Stalag 1V B ~ Jim DONNAN

Stalag 1V B ~ Jim DONNAN

Written by David Kirk (Jim’s son in law, sadly Jim passed away in July 2003)

Jim was shot down on the 1st January 1944, near the village of Holtrop Germany (see ‘The last flight of Lancaster B111 DV 189 BQ-T2). Whilst he was willing to talk about his last flight and the time up to when he was taken prisoner, he spoke very little about his period of captivity. I have pieced together the following from conversations we had and notes he made some years ago.

A few days after parachuting from his blazing aircraft Jim was arrested and held in a Police Station cell. I quote from Jim’s notes, “The following morning a woman brought in some food and a short time later an officer came into the cell and took me to an outside toilet. I was finding it almost impossible to walk as I had sustained leg injuries. I tried to indicate that I needed medical attention. The officer pulled out his revolver and shook it at me, shouting something like, ‘This be good for you’. Some time later I was collected by the Luftwaffe and taken to a nearby airfield.”

Jim was held at what is now Segel Flugplatz near Hoya in Germany. There he was to discover that two of his crew had been killed in the crash and the remainder taken prisoner. Together with two other crew members he was escorted by train to Dulag Luft in Frankfurt where the surviving crew members, Don Fadden, Charlie Gundry, Paul Evans, Jack Sawkins and himself were all reunited. Jim recalled feeling very vulnerable on this journey, when going through public places.

After interrogation they were all then transported by cattle truck to Stalag Luft 1V B Muhlberg on Elbe. At the prison camp Jim spent the next seven weeks in the Lazarett receiving medical attention for his injuries before being discharged into the camp.

Jim remained in Stalag 1V B until the camp was liberated by the Russian Army on 23rd April 1944.

Jim did speak of the prisoners raiding the camp’s offices after liberation and he was able to obtain his Dulag-Luft Kriegsgefangenenkartei (prisoner of war card index) from which the above photographs have been copied. On the reverse is attached his Kriegsgefangenenlager (prisoner of war record).

There are also photos of:

Sgt Don Fadden, prisoner 1802535 and Sgt Charlie Gundry, prisoner 1654359.

Stalag 1VB postcard photos. I believe these were taken by a Dutch POW. I have seen many of them on other WW2 web-sites.

He also had a letter from a Polish Officer (First Canadian Army) Wauda G… Majewska.

The following note, apparently an anonymous account of an American ex POW’s visit to the area of Stalag Luft 1V B was also amongst Jim’s papers:

MUHLBERG 1V B

Apparently the site is now wooded and an elderly resident gave the following account. "It is covered with trees because returning civilians found their homes damaged by the Russian forces and went to live in the POW camp which still had light, water and stoves. Three weeks after they had returned the Russians found them, forced them out into an adjacent field where they were made to watch whilst the Red Army blew up every building in the camp. The East German government had subsequently made the woods into a memorial to remind future generations of the Second World War".

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