ENDNOTES
INTRODUCTION
1 Later promoted General-Feldmarschall, Keitel, also Hitler’s deputy, was found guilty of war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials, and was hanged on 16 October 1946.
2 So appointed with effect from 19 July 1940.
3 Stalag Luft VI would briefly re-appear in August 1944 in a large, former garage at St Wendel, Germany for a few USAAF POWs.
4 It has been calculated that, from August 1943 to May 1945, of the 350,000 aircrew who flew with the Eighth Air Force, approximately 26,000 were killed and 23,000 became POWs.
CHAPTER 1
5 From a declaration that he made on 27 October 1944 at Stalag 383. TNA file WO 344/144/2.
6 Roy Goldenberg was the navigator of B-24 bomber The Comanche, 42-64447, 448th BG/712th BS. Shot down by flak twenty-three kilometres south east of Dieppe on 20 March 1944, one of the ten-man crew evaded capture, the rest were POWs.
CHAPTER 2
7 Fred Singh went to Stalag 6J (Dorsten). He was repatriated with a serious leg injury, and was hospitalised for three years in England and Australia. Later changing his surname to Stuart, he retired from the RAAF with the rank of squadron leader in 1973.
8 This may have been Leutnant Karl-Heinz Grunert, 6./NJG6, who claimed a victory, his second of the war, south west of Aachen at approximately 0130 hours. See also endnote 12.
9 For further details of Dulag Luft and its transit camps see Footprints on the Sands of Time, Chapter 2.
10 Their attacker was Major Walter Borchers, Stab/NJG5, who claimed his twenty-first victory.
11 Cyril Weeks stayed in the RAF until 1949, as a wireless operator instructor at No. 2 Air Navigation School, Middleton St George. He returned to Puffendorf with Bill Graham and Arthur Brice in 1991.
12 The pilot of the Bf110 who attacked them may have Leutnant Karl-Heinz Grunert, 6./NJG6, who claimed a ‘Lancaster’ over Aachen at a height of 4,800 metres at 0132 hours. See endnote 8.
13 In early 1944, 83 Squadron had decreed that all its pilots should wear the seat-type parachute. This order undoubtedly saved Ken Lane’s life, as there would not have been time for another crew member to have handed him an observer-type parachute.
14 Don Cope died in the mid-1970s after falling 16 feet from a ladder.
15 In east Holland, close to the German border.
16 425 (Alouette) Squadron was the only French-Canadian squadron in the RCAF. Ninety-one of its aircrew were to become POWs (one escaped), while a further fifty-three evaded capture.
17 The USAAF grade of flight officer was established on 8 July 1942. On graduation, aviation (flying training) cadets who had not qualified for a commission as 2nd lieutenant could be appointed flight officer with a status equivalent to that of warrant officer, junior grade. Promotion from flight officer to 2nd lieutenant was permitted.
18 Their assailant was Leutnant Friedrich Potthast, 11./NJG1. LK798 was his tenth victory.
19 For his adventures see RAF Evaders, pages 315-6.
20 According to 2nd TAF, Volume 1, p.104, ‘Mac’ was flying Typhoon MN483.
21 ND450 survived the war before being scrapped in May 1946.
22 Oberleutnant Wilhelm Henseler, 1./NJG1, was their probable attacker, claiming his seventh victory.
23 Mid-upper gunner Leslie Jones said they were attacked by a FW190, but who the pilot was is unclear, as five claims were made by pilots of JG300, which was flying the FW190 at the time.
24 See RAF Evaders, p.154, for more on this episode.
25 Lambert’s DFC was gazetted on 16 November 1943, when he was on 10 Squadron.
26 Osbourn’s DFM was gazetted on 26 September 1941, when he was a flight sergeant (528527) on 47 Squadron.
27 The castle is known in Flemish as Kasteel van de Hertogen van Brabant.
28 A further two Fleet Air Arm personnel, and one Royal Marine, would later arrive at Luft 7 – A/Ldg.Air. Harold C.G. Griffin, and LAF (A) Ronald F. Simpson (both transferred from Luft 3) and A/CSM (Ty.) Basil L. Baugh RM (from Stalag IXC Lazarett). Harry Griffin retired from the Royal Navy with the rank of lieutenant commander (O) in the ‘early 1970s’.
29 It was one of its Halifaxes, L9613, NF-V, that on 28/29 December 1941 dropped the Czech agents who carried out the assassination of General Reinhard Heydrich in Prague on the mission codenamed ‘Anthropoids’.
30 Bombers Over Sand and Snow, p. 121.
31 Most equipment was provided by the YMCA and International Red Cross.
CHAPTER 3
32 Of the 795 participating aircraft (572 Lancasters, 214 Halifaxes, nine Mosquitos) sixty-four Lancasters and thirty-one Halifaxes were lost.
33 It had 502 flying hours and over forty ops under its belt.
34 W/O A.D. Hall RNZAF, sole survivor of Lancaster LL738, 514 Squadron, also lost on the Nuremberg raid, went to Stalag Luft 3 (Sagan) via Stalag Luft 6.
35 Norman Jackson was remembered by Private Bert Martin RAMC, one of the orderlies who selflessly tended to the sick and wounded in Germany for over five years: ‘“Jacko” Jackson… was one of a line of burn cases onto whom we poured gallons of home brewed saline week in and week out to cleanse the raw tissues in preparation for skin grafting which, even there, was often carried out successfully.’ Lasting Impressions, p.63, H.L. Martin (privately, 1990).
36 In 1963, Norman Wilmot joined 201 (Macclesfield) Squadron, Air Training Corps, and eventually became its commanding officer, remaining in that post until he retired.
37 The 90 Squadron Operations Record Book shows that F/L H.C. Adams (136190), was a replacement bomb aimer with this crew on a mining sortie to Kiel on 18 April, which could be the operation in question.
38 This airstrip, in Suffolk, had been specially enlarged to take the lame ducks such as the 90 Squadron aircraft.
39 In fact they evaded capture, being liberated some two months later.
40 They were at the Luftwaffe’s Rosières-en-Santerre airfield which, ironically, had been constructed for the RAF during the 1939-40 ‘Phoney War’. For over a year, up to summer 1944, the resident unit on the airfield was I.Gruppe/ Schlachtgeschwader 10 with FW190 aircraft.
41 Sergeant (later P/O) R.S. ‘Bob’ Hall, pilot, 432 (Leaside) Squadron, RCAF. Shot down 27 May 1944 (Bourg-Léopold).
42 John Edward Blair had won his DFM on 24 October 1941 on 103 Squadron, and his DFC as A/F/L on 12 November 1943 on 97 Squadron. He would have been on his third ‘tour of operations’ when killed aged thirty-two.
43 Medland, born in Exeter and brought up in Torquay, was a police constable before enlisting in 1941.
44 Drewes survived the war with a total of fifty-two victories.
45 F/O P.J.K. Hood 125519, 514 Squadron, Lancaster LL696, JI-A. Shot down 30/31 March 1944 (Nuremberg). POW Stalag Luft 1 (Barth). Five others of his crew survived to be POWs; only the mid-upper gunner was killed.
46 The two Americans were shot down in B-17 bomber 42-38029, 381BG/682BS on 8 March 1944 (Berlin/Erkner).
47 Weert, in The Netherlands, is south of Eindhoven and south west of Venlo.
48 See Andrew McMurdon’s version of this incident on page 21.
49 The Bomber Command War Diaries, p. 500.
50 It was on this raid that flight engineer Sergeant Norman C. Jackson, 106 Squadron, was awarded the Victoria Cross. See page 48 & endnote 35.
51 Ogilvie and Cytulski were probably accompanied on the forced march by three other Poles from the same crew – Sergeants Stanislaw Czura, Jan Montwill, and Mieczyslaw Wegrzynski. Shot down in Lancaster LM141, 300 (Masovian) Squadron, on the Gelsenkirchen (daylight) raid of 6 November 1944, they arrived together at Luft 7 on 20 December 1944.
52 Aircrew received their Pathfinder Force badge after completing their tour.
53 S/L D.B. Everett DFC and 2 Bars (no DSO, though he had flown nearly ninety operations) was killed with all his crew in Lancaster ME361. His third DFC was gazetted on 27 March 1945, three weeks after his death.
54 Oberleutnant Hans-Heinz Augenstein, 12./NJG1, alone claimed ND762 for his thirty-first victory.
CHAPTER 4
55 Jaggar was commissioned on 27 November 1942. (Information gratefully received from Errol Martyn).
56 For some unknown reason McGraw’s POW record card shows him as ‘Observer’.
57 By this time ‘Spike’ had been promoted to Warrant Officer II (2nd Class).
58 ‘Robbie’ was Lieutenant Eugene Robarts SAAF (206857v). He was flying Spitfire MH538.
59 Corporal Robert H. Parry-Jones of Chester, Royal Armoured Corps, was attached to the Long Range Desert Group. His rank on the Stalag IIIA Nominal Roll was given as sergeant.
60 Peter Craig’s account is reproduced with his kind permission.
61 LN318 was a veteran, having flown a number of operations on 40 Squadron in 1943.
62 Out of the Italian Night, p.99, Maurice Lihou (Airlife Publishing Ltd, Shrewsbury, 2003).
63 Australian Air Vice-Marshal D.C.T. Bennett RAF, became officer commanding 8 (PFF) Group.
64 The authors are most grateful to John Grogan, Ronald’s son, for permission to quote from his father’s diary.
CHAPTER 5
65 From: http://www.550squadronassociation.org.uk/documents/public/Rebecq-Memorial-Project/TheRebecqStory.pdf
66 F/O Riding was flown back to Northolt on 27 August. F/O Prentice followed him back to England three days later.
67 This may well have been one of the Mosquito ‘nuisance’ raids, several of which took place at the end of June.
68 Men of Air, p.322.
69 Either destroyed or very seriously damaged, these houses were rebuilt after the war.
70 From Arthur Beresford’s personal account, courtesy of the Beresford Society BFS030.
71 Modrow scored four victories on this night. He died in Kiel on 10 September 1990, aged eighty-two.
72 Five of Karen B’s crew, including Nelson, were to evade capture, with the other five becoming prisoners of war.
73 Much of the information courtesy of Jelle Reitsma.
74 Quotes from records held by the Australian National Archives.
75 Quotes from US Archives http://media.nara.gov/nw/305270/EE-714.pdf.
76 In fact the V1 site was at Moyenneville, half a dozen kilometres south west of Amiens.
77 Nachtjagd War Diaries, Volume Two, page 67.
78 Acting S/L Cedric Alexander Fraser-Petherbridge was awarded the DFC on 14 November 1944, and a Bar on 4 December 1945.
79 George Lambert had apparently joined the RAF as a clerk before the war, and was a sergeant when commissioned on 2 May 1941. Shot down over France on 10/11 April 1943, he evaded capture via neutral Switzerland, reaching England towards the end of February 1944.
80 The pilot was probably Unteroffizier Heinrich Schultz, 6./NJG2, scoring his first night victory. He was killed in action on 17 August 1944.
81 ‘We Act With One Accord’, p.187, Alan Cooper (J&KH Publishing [1998], Hailsham, 1998).
82 Halifax for Liberté, p. 182, Louis Bourgain (Compaid Graphics, Preston).
83 Gerrard’s pilot, S/L G.F.H. Ingram DFC, was one of two to lose his life in Lancaster ND734 on 23/24 June.
84 Peter Reeve was Mentioned in Despatches on 1 January 1946. He died suddenly on 1 September 1951, aged twenty-nine.
85 Fighters Over the Desert, p.70.
86 The Middle East Commandos, p.105, Charles Messenger (William Kimber, Wellingborough, 1988).
87 The Bombay had a crew of six: two pilots; navigator; wireless operator; fitter/air gunner; and rigger/air gunner. Powered by two 1,010 hp Bristol Pegasus XXII radial engines it had a top speed of 192 mph (310 km/h), with a ceiling of 25,000 ft (7,620 m), and a range of 2,230 miles (3,590 kms). It was armed with four 0.303 machine guns – one each in the nose and tail turrets, and two that could be fired from hatches amidships. It could be fitted with up to twenty-four seats.
88 There was a joke amongst the SAS that the twin-engined Bombay was so slow that, whilst it was in flight, you could open the door, go outside and have a piss, run back after it and climb in again. Stirling’s Men p.23 – Gavin Mortimer (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2004).
89 Martin’s commission (111325) was gazetted on 19 December 1941, with seniority dated 12 August 1941.
90 The authors are most grateful for these figures to Alan Orton, whose father was in the David Stirling group.
91 Of German descent, Bonington had changed his name from Bonig. His son is the legendary climber Sir Chris, CBE.
92 Their attacker, in his Bf110, was pilot Oberleutnant Reinhold Knacke, II./NJG1. They were his twelfth victory. Knacke was killed by return fire from a Stirling bomber on the night of 3/4 February 1943 with forty-four victories to his name.
93 Hall went to Stalag Luft III, where he became involved with the ‘Great Escape’ and was valued for his knowledge of meteorology. One of the escapers, he was recaptured near Sagan, and murdered on 30 March 1944.
94 The Barbed-Wire University, p.85.
95 Ibid., p.86.
96 Letter courtesy of Richard Collins.
97 The Hampden crashed at 9.50 pm at a place called N
rregård, owned by farmer Johannes Lauridsen, in Hostrup east of Nordenskov.
98 The authors are most grateful to Sren Flensted for permission to use information from his website www.flensted.eu.com/194201.shtml.
99 Nachtjagd War Diaries Volume Two, p.30 and p.379. The Führer Kurier Staffel, Hitler’s personal flight based at Berlin-Tempelhof airfield, was commanded by Heinz Baur.
100 This bombing may well have occurred on or near 20 July 1944, the day on which 134 B-24 bombers of the US 8th Air Force attacked the airfields of Erfurt Nord (near the north of the town) and Erfurt/Bindersleben (a Luftwaffe base five kilometres east of Erfurt).
101 Bob Burns – letter of 30 December 1994 to Ray Crompton. Born in Spain, Xavier Cugat (1900-90) was a successful band leader in New York, and had a ‘hit’ in 1940 with his recording of Perfidia.
102 W/O T.C. Stanley, 61 Squadron, had been shot down on 25/26 March 1942 (Essen) in Manchester L7518, only he and the mid-upper gunner surviving. For his service to others he would be awarded the MBE (28 December 1945) and the Bronze Star Medal (USA) (19 November 1946).
CHAPTER 6
103 The diesel-engined Rangitata was built in 1929. The Elisabethville was built in 1921 by John Cockerill Shipyards, Hoeboken, Belgium for the Compagnie Belge-Maritime Du Congo, Antwerp.
104 Havock ran aground in the Strait of Sicily on 6 April 1942 and was wrecked. Decoy was transferred to the RCN as HMCS Kootenay on 12 April 1943.
105 They were fortunate not to have been aboard the ship when, on 17 August, on her way from Italy loaded with urgent supplies for the Afrika Korps, she was torpedoed and damaged by two 39 Squadron Beauforts crewed by 86 Squadron personnel. That night she was finished off by torpedoes fired by HM Submarine United.
106 Information courtesy of Caroline Barnard – www.burningblue.co.za.
107 WO1 J.L.W. Rodgers is buried at Florence War Cemetery.
108 Before it was lost on 1 January 1943, N9029 evacuated King Peter of Yugoslavia from his country on 18 April 1941.
109 W/C Brown now lies in Catania War Cemetery, Sicily. His DFC was gazetted on 30 July 1940, and his Bar on 23 May 1941 whilst CO of 1(F) Squadron. Part of the citation for his Bar read: ‘He has destroyed a further two enemy aircraft bringing his total victories to at least 18.’
110 Jopling was to escape from his Italian POW camp on 9 September 1943, the day after the Italian armistice, and successfully reached Allied lines. Manning ended up at the camp for naval officers near Westertimke, north Germany.
111 Bombers Over Sand and Snow, p.278.
112 Dawson Wright – letter to Raymond Crompton, 8 November 1988.
113 Leo Joseph Butkewitz, aged seventy-eight, tragically died of smoke inhalation in a fire at his home on 16 November 2000.
114 As neither the RAF nor USAAF had deliberately attacked Wilhelmshaven it is possible that any damage to the port had been caused by aircraft from the previous night’s raid to Hamburg.
115 The London Gazette No. 36745, 13 October 1944. F/S Clay was presented by King George VI with his medal on 13 July 1947.
116 Fred Heathfield, letter of 23 January 1984 to Allan Poulton’s widow.
117 Née Bagshaw, she was born in Birmingham on 31 May 1899.
118 Said to have been Leutnant Heinz Bock, 6./NJG101.
119 They all successfully evaded, Agur and Schwilk at the camp in Fréteval forest.
120 Perhaps the surgeon was the Australian Sir Hugh Cairns, professor at Oxford, who in 1948 visited Adelaide whilst on a travelling professorship to Australia and New Zealand? Sir Hugh died in Oxford on 18 July 1952, aged fifty-six.
121 Rossel’s report in TNA file WO 224/66.
122 Ken Lane quoted in Bob Burns’s letter to Ray Crompton, 18 September 1996.
123 Poland, SOE and the Allies, Josef Garlinski (George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London, 1969), p.187.
124 ‘RAF’ in this instance includes SAAF and PAF crews.
125 Bombers Over Sand and Snow, p.283. All six of the Halifaxes on this raid returned.
126 Twenty-year-old P/O Good is buried in Sage War Cemetery.
CHAPTER 7
127 Twenty-four of 109 Lancasters were lost. For the full story of the three Revigny raids see Massacre over the Marne.
128 To Hell and Back, p.69.
129 The German pilot, Unteroffizier Egon Engling, 8./NJG2, claimed his seventh victory, and his second that night.
130 Poland, SOE and the Allies, op. cit, pp.208-9.
131 Sadly, in the mid 1950s Henry Upton, his mind apparently unbalanced by his POW experiences, took his own life.
132 S/L Blackburn, also a POW, went to Stalag Luft I (Barth). He retired from the RAF as a wing commander with effect from 26 December 1962.
133 From his postwar interrogation report in TNA file WO 208/3337.
134 Information courtesy of Sren Flensted and his website http://www.flensted.eu.com/1944127.shtml
135 Nuits de Feu Sur l’Allemagne, p.178 – Louis Bourgain (PANDA, Noisy-le-Sec, 1991).
136 http://fcafa.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/karel-valasek-evasion-and-pow/.
137 This was probably S/L František Fajtl, shot down over Belgium on 5 May 1942.
138 Brannagan, CO of 441 (RCAF) Squadron, was shot down south west of Vimoutiers on 15 August in Spitfire NH233.
139 MacAleavey was awarded the DFC on 15 September 1944.
140 They were Bomber Command’s last fatalities on the V1 sites campaign (The Bomber Command War Diaries, p.574).
CHAPTER 8
141 The Brereton Diaries, p.343, Lewis H. Brereton (William Morrow & Co, New York, 1946). See also, for example, Glider Pilots at Arnhem and Arnhem 1944.
142 The History of the Glider Pilot Regiment, p.107, Claude Smith (Leo Cooper, London, 1992).
143 In the London Gazette of 6 June 1947 it was announced that Robert Henson Killoran of 2 Dashwood Road, Gravesend, Kent, a lieutenant in the Glider Pilot Regiment and a natural-born British subject, had renounced and abandoned the surname of Conchie. With effect from 15 November 1948 R.H. Killoran was transferred to the RAF as a flying officer (500293) on short service (seven years on the active list), seniority back-dated to 15 January 1946.
144 The American Waco CG-4A glider of 7,500 lbs gross weight was used by the RAF as the ‘Hadrian’. CG stood for ‘cargo glider’.
145 7 KOSB went in 765 men strong. 112 were killed, seventy-six were evacuated, and the rest, 577, were missing (POWs etc).
146 Eagles Victorious. A History of the S.A.A.F., page 283, Lt. Gen. H.J. Martin and Col. N. Orpen (Purnell, Cape Town, 1977).
147 The Royal Air Force at Arnhem, p. 149. Much of the information on Arnhem air losses comes from this superb reference book.
148 ‘Trader’ after the 1931 film Trader Horn. Horn had been commissioned (110872) in December 1941.
149 TNA file AIR 27/1647.
150 See the GPR Association’s magazine The Eagle, December 1989.
151 Ocelka was born on 27 May 1913 at Lipník nad Be
vou, actually a long way to the south of their track to Bankau.
152 Jimmy Edwards, the future actor and comedian, wrote of his war in his book Six of the Best.
153 The authors are most grateful to Sren Flensted and to his website http://www.flensted.eu.com/1944131.shtml.
154 Ostrom, Swedish by birth, took British nationality in 1936.
155 Halifax For Liberté, p.186, Louis Bourgain (Compaid Graphics, Preston, no date but not earlier than 1997).
156 Only one of the seven crew was killed.
157 LJ943 returned to base, but was lost on 21 September on a supply flight to Arnhem. P/O Berger and four others of his crew were killed. One of the two survivors, Sergeant L.G. Hillyard, was taken prisoner, ending up at Luft 7.
158 From website http://www.pegasusarchive.org/pow/douglas_smithson.htm.
CHAPTER 9
159 Letter to Raymond Crompton, undated but 1987.
160 See The Barbed-Wire University, p.228, Midge Gillies (Aurum Press Ltd, London, 2011).
161 The London Gazette, 9 January 1940.
162 In 1973 Ken became Lord Mayor of Leeds.
163 Alex Jardine, letter to Ray Crompton, 9 January 1992.
164 From TNA file FO 916/842 10013.
165 1473698 Ronald Gerald Purcell was commissioned (186255) on 5 December 1944 (London Gazette). 1583662 Howard Disney Patterson was commissioned (186094) on 28 November 1944 (London Gazette).
166 Although born in Christchurch, New Zealand, his family moved to Southgate, London in the early 1930s when he was seven. After the war he enlisted in the RNZAF, but came back to England to fly until demobbed on 20 June 1950.
167 The authors are most grateful to Bill Norman for his account of the loss of MZ930 in No.640 (Halifax) Squadron RAF Leconfield, pages 107-110, (Compaid Graphics, Warrington, 1999).
168 Through Footless Halls of Air (General Store Publishing House, Burnstown, Ontario, Canada, 1996).
169 He was captured at St Valéry-en-Caux, France, in May 1940.
170 The London Gazette No. 36276. Cas had been commissioned on 4 May 1943.
CHAPTER 10
171 Details from http://www.rafweb.org/Regiment2.htm.
172 Bombers Over Sand and Snow, p.298.
173 Recommendation by W/C H.A.Langton, CO of 37 Squadron, dated 3 January 1945.
174 Lake Balaton, the ‘Hungarian Sea’, approximately 77 by 14 kilometres, is the largest lake in Central Europe. For a photograph of LN858 see Wellington. The Geodetic Giant, p.145, Martin Bowman (Airlife Publishing, Shrewsbury, 1989).
175 Corsetti was awarded the DSC (US), the second highest military award after the Medal of Honor. The DSC was awarded ‘For extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against the enemy.’
176 Replacing the B-24’s usual ball gun-turret under the fuselage was a ‘Joe hole’ through which the packages were ejected. On this day, 248 B-24s of the US Eighth Air Force dropped 782 tons of supplies to the US Airborne troops, losing seven of their number to ground fire.
177 Letter courtesy of Richard Collins, The letter, incidentally, was not received by the Collins family until January 1946.
178 The authors are most grateful to John Skinner for permission to quote from Paul Decroix’s diary.
179 Such was Allied air superiority at this time that none of the 318 effective B-17 bombers on the Kassel raid was lost.
180 Also shot down on the Heilbronn raid, in Lancaster PB751, 44 Squadron.
181 From his article Road Back Complicated, in the Canadian Air Force magazine, March 1983.
182 From Australian National Archives.
183 Donaueschingen is in the south of Germany, not far from Switzerland. Rottweil is some 20 kms north east of Donau.
184 Roderick Chisholm briefly mentions this incident in Cover of Darkness, p.48 (Chatto & Windus, London, 1953). The successful crew were S/L M.F. Anderson and Sgt B. Cannon, later DFC and DFM.
185 Gazetted on 24 September 1941. Brown was also Mentioned in Despatches three times.
186 S/L John Kemp, Off to War with ‘054’, p.108 (Merlin Books, Braunton, 1989).
187 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/Arnhem.html.
188 Air Mail, Winter 1994, p.15.
189 With the Red Devils at Arnhem, pp.83-4, Marek Święcicki (MaxLove Publishing Co. Ltd., London, 1945).
190 Answer 13 of Recorded Evidence of 415285 F/O Peter Thomson, RAAF, Wednesday, 11 July 1945.
191 Letter of 5 October 1989 from Personnel Records Centre, National Archives of Canada.
CHAPTER 11
192 The pilot (F/O R. Cave) and two others were killed.
193 Myron’s story is told in We Flew, We Fell, We Lived, pp.72-80. In it, the author writes that he was brutally questioned at Dulag Luft. This is most unlikely, as these authors are not aware of a similar case ever occurring there.
194 Neil says that he arrived on 9 January 1945, having left Wetzlar on the 5th.
195 Commonly known as the ‘Battle of the Bulge’.
196 Quotes are from the diary that Henry managed to keep.
197 Sydney Barlow, letter of 9 June 1989. Edward German’s opera originally opened, in London, in April 1902.
198 The ten Armies were: 3rd Guards; 13th; 52nd; 5th Guards; 59th; 60th; 6th; 3rd Guards Tank; 4th Tank; and in reserve, to the east of the Vistula, the 21st.
199 Red Storm On the Reich, p. 68.
200 Armageddon Ost, p. 81. The Kursk battle was fought in July and August 1943.
201 True or not, it’s a good story. I’ll Never Go Back, p.63, M. Koriakov (Harrap & Co Ltd, London, 1948).
202 Red Storm On the Reich, p.87.
203 TNA file AIR 40/280.
CHAPTER 12
204 Peter Thomson and Captain Howatson wrote a report of the forced march, dated 15 February 1945, which was marked ‘For the attention of the Swiss Commission as the Protecting Power’, who were visiting the camp on that date.
205 Open Road to Faraway, p.126.
206 Open Road to Faraway, p.123. Baranowski had been up before the law in England for stealing a goose, which he wanted as the squadron’s mascot. The animal was stolen from a policeman who, on hearing in court that Baranowski had just shot down a German aircraft, asked the court to close the case, shook the Pole’s hand, and said “sorry!”
207 From the joint Captain D.G. Howatson RAMC/P/O P.A. Thomson RAAF report.
208 The six were: Flight Sergeants G. Flint, A.C. Hydes; Sergeants H. Chambers, F.G. Treadgold; and two of the GPR men from Arnhem.
209 Into Enemy Arms, p. 150.
210 The adventures of the escapers from the brick factory are told in Doug Grant’s inimitable style, exactly as he wrote it, in Appendix III.
211 On 1 October 1941 the Nazis had established Majdanek concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin. Though not an extermination camp, it is, nevertheless, estimated that by the time that it was overrun by the Russians on 22 July 1944 over 79,000 people had died there.
212 For You the War is Over, p. 308.
213 From Appendix C of Anderson’s report M.I.9/S/P.G.(-) 2931 in TNA file WO 208/3326.
214 Minus 24º Celsius equals minus 11º Fahrenheit.
215 From his diary, with kind permission of his son, Ron Niven.
216 Waldhaus, or Domwaldhaus, appears in some POW diaries as Buchitz. The Polish name today is Buszyce.
217 John Berry was born at Padiham, near Burnley, Lancashire on 2 September 1910.
218 From Ben Couchman’s diary.
219 See Hughes’s story in Chapter 8.
220 Howatson/Thomson report.
CHAPTER 13
221 Footprints on the Sands of Time, p.58.
222 The Log, p.198.
223 G/C Willetts had come from Luft 3. He was shot down on 23/24 August 1943 (Berlin).
224 For his selfless work, Captain Howatson received only a Mention in Despatches (gazetted 20 December 1945). He died in Canada, where he had been in practice, on 24 August 1972.
225 From the four 51 Squadron Halifaxes lost on these two nights, eighteen were killed and ten taken POW.
226 Information gratefully received from Dave Champion.
227 Art Kinnis, via Frank Wells, in letter of 7 November 1990.
228 Quotes from Bruce Smith’s unpublished memoirs The Airforce Years.
POSTSCRIPT
229 Coincidentally where one of the authors now lives.
APPENDIX III
230 In return for the Anglo-American promise, Stalin agreed to hold free elections in liberated Poland as soon as possible, though it is clear now that he had no intention of ever doing this.
APPENDIX IV
231 From http://www.460squadronraaf.com/crews.html, with kind permission of Laurie Woods.
232 Poland, SOE and the Allies, p.193, Garlinski, op.cit.
APPENDIX V
233 Lieutenant David Grey Worcester (232585) was awarded the MC on 29 November 1945.
234 Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff (13 May 1900-17 July 1984), who ended the war as the Supreme Commander of all SS forces in Italy, negotiated the early surrender of all German forces in Italy, which ended the war in Italy on 2 May 1945.