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

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

Escape From Stalag VIII B Camp
I must tell you of the day my friend, Pat McGowan and I decided to escape. We talked it through with the lads and all agreed to help. The entrance to the tunnel started at the corner of the room, below a steel plate the Germans had put under the stove to prevent a possible fire to the wooden floor. We agreed what equipment we needed — a short bar, a couple of hacksaw blades and a small shovel. The shovel we already had for filling the old 5 gallon oil-drum inside the stove with sawdust for the fire. My pal, Patrick, managed to get a short bar from work which he pushed down his trouser leg and held with one hand in his pocket. The saw blades I stole from work. The escape plan was coming together. First, we had to tunnel underneath two rooms. The stove was about 2 ft from the dividing wall which meant going down roughly 3 ft. We were close to the foundation of the wall and it was not a very big job to pull the stones out with the help of the bar. Luckily, the soil was about 1 ft from the floorboards so we did not have a lot of soil to move. We made the tunnel just deep enough so we could crawl on our stomachs a distance of about 8 ft going through to the next foundation which was the last. We then emerged up through the earth outside the barbed wire and we covered the outside hole with bracken and rubbish. It was left like this until we were ready to go. All this planning and preparation took a month from start to finish. We also dyed our khaki uniforms blue by using the delable lead from pencils in hot water to make our clothes like civvies. I would like to explain that our planned escape was nothing like the TV stories. We had no maps, no compass and had no idea what journey lay ahead of us.

The night we went, getting out of the tunnel to the outside was both the most exciting and the most dangerous part. We travelled by night and slept by day. Our plan was to get to Switzerland and we made for the station so we could hide in an empty coal truck. But, unluckily, we found out the trucks were bound for Dresden. We carried on walking but we had no map and ended up going through a village. By now it was daylight so we decided to look for a deserted building to hide and get some rest. We found an old factory building and went down some steps into the basement. We were very tired so we got down to sleep. Unfortunately, we overslept and were woken by two young German boys who had come down the basement steps, seen us and ran back up. We ran in broad daylight down the road with two policemen chasing us. Trying to lose them, we shot into a nearby forest but eventually we realised we couldn’t get away as the police started shooting and shouting, “Halt!” This was the end of the line for us. We were taken to the police station and put into separate cells. The next day two German soldiers came to pick us up and we were taken to a military barracks. The sergeant wanted to know where we had escaped from. Of course, we told them Stalag VIII B Camp as we did not want to return to the working party we’d escaped from. We spent a fortnight in that jail, the first week on bread and water ration.

Flashes of Hope
When we were taken back to Stalag VIII B Main Camp at Lamsdorf, we settled down to a miserable existence waiting for the war to end. I say this because we knew the Russians were not far away from our camp. We used to lie on our bunks and watch the flashers in the sky. Every day and every night we prayed for the day of freedom. It wasn’t long after the Russian guns sounded louder; we lived in hope but sometimes thought we could be blown up by a stray bomb. We didn’t know what to expect.

1945 — Released by the Russians
Finally, the day of freedom came. We woke up on morning in 1945 and noticed the camp guards were gone and our camp was overrun by Russian soldiers. They shouted to us, “You are free!” I could not put into words just how we felt.

For our own safety, we were told not to leave the camp but we knew there was no food around right then. We also knew the American lines were a long way off. We were on the east side of Germany and the Americans were in the west. Still, six of us made up our minds to cut through the barbed wire that surrounded the camp and make for the American line. In doing so, we noticed our previous German guards hanging from the trees along the camp road. The Russians had strung them up. I believe the reason that lay behind this was that it was known the German guards had given the Russian Prisoners of War a very hard time. A lot of Russian prisoners died in our camp through starvation and typhus. It was a common sight to see the horse and cart picking up bodies from the Russian compound. We had mixed feelings about the Russians. They were mostly peasants from the Ukraine and were very rough and undisciplined.

The Way Home
We set off walking, hoping to find food. We ended up in a village not far from the Danube where we met some German people who were scared stiff of the Russians. They told us the Russians were raping their women. They asked us to stop and sleep at their house and, if there was a knock at the door, they wanted us to answer it. We agreed to stop overnight. There was very little food and we slept where we could downstairs, one or two upstairs. Next day, we told the family that we had to meet up with the Americans. Following the side of the Danube, we walked on and saw all the bridges across the river had been blown up and it was a sight to see big girders stuck out of the water. We must have walked about 10 km before we saw a Yankee convoy approaching. The great line of lorries made us shout for joy. They pulled up and an Officer jumped out and shouted, “Hey! Are you Brits? What the devil are you lot doing down here?” He gave us a good telling off and explained they had orders to evacuate us at Stalag VIII B Camp. We had to get into the lorry as this convoy was evacuating that area. We were now overwhelmed by the thought: the day had really come — we were shortly to be going home to dear old England.

To cut a long story short, the Yanks took us to the American lines. We were treated very well with plenty of food to eat, even apples and oranges, fags and chocolate. But the greatest joy was to see the line of bombers all waiting to take us back home. The guns had been stripped from the turrets, etc, and we laid with our legs up one side and our backs up the other side of the fuselage.

We landed in the south of England to a great reception. There was as much food as you could eat, beer, whisky and cigs. But most important of all, we had the love of our people that we had longed for over the five years that had seemed a lifetime.

Rehabilitation
After our coming home reception, we had to have our medical test. Quite a few of us were detailed for Rehabilitation Treatment and sent to a hospital in Dartford for it. Five years as prisoners and cases of ill-treatment required this treatment. I was put on the list due to working down the coal mine under bad conditions. It did not end there though. I was so run down that I caught pneumonia whilst being treated for depression. During this period, I longed to get home. I had already sent a letter to tell my mother I was back in England, at Dartford. Two weeks later, I had a nice surprise visit from my younger brother who had brought my two sisters down to see me. It was such a lovely surprise. They had travelled all the way to Dartford in Kent from Derbyshire.

Later, the day came for my journey home, back to my parents and family. It was the greatest day of my life. Travelling through the countryside, it seemed that nothing had changed, but to me my life was starting again. Being from a big family, you can imagine the reception I came home to. We finished up, my sisters and me, all singing round the old piano. This was my dream for five years. We had always talked of the ‘day of freedom’. At last it came.

I am 83 years old with a marvellous family of three children. All are married and I now have six grandchildren and one great-grandchild — something I never dreamed of all those terrible years ago.

I was encouraged to write this story by my youngest son, Stephen.

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