He'd Had Enough And Was Walking Home

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Ron Hornsey, and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr. Hornsey fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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I was in the Reconnaissance Regiment and we were pushed right to the front, as we headed towards the Baltic coast; we were moving too fast, I think. It was early morning, about 7 o’clock. I was driving and my mate said, “Hey, look across there.” I said, “Where?” He said, “In that farmyard.” There were some Germans soldiers enjoying their breakfast, and having a wash and a shave. They couldn’t believe we were there; they didn’t shoot us, probably because they were so surprised at our being there. We just drove on; it was quite a shock to them I think. But it was just about the end of the war by that time, which they knew, otherwise they’d have just shot us.

I had a box camera that I’d pinched from a factory as I was going through Germany. I used it to take pictures of the farm where we stayed. I’ve even recorded the dates they were taken: May the second, 1945. We were put up there; we knew the war had virtually finished. We had to link up with the Russians then. Originally, we were going to liberate Denmark, but we were then told to go up to the Baltic Coast to stop the Russians who were travelling down — which we did. We operated from Wisbar; we stayed at the farm there for about a week, then they flew us back to England. Of course, the war had ended by the time we got there. We’d linked up with the Russians and one of them gave me a Russian bank note. I don’t know what it is exactly, it’s a bit tatty now.

The Russians were all over the town and people were frightened to death of them. They would rape and murder, that’s all they were good for. One time, we were advancing through Germany, we stopped; we saw Germans in an observation tower. I said to the sergeant, “What shall we do?” He said, “We get the 4.2 motor and a Jeep with two trailers.” So we got them out, we found a spot; it was like a big mansion house with a lovely lawn. He said, “We’ll have it here.” A German, probably the owner, came out and told us we couldn’t put it there because it’d spoil his lawn.

We had a chap who spoke German - he’s lived in Germany — he was a Jew and he’d come to England, a few years earlier to get out of the way — he was a big help. He told us what he said, he said that we can’t put it there. We said that he ought to shut up, otherwise we’ll put him down the paddle and shoot him.

We were going up to Wismar and the Baltic, and as we were driving, we were on a big roundabout where there was an old German soldier; he had a rucksack on his back. This lad who could speak German had a word with him, and he said that he’d come from the Russian front. He’d had enough and he was walking home, he’d been walking two days and he was only about a mile and a half from his house, so we told him to get home quick.

We got a message to say that we were near a POW camp, and I was driving. I said, “Oh, it’s down here.” The gates were wide open, so we drove in. There were German officers on the right hand side, I can remember them; the British, some air force, some army, were on the other side. They came and shook our hands and we had a chat with them. I was speaking to one Scots lad — he’d been a prisoner since Dunkirk. It brought a lump to my throat, but we couldn’t stay, we had to move on. We said, “We can’t give you any food, but we can give you some cigars.” We’d pinched them the day before from a factory.

Pr-BR

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