Mr Ron Bates: Prisoner of War 1940-1945 Part I

Mr Ron Bates: Prisoner of War 1940-1945 — Part 1

Joining Up and Training: England
This story begins in 1938 when the army started a recruitment drive for Territorials. I was one of the many young eighteen year olds in the Hope Valley, Derbyshire, who volunteered to join up at Bamford Recruiting Office, thus becoming a Territorial soldier of ‘B’ company 2/5 Sherwood Foresters (also known as The Notts and Derby). Buildings were erected at Bamford where we started our training. Later on, we finished up at Derby at Becket St Barracks. It was here we were mobilised into the regular army in September 1939. Then we moved on to Keddleston where we started our extensive training at Keddleston Hall. War was declared and our training included landing craft, being able to land under fire, etc, and assault course runs whilst wearing a gas-mask, which made breathing almost impossible. After saying this, life as a solder was great at this time and, whilst in England, we really enjoyed ourselves.

Moving Out 1940: From Derby to Dunkirk
However, in March 1940, the day came when all leave was cancelled; we were put on a war footing and told we were going on active service overseas - where? — we had no idea. Then came the final order to ‘move out’. It was early morning - still dark — and we were ordered to put on full pack and rifles and to make no noise. Marching through Derby was very spooky. All you could hear was the noise from our boots. Of course, there was a reason for this. All troop movements at that time, as you will understand, were highly secretive because there were enemy agents about at all times. The saying “walls have ears” was to mean to be careful of all, even civilians.

On arrival at Derby station, a troop train was waiting for us. At long last, we were told we were going to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force (known as the BEF). Full of excitement and buzzing with anticipation, we felt elated to be on the move but without knowing what we were going into. We did not know then that Britain was not ready for war. There would be no British tanks or aircraft ready to back us up. All we had were small arms, machine guns and brencarriers. Truth is, this is how we were sent into the front line, against the Germans with all their air superiority. The sky was full of fighter bombers bombing all towns and villages in France. The few opposing French fighters were soon outnumbered and shot down. We often watched the dog-fights in the skies and prayed for British planes to come. Towns and villages were burning. Civilians were screaming. We were told to ‘hold the front line at all cost’. But there was no ‘front line’ to hold. The Germans had broken through the maginal line defences and came through near Luxembourg. Belgium was surrounded and had surrendered to the Germans. We, the British, were encircled. To make matters worse, the Germans dropped soldiers, dressed as nuns, from the air who would take up positions in houses to pick our lads off, one by one. We did manage to shoot a few of them.

At last, we broke out of the encirclement and headed for Dunkirk, even though we were still outnumbered. We managed to get about 20km from Dunkirk when we were bombed and strafed. It was as if all hell was let loose. Most of my battalion was wiped out. The rest of us ran for cover inside a forest but then the Germans fired mortar bombs into the forest, killing quite a few. A few of us were lucky. We crawled on our bellies out of the forest and, knowing the Germans had surrounded the forest with machine guns ready to mow us down, we made for a hedgerow. I think about six or seven of us laid in the gully of this hedgerow whilst bullets thudded into the ground around us. This was the moment I wondered if my name would be on the next bullet. I shall never forget the screams of my comrades before they died, blood pumping out of their mouths. After we were captured, the Germans rounded us up. They then finished off the lads who were dying.

Capture and the Journey from Hell
Eventually, we were taken to a huge line of prisoners made up of British, French and Belgians. The line stretched for miles. There must have been thousands of us that set out on a journey I shall never forget. We marched for three days, across Belgium, into Holland, eventually reaching Germany. Those who fell by the wayside, we never saw again. Some kind Dutch people had put out buckets of water for us to quench our thirst which the German guards kicked over. We had one meal of watery soup which we drank from our helmets after pulling the cage out. On the third day, they gave us a chunk of bread just before we were hoarded onto barges like cattle and packed tight as sardines. If anyone needed to relieve themselves, it was almost impossible to walk over all the men in order to sit on two planks tied to the sides of the barges. So they just had to let it drop where they stood. There were two toilets on board but, they were so full to the brim, human waste was running out of the toilets and on to the floor. I can only describe the smell as so horrible it made you feel sick. The men could not be blamed for this as the barge was so over-loaded. We were like rats in a floating cage. All self-respect had gone. Every man was for himself. Only the fittest would survive.

At this stage, morale was very low. We had no idea what was to become of us. We were starving hungry, with no water to drink. Some of the lads collapsed. I remember it was 31st May 1940 and a blisteringly hot day.

At night, we were all pushed down into the holds of the barge and the hatch was closed. It was stifling with hardly any air. On one occasion, one man and I were left with our feet through one rung of the ladder and our arms through another. It was so packed below that we stayed on the ladder, half sleeping and half nearly falling off, wondering how much longer we would be in this situation.

As always, when morning came after the darkness of night, we were glad to breathe the outside air and, again, be able to sit on the plank tied to the side of the barge to let nature call. On the last day on these barges we were rounded up ready for an unknown destination. We were on the march for about 10-12 miles, dying for food and water. It seemed to never end until, finally, we began to see lots of people and signs pointing to Lamsdorf POW Camp Stalag VIII B. We sailed for 4 hours up a canal into Germany. I must say, we had a nasty reception from the German civilians we passed. They threw things at us and spat at us for quite a while. We then travelled through Germany in rail wagons, again, tightly packed; we were stood right up to one another. Someone thought of the good idea of cutting a hole in the wagon floorboard so we could relieve ourselves. Every time someone needed to use the hole, everybody had to shuffle to one side.
We must have travelled hundreds of miles across Germany like this so you can imagine how rough, hungry, thirsty and tired we were.

Arriving at Lamsdorf, Stalag VIII B Camp
At last, we arrived at Lamsdorf Camp Stalag VIII B which held 30,000 prisoners. The camp was divided into compounds and the buildings were made of concrete with bars to the windows. A road went through the middle of the camp and you passed through the soldiers’ barracks before entering the main camp. They were a mixed bag of prisoners — British, Serbs, Czechs, French, Belgians, Russians and, later, Americans. To give you an idea, it was like a chicken farm layout, with machine-gun posts at each corner, an outer barbed wire fence, plus a shorter inner wire fence. This inner fence was a warning. If you stepped over it, the guards would open fire. Each nationality had their own compound. Upon entry, every prisoner had to strip and your clothing was wrapped up with your belt. Whilst your clothing went through a hot steam process the hair, all over your body, was shaved off. Your clothing was then returned to you, less your belt which would be melted down. After all this, you were given a metal disc with your prison number on it, to be worn around your neck, and sent into your allotted compound.

Responsibility for the administration of our compound was given to our sergeants, corporals and sergeant majors, etc. Their job was mainly to ration out the small amount of food. The food was fetched from the cookhouse by six volunteers and there was always a rush to volunteer. The reason for this was, whoever carried the big box of potatoes, which took four men to lift, there was a chance to pinch one, two or more potatoes. These potatoes were boiled, rotten or not, with the mud still on. We were so hungry, we ate the lot — mud, rotten potatoes — all went down. The sergeant who rationed our food out had a corner of the room sectioned off from the rest of us by hanging blankets up from the ceiling to the floor. You can guess why this was necessary for them. As they say, ‘what you don’t see, you don’t miss’. In other words, the sergeants and corporals were well looked after.

These upper ranks were also responsible for all discipline. For instance, if you were caught stealing or fighting, you were brought before a military court consisting of senior ranks and the punishment was to be frog-marched to the back of the open toilets and quickly dipped into the sump full of human waste. Other punishments for small crimes were to clean the toilet seats - all fifty of them. These were ‘earth toilets’ which consisted of fifty holes in a long plank.
The Prisoner of War Stalag VIII B Camp at Lamsdorf was situated near the Black Forest in Oberselechia in East Germany. Our guards where chiefly SS soldiers. Part II of this story will reveal what life was like inside the Camp.

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