The Experiences of a Prisoner of War

In 1942 I as a member of the King's Own Royal Regiment, part of the 8th Army in the Western Desert of the Middle East. Later in 1943 I was involved in the Battle of Leros, one of the Dodecanese Islands where we fought for many days against overwhelming German opposition with no air support, no reinforcements and many casualties. Eventually the island was surrendered and I became a prisoner of war.

Later I was taken by boat to Athens in Greece and paraded through the streets where the city population were forced to witness, as the Germans thought, the humiliation of ragged and dirty British soldiers who had surrendered.

Some days later we were pushed into railway trucks, 40 to a truck for a journey of 14 days in cramped conditions with very little food or water, that terrible ordeal was something I will never forget.

Eventually we arrived at Stalag 8B in Germany which proved to be a transit camp, two days later, back to the cattle trucks for a further journey to Stalag 11A at Halderslaben. From this camp prisoners were sent out on working parties each day, but I, along with 49 others, went to a permanent camp which proved to be a stone quarry in the village of Donstedt. Our accomodation was a small wooden building, securely surrounded by barbed wire and a guardroom at the entrance. The building was situated at the top of the quarry, very handy for work. Also working in the quarry were a similar number of German civilians who were only too willing to assist our guards in ensuring that there was no slacking by us.

The work involved digging the stone from the quarry face and breaking the larger stones before loading them onto a metal skip on wheels which ran on lines to a point where they were hauled to the surface after being pushed there by us.

We had to fill 20 of these each day and they had to be completed before we could leave the quarry. This was extremely hard for us who were not used to this type of work, and doubly so because of the food we were given, a loaf of black bread between 8 people and a bowl of soup per day.It was not enough for our needs. Fortunately, the Red Cross parcels we received fairly regularly supplemented our food and were lifesavers.

Later, as the allies advanced, these did not get through and we suffered severely on reduced German rations and lack of clothing and footwear which had worn out and not been replaced.

On 13 April 1945 we were released by the American forces and a few days later flown by them to Brussels, Belgium and then by an RAF plane home to England.

It was certainly an experience that I would not wish to repeat, but at least I had survived.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.