway and F/S W.F. Sutherland RAAF. East and Hansford were recaptured on the following morning, having spent the night lying in the snow. They managed to escape a second time shortly afterwards, and this time gained the Russian lines.

Holloway and Sutherland stayed for a fortnight in the roof of the barn where they had all been resting. They survived by drinking melted snow (of which there was plenty) and a little milk brought for them by a forced labourer. They narrowly escaped death when the barn was shelled by the Russians, to whom they surrendered.

TUESDAY, 23 JANUARY – DAY 5. Konev’s forces reach the Oder river.

The call of “Raus!” came at 6 am. The temperature during the night had, apparently, fallen to minus 25° C. The column was on the move two hours later. Not only the prisoners were feeling the pace, for one of the German guards collapsed. These were mostly elderly and, as such, unfit for front-line service. But they were fed better than the prisoners, whom they goaded with promises of better billets and good food at the end of each day. Few were surprised, therefore, when they reached their destination, Wansen (Wiazów), to find that the billets were ‘more big cold barns’, and the food a cup of tea and a cup of soup.

Some believed that the man responsible for the guards’ behaviour was Sgt R.D. Hughes, who was, some of his fellow prisoners believed, ‘obviously working with the Germans’. Given his earlier track record, it is easy to see why they thought this.219

In a small town near Wansen the prisoners, who had had to pass a column of German tanks that were waiting down a side road, were being jeered at by the locals and by the tank crews when, suddenly, someone started singing the popular 1939 song You are my Sunshine. The prisoners, without any order being given, formed into column of threes, straightened their shoulders and, with heads held high, marched through the town in a wonderful show of defiance.

When the column had reached Wansen, Captain Howatson put Hughes, because he spoke German, in charge of a party of thirty-one sick prisoners to be taken by rail in cattle trucks from Wansen to Stalag Luft III (Sagan). After only five or six days at Sagan Hughes was ordered to take another group of over fifty officers and NCOs from there to Stalag IIIA (Luckenwalde). Hughes: ‘I had difficulty getting them decent rail travel but eventually succeeded. We arrived at Luckenwalde and I remained in the camp until it was liberated on 22 April 1945.’

WEDNESDAY, 24 JANUARY – DAY 6. The 1st Ukrainian Front captures Oppeln (Opole), forty kilometres south west of Kreuzburg.

On the sixth day they rested. 400 loaves of bread were issued, a quarter per man. Ben Couchman and friends made a fire ‘and roasted a few spuds. Supplied with two half-cups of soup and quarter loaf of bread from the field kitchen.’

THURSDAY, 25 JANUARY – DAY 7. It was another early rise, this time at 1.30 am, and the column was off two hours later. The temperature was a little warmer now, the icy snow turning to slush, but walking was still difficult. They passed through Strehlen (Strzelin) (7.45 am), Niklasdorf (Mikoszow), Nass Brockguth (Brochocinek), Karzen (Karczyn) (11 am) and Rothschloss (Białobrzezie), before halting at Heidersdorf (Łagiewniki) after another thirty weary kilometres. Ben Couchman was issued ‘with a cup of soup and a fifth of a loaf’. He also noted that, according to some French POWs, ‘the Russians were nearer to Sagan than we were’.

Fourteen German tanks passed the prisoners, heading for the ever-closer Eastern Front. As Fred Brown said: ‘None of us wished to swop places with them. Theirs was a one-way ticket job.’

George Cross noted: ‘Saw here a batch of [British] army types. They were from Lamsdorf, had been on the road three days and still had rations.’

Units of 1st Ukrainian Front establish bridgeheads across the Oder south of Breslau.

FRIDAY, 26 JANUARY – DAY 8. The men enjoyed another rest day, and were issued with 600 loaves, to last for two days. Ben Couchman: ‘Scrounged some spuds and beans and made some stew. Issued with two half-cups of soup from field kitchen and a seventh of a block of margarine. I went to bed.’

SATURDAY, 27 JANUARY – DAY 9. The prisoners had something of a ‘lie in’, not having to rise until, for them, quite late. There was a further issue of bread – half a loaf each – to last two days.

Laird MacLean:

‘It is now Saturday morning and it has been snowing all night. A bunch of us slept all night in a barn with some cows. The Germans have told us to be ready to march again at eleven o’clock. I saw the doctor yesterday about my feet because my big toe is swollen up and all black from the frostbite. He put me down for transport if they can get a train for the sick and, if not, I have to ride in a wagon because I can’t walk any more.’

The trek continued shortly before midday. The roads were crammed with refugees. Passing through Langseifersdorf (Jaźwina) around 3.30 pm, it was dark by the time the prisoners arrived at Pfaffendorf (Ksiaznica) around 6 pm after nineteen kilometres. They were put into the ubiquitous, cold barns, though there was an unseemly rush by several POWs to get into a warm cattle byre. Half a cup of soup was issued at around 8.30 pm.

SUNDAY, 28 JANUARY – DAY 10. No lie in today, the call of ‘Raus! Raus!’ coming at 3.30 am. An hour and a half later they were off. It was snowing again, and the wind was bitterly cold, but at least the slush had hardened. Nevertheless, it was still twenty-one or more kilometres to their destination, Standorf (Stanowice). The temperature continued to drop, and more POWs suffered from frostbitten feet caused by inadequate footwear. When they reached Standorf at 1.30 pm, even though it was still very cold, they were not allowed to light fires. Some found room in an old prison camp.

There was an issue of twenty-four cartons of knäckerbrot, 150 kilograms of margarine, and fifty kilograms of sugar.

*

Twenty-two of the sick, including Laird MacLean and Bill Taylor (hernia), were marched off with two guards, Otto and Franz, to a hospital at Schweidnitz (Swidnica). After a long wait outside, they were admitted and examined, their spirits rising when they thawed out. They were given a cup of soup, a slice of bread, and a cup of coffee – ‘it was like manna from Heaven’. In the morning, however, it was back to reality. Told to leave, they were given a third of a loaf and some margarine to help them on their way. Snow was falling as they trudged to Schweidnitz railway station, outside the town on a flat, endless, snow-covered plain. Here they had an interminable wait in the cold.

With the German railway system in chaos and priority being given to the hospital trains bringing back the wounded from the Russian Front, the guards eventually took the sick POWs into an air-raid shelter below a beer cellar. An English-speaking German civilian, as Laird MacLean noted, ‘brought us some beer and meat sandwiches. I managed to scrounge a couple of fat cigars, so we were all right for a while.’ That night the men slept as best they could. Bill Taylor put three chairs together for his ‘bed’.

On the following morning, 30 January, at around 4 am they rushed to the station to catch a train, only to find that it had gone. In the dark and freezing temperatures it was another two hours before the next one arrived, packed with German soldiers. With no room inside, the prisoners and their guards were put onto open, flat wagons: ‘I had been cold before, but never experienced a cold so intense. There was no protection from the wind in this flat, open countryside. We were numbed through and through. Ice caked on our faces, hair and clothing.’ (Bill Taylor.) Luckily, after only ten kilometres or so, the train stopped. Everyone, including the guards, was fed up, and they left the train.

They had to wait until the late afternoon for another. It was snowing heavily again as they piled aboard the French railway wagon – forty men or eight horses – that was to be their carriage. During the night a number of German soldiers pushed their way in. They ‘were pretty crowded all night and it was cold, but it was better than walking’. At Gorlitz, Otto was ordered to take the prisoners to Sagan. At around 11 am on 31 January the sick men arrived at Stalag Luft III. Here they joined not only the 500 or so sick RAF officers who had been left behind when the camp was evacuated a few days earlier but also a party of sick who had left the Bankau column at Wansen.

After his foot had been seen to by a doctor, Laird MacLean’s only regret was ‘that I can’t help the other fourteen hundred boys on the road somewhere. God help them.’ He also noted that about ‘200 of the gang has dropped out already and we don’t know how many were lost in the snow. Up to now we have had no news or food, so we are in a pretty bad way.’ Many of those on the march were led to believe that dozens of their comrades had perished before they reached Stalag IIIA. Surprisingly, this was not so.

MONDAY, 29 JANUARY – DAY 11. Most of the men stayed wrapped up in their blankets until soup – half a cup – was served. Ben Couchman noted that they also received ‘seven biscuits, 1 oz margarine and one tenth of a tin of bully beef’.

The order to prepare to depart from Standorf was given at 4 pm, with the usual German promise of transport when they reached their next stop. At 5.30 pm, in the dark, they moved off. The weather then took a turn for the worse, if that were possible, the men having to stagger through an horrendous blizzard which, very quickly, had deposited two or three feet of snow on the ground. A convoy of vehicles passing them on the road only made things worse, as the prisoners were forced to pass them in single file through the deep snow drifts on the side.

Tom Trimble:

‘When German transport started to pass, at one point some of this transport got snow bound on road and we were held up for about two hours. At this point the storm was at its very worst and it cost some of our chaps very dear. They were utterly exhausted and yet could not drop out as they would freeze in less than five minutes. When eventually the road was clear and we got past we found a jerry dead (frozen solid) by the roadside. The fact that a jerry was frozen by the wayside will give some idea of the storm. About half way along this road one of the jerry transports hit my sleigh on purpose and smashed it to pieces, also spilling the kit all over the place. Luckily he missed hitting anyone else. Actually, it is impossible to put the facts of this night on paper – it had to be experienced to be believed.’

Jack Smith RAAF noted that ‘Jerry got annoyed when we refused to help him drag his trucks out of the jam. A lot of hope he had. Stan [Wharton] and I could hardly pull our own sledge, never mind a truck.’

One of those caught in the two-hour hold up was Joe Walkty. They had been climbing up ‘a hill that stood out much higher them the others. As the front of the column reached the top we came to a halt. The officer went forward to see what was the matter. It seemed we had run into the tail end of a traffic jam caused by the snow storm.’ There was no way past, with a hundred-foot sheer drop one side and a thick forest on the other. Joe ‘was one of the unfortunate ones who stood on the crest of the hill. There was no cover, and the wind blew from the direction of the sheer drop. The snow, a powdery snow, soon covered us from head to foot.’

And Harold Bennett: ‘We walked all night in the worst blizzard I’ve ever experienced – terribly cold (30 below according to guards) – German civvies lying dead from the cold on side of road – everyone just a pillar of white – wet and frozen to the skin.’

Maybe it was now that Padré Collins, suffering with a cold, tried to blow his nose with his handkerchief, only to find that it had frozen solid in his pocket.

At 0230 hours the precious field kitchen overturned.

As the column staggered on through the night men lost contact with those behind or in front of them:

‘…the road was distinguishable only by the flattened snow – the whole country was one featureless white landscape. I became aware of the fact that I could see no other marchers ahead, so I turned around and strained my eyes into the distance – again no marchers in sight. There I was, plodding along, alone and cold and hungry. A small village eventually came into sight, and there standing in the village square was a guard, with an electric torch, reading the name of the village from a signpost. I approached and in my “best” German said: “Was name?” He replied: “Es ist Rosen!”, then turning and seeing me he grabbed his rifle and started to shout: “Mach schnell. Schnell. Schnell…” I plodded along!’ (Stan Zucker.)

TUESDAY, 30 JANUARY – DAY 12. The men were utterly exhausted when they arrived at Peterwitz (Piotrowice) at around 4 am, the whole time fighting their way through the blizzard, all twenty-one kilometres of it. The Germans tried to cram the prisoners into two small barns, but they were inadequate, and even though a small loft was opened up as extra accommodation it was a good three hours later before all were packed in. A Polish worker gave George Cross and his pals ‘a drink of Jerry tea which was very much appreciated, the drink situation being very grim on the march’.

A tragedy now befell Ben Couchman. Having ‘to go outside for two minutes’ he got back to his space to find that someone had stolen his two, precious blankets. In the circumstances, there could have been no more serious a crime, except possibly the theft of food.

The good news, such as it was, was an issue of 104 kilograms of meat, one sack of salt, twenty-five kilograms of coffee, and 100 of barley. A further issue was made later – 296 loaves of bread, fifty kilograms of oats, and thirty-five-and-a-half kilograms of margarine.

WEDNESDAY, 31 JANUARY – DAY 13. The POWs were given a lie-in until Appell at 11 am. Having survived the theft of his blankets, Ben Couchman roasted ‘a few spuds I had scrounged from a Polish girl, and made a brew of tea’. In one of the barns thirty-one POWs from Stalag 344 were discovered. Too sick to continue with the rest of their column they had been left behind after their guard had disappeared during the night.

Further rations were issued – 300 kilograms of oats, fifty of coffee, and forty of margarine. The men were also given the news that the camp at Sagan, possibly their destination, had been evacuated: ‘Now we had nowhere to go.’

A soft rain was falling by bedtime. In the distance ‘flashes of artillery fire heralded the approach of the Russian juggernaut’.

THURSDAY, 1 FEBRUARY – DAY 14. During the night a thaw had set in, and it was still raining. George Cross was ‘very warm in bed, in fact so warm that I took off my cap and scarf in the middle of the night for the first time’.

The rain had stopped by the time that the POWs were awakened at 6 am. Two hours later they left Peterwitz. The overnight rain had melted the snow, leaving large puddles, but at least the roads were clear of refugees. After only a dozen kilometres the column stopped at Prausnitz (Prusice). Ben Couchman, unable to find any room in the authorised barns, ‘slept at a cowshed further down the road, after fencing off the cows and spreading straw over the dried cowdung’.

From their allotted rations the men received two-fifths of a loaf, half an ounce of margarine, and half a cup of oats. New rations issued amounted to 680 loaves, and thirty-seven-and-a-half kilograms of margarine.

Re-joining the column were the sick prisoners from Sagan.

FRIDAY, 2 FEBRUARY – DAY 15. At 3.30 pm, still at Prausnitz, the prisoners were ordered to put out all fires, as Oberstleutnant Behr had received a bill of 4,000 marks for damage caused at the last stop. In the evening the farmer whose yard had been commandeered complained that five of his chickens were missing. The Germans promptly warned the prisoners that anyone caught stealing would be shot.

An offer was then made ‘to move ten men by passenger train. This was said to be in appreciation of our good behaviour on the march. The doctor suggested eight sick and the two that the Germans had nominated for services rendered in the past for our common good.’ (Joe Walkty.)

SATURDAY, 3 FEBRUARY – DAY 16. Still at Prausnitz, the rest of the farmer’s chickens disappeared, as did one of his wooden sheds, which re-appeared in the form of firewood.

Food issued – 112½ kilograms of margarine, 250 loaves, 100 kilograms of sugar, 200 of flour, and 150 of barley.

The Yalta Conference begins (concluding on the 11th). A communiqué is issued which, though emphasising the military necessity of destroying German militarism and Nazism, adds that ‘it is not our purpose to destroy the people of Germany…’

SUNDAY, 4 FEBRUARY – DAY 17. Still at Prausnitz. 150 loaves issued.

Padré Collins held a service in the yard, taking his lesson from the 23rd Psalm – ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…’. It was attended by a large percentage of the POWs.

In the evening the prisoners were told that they would be put on a train of cattle trucks on the following day. Then came the unexpected news from Oberstleutnant Behr himself, who ‘read out an order from the OKW to the effect that five men were to be released and would be liberated at the first opportunity. The purpose of this we were unable to understand.’ The actual message, translated from the German, read:

‘For appreciation of your conduct on the march and for the fortitude you have shown in overcoming all hardships, the OKW has decided to liberate five men. These five men have been picked out by you and now they are free men. As soon as possible they are to be sent to a neutral country.’

One of the five was an American, one a Canadian, one an Australian, and two English. The rest of the prisoners were then informed that their destination was Stalag IIIA (Luckenwalde).

*

Aussie F/S C.R. ‘Bob’ Richardson RAAF had been hugely impressed by the courage and devotion shown by two of the men on the awful march. One was The Reverend Captain Collins: ‘During the march, when a rest period was given, Captain Collins would walk back from the front of the column, checking the chaps to see that everyone was OK, and encouraging them to keep going. The distance from front to rear was quite some walk, and in snow this gave him little rest. The captain was one of the finest men I have known.’

Bob’s second nomination was a fellow Aussie, F/S Johnny Shields RAAF, ‘whose pelvis was smashed when he was shot down. He had difficulty walking at the best of times, but in the winter, if he stopped, he could hardly move again. During the march Johnny would start from the front of the column, and by the time the next rest period came, he would have fallen to the rear. While everyone else had a rest, Johnny would keep going and, when the rest resumed, he would be at the front again.’

Johnny Shields was a few years older than most (born 11 September 1913), and had an early service number (19790) and before the war had been a professional boxer with the Jimmy Sharman Boxing Troupe. His ability to look after himself came in handy when back in England in Brighton. He was in the gents of the Regent Ballroom when a large civilian picked on the small Aussie airman. When Johnny told the man to pick on someone his own size, the man swung a punch at him, which Johnny easily avoided. In return Johnny hit the would-be assailant with a mighty blow to the body, leaving the wretched civilian to be carted away on a stretcher.

*

Far, far less impressive on the march were the contemptible actions of two of the guards, who were seen by Bill Knox to strike prisoners:

‘On one occasion we passed a water pump in a village. Some of the prisoners tried to get some water from it but were ordered back into the column and one prisoner was struck by a guard with a rifle butt. On another occasion passing through a village the villagers had put out some pails of water. Again we were stopped from having the water and a prisoner was struck by a guard with a rifle butt.’ The guard at the water pump incident ‘was aged about thirty but young looking, height about 5 foot, weight about 9 stone, hair grey at sides and bald on top, ruddy complexion, round clean-shaven face, small and slight build. His rank was Gefreiter. He was a Luftwaffe guard and on the staff of Stalag Luft VII where he had a bad reputation.’

The other offender, an older man who spoke good English, was an Unteroffizier interpreter on the Luft 7 staff.

*

MONDAY, 5 FEBRUARY – DAY 18. Somewhat inconsiderately the cows in Ben Couchman’s quarters broke loose at around 2 am ‘and trampled all over our beds. We managed to get them out, but were awakened at 4 am, and we were on the road at 6 am.’ First, there was yet another food ration to be distributed – 500 loaves, ninety-six kilograms of margarine, and 530 tins of meat.

The short march that followed, eight kilometres to Goldberg (Złotoryja), was to be the POWs’ last, not counting the even shorter march to their next camp at the end of the rail journey. They reached the railway sidings at around 9 am. Norman Oates remembered little of the long march but:

‘suddenly, I have a very clear memory of the railway marshalling yards at Goldberg. A train crossing a few lines of rail for some reason caught my eye and attracted my interest. I walked across and looked into the open door of a cattle truck and found it full of bunks holding German wounded. I climbed into the truck, took a packet of cigarettes out of my battle-dress – the last I had – and showed them to the nearest soldier so that he would understand, and slipped them under his pillow. I then realised our guards were shouting so hurried back to where our men were milling about.’

In the confusion Jack Stead and his GPR ‘oppo’ Ron Watkinson ‘were able to fill our greatcoat pockets with grain from a sack that was on a handcart near the station. A couple of RAF chaps also helped themselves to a half-filled 10-gallon churn of milk.’

Fifty-five men on average were crammed into each cattle truck, which measured approximately 30 feet long by 8 feet wide. With insufficient room for all to sit down at the same time, democracy prevailed in most of the trucks, and they took it in turns to share the floor space.

One-twelfth of a loaf was issued at 11.30 am. Jack Stead and Ron Watkinson were in the same truck as the two RAF milk thieves, but the milk soon went. Handfuls of grain were shared with those within reach: ‘This we just chewed and chewed, including the husks.’ The milk churn was quietly deposited during one of the many stops.

It was not long before ‘there were numerous cases of dysentery, and facilities for men to attend to personal hygiene were inadequate. The majority had no water on the train journey for two days. When the men were allowed out of the trucks to relieve themselves, numerous of the guards ordered them back inside again and we had to be continually getting permission for the men to be allowed out.’220 This was often not allowed, though, and the men had to cope as best they could with the disposal of their bodily waste.

When the train was at one halt Bruce Davis asked the guards to open the door of their wagon so that they could eject the particularly vile excreta from one of their number who was suffering badly with dysentery. He shouted through a crack in the wagon’s walls: “Posten! Posten! Öffnen die Tür! Eine Mann sehr Krank!” (“Guard! Guard! Open the door! Very sick man!”) Bruce kept this up for several hours to no avail until, in the darkness of night, he at last heard what he thought was the sound of boots on the gravel by the track. At that moment someone handed him a full, very foul-smelling tin. Taking careful aim – he was after all a bomb aimer – he threw out the contents of the tin hoping to hit the guard. This he most certainly did: “You bastard! I was coming to help in answer to your calls, and that’s the third time that’s happened to me tonight! Your sick man can stay that way now so far as I’m concerned.” The prisoners recognised the voice of the interpreter Otto.

As this trainload of POWs, however ‘Krank’ they might be, was not accorded high priority, it did not leave Goldberg until 1.15 pm. It passed through Leignitz (Legnica) at 3.30 pm but, with a ‘flat’ wheel, came to a halt in a siding near Sagan (Zagań) at 7 pm, after only some 80-100 kilometres had been covered, remaining in the siding overnight.

TUESDAY, 6 FEBRUARY – DAY 19. At around 6 am the train pulled out: ‘All of us,’ wrote George Cross, ‘very thirsty having had nothing to drink for over a day.’ Stopping what seemed like every quarter of an hour, the train came to a halt at 10 am, resuming slowly towards Cottbus (Chóśebuz) after a three-hour halt. Having got to Cottbus around 12.20 pm the train stuck fast for a while, enabling the prisoners to have some sort of drink in the station. The journey continued westwards past Calau (2.45 pm), then south-west along the line to Finsterwalde and on to Falkenberg where, once again, the train ground to a halt. Captain Howatson came round with water at 10.30 pm and told the men that they could be there for twenty-four hours.

By the end of the day most of the prisoners had finished their meagre ration of food, and were grateful for the earlier encouragement from Padré Collins, who told them that there was only another sixty or seventy kilometres to go. Tempers, however, were becoming frayed.

WEDNESDAY, 7 FEBRUARY – DAY 20. To everyone’s intense relief, the train set off at 11.30 am, but after forty-five minutes came to a halt yet again – the railway had been bombed. George Cross noted: ‘Strange aroma in truck due to bods smoking tea and coffee etc. Got half cup [acorn] coffee at 3.30 and gen that we have three hours travelling ahead of us but several other trains have to pass through a junction ahead of us before we do.’ Progress was resumed at about 6 pm, for two-and-a-half hours. No food rations had been issued for days, and some of those who had eaten what little they had had when they boarded the train were now fainting from a lack of nourishment.

THURSDAY, 8 FEBRUARY – DAY 21.

The 1st Ukrainian Front breaks out of the Oder bridgehead north of Breslau.

At 8.30 am the train pulled in to Luckenwalde station, fifty kilometres south of Berlin. ‘Everyone awoke very weak and shaky’, and were ordered off the train. George Cross, who had managed to hoard one last slice of bread, felt very dizzy and almost passed out when he tried to stand up. He quickly polished off the last slice. George Kilbryde noted ‘a funeral-like march up to Luckenwalde camp. It is over at last, 500 kilometres, over half on foot, in twenty-one days exactly.’ George’s measurements were close enough, though the total distance may have been nearer 550 kilometres, with just under half of that on foot.

From Luckenwalde station, 1,493 prisoners walked the final few kilometres to their new home, Stammlager IIIA (Luckenwalde), and were very happy to get behind the wire again: ‘Never was the sight of a POW camp so welcome to 1,400 odd half-starved, foot-sore, dejected kriegies.’ (Jack Smith RAAF.) The short walk was more of a stagger, as men’s legs slowly recovered the ability to walk after three, cramped days in the filthy cattle trucks. Fred Brown was reeling about when one of his pals said: ‘“Can’t you walk straight, Fred?” I was doing a drunken reel.’

Passing a row of huts in a wired compound, Fred commented that they didn’t look too bad, to which ‘Paddy Trimble, never one to mince words, said “You stupid bastard. They’re the guards’ quarters.”’