Long Haul Home: POW's in Germany 1945

Pows, mostly Arnhem veterans,we had been marching for five days Through the Harz mountains,in Germany.
We were starving, our guards tried their best to get potatoes which we ate raw.We had left the work camp (the Hermann Goering Iron & Steel Works)because the Americans were approaching.
Our clothes and skin were impregnated with iron ore which we had shovelled daily.We wore sabots, as our boots had worn out.
We never new what day it was, but this day, was a day of great elation for us,but of great sadness for millions, I will always remember it.
We heard a bugle playing the charge very faint, but then louder.Being a western fan, i new it was the Yanks and sure enough, along came a column of Sherman tanks, old glory flying and bugle blowing.
Our guards hopped it and were free, free, a lot of hand shaking and back slapping went on as they gave us all the food and fags they had.
The officer in charge, a major stood on the leading tank and said" We are delighted to have liberated you, but, today, for us, and the whole American people, this is a sad day.We have just heard over the radio that today April 12th 1945, President Roosevelt died.Will you join me in one minutes silence?"

Four of us decided, firstly to find some food and then head west for home and beauty and off we went into no man's land.
Every village, every farm was in ruins.So we left the main road and took to the side roads, got a bit of food here and there.Gradually, we found people, white sheets hanging from the window sills.One village had dead men hanging from the lamp posts - Russians.The villagers wanted us to stay and protect them from the hordes of slave workers from all breeds, but SS men and German army deserters came into the towns and villages each night for food and comfort and hanged many non-Germans.
We used to sleep in barns, etc.Finally we reached Koblenz.By now we had dicarded our filthy, lousy unifoms and were in civvies.I had a floral waistcoat.We were arrested as suspected SS men.We had kept our emblems and finally persuaded the officer who we were.Then off through the Ardennes and finally we hitched a lift on a barge on the Marne and got to Paris.
We had a letter from an American padre in Koblenz, which we showed at the American aerodrome and were flown to Brize Norton in Oxfordshire,where we were stripped, shorn, scrubbed, deloused and kitted out and put in hospital for two weeks.We all had malnutrition.
Then leave to James street in Whickham.I was greeted by my wife and three sons, one who I had never seen.I asked my wife if it was a boy or a girl.I had no letters all my POW life, seven months.
Next day there was a street party and my old friend Jimmy Frances sang Ain't it glad to be home.

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