War And Captivity 1944/45 Part Two

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Donald B. Walker, and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr. Walker fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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Continued from Part One:

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After 2 or 3 days at Chalons, we were moved again about 120 miles to a town called Trier on the German border. This town had been bombed, leaving them without electric power or water, making the inhabitants very hostile. We were marched through the streets to a camp on the top of a hill, whilst the locals threw stones and spat on us. This amused our guards, but not us!

The stay here was only 2 days, then we were taken down to the railway station and packed into cattle wagons for passage deeper into Germany. The journey turned out to be horrendous. We travelled some 500 — 600 miles on a roundabout route, bypassing Berlin, to end at a huge prison camp, Stalag IV B, some miles north of Leipzig. The journey lasted 28 days, during which time we were never allowed out of the cattle wagons, had very little food or drink, and needless to say, no washes. Our only sanitation was a wooden box. We were straffed by our own planes on several occasions as, although the wagons were marked with red crosses, the pilots seemed to know that the Germans were using the same wagons to carry petrol, ammunition and other military supplies. In addition, trucks and tanks were being transported in between the prisoners’ wagons. It seemed to be much worse being attacked by your own side than by the enemy.

Often, our wounded or dead were not removed for several hours or days. The wagons were labelled “10 horses or 30 men.” The Germans packed a great many more POW’s in until we were standing shoulder to shoulder, but due to our casualties, we were eventually able to sit. By this time, we were covered in blood, vomit and excrement. The stench was horrible.

At last we reached our destination, albeit in a somewhat sorry state. However, as soon as possible, the prisoners already established came to our assistance. They gave us soap to enable us to wash for the first time in over a month, then they cut our unkempt beards and provided razors, so that we could shave the rest off. Food was more plentiful, although lacking in quality, being boiled red cabbage, marrow or potato soup, and an unknown sticky mess that we referred to as ‘target paste’. A small piece of very hard bread was issued daily and every 2 or 3 day, a few very small potatoes boiled in their skins. We never received any meat, but joy of joys, we did get a Red Cross food parcel every 4 weeks.

During the day, after roll call, we were allowed to roam around the compound which was surrounded by double high barbed wire fences, overlooked by numerous watch towers and numerous guards patrolling within the double fences. At night we were locked in large wooden huts containing 300 prisoners each. Our beds were 3 tier bunks with just a straw palliaise laid across 12 bed boards. At least there should have been 12 boards, but 7 had been removed from each bunk to help shore up various tunnels being constructed in escape bids. The Germans realised this when they discovered a tunnel from time to time. They then started inspecting our bunks, but being methodical souls, they always entered the huts at the same end and inspected bunks in the same order. Our lookouts were able to warn us that the guards were coming, so we had time to shuffle the boards up so that the bunks due to be checked first had their full set of 12 boards. As the rows were cleared, the boards were quickly removed and passed down the room behind the Germans’ backs and placed in the bunks awaiting inspection.. By this method, all the bunks appeared to have complete sets of boards, much to the puzzlement of the guards. However, it must be said that with only 5 boards to a bunk, and a restless sleeper on top, there were several crashes and yells during the nights a the men crashed down onto the ones below.

My most vivid recollection of this camp is the 23rd of September 1944 — my 21st birthday. Each man in the hut donated a small potato and they baked me a cake on the stove in the hut. Of course, each man had to have his share of my ‘cake’, but for me, it was a very moving experience.

After 5 or 6 weeks in the camp, I was allocated to a working party and sent to a brick factory near Wurzen, which I believe was 10/15 miles from Leipzig. Here, I joined 29 other prisoners in making roof tiles. We had to work 8 hours per day, 7 days per week, and if we were interrupted by air raids, we had to return until we had completed the 8 working hours. Our only rest periods came when we managed to break one of the cutting wires on the tile shaping machine. This gave us about 15 minutes rest while the wire was replaced. We did however, manage to sabotage the tiles by surreptitiously pushing our fingers into the soft clay on the underside of the tiles. After the tiles had been partially dried and baked in the kilns, they became rather brittle along the line of the finger marks. A sharp rap as we stacked them in the yard was usually enough to break the tile in two. When the lorries came to take the tiles away, we loaded them carefully, so the ‘breakages’ were not discovered until the tiles were unloaded to repair roofs damaged in air raids. The Germans must have thought that the tiles had broken as the lorries negotiated roads badly damaged by air raids and we never had any reprisals.

Life here was very hard and dirty, but we were only allowed one very brief cold water shower per week, if we were lucky. As ‘workers’, we were allowed meat once a week. This was a desert spoon full of minced horsemeat, which was usually beginning to go ‘off’. We were so hungry that we still ate the meat and put up with the subsequent diarrhoea. Once, we refused to go to work until more food was provided, as we felt too weak to work. The commandant lined all 30 of us up and ordered the guards to shoot us if we didn’t return to work in 10 seconds. Needless to say, we returned to work and our rations were cut.

We did receive some Red Cross parcels during our stay here — the first allocation being 1 parcel between 3 men. The second was 1 parcel between 8 men and the last, 2 parcels between the 30 of us! Our food at this time consisted of 1 mug of boiled red cabbage per day, now and again, we got (for a change) 1 mug of very weak potato or marrow soup. We usually got a 1 Kg loaf of dark brown, stale bread between the thirty of us per week. This was for ‘manual workers’. We were very weak and quite dizzy when we stood up.

Due to the dirt and malnutrition, I developed ulcers on both my legs, just above the ankles. For treatment, we had to walk (under guard of course) about 4 miles to a clinic where we were attended by a British Medical Officer. All he could do was scrape out the puss in the ulcers and fill them with a brown or red ointment (we chose the colour). Then he bandaged our legs with crepe paper bandages. Long before we had completed our four mile walk back to the brick factory, the crepe paper had stretched and the ‘bandages’ had fallen round our ankles. We had to salvage what we could and cover our ulcers to the best of our abilities until our next visit to the clinic in 7 days time.

My condition deteriorated and eventually, I was sent to hospital. The treatment there was only slightly better but it was clean and free from brick dust. I was there for 8 or 9 days over the Christmas of 1944. Christmas lunch was a cup full of boiled red cabbage. A German officer then decided that I should return to work.

At the factory, our accommodation was an old cottage, within the barbed wire. At night, we climbed a ladder and passed through a trap door to our windowless bedroom. Here we slept on double bunks with just a straw paliasse and one blanket. These beds were full of bedbugs and they crept all over. One of our pastimes was killing the bugs. One of the highlights of this period was when we managed to entice the commandant’s cat into our compound and it was promptly turned into ‘rabbit casserole’ — not much between 30 men!

Eventually, as the war was drawing to a close, we were marched out of the factory compound to join the groups of prisoners marching in ever decreasing circles between the advancing Americans and the advancing Russians. We endeavoured to march slowly towards the Russians and as quickly as possible towards the American. One night, we were place in the loft of a barn next to a church. We realised that the guards were becoming more concerned with their own safety, rather than guarding us, so it was an easy task to remove a few tiles and drop them into the churchyard and sneak away.

I had bad ulcers round my ankles and very swollen legs, no doubt due to dirt and the lack of good food, so I was unable to walk very fast. A paratrooper friend stayed with me an we made our way slowly towards the Americans. This was quite easy as most of the German troops were doing likewise, as they didn’t want to be captured by the Russians. All we had to do was to keep an eye open for an S.S. or Hitler Youth, and in 3 days, we reached the Americans. They took us to a large German barracks in Leipzig where I received medical attention. There were hundreds of POW’s in this camp and the Americans tried to keep us in and enforce the curfew imposed on the German civilians. We had looked at the world through barbed wire for too long and quickly told the Yanks what they could do.

We walked out and just sat on the pavement edge, enjoying freedom. The American food was far too rich for our starved stomachs, but we discovered powdered milk, rice and other goodies stored in the cellars. We made milk puddings in metal washing bowls on the top of inverted electric fires, and virtually lived on these for three weeks until we were flown back to Britain.

Our planes landed near Birkhampstead where we were welcomed by wonderful ladies — WVS, WAFFS, Land Girls and civilians alike who mothered us, sat us down for cups of tea and talked gently to us to ease the emotion of being back on British soil again. Soon we were helped into lorries to be taken to an army camp. Crowds were lining the streets to cheer us and welcome us back. Tears flowed copiously because to our minds, we were not heroes — rather more ashamed and humiliated at having been captured, so we were extremely touched by this welcome.

At the camp, we were allocate huts with marvellous beds, clean sheets, toiletries, hot baths and good old English food. We were then given telegrams to send home to our families to let them know we were safely back in England and would be home in a couple of days. Then we were issued with new clothing and all the badges and insignia we required, which were quickly sewn on for us by a group of civilian ladies. Next we were given some money and allowed to go into town if we wished. The money was not required as the locals insisted on paying for our drinks in any pub we entered.

In 2 days, I was on a train back to Sheffield and then a bus ride home. As I turned the corner of our road, I saw banners saying, “Welcome Home Don.” Family and neighbours rushed to meet me and tears flowed on all sides.
I was home.

Pr-BR

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