The Last Escape - The Untold Story of Allied Prisoners of War in Europe, 1944-45

MARIN COUNTY FREE LIBRARY

3 1111 02360 7581

AST ESCAPE

JOHN NICHOL AND TONY RENNEL

I

BY JUNE

hundreds

thousands

l

ritish

and American soldiers and airmen were

prison-

1944,

war

ers of

in

its

endgame. On the Eastern

Red Army was advancing,

the front

moving through Poland and toward the

line

border with Germany. and

Nazi Germany. The

camps across

war was reaching Front the

of

British troops

the west, American

In

were storming the beaches

of

northern France.

News

of the

camp

radios, filled the prisoners with hope, but

D-Day landings, heard on secret

their joy turned into foreboding as their captors

Many POWs

reacted to the threat.

would be

killed

by the retreating German armies

rather than be allowed to

the Russians. Instead, their

in

fall

to

march out

and farther into Germany,

would-be

hands

into the

of

the depths of winter,

guards forced them

camps their

feared they

of the

away from

liberators.

The marches were long and desperately arduous.

Some POWs walked

for

more than

hundred miles and were on the road

for

five

many

months. Hundreds died of exhaustion, disease,

and starvation. Those

who

by their experience.

How

their lives

survived

were awed

they escaped with

and eventually reached home

is

a

gripping story of endurance and courage.

John Nichol (himself Gulf conflict

interviewed of

in

a prisoner of

war

the

1991) and Tony Rennell have

many veterans, traveling

them back

in

to the sites of the

retracing parts of the marches.

with

some

camps and In

The Last

Escape, they relate the astonishing history of these unrecognized heroes, ties

and eighties and

now

in

their

seven-

reliving their extraordinary

experiences publicly for the

first

time.

0603

ALSO BY JOHN NICHOL Tornado

Down

(with John Peters)

Team Tornado (with John Peters)

FICTION Point of Impact

Vanishing Point

Exclusion Zone

Stinger Decisive Measures

ALSO BY TONY RENNELL Last Days of Glory: The Death of Queen Victoria

When Daddy Came Home

(with Barry Turner)

John Nichol

and

The

Tony Rennell

Last

Escape The Untold Story Allied Prisoners of in

of

War

Europe 1944-45

VIKING

VIKING Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London \VC2R ORL, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada 3B2 Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 1 1 Communitv Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 1 10 017,'lndia Penguin Books (X.Z.) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany Auckland, New Zealand Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pry) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,

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Johannesburg

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered

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Offices:

Copyright

©John

a

9

7

5

3

80 Strand, London

\YC2R ORL, England

American edition

First

Published in 2003 by Viking Penguin, 1

South Africa

member

of Penguin

10

6

8

4

Group (USA)

Inc.

2

Xichol and Tony Rennell, 2002

.All

rights reserved

Maps by Raymond Turvey PHOTOGRAPHIC ACKNOWLEDGMFN

I

s

Cal Younger; 3, 4, 5, 17, 18, 19, 20. 2 22, 23, 29: Courtesy of the Friends of the United States Air Force Academy Library; 5, 7, B: Vic Gammon; 9: Corbis; 12: Joe O'Donnell; 1 1: Bob 2". 2S: Imperial War Museum; 14. 15, 16: Courtesy of the United States Coles; 13. 24. 2>. 2h. Air Force Academy; 30: George Guderley; 3 1: John Xichol. Even effort has been made to contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be glad to make good in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention. 1

.

2

1

.

Extract from Hitler: 1936-1945: Nemesis by Ian Kershaw (Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 2000). Copyright €> Ian Kershaw. 2000. Extracts from Sir Winston Churchill's writings reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd on behalf of the Estate of Winston Churchill. Extract from Ml 9: Escape and Evasion by M. R. D. Foot and J. M. Langley. Copyright M. R. D. Foot and J. M. Langley, 1979. By permission of PDF on behalf of M. R. D. Foot CBE and the Estate of J. M. Langley

©

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Xichol, John, 1963-

The

last

escape

:

the untold story of allied prisoners of war in

Europe 1944-45

/

John Xichol and Tony Rennell. cm.

p.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBX 0-670-03212-3

1.

— Prisoners and prisons, German. Prisoners of war Prisoners of war — Great Britain United States — History — 20th century. Historv — 20th centurv. Rennell, Tonv.

World War, 1939-1945

2.

3.

I.

II.

Title.

D805!G3X496 2003 2002041191 940.547243—dc21 This book

is

printed on acid-free paper.

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The

This book all the Allied

dedicated

Second World

who gave so

is

we

to

War prisoners

their freedom

could keep ours.

Preface

It

was

a bleak place.

Ahead, the road stretched out through the pine

forest as far as the eye eve could see. zle

was

falling.

Roger Allen

home

But here, in

felt

this

remote corner of eastern Europe,

"Then" was 1944.

it still

He was

his thirteenth mission over

does now."

the

tail

gunner

sky,

in a

bomber

was

Three of the crew were not so lucky and

at

second before explode.

at

him.

flames licked

hit,

20,000 feet he

died.

chute opened he looked up and saw the plane he had

As

his para-

left just a split

On the ground he was captured by a patrol of

boys in uniform

all

on

three Messerschmitt

around him. The instinct to survive took over, and

He was

flying

cannons blazing directly

Bullets ripped through the fuselage, an engine

soldiers,

of

1

Germany when

came roaring out of the

bailed out.

me

himself on familiar territory. "It reminded

then," he said, "and

fighters

Above, the sky skv was gray, enrav, and driz-

—

he thought.

fifteen or sixteen years old,

of twenty-one, and for him, in that time-honored phrase,

the war was over. Instead, a different sort of

one in which

his life

would be

war was now beginning in just as

much danger

for him,

as

it

and

had been

when he was airborne. What lay ahead was an ordeal he was lucky to survive. Weeks later, on a train nearing his designated prisoner-ofwar camp, he looked out and saw the streams, eastern

Germany

that

made him

in the very heart of the

United

think of

States.

He

hills,

home was

and

forests of

5,000 miles away

a prisoner in a land

PREFACE

X

which, for

where he was not

we marched up I

just a stranger

saw the barbed wire

back.

century

a

grown

There was

I

got

later,

a

home

to

— but

I

didn't

want a

A

Now

up.

gap

whole

Roger

life

Allen's

that he did not

on

a

he

felt

knew

Yes,

it

little

it,

because

I

three it

was

—

grand-

hole in his

a

about.

in 1945, I didn't say

had been bad

met

all

—very

wanted

all I

and we

Flo,

months

hit

it

later. I didn't

behind me.

We had

to lead.

war experiences were forgotten,

visit,

fill,

want to burden anyone. Anyway,

own

to eastern

something pulling

he wanted to

end of the war

we were married

of our

I

just

had gone by

lifetime

retired,

in his life

at the

to tell her about

new

power.

would

a fulfilling job, beautiful children,

do was go out and have fun again.

off really well;

else's

and

looked around,

I

Roger Allen returned

much about what had happened. bad

someone

impossibility. I

personal history that even those he loved

When

in

trees

as

could out of this situation."

a different mission.

children already

him

I

happy marriage,

blissfully

was

I

was pretty well an

have to make the best than half

me.

in front of

was scared

I

between the pine

had no idea for how long. As

I

realized that escape

Europe on

but an enemy. "Yes,

to the gates along a path

They had me, and

More

own and

familiar-looking contours, was not his

all its

until ten years ago,

when he

newspaper and started to unbutton the

a part

retired

past.

He

of himself

from

his job

joined an or-

ganization for former prisoners of war, and began to recollect and to talk.

For the

ther's life in

first

time, his daughters heard snippets about their fa-

Nazi Germany. Pieces of the jigsaw were put together,

but the whole picture was

go back and face family,

he joined

a

his

still

hazy.

Then,

demons. In the autumn of that

party of veterans

who crossed

many and took a coach to that remote camp that had once housed them and of war. There was

in 2001, Allen decided to

little left

year, with his

the Atlantic to Ger-

pine forest and the

site

of the

10,000 other Allied prisoners

to see: the miles of barbed- wire fencing

PREFACE

XI

had gone, and so had the watchtowers that stood

Only

a

at every corner.

few brick and stone foundations remained.

The authors accompanied Allen on this trip into what had once been Germany but was now part of Poland. 2 He set off into the undergrowth to try to find where his own hut had been, but his legs

experiences back 1944 —bowed and damaged he had rough, uneven ground and to stumbled on the —

He

turned away from us, but

we knew

and

in

in his

1945

stop.

there were tears in his eyes.

We found a hollow in the ground, a cave with a bricked-up entrance that he recognized as a store for potatoes

oners' diet.

Then we came

stagnant contents choked with

Here was

into place.

forgotten past was

Except

on the

site

it

flesh

—the one

staple in the pris-

across a water-filled concrete pool,

weed and

insects.

Things were

falling

beginning to appear on old bones.

coming back

to

its

The

life.

had not been forgotten. There was

a

monument

there

of what had once been Stalag Luft IV, erected as a tribute

to brave British

and American prisoners of war by the Polish people

who had come to occupy the towns and villages nearby when the war was over. Nor was it a neglected monument. The next day, having been told that veterans from America were coming to

visit,

the locals

turned out in the hundreds. Young soldiers of the Polish

Army

formed an honor guard. Old men with drooping moustaches and wrinkled faces wore the uniforms of the partisan units in which they

had fought the Germans half

a

century before. Wreaths were laid

and, as

"The

the

of the forest, Roger Allen, snapping to attention with his

still

Star Spangled Banner" rang out over a loudspeaker in

low veterans, made no attempt

at all to

down his face. To his family, what was happening was going husband, the Second

modern

father,

times, he and

astonishing.

and grandfather was being hailed

World War. In all

fel-

conceal the tears running

An

as a

easy-

hero of

the winter of 1945, one of the coldest in

the other Allied inmates of that

camp had

been marched out into the unknown. The war was coming to an end, the Soviet

Army was

advancing into Hitler's

Germany from

the east,

PREFACE

XII

and Stalag Luft IV was one of many camps that lay in the invaders' path. Rather than let their captives go, the

Germans forced them out

of their barracks into the snow and away toward the west. start

It

was the

of a 500-mile journey across Germany. Hundreds died.

froze, they starved, they tion. In their

were broken down by sickness and exhaus-

minds was the constant

fear that they

would end up victims of

their deaths, that they

They

were marching

to

a desperate dictator

seeking revenge. Allen's family were shocked by the story of appalling misery and unbelievable

human endurance

This was the secret he had kept to himself for

In his comfortable retirement

bungalow

north of London, "Batch" Batchelder,

same vintage

down

as

a

Roger Allen, shared the

they were hearing.

fifty years.

in a small

town 30 miles

former British airman of the secret.

over Germany, though in his case

it

He too had been shot

had been much

earlier, in

1942, and he had been a prisoner in a different camp. As he told us

about at

POW

him

life,

he spoke about "the death march," and we looked

Neither of us had ever heard of such an

in astonishment.

happening to British servicemen

atrocity

in the

war

in

Europe.

It

was

the starting point for the research that has resulted in this book.

Batchelder told us that starvation and dysentery had reduced him to

many

a little

over ninety pounds in weight. At the end of the war,

POWs

were skeletons whose appearance would have been hard to

distinguish

from that of

concentration-camp survivor.

a

had shuddered with horror

as those sad

The world

and debilitated souls emerged

from the Nazi death camps. But why did no one seem

to

know about

Allen and Batchelder and the thousands like them?

One

of the answers

is

that,

when they

returned, their ordeal was

indeed overshadowed by the horrors of Auschwitz, Belsen, Dachau.

And

rightly so, as they

would be the

first

to admit.

They suffered, but

they were not systematically tortured and destroyed. There was no pile

of corpses, no inventory of 6 million slaughtered, no obscene

paraphernalia of gas chambers and ovens.

Compared with what had

PREFACE

XIII

been done to the Jews and the other victims of Nazi hate, their experience

seemed

slight.

3

Then

emerged about Japanese

the facts

ill-

treatment of Allied prisoners in the Far East, and the brutality and

inhumanity there also seemed to make the ordeal of these

men

in

German hands seem insignificant. Somehow their story disappeared. Their place in history was a footnote: The war had ended, and they had simply come home. In the words of one eminent military historian,

"When

finally the

Third and Last Reich foundered

of putrid dust, some 250,000 British, prisoners

marched

March they did

certainly did,

to correct

little

showed them

Commonwealth and American

4 briskly out of the ruins."

and briskly too, but the impression

given of a swift and easy liberation

POWs

it.

wrong. However, the former

is

Many

wrote down their stories and

to each other, had them privately published, sent them

But the secret stayed within the group. Time

to military archives.

and again they would explain

how

they could not discuss their expe-

riences with anyone other than another prisoner of war.

wrote to

One of them

a friend:

There

isn't a

about those

day that goes by that

difficult days,

few times that deal

in a cloud

I

I did, I

but

I

don't have

seldom

I

talk

some thoughts

about them.

The

got the distinct impression that the or-

was describing was not

fully

understood. Only

sharing your experiences with another former

when

POW can you

be sure that he knows what you are feeling. You can see

it

in

his eyes. 3

Why did they keep their stories to themselves? Partly it was because some felt that POWs were looked down on, that being captured had put

Having

them in

to surrender

a

category that was halfway toward cowardice.

was rarely anything other than

a humiliating

experience, and the trauma of it could last a long time. It

be eased by the

letters that

from unsympathetic

were

would not

said to have arrived in prison

girlfriends with

messages such

as "I

camps

would sooner

PREFACE

XIV

marry

hero than a coward." Feeling they had

a

being captured in the

first place,

let

the side

POWs were

most

down by

reluctant to talk

when they got home. In the years immediately after the war a few memoirs appeared.

Among

the

first

books about prisoner-of-war

A

broadcaster Robert Kee's 1947.

thrust was in the

Its

Crowd

title:

and demoralizing experience. You But

was not

this

hear,

and

a

lost

was writer and

Not Company, published

Is

Being

life

a

in

prisoner of war was a drab

your privacy and your

dignity.

message that the postwar reading public wanted to

in 1952 the

hero books began to appear

—

stories of

com-

radeship and fellowship centered around the activities of the escapees.

From

an airman in

then on the accepted image of the prisoner of war was a turtleneck

his nights plotting

sweater

who

spent his days tunneling and

new ways of taunting

the guards.

who was going to admit to a camp life that was filled? RAF pilot Ron Walker, a man whose

In the face of this,

humdrum and courage

will

fear

become obvious

in the pages ahead,

wrote

end of

at the

his diary:

Any

reader will have noticed a difference between this nar-

rative

and the

Wooden

scripts of

Horse,

POW

popular

The Great

Escape, and Colditz.

upper

lack of the expected British stiff

there were ties, I

many

an eagle! Naturally

more favourable war-time in

diary,

I

I

I

would have

a

is

—the

canary than

who

my

and weaknesses love me. 6

the heroic story of the Rogers

and against

ultimate prisoner-of-war epic

a

gap in our knowledge about the

and the Rons and hundreds of thousands in appalling circumstances

more

deficiencies

be accepted by those

end of the Second World War. This

Well, although

would not have been

it

book fill

distinct

liked to present myself in a

know that all

testimonies in this

lip!

A

The

did have heroic quali-

was, as now,

light but then

and

my character will

The

who

prisoners of war

was not one of them.

epics such as

last

like

them who made

terrible odds.

it

home

Theirs was the

escape from Germany.

PREFACE

XV

A word of caution. This is not a definitive history of prisoner-of-war camps in Germany in the Second World War. We have not covered every

camp and every march or each moment of liberation. To do be next to impossible. As a result, there will be those

would

read this account and

wonder why they have been

plain that their experiences

were

No

different.

7

life

were tormented for the life

other

man

or

com-

or a grandfather

Some

sailed blithely

and returned home unaffected. Others

rest of their lives.

Such was the nature of

one man's experiences could be

that

those of a

a father

man's story was typical.

through prison-camp

camp

—those of

left out,

so

who will

totally at

in the next hut, let alone the next

camp hundreds of miles

away.

To be

a

odds with

compound

or an-

prisoner of war was to

be deprived of certain knowledge beyond your immediate surroundings.

For example, there were prisoners

Great Escape camp,

compounds

let

digging their

at Stalag

Luft

III,

the famous

who had no idea that the camp stretched to five men in just one of those compounds were

alone that

way

to

freedom through tunnels named Tom, Dick,

and Harry.

The lack of precise information is still a problem. For all our rewe confess at the outset to being unable to answer with certainty some basic questions. How many prisoner-of-war camps were there in Germany in the Second World War? It depends on which month of which year, and whether you count separately the many search,

hundreds of satellite work camps. 238 principal camps spread

may

have been

tions

— and even

civilian

all

Official sources in

Washington

list

over Germany, though some of these

camps or

their locations

—

transit

camps, and their designa-

do not always correspond to those

German sources. How many prisoners of war were there in Germany? The same problem applies, and official documents are incon-

in

sistent in their estimates of

numbers, but

it

can be said with some

(but not total) confidence that in the middle of 1944

9 million prisoners of various nationalities. hard to take

in:

It is a

Germany had

staggering figure,

Imagine the entire population of Greater London

being held behind barbed wire. But

it is

also a misleading figure, be-

PREFACE

XVI

cause

it

does not take into account the millions of captured Russian

who had already perished, unfed and neglected in the east. Germany in the dying days of the Third Reich was in many ways an soldiers

armed prison camp

—which

makes the

survival of the estimated

250,000 to 300,000 British and American prisoners even more re-

They were

markable.

spread over the whole of

different camps, but the bulk of them

—

farthest to the east

deter

them from

And

it is

as far

away from home

all

summer

there, in the

Offizie?'lager, a

camp

tion camp.

by

camp

other ranks. Stalag Luft

lager, a

Roman

for

numerals:

many

could be, in order to

—

a

we

begin.

was:

camp

Stammlager, a

for air-force prisoners.

Marlag

Durchgangslager, a transit

camp

for

Marine-

camp or recep-

divided into military administrative districts designated

I, II,

the district

of 1944, that

for officers only. Stalag

navy prisoners. Dulag

Germany was

number from

as

in

in the Stalags*

escaping.

*The nomenclature of the camps Oflag

Germany

had been placed

it

etc.

Each camp generally (but not always) took

was

in.

its

Acknowledgments

To

acknowledge every individual who helped us produce

would be impossible, but we would

like to

Organization, for the use of her thesis Even One

States Air Force

at the

Imperial

for guiding us

in

at the

for answering

London,

through the archives; the

Ex-POW

Many and at the

United

and photographs; the

staff

Stephen Walton,

Public Record Of-

Library; Jo Cox, for research

Public Record Office, London; Dr. Mikhail Myagkov, for re-

Moscow; Major Dr. Peter An-

Popp of the German Military Archive, Freiburg; Louise King of

the Churchill Archive Centre, Cambridge; Ellis Gibson at Travel signs,

her

hundreds of ques-

especially

staff at the

London

search in the Soviet Military Archive, dreas

Is Too

Duane Reed

stories, oral histories,

War Museum

the British Library and the

fice,

affairs;

Academy, Colorado,

and seeking out

tions

POW

book

send special thanks to

Dr. Patricia Wadley, the national historian at the American

encyclopedic knowledge of

this

who

organized our trips to meet

many

of the American

during the tours of their former camps; Allan Percell,

who

De-

POWs

arranged

our tour of Fallingbostel; Dominique Kirkman, for translating Ger-

man

sources.

All

who

read the manuscript and offered advice and corrections

George Guderley, "Batch" Batchelder, Stephen Walton, Phil Chinnery, Cal Younger, Duane Reed, Dr. Barry Turner, Dr. Kent Fedorowich,

and Sebag Montefiore; the International Committee of the Red Cross in

Geneva, for checking

its

archives and providing information; the

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

XViil

staff at the

Air Force and

Army Historical

branches of the Ministry of

Defence.

Everyone

at

Viking Penguin, especially Juliet Annan,

Wolf, and Kate Barker; our agent and friend

nah Nichol and Sarah Foot, who read the

Wendy

Mark Lucas; and Suzan-

drafts, acted as

unpaid re-

searchers and secretaries, offered help and advice, and generally put

up with us

—we would be nothing without them.

But most of all we would

like to

thank the

POWs themselves who,

along with their nearest and dearest, wrote to us with information and allowed us to interview them, to read their private diaries, and to force

them

to

remember

have tried to omissions.

list

—sometimes painfully—events long forgotten. We

them

all

in the bibliography,

Without them,

this

but we apologize for any

book would never have happened.

7

.

11

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

xvii

Maps

xxi

List of

The Russians Are Coming

1

1

I

ix

I

2.

Abandoned

3.

Out

4.

Fears of a Massacre

5.

The Retreat from

Stalag Luft IV

6.

The Deadly Road

to the

7.

The

8.

Liberated by the Red

9.

Hostages of Stalin

232

0.

Waiting for Patton

25

The

286

I

.

to Their Fate

into the

3

Cold

Rivers of

64 9

West

Humanity

Army

Hell of Fallingbostel

114 1

39

166

204

1

2.

Death by "Friendly Fire"

3

1

3.

A German

Savior?

348

Home

372

14.

Heading for

15.

Welcome Back

1

403

CONTENTS

XX

Epilogue Appendix

433 I

:

Chronology of the End

of the Second

Appendix

2:

World War

The

Yalta

449

Agreement

on Prisoners of War, February 1945

Appendix

3:

The Senior American

About Conditions Appendix

4:

at Stalag XIIID,

The Numbers Game

Officer's

453 Complaint

Nuremberg

457 462

Notes

467

Bibliography

505

Index

511

List

Where

the

POWs Were: The

The Evacuation

Camps, 944- 945

Principal

of Stalag Luft VI, July

Allied Front Lines,

Maps

of

1

1

1

944

2

August 1944

32

The Evacuation

of Stalag Luft

III,

January-February 1945

The Evacuation

of Stalag Luft

IV,

February-March

The Main

POW Evacuation

The Evacuation of

Fallingbostel,

945

I

1

205

of Stalag XI ID, March I

1

65

168-69

Routes

The Advance of the Red Army The Evacuation

xxii-xxiii

1

945

April-May 1945

252 287

WHERE THE POWS WERE THE PRINCIPAL CAMPS, 1944-1945

BREMEN

•

Stalag X IB/357 FALLINGBOSTEL Stalag XIA

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ALTENGRABOW

Stalag

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LUCKENWALDE

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•

* A

Oflag 79

BRUNSWICK

I

BERLIN ^^

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A

IN

Y

DUSSELDORF k

Stalag IV B\

MUHLBERGl

COLOGNE

Qflag ix

BAD SALZA

ZIEGENHAIN i

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FRANKFURT AM MAIN

Stalag XIIIC

HAMMELBURG Stalag XIIID

MANNHEIM

STUTTGART •/STRASBOURG

NUREMBERG

Oflag VIIB

EICHSTATT ML

I

The Russians Are Coming

:

Sergeant Jimmy

"Dixie" Deans heard the long-expected good

news transmitted from citement, realized he

a

thousand miles away and, for

now had

a serious

lems, though, were his strength.

everyone

He

problem on

was

older and

more

imprisoned in

senior

his hands.

Prob-

just thirty years old,

—prisoner of war and German guard

his as the wisest of heads

his ex-

all

alike

but

—acknowledged

on young shoulders. Though there were

men

to choose from, the 3,000 British

airmen

wasteland on the northeastern border of Hitler's

this

Germany had not hesitated to elect him who would represent their interests

son

their

camp

to the

leader

—the per-

Germans.

Minutes before, John Bristow, one of Deans's most trusted men, had

hummed

Want

along to the

to Set the

World on

windup gramophone in

camp

last strains

in,

ground, so that the

German

radio, built

or smuggled eight

hidden inside

—known

slang as "the canary." Outside, from beyond Stalag Luft VI's

mer, was blowing

The

Fire," then taken the record off the

to get at the secret radio

barbed-wire perimeter fence,

trolling

of Vera Lynn singing "I Don't

in,

months

the "ferrets"

it

a chilly

wind, surprising for early sum-

kicking up swirls of dust and sand on the parade

men posted

at the

door to keep an eye out for pa-

guards had to wrap themselves up to stay warm.

by Bristow from spare parts that had been stolen was the prisoners' most precious

had come within

—security

officers

a

secret.

Twice in

whisker of being discovered

whose job

it

was to

foil

when

escapes

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING searched Deans's hut. But

it

had survived

—

3

for this

moment

in his-

tory.

That morning Bristow had been carrying out a routine test of the radio, connecting up the clothesline that doubled as a makeshift aerial and twiddling the two knobs fashioned from toothbrushes until

he could tune in to London.

and

hiss of the static

made him

What he

heard through the crackle

realize that

something big was hap-

pening. There would be more on the regular news at

bulletin.

And

so,

noon, he crouched over the radio, earphones on, to hear the faint

voice of the

BBC announcer John Snagge from London: "D-Day has

come. Early

this

morning the

began the

Allies

assault

on the north-

western face of Hitler's European fortress." It

was Tuesday June

6,

1944, and British, American, and Cana-

dian forces had been battling since coast of France. civilian life

On

dawn

the other headset,

—began taking down the

for a

beachhead on the

—

Ron Mogg

a journalist in

details in shorthand,

but his

much with excitement that he had to pass the job over to someone else. The news was wonderful. Even Deans, not known for displays of emotion, was ecstatic. The guards at the prisoner-of-war camp, close to the border with hands were shaking so

coming

in-

Atlantic Wall built

by

the Soviet Union, had been bragging for weeks that the

vasion in the west would never succeed. the

Germans was impregnable, they

The

told their prisoners. Don't get

The invaders would be thrown back into the sea. The Thousand Year Reich still had many centuries to run. The news direct from London told a different story. The first giant step toward the liberation of Europe and, ultimately, of the men under Deans's command had been taken. There was a real chance that the war would be over by Christmas that, God willing, they would be home for Christmas. Meanwhile, Deans, a thoughtful man who never did anything

your hopes up.

—

—

—

without

first

considering the consequences, addressed the difficulties

posed by the news.

He

had to find

a

way of passing it on

but without alerting the Germans to

camp breaks out

cheering, the

how

Germans

to the

they had heard

will

know

it.

men,

"If the

for sure that

we

THE LAST ESCAPE have in

all

Mogg in his gentle

he had warned

a radio,"

the news messengers and

to pass the

word

until / say so."

warn them

Scottish burr. "Call

to be ready but

no one

is

1

The bigger problem was to make sure that the joy of these young men many of whom had, like him, been prisoners of a hard and

—

enemy

ruthless

for four long years

allowed to explode into

a

—was kept under control and not

premature uprising. They had been behind

barbed wire forever, or so

it felt

—

in that debilitating state of being

unfree, eternally hungry, deprived of love and comfort, and scarred

by the wasted years and the humiliation of captivity.

Now they would

see for the first time a real possibility of defeat turning into victory.

But what

if

demonstrations of joy led to open defiance of their

—making fun of the German guards, pushing back them without pushing too —would

captors? "Jerry-baiting"

ing them,

have

irritat-

far

at

new and dangerous edge

a

volatile or vindictive

and certainly

There had been deaths

in the

guards became nervous or more trigger-happy than before.

as the

camp even

at settled

times

—

a prisoner

shot while trying to escape; another, in a notorious instance that had

enraged them left his

and nearly led to mutiny, gunned down for having

hut three minutes early in the morning, before the night cur-

few was over. settled

all

Who could tell what tragedies were possible in the un-

months ahead? Deans knew it would be up

men home, His

to get

first

them through the

problem quickly solved

war's

to

him

to guide his

Gotterddmmerung

itself.

finale.

As the messengers were

doing their job, slipping from overcrowded hut to overcrowded hut, their

whispered bulletins greeted in

burst out from

silence, a loud

cheer suddenly

A compound and spread around the entire camp. Dis-

—

never would under the

cipline

had not broken down, however

rule of

"King" Dixie. Apparently the invasion had been announced

on German himself.

radio,

and one of the guards was spreading the news

"You have invaded Europe but soon we

into the sea, and will

England and the Americans

end and you can

ting his

it

own

all

will

will

push you back

want peace, the war

help us fight the Russians," he declared, put-

chauvinist spin

on events happening 900 miles away.

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING

Over

in the neighboring

word was

also spreading fast

ried surreptitiously

5

compound for American prisoners, the among the 1,500 airmen there, first car-

by another eager former newspaperman,

Tom

McHale, and then broadcast over the camp loudspeaker by the Germans themselves their bombastic version of what was happening

—

repeating their confident claim that the Allies would be thrown back into the sea.

This was the signal for the Daily

newspaper hammered

Recco, the

out by the prisoners on an old typewriter under hand-lettered head-

go into production. Soon

lines, to

of a hut.

ran the text of the

It

night, the

enemy began

a front

official

German

The

POWs who

us.

.

wanted

Bitter fighting

is

in

fix

on the banner headsaid all they

Hitler's overreaching adventure of invading the

in the ruins of Stalingrad

and then turned

At Prokhorovka, on the Russian steppes,

2 million sol-

6,000 tanks, and 4,000 planes had fought for supremacy in the

summer of

Army from

1943.

The Red Army had won,

German

was barely 200 miles from the camp here

line

Heydekrug, close to the

camp had been pumped will

expelling the

Soviet soil and then pressing relentlessly west into

Poland until the front

war

.

discussed and awaited for the past eighteen

Union had died

into retreat.

at

last

to know.

months, ever since

diers,

"During

to read passed quickly

—"INVASION." That bright red across the top

D-Day had been Soviet

.

crowded around

over the propaganda, their eyes returning to line in

version:

long-prepared offensive against Western

his

Europe, which has been awaited by progress."

page was posted on the wall

Baltic Sea.

for information

be over?" was the

first

around them always asked

home, prohibited

areas

New prisoners brought to the

— "When do you think the

thing the old lags

(POWs) crowding

—and they had told of huge convoys

at

around the southern ports of England, and

immense troop concentrations. Now, with the British and American landings in Normandy, the Second Front was under way and the squeeze on Germany and the choking of its military machine could begin.

THE LAST ESCAPE

6

Flight Sergeant Richard Passmore, a prisoner since 1940, could

—"an end to hunger,

not contain his elation that an end was in sight separation, confinement, lack of fulfilment."

he was never able to forget the harsh

"We went

facts

2

For the

rest of his life

of life as a prisoner of war.

bed hungry, we got up hungry, we rose from each

to

mockery of a meal hungry; and

we

sat,

stood,

or walked in a state

lay,

we dreamed we were free and dreadful reality. Each new morning,

of constant gnawing hunger. At night at

home, and awoke anew

to the

despair clawed at the guts again."

Not

morning. As the word spread, some

this jubilant

men

dashed to see the written proof of what they had been promised for so long. Others took their time. Sergeant Cal Younger, a twenty-

two-year-old Australian, sauntered over from his hut with his closest friends in the

camp,

his

hands

in his pockets, "affecting dignity, in-

difference, nonchalance perhaps," as he recalled

He

had been

in a state of melancholy for

the arrival of a letter from

Nancy had broken have expected before, but

I

it,

home

years

An

all

older

man would

it

had been troubled and

long

girl

had never allowed myself to believe that

quent. Yet here

it

could

less fre-

was, in words of kindly finality not so differ-

ent from those which countless other

a shattered

men

here had read.

romance could be the

last straw,

bringing

an end to that hope of home that got them through each day.

would sink into themselves, losing

interest in

life

fire

on them. Younger had avoided

That was generally -the way of camp

buddies

— two

or three, rarely

other, sharing food

built," as

—and

life.

by

his

Prisoners had their

they looked after each

and space and pastimes. They were hard-won

friendships, ones that is

more

sentries to

that route, helped

friends.

A few

— some to the point

where they wandered toward the wire and invited the open

3

POWs dreaded:

would probably have released the

letters

later.

months now, brought on by

—the one that

off our engagement.

happen, though her

For some,

many

"grew slowly but with great

Younger himself put

it.

certainty, as coral

These "combines" were the

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING building blocks of

camp

7

the substitute for the family at

life,

you could no longer turn to. Not that there was anything

soft or sentimental

home

about prison

friendship:

has an intensity possible only where

It

men

thrown

are

to-

way that they cannot avoid each other, cannot choose when they will meet, or when separate. Even the gether in such a

husband-wife relationship less taut.

absorbing, less demanding,

is less

You sulked or lost your temper or gave way to almost

any emotion quite unashamedly. You had friends in other barracks

who you saw on

sential to

an everyday

whom

have someone to

who

ego naked, someone

melancholy, nursed you in plaint, the spite

you

felt in

basis,

but

it

was almost

es-

you could come with your

shared with you your hours of

and accepted, without com-

illness,

your heart for the other

fellows, but

which, to preserve the peace, you vented upon him.

Time had stood still in the camp. Life there had its own rhythms, its own ups and downs, its fears and its rewards. By and large, if a man kept his head down and his nose clean, didn't get too involved in the antics of the escapees

known a safe

—and concentrated

life,

You were

from the sternest was

"tally-ho boys," as they

mind on

getting

enough

to eat,

were it

was

defined by military rituals and generally conducted within

the rule of law.

It

his

—the

just

at

realities

war

all right,

but conscious of being away

of violence and death.

over two years since Younger's Wellington

bomber had

exploded in midair and he had escaped from the flames by parachuting into northern France.

For more than

a

week he had been on

the run,

hiding out with the help of the locals, until he was caught after curfew

by the

police and

missions

—steering through the

to the flak,

Germans.

He

had flown many

seeing friends shot down, grate-

—

make it home in one piece but now for the first time he looked enemy in the eye, saw their jackboots and steel helmets, felt the

ful to

the

handed over

clutch of terror at being alone and in the hands of men

who would not

THE LAST ESCAPE

8

On

hesitate to kill him.

compartment with

his

civilians,

way by

camp, sharing

train to his first

a

boys of the Hitler Youth had hissed at him

and menacingly fingered their sheathed knives. Only the armed Luft-

him had kept him from being skinned alive. While the war continued, that hostility was still out there, on the other except now it would be even more intense as side of the barbed wire bombing of German cities, and more result of the Allied carpet a

waffe guards escorting

—

deadly as the fight for the survival of the fatherland

Behind the wire,

The

security.

life

was by no means

horizon was

a line

easy,

itself

but

it

began.

had

its

sense of

of trees, the edge of a seemingly im-

penetrable forest beyond the perimeter of the camp. In one direction a

man

could see farther, to mile upon mile of

and featureless

flat

countryside across which a train occasionally puffed.

made

world,

from the

bearable by comradeship and routine.

battle fronts,"

It

was

"We were

too

far

away

far

Younger remembered,

and though we heard about the war's changing patterns, all

a small

to have any sense of

reality.

We were

it

was

in con-

tinuous suspense, waiting for the one great event that would

became the

affect us, so that suspense

inspiration of our exis-

which we would have sunk into

tence, the drive without

lethargy and decay.

There was hope in the arrival

books.

in that suspense

— and there was security

of food, mail, cigarettes and books, above

They were our

link with humanity, with established

and familiar things, with

sanity.

They were our

escape.

acquired knowledge and learned to appreciate the

was

a daily

sical

all,

outpouring of verse and

story,

arts.

Men

There

of painting, of mu-

composition, of practical invention, the constant taking

and giving of ordinary

life.

We forgot

the crafts of war.

Was all this about to end? With mixed feelings of elation and unease, the prisoners realized that the

"one great event" their hopes

had been pinned on was now upon them. Younger,

POW

it

like

every other

seems, had been taken into captivity with the immortal

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING

words "For you, the war uncertainty, and

into his

is

over."

Now that war—with its terrors, its

potential for instant death

its

9

—was coming back

life.

D-Day the prisoners and their captors

In the weeks that followed

battled with propaganda. In their huts the airmen

drew up maps of

Europe, and with colored pins and strands of blue and red wool they

movement of the

plotted the

was the

first

down

or sat

Allied front. "What's the latest gen?"

whispered question to eat.

The

when

friends

met

in the

compound

guards retaliated with newsreels of the new,

pilotless

buzz bombs, the V-ls, which were being launched on Lon-

don and

that they claimed

would turn the course of the war back

prisoners had witnessed

of the V-ls

trials

had seen strange objects flying out to

sea.

in

Passmore realized that he and other long-term

their favor. Richard

at

low

The mystery was now

level

way back

in 1942.

They

along the Baltic coast and

explained, and the implications

were worrying. The guards never

lost

an opportunity to boast of

unknown new weapons of mass destruction that their beloved fuhrer had assured them he had in reserve. Nevertheless, the Germans were becoming noticeably more these and other

jumpy as the weeks went by. The camp, being exclusively for aircrew, was run by the Luftwaffe, the German equivalent of the RAF. There had always been some mutual understanding and respect between service. The prisoners had even felt sympathy who returned from leave with descriptions of the devasGerman cities by Allied bombing homes burned out in

enemies of the same for guards

tation of

—

firestorms, the people living in cellars, deaths in every family.

sadness rubbed off," Sergeant Vic there was a

new iciness

Gammon

in relations.

remembered. But now

Tempers frayed more

politeness and respect turned to anger and bitterness.

were

also

beginning to run low.

The powder-keg

Dixie Deans had feared were becoming a

Deans was an Luft VI

ideal

at this time.

man

"The

easily,

Food

and

supplies

conditions that

reality.

to be in charge of the prisoners at Stalag

This was

his third

camp, and

his reputation

was

THE LAST ESCAPE

10

growing. There were

command lenged.

4

It

as the

took

men here senior in rank to him,

camp's elected

a special type

Man

but his right to

of Confidence was never chal-

of individual to maintain control over

prisoners of war, who, as a group, could be undisciplined to the point

of anarchy. battle las

Bader

been

An

officer

who was good

men

at leading fighting

into

was often not suited to leadership here. The legendary Doug-

—brave and inspirational fighter

pilot

—was too impetuous and too antagonistic

though he may have for such a job,

and in

camps there were more

his four years in various prisoner-of-war

who saw him as a liability, as likely to get men shot as to get them safely home. In the words of one military

than a few fellow officers his

historian, a successful

inspire confidence selfish

camp

leader had to

by showing that he was completely un-

about food and personal comfort.

He had to ensure that

everyone in the camp always received a thing, taking a firm line with those, of

who

tried to get

more than

enemy

share of every-

He had

their share.

gable in negotiating with the

fair

no matter what

to

rank,

to be indefati-

improve conditions

and to protect inmates from ill-treatment.

He

had to bear

hunger, cold and other discomforts cheerfully, and by his ex-

ample help maintain the morale of his fellow prisoners.

Deans could do

all this,

and more. There was

a

5

presence about

demanded obedience. Some thought him overbearing, and who referred to him as "the Fiihrer" though only behind his back. But to most of the men who came into contact with him, his powerful personality combined with an instinctive understanding of human problems made him like a revered headmaster. him

that

—

there were those

that "any man could take to him a personal trouble and when he came away at least some of the burden was transferred to the sturdy shoulders of the camp leader." Deans himself was modest about his ability, putting it down to "a fair degree of confidence, pretty fluent German" for dealing with the enemy and having "my finger on the pulse of the camp."

Younger

know

felt

that

6

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING

II

The

daily

Men would

stroll

Deans's authority was evident on the parade ground. roll calls

from

were always

a

shambles

and

their huts late

in

they would

move around

be

and rude songs

catcalls

one barked order

so.

any clothing they cared to put on. Then

to confuse the guards' counts.

—anything Deans could — he

to

if

He

smartly to attention. calls a

—deliberately

There would

annoy the Germans. With wished

—bring

the rabble

rarely did so, because he considered roll

matter for the Germans. But,

if in

the attempt to gain order,

the guards' threats escalated and there was a danger of events getting

out of hand, he would

act.

Younger recalled how "one crackling

command brought immediate

silence, horseplay ceased

and we were

instantly transformed into a military assembly."

One particular parade tion of the dangers.

On

stood out in Deans's

an indica-

men The camp was

an April evening earlier that year the

had been called from their huts for jittery

memory as

a special assembly.

because an escape had just been foiled, and as they paraded at

dusk the

first

thing the prisoners saw was the

show of strength.

Steel-

helmeted reinforcements had been brought in to bolster the regular guards.

They formed

their knees, tion.

a circle

around the prisoners and dropped to

machine-guns pointing menacingly from every direc-

Richard Passmore could not believe what he was seeing. "Were

we about to be mown down?" he

asked himself. There was a marked

absence of tomfoolery as the count was taken, and an eerie silence as the guards tallied the figures.

Younger too waited apprehensively

in the ranks as

the Adjutant, Alajor Heinrich, stalked solemnly to the centre

of the parade ground. Behind

him

the

camp

interpreter

marched, with knees thrust high, and halted and turned with clashing heels.

Then came

Dixie,

marching formally, but out

of step with the Germans, deliberately dissociating himself

from them. From

his attitude

we knew

that the

Germans had

done something unpleasant and were trying to cover this

ceremony of

guards in case

self-justification

we were not

it

with

and the reinforcement of

deceived.

THE LAST ESCAPE

12

Heinrich read from

a

document

somber German. Then

in slow,

the interpreter read the English translation. takes of breath as the a prisoner-of-war

7

There were sharp

news sank in of a mass escape

camp

for British

and American

at Stalag

Luft

inIII,

air force officers at

Sagan, 100 miles southeast of Berlin. Seventy-six prisoners had escaped. Fifty had been shot dead "while resisting arrest, or attempting a further escape after

being recaptured." In the stunned silence,

"And how many were wounded?" Hein-

voice from the ranks asked,

shrugged

rich

his shoulders.

Every man there knew what dered. Fifty of them. stinctive surge

.

.

.

this

meant.

They had been mur-

A few boos broke out, and then there was an in-

forward by the ranks, followed by

uncontrollable anger.

guns

a

The

a roar

of almost

ring of guards leveled their machine

and Deans's voice rang out. "Stand

fast!"

he roared. For

just

one second, according to Passmore, "the situation teetered on the

Then

edge of a bloody massacre. stiffened.

The danger was

discipline asserted

itself.

hut "and wait there for

kind." Passmore, streaming filled

eyes at the guards,

Two months but with there

fatal

later,

a time.

You

are to take

away with the

who

refused to

Deans feared

consequences

this time.

He

end of the war was unnecessarily.

in sight,

no action of any

of confrontation

could rest assured that

to provoke the

or at least not ones authorized by him. After

BBC,

go straight to

others, "stared with hate-

a similar sort

been received from London, encoded in

to

meet our gaze."

would be no more escape attempts

dio messages on the

ranks

over."

Deans dismissed the parade, ordering every man his

The

D-Day

letters

and

Germans

the order had

in "personal" ra-

stop.

The

and escaping could only jeopardize

lives

that escape attempts

were to

But Deans remained deeply worried by the mindset

revealed by the massacre of the

fifty

escapees.

The

incident had con-

firmed what he had always suspected: that the Germans were capable of almost anything. Others got the message too. Sergeant Cecil

Room remembered how the

anger that greeted the news of the

ings was followed by fear. "It put the

my God,

the

Germans could do

kill-

wind up us when you thought,

this to us.

m Sagan was

a

warning.

It

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING was

a sign that the prisoners

ahead before

this

13

could expect no quarter in the days

bloody war was over once and for

all.

Deans made what preparations he could. In the early hours of June

camp theater—which over

the years had provided

and precious forgetfulness for actors and audience

fun,

up

the

1 3

in flames.

Hundreds of prisoners

water to try to save

it,

a ruin.

Word was

tar

its

paper roof was

circulated that the fire

had been

result of faulty electricity, but in fact the theater

sacrificed.

Germans

The the

had been started

fire

illicit

—went

pajamas ran with buckets of

but the wooden hut with

soon an inferno and then

was the

in

alike

relief,

deliberately, to conceal

from the

removal that night of some parts of an amplifier.

These were cannibalized

POWs'

to turn the

radio receiver into a

transmitter, which, in an emergency, could be used to send out an

SOS. Deans,

as

flimsy line of

communication

But, for

Luft VI for

all

a

he anxiously contemplated the future,

at least

had

a

established.

the prisoners' concerns, there was jollity in the air at

few brief weeks that summer. The optimists prevailed

over the pessimists, the active over the inactive. Passmore indulged himself in the hope that "one day

we

complete people, no longer truncated.

camp became

a

must

as

if

he were to retain

of wise heads that

it

An

men, scenting real

off the deadly inertia of prison life."

cautious

really should be free again,

his sanity,

evening walk around the

life

Then

might be 1945 before they were

would endure before they made

For now, however,

a

it

man had

full

a

to be

nodding

liberated.

Not

extent of the hor-

home.

hot sun was shining, the days were long and

languid, and, despite an epidemic of fleas that

ing even

began to slough

and there would be

one of them, however, could have guessed the rors they

again,

again, a

had everyone scratch-

more than usual, there were things to celebrate. The Ameron the Fourth of July, and there were baseball

icans put out the flags

— and booze. Using prunes, and sugar Red Cross the industrious and the desperate found way of brewing crude alcohol — "kickapoo joy some called and boxing bouts

in their

tjie raisins,

parcels,

a

a

it.

Xo

Day

juice" as

one took much notice of their camp

address.

They were

too drunk.

The

leader's

British

Independence

were not so fortu-

THE LAST ESCAPE

14

brewed liquor had been stored under floorboards

nate. Illicitly

to be

brought out to celebrate news of the invasion, but the Germans had

found

and, after sampling, confiscated the

it

Not long

after

kee Doodle Dandy" and "The Battle

new sound

filled

lot.

Independence Day, with the

the

it.

It

The Red Army's summer

ble of heavy artillery.

echoes of "Yan-

Hymn cf the Republic" gone, a

No one could miss

air.

last

was the distant rumoffensive

was sweep-

ing the front line through Poland and closer and closer to the border

with Germany. Heydekrug and

were

in the way.

Deans and

way of knowing how to

its

thousands of prisoners of war

commanders had no It could be good news perhaps

his close coterie of

react to this.

—

On

they were on the point of being released by the Russians. other hand, there was every chance that the

camp

a

that the

Germans would withdraw but massacre

fore they did so, if for

no other reason than

up arms and joining the ranks of the could Deans and his

men do

stand could they make,

itself was

about to

POWs trapped in the crossfire. Or

become

battleground, with the

the

their prisoners be-

to stop

invaders. In

them from taking which

case,

What

to defend themselves?

unarmed and unprepared,

what

last-ditch

against guards

with machine guns and the defense of their homeland and their fuhrer at stake?

Adolf Hitler took pleasure from the time he spent with

his

head in

town of

the clouds at the Berghof, his southern residence in the

Berchtesgaden, high in the mountains above Salzburg. There, sitting in a deep, chintz-covered

armchair or wandering the terrace, he

could gaze out at the panorama of peaks, matching the endless

Alpine vista with endless to stay

talk.

His military commanders often fought

awake during the hour-long monologues

fought old battles and plotted imaginary

cumbing thinking

He Allies

to .

.

.

what an attache described [as]

new ones, as a

in

which he

increasingly suc-

tendency "to wishful

his contact with reality was slipping away."

was there

in the

summer

re-

9

of 1944 to hear the news that the

had stormed the beaches of northern France, and he was back

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING again a

month

later as

it

sank in that his personal instruction to pre-

vent "the Anglo-Saxons"

Normandy

out of the ously,

he shuffled

his

(as

he called the invaders) from breaking

peninsula could not be obeyed. Contemptu-

pack of generals and

their defeatism, questioning their courage railed as his

army in the

field

marshals,

and their

damning

loyalty.

Then he be

east counterattacked the Russians, only to

outnumbered, and outgunned, unable to dent the Soviet

encircled,

advance.

15

The

borders of Germany were about to be breached.

It

was

time he flew his Eagle's Nest.

On July

14 he

the Berghof for what would be the last time.

left

Despite persistent rumors and romantic fancies that this would be redoubt, a defiant mountain hideaway should the war

his

chosen

go

badly, his fate always lay elsewhere,

last

Nicolaus von Below, a

staff officer

and he seemed to know

from the Luftwaffe who had been

attached to the fuhrer's headquarters for seven years, watched his

way

stopping at each portrait on the wall and nodding at

He

stooped a

little as

as,

Berghofs great

to bed, Hitler strolled the length of the

farewell.

it.

it

on

hall,

as if in

he walked, his shoulders slumped

as

never before.

The next morning Hitler boarded lot,

Hans

his plane,

Baur, headed the four-engined

away from Salzburg and over

a

and

his personal pi-

Focke-Wulf Condor north

landscape that was

still

German, but

only minimally. These were no longer the safest of skies for them.

For

a while Hitler

stretching out

had been the master of a colossal military empire

from Berlin nearly 1,000 miles

in

any direction

—

to

Athens in the south and to Oslo in the north, to Calais in the west and to the gates of Moscow in the

east.

But that overblown bubble

had shrunk alarmingly.

Von air that

Below, seated in the plane that day,

knew

that

it

was in the

the war had already been lost and won. British and American

bombers had played the

decisive part,

Luftwaffe depended on to build

new

knocking out the factories the

aircraft,

and then, in huge, un-

stoppable waves, pulverizing the citizens of German cities from

nich to the Rhine. the Allied airmen.

Mu-

The blame for all this destruction was directed They were dubbed Terrorflieger terror flyers

—

at

THE LAST ESCAPE

16

who were

and many of those

German

shot

by an angry mob,

as

while in transit and

many men lucky to be saved from a lynching now safely imprisoned at Stalag Luft VI knew

only too well. Such actions were

and

earlier,

—the Geneva Convention

in this

summary injustice. When,

moving

in to rescue

he issued an instruction that

it

downed airmen from

10

The

calls for

Rastenburg

fiihrer

who have

air,

Hitler's plane

touched

gloomy complex of concrete

in East Prussia, the

bunkers covered with camouflage netting, known

from which the

flyers

revenge could only get louder.

Later that day, after four hours in the at

mob,

the

was not their job "to interfere in

between Germans and English and American

bailed out."

down

year

a

Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, had heard that police on

the ground were

clashes

illegal

outlawed reprisals against prisoners of war. But Hitler

henchmen connived

his

into the hands of

fell

were strung up from lampposts or beaten to death

civilians

specifically

down and

as the

Wolf's Lair,

had directed the invasion of the Soviet Union

nearly three years earlier.

The

prisoners of war of Luft

VI were

just

one hundred miles away to the north. The advance patrols of the

Red Army were even

closer.

In the days that followed, as Hitler and his generals stood around

the

maps

room and planned

in the operations

therland, bad

news poured

Marshal Erwin Rommel, jured, strafed in his

in

from every

Hitler's

the defense of the fa-

most talented

open car by Allied

On July

direction.

17, Field

tactician,

was

in-

fighter planes while driving to

The only good news was that the line was being German troops had dug in halfway between Rome and

the front in France.

held in

Italy.

Florence, and the American and British advance up the peninsula,

which had begun eleven months

army commander

moned from

there, Field

earlier,

seemed

to be slowing.

the battlefield for a medal

—to be decorated by Hitler

personally with the Knight's, Cross with Diamonds,

Swords.

On Lair,

the

He that

arrived

on July

same day

The

Marshal Albert Kesselring, was sum-

Oak Leaves, and

19.

a significant

order was issued from the Wolf's

German civilian population on

a total

war footing

—

11

It

put

as if they

had

"concerning preparations for the defense of the Reich."

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING not been in that situation for months already.

It

restructured the mil-

itary and civilian administration for fighting the

and

soil,

east,

it

"foreign labor"

population too

—

i.e.

long

(as

"preparations for

Among

as

slave

workers

—westward, and the

many

to the rear." It

was

a

them

into misery, starva-

cases, death.

next day, July 20, was hot.

The

warmth of

due to attend the

officers

midday conference with the fuhrer stood around joying the

civilian

was to prolong the war for hundreds of thou-

sands of Allied soldiers and airmen, forcing tion, and, in

the instructions to

they did not panic), item 6(a) called for

moving prisoners of war

crucial instruction that

The

enemy on German

ordered preparations to be made for evacuations from the

away from the advancing Russians.

move

17

in the

open

air

the sun; then Hitler arrived, shook each

en-

man

by the hand, and led them into the situation room. They seated themselves around a long oak table, and the conference had just be-

gun when morning.

a

latecomer arrived, having flown in from Berlin only that

The man was

fingers in fighting in

a

war hero, who had

North

Africa. Hitler

lost

shook

an eye and several his

hand and ush-

him to a seat close by. Ten minutes later there was an

ered

explosion. The wooden hut shatAmid the smoke, the dust, and the debris, the dying and the badly wounded lay moaning on the floor. But the target of the bomb tered.

had escaped.

Hitler, his jacket

his private bunker.

Though

and trousers torn, was hurried away to the

bomb, hidden

in a briefcase,

had

gone off under the table he was leaning on, he was unmarked. Later it

would emerge

left

that his hearing

was affected and the nerves of his

arm damaged. It

was quickly established that the bomber was that

late arrival.

Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg was an aristocratic Prussian

had

at first

welcomed

against him, blaming facing.

Hitler's rise to

him

power but had then turned

for the military disaster the country

was

His conspiracy to overthrow the autocrat and replace him

with an administration that could cut

a deal

two years

—

Lair

who

in the making.

His chance

—had come that day for

a

with the Allies had been

his invitation to the Wolf's

simple reason:

He

was Chief of Staff

THE LAST ESCAPE

18

Fromm, commander of the Reserve Army, the military forces at home that now needed to be drawn into planning because the Russians were about to break onto German soil. Stauffenberg had made an excuse and left the situation room before the bomb exploded, racing to a plane and back to Berlin. Conto General Friedrich

vinced that no one could have survived the

blast,

he ordered the

takeover of the government by officers friendly to his cause.

word

that Hitler

rested and shot take

months

was

on the

was

disloyal

brought

his

coup to

a close.

Hundreds of senior

For Hitler

it

was the

ar-

would

final

proof that the officer

and could not be trusted. Von Below thought the

pain, his language coarsened,

in the explosion at

his desire for

revenge

Rastenburg. His view of what lay

ahead was apocalyptic. After July 20 he told will take the

He was often in

and he was quicker than ever to anger

and to threaten. His incipient paranoia and

down, but we

was

officers died in the re-

fuhrer was never the same physically after the attack.

were sealed

He

spot, but the strands of the conspiracy

to unravel.

sulting witch-hunt. class

alive

The

Von

Below,

"We may go

world down with us."

Stauffenberg's assassination attempt had another significant result.

His superior

officer,

General Fromm, was one of the

first

to be

implicated in the plot and executed. Hitler handed over control of the Reserve

Army to one

of the few

men

he

felt

he could

still

trust

the SS

commander, Himmler. His dedicated Nazis ran the concen-

tration

camps and administered the

secret policemen

were

"final solution"

of the Jews. His

the feared Gestapo, his private

who wore

army the

le-

emblem into batsome tle. He was perhaps the most feared individual in Germany said even Hitler was wary of the power he wielded. His new responsibilities would shortly give him nominal control over a group who had, until now, largely been protected from him and his thugs the gions of the Waffen SS,

a

death's-head

—

—

Allied prisoners of war.

At Stalag Luft VI,

camps came too

Hitler's July 19 order to prepare to evacuate the

late.

The war was moving fast, and

the prisoners had

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING already gone. As the

first

19

two weeks of July slipped away, the camp

had been overrun by rumor.

was

It

said that the

dekrug had already been evacuated, moving

townspeople in Hey-

as fast as

desperate to escape the advancing Soviet soldiers, for plunder, rape,

child

was

safe.

and murder ran before them.

On

the road to

On the road

whose reputation

No woman,

man, or

Moscow, Hitler had categorized the

Russians as Untermenschen and had ordered cordingly.

they could,

to Berlin,

what was

them

to stop

to be treated ac-

them from

living

subhuman designation? The word was that the POWs would be moved out too, though there was furious debate among them about this. Why would the Germans want to hang on to them? They would just be a burden, needing to be fed and guarded. Surely it would make more sense to abandon them to the Soviets. Others thought the Germans would keep them as hostages that or shoot them all outright, a possibility

up

to their

—

that every

man was

aware

of,

even

Throughout Luft VI, men put matters

if

few voiced

it.

minds

to

their

work on

practical

—scrounging any sort of material they could find to fashion

a rucksack,

sewing up

a

blanket or a shirt so that

over the shoulder as a bag. ing, the

On July

13,

it

could be slung

with just a few hours' warn-

German commandant gave the order that the camp was to The urgency was such that a needle cricket match be-

be evacuated.

tween an England XI and an Australian XI on the hard-baked earth of A

compound had

details

to be

abandoned with

just a

few overs to go.

No

were given of where they were going or how long they would

be on the road. Each could carry.

The camp

toilet paper,

man would stores

be allowed to take only what he

were raided for

their stocks

— even the

and what could not be stuffed away in bags was flung

over the barbed wire and the hut roofs like streamers, as

if it

was sud-

denly carnival time.

The Americans went night. Earlier, they

first,

tramping out into the darkness that

had thrown any possessions they could not carry

over the wire into the British compound. Cal Younger recalled that "unfortunately they did not warn us, and their

foods struck

down

first fusillade

several unsuspecting British airmen."

of tinned

Next had

THE LAST ESCAPE

20

come

books, clothing, sports equipment, and thousands of cigarettes.

The Americans left, and then, two hours later, they were back for some unknown reason. For a while the rumor mill ground away with stories that the Russians

the

camp was on

were closer than had been thought and that

the point of being liberated. But at

were rounded up and marched out

icans

wistfully as the fainter

left

and fainter in the distance

compounds

man

until

suddenly

there was

little

it

Amernoisily,

behind listened

sound swung away through the night

In the British

night as each

a.m. the

They went

again.

chattering and shouting and singing, and those

3

air,

growing

was gone.

sleep for anyone that

kitted himself out as best he could, able only to

guess at what lay ahead. Inside each hut was like a bazaar. Younger

described

it

as "the

for they could

time of levelling up.

The

keep only what they could

rich

carry,

were no longer rich

and the poor were no

longer poor for they could choose whatever they wanted from the

One man who had won 7,000 cigaof D-Day sobbed as he abandoned them.

goods abandoned by others." rettes betting

on the date

They went up

in flames,

burned

night rather than give any It

was

a warm July,

but the

in bonfires that

raged through the

German guard the satisfaction of a smoke. men took their overcoats. Who knew how

long they would have to travel?

The camp emptied until as

section by section during the next few days,

Younger found himself almost the

much food

as

last

remaining.

he could without making himself

He had eaten

sick,

then wan-

dered from empty hut to empty hut. Most prisoners had destroyed

what they couldn't carry and the ground was clothing, squashed cigarettes, trails of

once lovingly tended by inmates

as a

littered

with ripped

powdered milk. The gardens

source of vegetables had been

trampled. In one hut he found a small library of books above a bunk. It

was

intact: Its

owner had not had the heart

source of solace that had seen

him through

to tear to pieces a

years of captivity.

As the days passed, Younger's hopes were raised that Red Army soldiers

for

would appear

him and

his

at the gate "to free us." Instead the

combine

to leave too.

time came

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING

we

Outside the hut,

lay

back upon our

kit, slid

the straps, and got unsteadily to our feet.

Red Cross we ripped open

late into

We

them

at

angrily.

cried, to accept charity

children.

offered tins to

us warmly, until a

gan to shout

There was

of

a pile

the boxes and stuffed meat, tea and choco-

our pockets.

who thanked

our arms into

and German guards watched hungrily

food parcels,

as

21

some of

the guards,

German in the sentry-box beThey should be ashamed, he

from the murderers of their wives and

Some threw down the

things they had picked up, but

others just carried on shoving tins into their knapsacks.

Toby had

We

brainwave and went to fetch the laundry

a

piled our kit into

done the same

thing.

it,

and within seconds

a

cart.

men had

dozen

"March! March!" came the order, and we

put our shoulders to the wheel. In his sentry-box the guard wept

With

with anger.

the exception of three

men who remained

the camp, hidden in an unfinished tunnel, we were the

in

last pris-

oners to leave. Ahead of us was a long column of men. At our backs,

Farther

marched

down

Dixie Deans's typewriter,

guards, each with a snarling

dog on the

leash.

the line, a horse-drawn cart carried the contents of

camp

and

For some,

six

his

just

office

—

all

his meticulously kept

windup gramophone with

its

being outside the camp was

were overwhelmed by unfamiliar

sights

—

paperwork, his

hidden radio

a thrill,

fields

inside.

and their eyes

where the harvest

was being worked, oxcarts on the road, children playing. The pleasure was short-lived.

The rumor

been evacuated was clearly not

that

Heydekrug

itself

had already

true, because, as the prisoners en-

tered the town, people were lining the road, and they were very hostile.

Some threw

being

stones.

left to their fate.

coats, blankets,

The

prisoners were going, while they were

Meanwhile the road was now

and cans of food, "discarded by

littered

men who had

set

with more hope in their hearts than strength in their backs."

column of marching men passed

a funeral

with

12

out

The

with elderly mourners in

top hats and frock coats. At a church, a burly Luftwaffe corporal was

THE LAST ESCAPE

22

marrying

his sweetheart, a slip of a girl

who

glanced up at the pass-

ing prisoners with a sad and bewildered look on her face. In the

months ahead, more than one of the and wonder about her

At the railroad

sixty at a

would remember her

fate.

POWs

station, the

sentful townspeople.

POWs

waited,

still

watched by

re-

A train pulled in, and the prisoners were herded

time into closed cattle

cars.

There was no room

to

sit,

so

they leaned against each other for hour after hour, the sun blazing

down train

outside and the cars getting hotter and hotter. Eventually the

began to move, and

urinate and defecate

a

nightmare journey began.

where they stood, and not

the guards to slide back the doors a

the stench.

They

little

Men

until they

was there any

passed a slave-labor camp, and those

had to

persuaded

from

relief

who

could

peer out of the ventilation hole saw skeletal figures being whipped by a

jackbooted guard.

They

roared their anger and their disapproval

before the train picked up speed and the image of those worse off

than themselves was gone.

we spent

"Thirty-six hours

quently

we were shunted

into sidings to

trains travelling to the east,

They passed through

in the train,"

Younger

make way

and to allow hospital

for

recalled. "Fre-

German

trains

troop

westward."

the whole of East Prussia and deep into Poland,

with no idea where they were being taken and aware that the guards did not

know

and, limbs

either.

stiff

Eventually the train halted at a remote station

and aching, they were ordered out.

and, flanked by the guards, they dusk, through a

town

called

A column formed

marched four miles

in the gathering

Thorn, where pretty Polish

out to them until the guards shooed them away with their

Ahead they caught spirits

greens,

sagged

as

sight of their

he took in

monotonous barrack

its

new camp. Richard

girls called rifles.

Passmore's

familiar "sandy ground, drab ever-

blocks,

goon boxes, and barbed

wire.

I

could only imagine that Europe must be covered with these bloody things,

and

all

disgustingly alike." Stalag 357

—Thorn—was already who grumbled

at

the arrival of the airmen and the overcrowding and half-rations

it

inhabited by 3,500 British

would mean.

13

Army

prisoners of war,

But huts had been cleared for the newcomers, and

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING they settled

were

safely

in,

able to relax a

little

23

They

for the first time in days.

back behind barbed wire and, despite the grudging wel-

come, with their own people again. Only

later

would they learn how

lucky they had been.

The

earlier

groups marching out of Heydekrug had suffered unbe-

lievable horrors before they arrived at their destination, a different

camp

altogether.

Their journey to Stalag Luft IV at Gross Tychow in

the

German

like

poison to every prisoner of war in

province of Pomerania was a story that would spread

ing of the danger they

dant at

For them the Sea town called

was

It

faced, confirmation of what the is

a

warn-

comman-

a cold

wind

14

train journey in cattle cars

the coast. It was night

a

hands.

— Heydekrug had solemnly told Deans "There

blowing outside."

along

all

German

when they

a short ride to

arrived at the dockside of a Baltic

Memel and were

hustled out of the

dark quay to a small coal ship.

fear that crept over them.

had been

wagons and

Many men would

recall the

Prodded up the gangplank of the

Inster-

were made to leave their packs on the deck and were then down a long vertical steel ladder into a dimly lit, foul-smelling Those who objected looked up to see cocked machine guns

burg, they

forced hold.

pointing at them.

Nine hundred men were crammed holds, huddled

below the waterline,

into each of the ship's

sitting or

two

crouching between

each other's legs or back to back, knees drawn up. Those on the edge

had to try to keep their

feet

somehow on the sloping metal hull. Oth-

and stanchions. Cries that "there's no room" more were forced down. With the last man in, the hatch was battened, and the only light came from a single electric bulb. A rumor went around that the ship was so old and rusty that the Germans must be planning to scuttle it and all of them with it. It

ers clung to girders

were ignored

was

all

as still

too believable in that claustrophobic black hole, which one

frightened prisoner, looking about

him and seeing

the tears and the

terror in other men's eyes, likened to Dante's vision of Purgatory. 15

THE LAST ESCAPE

24

The

ship set out into the Baltic Sea in the early hours of July 16,

heading west

at a steady 8 knots.

took charge.

He

had to keep

could so easily engulf them.

Down men

his

He

spoke excellent German, and nego-

tiated with the guards for the hatch to

men

at a

below, Sergeant Vic Clarke

calm, to stop the panic that

be opened and for a dozen

time to go up on deck. As they breathed in the fresh

relieved themselves over the side, the guards covered

air

and

them with ma-

chine guns and steam hoses. Behind, in the wake of the Insterburg, the prisoners on deck could see a

worked a

had two purposes.

out,

mutiny on board Meanwhile,

it

would be

as the

It

German torpedo was

boat which, they

their escort, but in the event of

their executioner.

sun rose, temperatures soared and the hold

became an oven. For those who could not make only means of sanitation was

a

it

bucket lowered on

a

to the deck, the

rope

bucket, or so the prisoners believed, as was used to send

ing water. ing,

and

a

It

it

corner of the hold quickly became an unofficial

upon himself to

tell

that

cret service

would hunt him down

if

after the

In

name was

war and hang him.

fears in the hold.

airmen had been on missions dropping mines on Soviet submarines were also

known

movement of water was

ship was hit, those in the hold had

and the gloom, morale among an American

never forgot what he did

enough

to

Some

of the

very waterway;

Now,

brush of driftwood

work out

no means of

that, if the

escape. In the heat

the frightened prisoners was at

—no one ever knew

—gave

this

to operate in the Baltic.

a torpedo, every

against the side a mine. It was simple

Then

latrine.

anything happened to the prisoners the British se-

This was not enough to calm the

lowest.

drink-

bodies collapsed. Clarke

the Insterburg's captain that his

known and

every

down

was plainly not adequate; dysentery was already spread-

the heat and the stench, spirits sank and

took

—the same

his

its

name, but they

a cry of "Don't let the bastards get us

down" and began singing a .romantic Irish lament in a rich baritone voice. "My Wild Irish Rose," he sang, and in the hushed silence the notes soared and echoed around the metal hull along with a thou-

sand thoughts of home.

American airman John Parsons went into

a

dreamworld

—

a

time

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING and

a place

somewhere

in the future

Mai, back in Indiana.

wife,

It

We

to take the risk.

jeopardize our future."

16

where he would be with

his

was because of her that he had resolved

never to get involved in escape

want

25

activities,

not to make waves.

had so many plans and

But whether or not he had

I

"I didn't

want

didn't

a future

was

to

now

out of his hands.

came into the port mouth of the River Oder to land its dirty, exand frightened human cargo. The prisoners emerged from

After sixty hellish hours at sea the Insterburg

of Swinemiinde at the hausted,

the hold blinking in the strong sunlight and picked

from the

pile

on the deck. As they

filed

down

up

their packs

the gangplank, two of

them— "obviously quite crazed," according to one witness —

tried to

break away, heading in the direction of some trucks parked on the

"A machine gun rasped out without warning and mowed one of them down. He died where he fell. The other kept on running unquay.

til

17

he dropped into the water, riddled with bullets."

On

the quayside,

were made in pairs.

rumor

to

more humiliation awaited

remove

their boots

They

and were then handcuffed together

Being shackled was unusual, and

circulated that they

the prisoners.

it

did not bode well.

The

were about to be handed over to the SS

and paraded naked through the

streets of

nearby Stettin

as Terror-

flieger.

Thirsty and afraid, they were prodded at bayonet point into

road cars that had stood hot.

The

morning

in the sun

and were

only distraction from their misery was

sirens suddenly officer

all

when

rail-

now oven

the air-raid

began to wail and an immaculately dressed Luftwaffe

threw himself to the ground, covering

his

white

summer uni-

The prisoners cheered this small victory. At anchor out in the bay, German battle cruisers fired at an American bomber high in the sky, while down on the quay panic-stricken guards slammed shut the doors of the railroad cars. The prisoners form in

oil

and coal

dust.

could do nothing to save themselves as

them

—Allied bombs, made

in the

bombs exploded

United

Germans, but now

around

States, dispatched

England, marked on the side with messages love," intended to kill

all

like

from

"To Adolf, with

terrifying their

own coun-

THE LAST ESCAPE

26

trymen. their

It

own

would not be the

time the prisoners faced death from

last

side.

This time they were

bomber that had missed heading home.

The

give the prisoners

slumped to the

its

target and

all-clear

gathered speed, fresh

a

proper

from the

relief.

raid, just a stray

was ditching its payload before

sounded and the

salty

air,

some

floor,

This was not

lucky.

sea,

Most were

train set off, and, as

it

blew into the trucks to

in a

bad way, and some

tongues parched and gasping for breath; but

the railroad cars were so crowded that help. Percy Carruthers

had fought

thought he knew what

thirst was.

no one could bend down

in the desert in

"But

this

was

North

to

Africa and

different,

born of

days of lack of sleep and of rough handling with neither food nor water.

Everyone suffered the agonies." Around him he saw nothing but

gaunt faces and hollow eyes. Several hours later the train

came

to a halt in a siding

lonely stretch of track beside a pine forest.

name of the

tiny station

Luftwaffe guards

A

sign

on

a long,

announced the

—Kiefheide. The doors were opened and the

who had accompanied

the prisoners from

Hey-

dekrug got out. Then the doors were slammed tight again. They

would not be reopened

until the next day.

Peering out into the gath-

ering dusk, the prisoners saw to their horror that their familiar guards

had disappeared. Instead, alongside the track were

lines of vicious-

men in white uniforms, brandishing unsheathed bayThey were marine cadets, a naval version of the fanatical

looking young onets.

Hitler Youth, teenage Nazis reared on adulation for the fuhrer.

Those

inside the trucks

feared for their

sound of

lives.

steel blades

saw hate

in the eyes staring in at

That night they

slept

little,

them, and

kept awake by the

being sharpened on grinding wheels outside

and the laughter of the youths

as

they boasted about

how they would

teach the Terrorflieger a lesson tomorrow.

A tense morning came and went, and it was afternoon before the doors were flung open and the prisoners,

hounded out to stand been kicked off the

in lines beside the track.

train,

own, or ones that vaguely

manacled, were

man now scrambled to find his Then the prisoners were marched

and each fitted.

still

A big pile of boots had

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING

on

past a station building and a

to a road.

Ahead

27

lay a terrifying sight:

double line of shouting and cursing marine cadets.

Among them

stood guards with machine guns at the ready. Vic Clarke realized that

he and his to run,

men were

being set up. Here was an incitement to panic,

and to be shot down "while trying to escape." There was even

cameraman on hand to capture the evidence of their fleeing. He passed the word urgently down the column, "We're in for trouble but you must restrain your impulse to run. Don't give them an a film

excuse to open

fire."

18

Sweat poured from every

man

as

they set off

down

the road in

columns of two hundred. At the very front, an astonishingly tall Ger-

man

and with packs on their backs

breaking into

a run.

—exhausted, hungry, — could not match without

which the prisoners

officer set a fast pace,

thirsty,

A German

major

gleaming white breeches

in

and knee-length boots stood on the running board of staff car as it

prisoners

on

drove up and at the

down

a

Mercedes

the column, frantically urging the

top of his voice, waving his pistol menacingly at

them. To Percy Carruthers he looked "demented" as he screamed

and gyrated, the veins standing out on

his

neck and "hate spewing

from every expression." After half a mile they veered off to the

left

and onto

a

sandy track

sloping up through the pine trees. As the prisoners slowed, their feet

"Make them Make them run until

sinking in the soft sand, the major fired a shot in the run," he yelled at his

they drop!"

It

was

own men.

"Alles laufen.

air.

mayhem. The marine cadets began hitting them with their rifle butts, stab-

a signal for

lashing out at the prisoners,

bing them with their bayonets. "That's for Hamburg," they shouted, or Cologne or Berlin or any of the dozens of German

bombers had yelled back,

blitzed.

As the blades

sliced him,

cities

the Allied

one defiant prisoner

"London, Coventry, Liverpool, you kraut bastards!"

Blood oozed from cut

flesh,

ping guard dogs, straining

were being driven so them. Those

fast that

at the front

ran

packs they had desperately

and the smell of it enraged the snap-

at their leashes.

By now

the rear ranks

they cannoned into those ahead of

faster,

hung on

many

of them throwing off the

to since leaving

Heydekrug,

sac-

THE LAST ESCAPE

28

rificing their

Men

fell

them or simply too

ex-

only possessions in the scramble to stay

to the ground, tripping over bags in front of

alive.

The enemy closed in around them. staggered as the man he was shackled to

hausted to carry on.

John Parsons and pulled

me down

with him.

was

It

difficult to get

fell

back on

our feet without being overrun by dogs, men, and guards. kept saying that he couldn't

him along die,

me

He

I

I

dragged and carried

I

One

of the guards took

a jab at

was bleeding profusely.

in

horror that

had been slashed so often that this

so

my hand to protect myself. He cut me badly

threw up

Cec Room saw

To

it,

kept saying, "Johnny, we're going to

we're both going to die."

and

and

the way.

make

He

day he

is

ashamed

running

a friend

in front of

were hanging

his trousers

at feeling relieved that

him

in shreds.

he himself was not

"The German wasn't stabbing me because he was too busy stabbing old Bob in front. It's a terrible thing to say but you're just glad that it's happening to someone else rather than to you." But there were some instances that afternoon of regular German the target.

military personnel protecting the prisoners.

cued Ron Akerman, sake, stay

and

I

were

who was on

by me," he told the

don't agree with

this.

POW.

the straps until

any prisoner

it fell

"I

was

a

prisoner in the

still

and

now

A

it."

last

war

But other guards

they began slashing with

with a bag on his back, hacking

to the ground.

A rifle

at

smashed so hard against

the head of a burly Canadian airman that the off.

elderly sergeant res-

I'm not going to have

as vicious as the youngsters,

their bayonets at

An

the point of collapse. "For God's

wooden

butt snapped

giant of a man, he shook his head and staggered on, blood

streaming

down

his

neck and splashing over those around him.

Percy Carruthers took a blow that knocked him off balance and into the ditch at the side of the road.

There he

ing unconsciousness, while the column passed. escape.

lay face

He

down, feign-

was planning to

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING I

kept deathly

Get him

out."

almost too tense to breathe.

still,

German voices

in the ditch. "There's another

Then I heard

one here, Heinz.

A boot in my ribs and a prod in my buttocks al-

most made me squawk but

I

lay

still.

count," said one of the Germans.

him just to

29

make

sure,"

came the

"I think he's

"Then put

out for the

a bullet

reply. I leapt

up

through

in a flash

and

shot past them. Before they had time to realize what had hap-

pened

I

was back

in the

column and

lost

from

German

their sight.

major, to calm

him

down, but he was ignored. Running ahead to the front of the

col-

Vic Clarke tried to reason with the

umn, he then

down.

He was helped by a fellow

ignored the

German harassment and

tried to slow the pace

prisoner, a paratrooper,

who

called out for everyone to "keep

close

it

steady, don't break ranks, keep in

and don't panic." Sergeant James Taylor of the U.S.

Army Air

Force remembered "many acts of courage in the midst of the confusion. All

The

along the route

stronger prisoners

to protect the injured

men

shouted encouragement to each other.

moved

to the outside of the

column

and weaker ones in the center."

19

in order

All the time,

shots were being fired, and Taylor was convinced they were being

run to their death. In the forest on either side of the track the prisoners could see machine-gun nests. also in position to film

were

getting, to

doubt that

if

make

it

More cameras on

any attempt to look

like a

flee

tripods were

from the beatings they

mass escape. Later, few were in

they had panicked there would have been carnage.

Ahead, the track through the forest began to turn, and

as

they

rounded the bend the prisoners saw the barbed-wire gate and sentry towers of a camp, and another gauntlet of guards to greet them.

They staggered through more blows inside the

doctor walked treatment.

marks on

before collapsing to the ground

compound. Hundreds of men nursed wounds 20

among them

as a

German

chuckling "Gut, gut" and refusing them

Percy Carruthers examined himself and counted

his body,

but others had

as

six stab

many as fifty (and later one man

died from his wounds). 21 Vic Clarke's official report on the incident

THE LAST ESCAPE

30

war put the number of his men with bayonet wounds at He could not count those bruised by the clubbing they had re-

after the

106.

22

ceived or with rips in their flesh from to

wash

off the drying blood,

dog

There was no water

bites.

nor to drink. Nearby, guards

sat in the

afternoon sun tucking into food they had looted from the prisoners' packs.

As they

sat

panting on the grass, the prisoners heard more

chill-

ing news. This camp, they were told, was a Gestapo punishment

camp

for Tenwflieger. It

was kept secret from the Red Cross, and

here the Geneva Convention did not apply. Prisoners would have no rights if

ram

to

flat

—they would not even be allowed to the point

on the ground,

face

down. "No

were then strip-searched before craved

—water and

That

first

under the

talk to

talking, or

at last

at

we

gunpoint to shoot!"

23

lie

They

being allowed what they most

sleep.

night they would sleep where they

stars,

each other. And, as

home, the guards forced them

cold and shivering.

The

lay,

on the ground,

next day Vic Clarke, though

he was in no better condition than his men, went to work, cajoling soup, medical supplies, and tents from the Germans. His threats to

complain about their treatment to the Swiss ing

Power charged with looking

ers of war

was

—were taken

a special, secret

For

were

all

a

few nights the

down

always be a

dekrug.

known

proof that the

just a bluff.

POWs

of Allied prison-

German

claim that

it

24

slept in tents, but eventually they

allowed into the barracks huts in the main compounds of

Stalag Luft IV, near the settled

after the interests

seriously,

camp was

—who were the Protect-

The

German town

to a semblance of normal

much tougher regime "run up the road"

—would be repeated to

the camp, and Luft

—

of Gross Tychow, and they

camp

life.

However,

than they had

known

as the violent reception

it

at

would

Hey-

became

a smaller extent for later arrivals at

IV would become

a

byword

for brutality. It rep-

resented the threat hanging over each and every Allied

POW—that

they would be slaughtered in the awful endgame of the war against Hitler.

2:

July

Abandoned to Their Fate

1944 was

a

good time

United States had been

to take stock in

in the

war

for

two and

Washington.

The

a half years, and, at

War Department, Military Intelligence compiled a special report on American prisoners of war in Europe. The total in captivity in Germany was 28,867, of whom just over 12,000 were army. The remaining three-fifths were flyers. The men of the Eighth U.S. Army Air Force had joined the RAF's Bomber Command in its campaign the

1

to devastate

high.

Germany as

the

There were 16,593

first

step to victory. Casualties

had been

and gunners

who had

pilots, navigators,

dropped out of the sky and were

now behind barbed

The very first was a high flyer in every sense. Albert Clark, a first

American

West

fighter

Lieutenant Colonel

Pointer, had been second in

group sent to Britain

wire.

in the

command of the summer of 1942.

In a dogfight over northern France, the Spitfire he was piloting was hit.

The

plane limped toward the Channel coast, losing height and

power, before Clark was forced to crash-land

earthworks built on the

cliffs at

20 miles short of Dover and

Cap Gris Nez

safety.

the only Americans to precede

When

it

on the German

outside Calais, just

he went into

captivity,

him had been members of Eagle

who had joined the RAF to fight in the fifteen months before their own country officially Squadron, volunteers from the United States

went

to war.

American prisoners were scattered over

camps and

hospitals,

fifty-seven different

though the vast majority were held

in just eight

ALLIED FRONT LINES

AUGUST

1944

a * a a a a

POWcamp Front lines at August 25,

200 miles 200 kilometers

1

944

ABANDONED TO main camps,

THEIR FATE

33

of which were for aircrew and therefore run by the

five

Luftwaffe and the other three for ground troops and run by the

Wehrmacht.

were

All

in eastern

— "apparently

Germany

as a deter-

rent to escapes through France," according to the report.

Generally the prisoners were treated reasonably well, the report said. Its

words, chosen carefully, were "fair" and "correct." Certainly,

considering what the Japanese were dishing out, the

hands could consider themselves lucky. contrasted their lot with the

On

men in German

the other hand,

way that German

if

you

prisoners of war were

being looked after in the United States, there was no doubt where

was preferable to

be. In the Stalags

and the Stalag Lufts, there was

severe shortage of food and clothing. ter's office

it

A dietitian in

a

the quartermas-

had analyzed the quantity and content of the

official ra-

German hands and had concluded they were keep body and soul together. The camps had come to

tions for prisoners in

not enough to

depend on Red Cross parcels

as basic rations. In

port problems meant that parcels were often as they should

—either

now

places trans-

Germans were

that or the

them. There was every expectation that

some

not getting through

this situation

as

stealing

would worsen.

For the moment, however, the health of the prisoners was generally good. Serious sickness was comparatively rare, and the worst prob-

lem was skin infections

as a result

of not being able to take regular

baths or showers.

Morale among the men was generally high, but two main things could cause

it

to slump.

The

first

was when mail

failed to turn

from home, often delayed by the slowness of the censors ends.

The second was when

POWs

read in

at

up

both

German newspapers

or

heard on the radio about workers going on strike back in the United States. "Prisoners

mi

were enraged by such news and many were doubt-

that the spirit of the

American people was high enough

war." Another gripe, brought

Red Cross had put out ing prison-camp

life

on by

letters

win the

from home, was that the

literature to their families

"as

to

and friends depict-

one of ease and indolence instead of monot-

ony and hardship." Many felt misunderstood. They were not cowards because they had surrendered or been caught, but they were made to

THE LAST ESCAPE

34

feel guilty. Stories

feathers

went around of men

from people

at

in the

camps receiving white

home, and these were

Equally harmful were reports of being

bitterly resented.

jilted in their

absence by

wives and girlfriends. But, the report maintained, "while prisoners of

war have suffered from occasional depression they have never approached despair. In

all

camps, American discipline and organization

News of the [D-Day] invasion will keep morale many months to come."

have been excellent.

on

a

its

high.

high level for

men like Colonel Clark had done their He had been in charge at Stalag Luft III

Senior

and more of

countrymen

his

arrived,

many

best to keep spirat

Sagan

as

more

of them young and very

"Some of them were just eighteen years old when they got here. They had to do their growing up behind barbed wire," he recalled later. Barely out of his twenties himself, he kept them busy: frightened.

2

If

you had

grown

left

them

alone, they

beards, got slovenly.

would have gone

They would have

to seed,

just unraveled.

But we had hut inspections on Saturday mornings; we marched them.

From

forms.

We

the

Red Cross, we got summer and winter

uni-

took every opportunity to keep them from forget-

ting that they were military

men and

them when they got home.

We focused their minds on escape

activities,

would need

determined to keep fighting the Germans even here

behind barbed wire.

If the

their country

I

was very proud of those

young POWs were

initially

kids.

bewildered by where they were

and what was happening to them, so too were their

folks at

home.

For most Americans whose loved ones were prisoners of the Germans, Europe must have seemed time. In

York,

it

like

another world, almost another

Oklahoma City or Wyoming, and even in Chicago and New took an immense leap of imagination to picture the

sons and husbands were having to live as captives.

lives that

The War Depart-

ment was of little help. The report was the sum of its knowledge of what was going on in the camps. Those nursing their bruises in Stalag Luft IV would have been astonished by the declaration that they

ABANDONED TO were being treated ting

them home

in

well.

As

for the

one piece

—the

THEIR FATE

35

—of get-

huge task that

lay ahead

on

that front

real action

was tak-

ing place 3,000 miles across the ocean from Washington, in England.

London was a frightened city in the summer of 1944. For more than a month the pilotless, jet-propelled V-l bombs had been dropping; thousands of Londoners had already died. For the second time since 1939, schoolchildren were evacuated into the countryside danger.

A million were on the move to safety. The rest of the capital's

population waited in dread for the

now

overhead and the awesome silence

as the

in

away from

homes and

just

enough time

drone of the engine

motor cut out

below counted out the

shelters

would elapse before the doodlebug

There was

familiar

it

— and those

seconds that

ground and exploded.

hit the

to pray that

fifteen

would

on someone

fall

else.

The chill,

attacks

relentless.

told an anxious

coming

The Prime Minister, Winston Chur-

House of Commons

in at the rate of 100 to 150 a day.

he could not

in public, but

were

were

just

fail

to have

that flying

He was

bombs were

typically ebullient

been concerned. His armies

beginning to win the war on the European mainland, but

victory might

on the home

still

be snatched from him

front.

More

than 2,750

on London and on "bomb

if

the devastation continued

bombs had

alley," the track

already rained

down

of Kent, Sussex, and Sur-

rey countryside over which the V-ls flew from Luftwaffe bases in

northern France. In

six

weeks they had

and badly injured 8,000 more.

who were

considering

could be forgiven

many was

and

The

military

to get the

men

in the

POWs home

War

Office

from the camps

they thought that, in the circumstances, Ger-

a far safer place to be.

On July War

if

how

killed nearly 3,000 civilians

19 the

Office in

first

document was placed

in an

empty

file at

the

London. The buff folder was numbered 0103/5860,

in the space for "Subject" a clerk

had scrawled in longhand,

"Possible treatment of Prisoners of War by

Germany in final stages." From the offices of the War Cabinet had come a paper giving the ex-

THE LAST ESCAPE

36

pens' opinion on the likely fate of the

home.

3

was rather optimistic

It

The

in

POWs

before their arrival

assessment.

its

report began by considering the possibility that Germany's

—pre-

generals

would have taken over the running of the country

sumably

after

having ousted Hitler, though there

tion of this. If this had happened,

most unlikely

that any action

prisoners of war.

One

is

no

specific

men-

was thought

it

would be taken against Allied

of the main objects of the military lead-

assuming control would have been to establish an ad-

ers in

ministration which the Allies would view with less disfavour

than the Nazi regime. This object would be entirely defeated if

they themselves allowed action to be taken against Allied

prisoners of war. Moreover, such action would destroy any

hope

that

Great Britain and America would act

influence on Russia, fear.

We

as restraining

whose vengeance the Germans

therefore consider that

if

greatly

the military leaders are in

control at the time of Germany's defeat, wholesale atrocities against prisoners of war in their

camps

are

most

unlikely.

The analysis was accurate, but its timing was unfortunate. We do not know if the planners had had wind of a rebellion against Hitler in Germany and this had informed their report. If so, they had miscalculated. The very next day Stauffenberg failed to assassinate the fiihrer, and the possibility of a military coup was gone. Germany would

fight to the bitterest of ends.

The report then went on to examine what would happen if Germany collapsed in defeat under its Nazi leaders. The result would certainly be chaos, though the planners remained hopeful. They were reassured by the military,

fact that

most of the camps were run by the

and that their commandants were old-style "army"

types.

"In the hour of defeat the inclination of these authorities would be to

curry favour by considerate treatment of prisoners of war."

Camp

guards would also realize they had "everything to lose and nothing to gain by ill-treating prisoners of war."

ABANDONED TO The

only faction in

Germany

THEIR FATE

might

that

war would be the SS and Gestapo. deeply compromised

members of

The

ill

37

treat prisoners of

and

less fanatical

these organizations

less

would

be likely to try to win favour by a last-minute show of moderation.

The danger would come from

a relatively small section

of genuine Nazi fanatics [who] will resist to the bitter end. Fully armed, completely ruthless and indifferent to the conse-

quences, either to their country or to themselves, they to revenge the defeat of their

foreign enslaved workers in Germany. ate sort, the killing of

as a

at

minutes past twelve', on both prisoners of war and on the

'five

will

may try

Fuhrer and their cause, even

To men of this

desper-

any member of the victorious nations

appear as an act of heroic resistance or will be resorted to

means of eliminating dangerous Hitler and

Himmler might

witnesses.

conceivably order such action

maximum trouble and sorrow at the hour of their own ruin. They might also possibly take hostages from among the prisoners in an attempt to save their own

in order to cause the

lives.

It

was

a chilling

assessment

— and one with which the prisoners IV

tending to their injuries at Stalag Luft road" would have agreed.

It

"run up the

encapsulated their fears, and their per-

sonal experiences, precisely. But to conclude

after their

what the military planners went on

would not have eased

their anxieties.

The

report's as-

sessment was that revenge attacks by the SS and Gestapo "would probably be local rather than general." Later,

some thought

that

"probably" was a thin word on which to gamble hundreds of thousands of lives.

No gent,

one

in

London was prepared

and direct action. There was

a

to

recommend immediate,

ur-

suggestion that "consideration

should be given to the possibility of action to protect prisoner-of-war

camps that appear Instead, the onus

to be in danger," but

it

was made halfheartedly.

was to be put on German camp commandants and

guards to resist the SS and the Gestapo, and to that end

it

was pro-

THE LAST ESCAPE

38

posed to issue

a

"solemn general warning" that they "would be held

war

individually responsible for the safety of prisoners of

charge and that excuses or attempts to

in their

on

shift responsibility

to the

SS or Gestapo would not be entertained." There was no suggestion as to

when such

a

warning should be

seems to have been the sooner the

though the assumption

issued,

better. In the event

would be

it

nine months before the precise wording could even be agreed upon,

by which time the war was ers of war

The

virtually over.

had been through

Meanwhile, many prison-

hell.

report had two further recommendations to make.

for "speedy

One was

communications" to be established with the camps by

providing them with radio transmitters. This never happened, and the recommendation seemed to miss the point that most camps had secret radios anyway, thanks to the ingenuity of the prisoners rather

than any initiative from Whitehall.

The

other was that the prisoners

—"instructions should be

should not make

a

issued to refrain

from any action that might be interpreted

vocative."

nuisance of themselves

—

as

pro-

—

They were to be told not for the first time to stay put: camp until they received further instructions on

"to remain in their

what

to

do and where

to go."

But the forced evacuation of the camp this

was an

thorities in

at

Heydekrug showed

issue already out of the prisoners' hands.

London were planning for a

that

The military au-

situation that

had been over-

taken by events on the ground. There was a crucial gap in their

understanding, and

The

hell

people.

would only widen

in the

months ahead.

of being a prisoner of war would be a mystery to most

Men

locked up in huts a thousand miles from

receive letters like

it

from ignorant friends asking what the

and what they thought of German women,

as if

home would

local beer

was

they were on an

excursion to the seaside. But at least they could take comfort that the

most powerful man

in the

country knew the

facts

and sympathized

with them. Churchill had been a prisoner himself during the Boer

ABANDONED TO

marked him

It is a

He wrote:

forever.

melancholy

You owe your

life

state.

You

to his

humanity and your

compassion. You must obey

where you are

stay

patience. tipedes.

The

are in the

his orders,

power of your enemy. daily bread to his

go where he

tells

you,

your soul in

bid, await his pleasure, possess

days are long, hours crawl like paralytic cen-

Nothing amuses you. Reading

possible. Life

is

is difficult;

one long boredom from dawn

Moreover, the whole atmosphere of prison panions quarrel over

from each

39

his captivity lasted just twenty-four days, the expe-

War, and, though rience

THEIR FATE

and get the

trifles

other's society.

You

feel a

is

writing im-

till

slumber.

Com-

odious.

least possible pleasure

constant humiliation in

being confined to a narrow space, fenced in by railings and wire,

watched by armed

men and webbed

of regulations and restrictions.

about with

Churchill wrote with insight and compassion. But, for tations of sympathy,

how

all

his protes-

high prisoners of war ever came on his

agenda for winning the war

The

a tangle

4

is

questionable.

general problem of what to do with prisoners was one that

developed very slowly in the Second World War. servicemen to

fall

into

The

first

British

enemy hands were Sergeant George Booth

and Aircraftsman Larry

Slattery,

who were

flying a 107

Squadron

Blenheim shot down over the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven

on September first officers,

4,

the day after war was declared. Four days

Squadron Leader

Thompson, were

S. S.

Murray and

Pilot Officer A. B.

German warships in the same area when The Germans fished them out of the sea

and were then flummoxed by what to do with them. At

them

like civilian internees,

an old fortress

at

the

attacking

they too were shot down.

treated

later,

first

they

but eventually locked them up in

Spangenberg, in the middle of Germany.

The Red

Cross was asked by the British government to keep an eye on their welfare.

THE LAST ESCAPE

40

For the next eight months there was the

lull

of the "phony

—and no fighting meant no prisoners were taken. Then came

war"

Blitzkrieg, the furious

Nazi onslaught on Belgium and France in the

spring of 1940. As the remains of the British Expeditionary Force

dragged themselves off the beaches

Dunkirk and limped home

at

across the Channel, a heroic rearguard protected the backs of the

evacuating troops as best position was hopeless.

it

could.

With

In their thousands, British soldiers hausted, bewildered

all

the

little

There was no choice but

boats gone,

its

to surrender.

—bedraggled,

defeated, ex-

—were marched away from the sea that should

have been their route home. There was no food or water along the

way As they were herded east on foot toward the borders of Germany and beyond, they were barracked and bullied, and were liable to be shot with little or no warning. Some were to tramp for six weeks, and the fear and humiliation they

never be forgotten.

The

felt

along the way would

truth was that their captors had barely

made

any plans to deal with them. With every expectation of the British suing for peace and the war being over by Christmas 1940, the

guards would brag that holding the 40,000 prisoners they claimed to

have taken was his

temporary problem.

a

back on an invasion of England

nent solution had to be found.

A

It

was only

five

months

turned

after Hitler later that a

perma-

chain of proper camps was

Prisoners were settled into as normal a

life as

built.

possible behind barbed

wire.

In Britain, too, preparations were

War was

for the long haul.

Office, a Directorate of Prisoners of War, set

grown

up

at the

end of

May

happy

other subdivisions besides.

ship. Its tasks

later

DPW, it

had

It

appears never to have been

overlapped with those of other Whitehall de-

slow and cumbersome, "^here was

rian

as the

1940. Eighteen months

partments and there were frequent turf wars.

some

known

At the

into a vast bureaucracy split into three official branches and

many

with a

made

much

Its

operations were

scope for muddle and

vicious internecine departmental warfare," according to histo-

David

Rolf.

5

Its initial

responsibility

was to ease the anxiety of

those whose husbands and sons were missing but had not been re-

ABANDONED TO ported as dead. tion

It

was

The Foreign

Office,

41

dependent on informa-

a snail's-pace process,

coming out of Germany. The

slower.

THEIR FATE

layers of bureaucracy made

which had

own

its

even

it

prisoner-of-war de-

Red Cross in Geneva and went through them first before arriving

partment, was involved, and so too was the

London. at the

Lists of prisoners

War Office. There it was

competent would be

a better

considered unfortunate

word

Directorate could read French or

dence with foreign words in

it

—that

for a while

German, so

— though

no one

in-

in the

that any correspon-

had to be sent back to the Foreign Of-

fice for translation.

Problems

like this

meant that the news

that loved ones

oners often came through unofficial channels

home, tell

a

message

via a friend. In

such cases the

—

pris-

note smuggled

DPW's

the relatives to ignore these messages, to reject

or propaganda. This set the tone for the

a

were

policy was to

them

as forgeries

War Office's future

dealings

with the relatives of prisoners of war. Right until the end of the war, it

preferred to

tell

them

Their questions were un-

as little as possible.

welcome; they should be grateful for what

More

had.

than once in the years ahead an

House of Commons traught constituent.

War

to question the

To be

fair to

little

MP

Office

information they

would

rise in the

on behalf of

a dis-

the staff of the Directorate, they

monumental task on their hands. In wartime, information is the most precious of commodities and hard to come by. Neverthe-

had

a

less,

too often blind bureaucracy got in the

As

for ensuring that food

through to prisoners in the

way of humanity.

and medicine sent from home got

German camps,

the

DPW's

reaction was

to shrug off responsibility for that entirely. International convention

decreed that

it

was up to the military authorities in the country hold-

ing prisoners to feed and clothe

them

were to be equal to those available to try.

The Germans,

as signatories

adequately. Prisoners' rations a private soldier in that

expected to honor this commitment. Therefore, the

dom

decreed, any supplies sent from

for the

Red

Cross.

coun-

of the Geneva Convention, were

home were

mind of official-

extras,

There was an almighty row about

and

a

matter

this that

was

never satisfactorily resolved. Relatives were posting parcels of food

THE LAST ESCAPE

42

and clothing to addresses in Germany; nothing was getting through.

The Sunday Express took up the issue, aided by the formidable Mrs. Coombe Tennant, whose son a captain in the Welsh Guards was

—

in Oflag

her that prisoners

telling

—

VIB. She wrote to Mrs. Churchill, mother to mother, like

her son had been

The government had

vation and rags."

left to

"rot in star-

given the job of looking af-

them to the Red Cross, she said, but it had failed to check if Red Cross a voluntary body, after all was up to the job, which was not. Mrs. Churchill (who also had a son in the Army) may

ter

—

the it

—

have been moved, but her husband was not, and he refused an in-

However, the senior

quiry.

note. Sir

the

Red

servant in the

War

Office had taken

James Grigg had heard reports about the shortcomings of Cross, "and

might be

civil

a

if

half

what

is

said

is

true

it

looks as

there

if

very considerable scandal brewing," he confided to his

colleagues.

it

was to blame; the Red Cross brought

Thomas Cook

agents

was held

after

but

all,

into containing the

to try to its

row than

the

Red Cross was all

—could be sent

the

War Office

was to

let

it.

official

More

travel

inquiry

effort

went

Throughout, the

the public go

on thinking

in-

that

responsible for the welfare of prisoners of war.

—and

the flak

plenty

into resolving

denied

from

in an expert

improve matters; an

findings were suppressed.

stinct of the civil servants

Then

The post office

the parcels were not getting through.

Still

in a sensitive area like this, there

in that direction, as far

mandarins

as possible.

would be

away from the desks of

They won

this particular skir-

mish hands down. The Red Cross unfairly bore the brunt of press criticism that "our boys"

and

his

were getting

a

raw

deal, while Churchill

government got on with fighting the enemy.

As the war progressed and the Americans became involved with the setting up of a Prisoner of War Information Bureau in Washington, lines of responsibility

and communication did improve (though

never to the point of being crystal clear seem).

with

The

—not

It also

Directorate found

least the care

itself

—deliberately

with

so, it

new problems

would

to deal

of enemy prisoners falling into Allied hands.

took on the job of organizing swaps of prisoners, particularly

ABANDONED TO

THEIR FATE

43

wounded. These were enormously complex operations

the sick and

Huge amounts of documentation were spent on bringing home

involving negotiations with third-party countries.

manpower and endless a tiny number of men. Finally, possibility, the

was

a distinct

home.

one of its very

at

end of the war seemed

DPW took on the responsibility of working out how

to get the prisoners It

as the

first

discussions of this subject, in Janu-

ary 1944, that a meeting chaired by the head of the Directorate,

Major General E. C. Gepp, approved the instruction to

all

der

camps

for the

men

to "stand fast": to stay

circumstances and wait to be liberated.

all

would be constantly restated and constantly

some deep such

fear that

it

command

Minds had only Sicily.

It

was an order that was

reissued, as if there

last

for

time British prisoners of war had been

the result had been disastrous.

to be cast back a

few months to the summer of

1943 and the collapse of Mussolini's Italian vasion of

where they were un-

would not be obeyed. There was reason

Because the

a fear.

given such a

to be sent out

Army after the Allied

Seventy thousand British and

Commonwealth

in-

pris-

—most of them soldiers captured during the desert fighting in North Africa —were held in camps in mainly in the north of the oners

Italy,

peninsula.

With

the Italians

military authorities

drew up

on the verge of surrendering, the

British

detailed plans for transit camps, for re-

ception centers, for 6,000 staff to be flown in to process the former

inmates and see them home. But for

now the men had

to stay

where

On July 25 Mussolini was dismissed, the Fascist Party was

they were.

disbanded, and in each of the camps the Senior British Officer, as instructed, formulated plans to take over

from

their guards

when

the

armistice with Italy was finally announced.

For some, the unseating of the duce came too earlier, still

A

few days

2,400 prisoners had been shipped off to Germany. Could this

happen

to the rest of

They would soon be to be kept

cynics

late.

free

them? The

to the contrary

pointed out that the

the wings. In

was

definitely not.

and on their way home. Moreover,

on any speculation

who

official line

a lid

had

by rumormongers and

Germans were waiting ominously in

some camps, news, whether from papers or over the

ra-

THE LAST ESCAPE

44

dio,

was suppressed to avoid encouraging those prisoners eager to

make

a

run for

For week

while the going was good.

it

after

week

the majority waited patiently for the Italian

surrender to be officially declared. According to the historian

Wynne Mason,

the prisoners,

some of whom were

W.

into their third

year in captivity,

were acutely aware of the

possibility of transfer to

Germany

and further imprisonment there under unknown conditions, but there was so

reliable information

little

happening outside that

on at

a definite

plan of action. As time went on the atmosphere

some camps became

to suspense

and

broke

five

and

days

a

tense; early

anxiety.

On September 3, ian mainland

about what was

was well nigh impossible to decide

it

hopes of release gave place

6

British

and American forces landed on the

The news

formal surrender was secretly signed.

later, in

the early evening of September

places, excited Italian guards

threw away their

rifles

forms, put on civilian clothes, and headed off home.

Ital-

8.

In

some

and their uni-

The

prisoners

remained more phlegmatic, according to Mason. "There were some scenes of rejoicing and a good toasting where wine was obtainable.

men went back to their games of bridge or to unfinished snacks or supper. The emphasis was on keeping cool." Camp leaders and senior officers had a sleepless night as they But most

worried about what to do.

The whole deadening suddenly broken and

They were

routine of prison-camp existence had

men had

to use their initiative again.

faced with the responsibility of deciding whether

to disobey the

War

Office order in a very confused situa-

tion. In the event, large

numbers of officers and

troops, well-

disciplined despite years as prisoners of war, decided to carry

out the

last British

order they had received.

The outcome

was the transfer to Germany of tens of thousands of able-

ABANDONED TO bodied British soldiers

THEIR FATE

who might otherwise

45

have rejoined the

Allied forces.

Thankfully,

some of the prisoners had seen the orders

for the

nonsense they were and had escaped when they had the chance.

Some headed

south,

some north, some were quickly rounded up and made it to the Allied lines and a further

returned. In the end 12,000

5,000 to neutral Switzerland. But the vast majority agonized about orders, and lost their nerve

rived to take over.

and their freedom

At one camp

senior officers, then assembled

as

German soldiers

ar-

the leader held a conference with his all

the

POWs

and told them

that, if

they so wished, they should consider themselves released from the

The meeting was

order to stay put.

At 2:30

at 2 p.m.

p.m.

German

troops rolled into the camp, slamming shut the gates behind them.

managed to there would be

Just a handful of prisoners had

flee in

perate minutes. For the rest,

a

up through northern

Italy

those thirty des-

quick transfer by train

and through the Brenner Pass into Ger-

many and what would be another eighteen months of miserable captivity. One sergeant summed matters up ruefully: "Everything comes to him who waits. We waited and the blasted Germans came." It was heartbreaking, and made worse by the realization that the outcome was the result of bad planning. Upward of 50,000 prisoners fell into German hands because, as Mason insists, of an order 7

"formulated several months previously which was totally unrelated to the existing military situation."

Moreover, the order had been

given despite a warning from MI9, the Military Intelligence depart-

ment whose

ommended

job

it

was to help escapees to get home.

MI9 had

rec-

all

camps

should be encouraged to leave in small groups and make their

way to

the opposite course of action: that prisoners in

the coast, where, under fighter-plane cover, boats to take fice.

them

The

Such an operation was too much

best that can be said

jected but

German

off.

was

still

soldiers

would be waiting

is

that the plan

being discussed in

London

were climbing up into the

sealing the holes in the barbed wire.

for the

had not been

War

Of-

totally re-

just as heavily

armed

Italian sentry boxes

and

THE LAST ESCAPE

46

There was no inquiry into any sense that there was

this

debacle

a debacle to

—nor even, one

be investigated. If an explana-

was requested, the

tion for the "stay put" order

was that

line

been given to prevent prisoners from being massacred

tempted

a

(though,

it

mass breakout. This ignored the should be

said,

not

to shoulder their arms, point their

and

tion,

made

let their

machine guns

The

prisoners go.

fact that in

the Italians were

all)

make

if

it

had

they

at-

most camps

more than happy

in the other direc-

truth was that "staying put"

sense to the pen pushers and the desk jockeys.

they could

suspects,

The

only way

was by assuming that

their neat evacuation plans

everyone was where they were told to be rather than where they

ought to

And

be.

8

yet a winter had gone by and here were the same instruc-

tions being prepared for the

same reasons of convenience, appar-

ently without discussion. Moreover, the instructions were

who

backed up with punishment for those of

all

ranks

Persons"

who

did not stay put

would be

—given the same uncertain

now to

be

ignored them. Prisoners reclassified as "Displaced

status as the millions of refugees

and deportees thrown up by the war, unwanted, unrecognized, unprotected.

Not one

of the documents

we have

meetings, the reports, and recommendations

seen

—the minutes of

—makes any mention

of what had happened in Italy as the result of the "stay-put" order.

was

as if noses

had been turned up and away from

a rather

It

bad smell.

This would prove to be an apt metaphor for almost anything to

do with prisoners of war. They seemed

There was never any way war

effort, as

was made

in

encumbrance.

which they were considered part of the

clear

by

March 1 944 intelligence had been sistance in

to be at best an

a general at the

War

Office. In

received that the underground re-

Poland was planning an uprising against the Germans,

and he had been asked for an opinion on whether the Allied prisoners of war should

be encouraged to join

it.

At the time, there were many work camps soldiers

in Poland, filled with

and airmen below the rank of sergeant, who, under the

Geneva Convention, were required

to work.

For

officers

and senior

NCOs the privilege of rank was to while away their time in separate

ABANDONED TO camps without such ranks,

who made up

living

on the

THEIR FATE

47

distractions or opportunities.

But the ordinary

the vast majority of the prisoners, labored for a

land, in mines, in factories

—anywhere that did not

in-

Most were quite willing boredom of camp life and aware

volve directly aiding the enemy's war effort. to

do

so,

happy to be relieved of the

of the chances they would get outside the barbed wire for scrounging extra food and even escaping. Large camps like Stalag

Thorn 500

or

XXB

satellite

at

Marienburg had

work camps,

a

main compound and

some

just a

quarry holding a dozen prisoners and

a

bunkhouse

at a

at

many as

usually in the surrounding area but

times up to 200 miles away,

those

as

XXA

some-

farm or

a

handful of guards. 9 Could

POWs be used to help fight the Germans?

The

general thought not

—and,

given the dangers of such a

course of action, he was probably right. But his reasons reveal an unease about prisoners of war that cles:

"They

are not trained, equipped,

for guerrilla warfare.

doubt whether

I

uncommon in military ciror in many cases physically fit

was not

it

would be possible

to ensure

they would be in uniform and properly organized under British cers."

10

offi-

In other words, they were not up to being proper soldiers and

not up for

a fight.

Another memorandum tucked away in

War Office

contained a reminder that prisoners of war might well be soft on Germans because of the shared experience of camp life. They would have learned to distinguish between a good German and a bad German, and as a result "it may be more difficult to make them hate the enemy than is the case of other British soldiers." files

the

11

In for the

all

matters to do with prisoners,

seems,

it

was always easier

War Office to say no. After D-Day the Red Cross put the case

for agreed "zones of

where

it

civilians

immunity"

in

Europe

—

basically no-fly areas

and prisoners of war would be

safe.

The German

command readily agreed, but the Allied military authorities refused. They would get little or no benefit from such areas, because

high

the Luftwaffe was a spent force, offering hardly any aerial threat.

The Germans, on

the other hand, had

much

to gain

—particularly

if,

as the Allies suspected,

they were to use such areas as a cover for mil-

Where

better to place a unit repairing tanks or a fac-

itary activities.

THE LAST ESCAPE

48

camp

tory turning out bullets than next to a prisoner-of-war

been given protected

No,

status?

it

was not

At

possible.

had

that

their confer-

ence in Casablanca in 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill had resolved on all-out

war

to achieve unconditional surrender.

The

drive for victory

could not be hampered in this way. It

was an understandable decision, though no one was actually

prepared to spell out the consequences. Allied prisoners of war

would have

to take their chances. If necessary, they

were expendable.

In the event, accidental bombings or strafings by Allied planes

caused scores, maybe hundreds, of deaths in the camps. Nor, as will see

much

later,

would "friendly

fire"

—

euphemism, which

a

guises that extra-terrible tragedy of being killed

by your own

we

dis-

side

stop there.

Behind the blacked and sandbagged windows

in his office in Mayfair,

Lieutenant Colonel Harry Phillimore pored over the

from the Office of the

War

It irritated

its

muted

as

oners of War, he had the job of trying to protect the ests.

The

men

suggestion that

be discreet, not to cheer

at

in the

also be

bad for morale

if

"common

best judges." put,"

12

He

sense,

inter-

camps should be instructed

as nonsensical

and

it

to

for fear of

unrealistic. It

the prisoners were ordered to silence

by their own commanders back faith in

POWs'

good news when they got

provoking the Germans, struck him

would

analysis of the

Germany sank into chaos at the end of him. As number two at the Directorate of Pris-

dangers facing prisoners the war.

Cabinet with

memorandum

in

London.

He

preferred to put his

on which the prisoners themselves are the

did not question that they should be told to "stay

though he made

it

clear that he

thought that

this

message had

already got through.

What

concerned him most was

from those who would harm them. had already ruled that necessary," so he

What if there was

came

how

to protect the prisoners

He noted

that the Chiefs of Staff

dropping weapons into the camps was "unat the

a severe

problem from

a different perspective.

shortage of food in the area of a

camp and

ABANDONED TO

THEIR FATE

49

the local population tried to rob the prisoners of war? For that eventuality,

he had been in direct touch with General Dwight D. Eisen-

hower's staff at

Force

SHAEF— Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary

—and had requested that plans be drawn up

of arms or armed paratroopers at the camps."

was

also arranging for a

essary

huge

airlift

of food to

dropping

for "the

SHAEF, he reported, the camps when nec-

— 17 million "man rations" were being allocated.

Phillimore's report

hower's Chief of

Staff,

was dated July 27. Five days

later,

Eisen-

Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith,

confirmed Phillimore's conclusions in writing: "Should conditions in specific instances

war,

it

demand

that steps be taken to protect prisoners of

can be done by the dropping of either parachutists or arms, as

appears to be expedient at the time."

planning at

this

by

air,

feeding,

headquarters

is

He added in summary,

on the

basis of providing

"Present

emergency

should that be necessary." Meanwhile, 105 radio

transmitters had been earmarked for delivery to the

camps "within

seven days after cessation of hostilities." Each one would be taken in

by an

officer,

The to the

accompanied by

a qualified wireless operator.

now taken care of, planning shifted problem of how to ferry the men home when

military side apparently

huge

logistical

the war ended and what to do with

was an area in which the planners

them once they were

felt

there.

Here

more comfortable. They could

assume an empty canvas, they could pinpoint reception centers on maps, they could appoint commanders of those centers, and devise the forms that each returning prisoner

They

would have

to complete.

could spend day after day sorting out back pay and leave enti-

tlement.

They

could prepare carrots and sticks for the minority of

prisoners who, after years of near anarchy, might be slow to into the strictures of military discipline. ical

problems to consider.

The

fall

back

Then there were psycholog-

small band of psychologists attached

War Office was giving considerable thought to the rehabilitation of men who had been deprived of freedom of action for so long.

to the

They might even become unduly tures in initiative as crossing a

way

anxious "over such small adven-

crowded road or finding

to a railway station half a mile

away"

13

their

They would have

own to be

THE LAST ESCAPE

50

eased back into normal society. Their families and friends would

need educating on how to deal with withdrawn and possibly

difficult

husbands, fathers, and sons.

There was much humanity (now promoted

paper that Sir James Grigg

in the

to Secretary of State for

War) presented

to the

War

Cabinet on August 22, 1944, though his underlying intention was re-

ex-POWs

to be available

etc, to take a

further part in

vealed by his early mention of the need for "after a

due interval of leave, re-training

the war against Japan." century,

it is

14

From

the perspective of

important to remember

that, for

more than

half a

people in 1944, the

prospect of war rolled out into the future almost endlessly Mussolini

had gone, Hitler was next, but sacrifices to

still

there would be

make. In Asia, the Japanese were

One

ditches rather than surrender.

conquering them could lead to

fully

more

to do,

more

expected to die in

military analyst calculated that

a million

and

a half casualties.

15

Grigg

had the manpower needs of the Allied armies in the Far East to consider too. Nevertheless, he

prisoners. tal

He

thought

as

was

filled

many as

with compassion for returning

35,000 of them might need "men-

rehabilitation," treatment "to restore their mental balance

outlook."

What

he was planning for them was lectures,

discussions, plus lots of

PE

and

and games.

would be done within the

All this

films,

and

existing military setup of army,

navy, and air force, though, in the true fashion of the centrally planned state

— for

finest

this

hour

war and the immediate postwar period would be

its

—there would be coordinated action with the ministries

of Labour, Health, and Pensions.

Nearly 2,000 miles away to the planning to

east, a

new extremes was about

regime that had taken central

to embroil the

War

Office, the

Foreign Office, the Prime. Minister, the President of the United States,

and the entire Allied

and expand

until

it

command

in a

overshadowed not

but the next two generations.

Long

problem that would grow

just the next twelve

before the Second

months

World War

ABANDONED TO new world

THEIR FATE

51

had been sown, and the

was

over, the seeds of a

first

shoots had just appeared in the strangest of guises.

The 1944

invasion of

the British and prisoners,

conflict

Normandy had thrown up

problem. As

American armies advanced into France they took

and to their surprise they found that vast numbers of those

surrendering in the gray uniform of the

mans or

a

Austrians, or even Croats or

Wehrmacht were not GerRomanians

—other

allies

of

They had been recruited from the millions of Soviet foot soldiers who had been overrun on the eastern front as Hitler knifed his way toward Moscow in 1941 and 1942. Some were dissidents, opposed to Stalin's Communist regime particularly those who came from areas such as Estonia or the Ukraine, which had only recently been forced into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They had often surrendered to the Germans Hitler.

They were

Russian.

without firing a shot. Seeing the invaders conquerors, they needed

Red Army. But

little

there was evidence that others had been subjected to

be lined up and the

first

man

asked

if he

A unit

then usually quick to is

enlist.

The

precise

— though,

impossible to say

of prisoners would

would put on

form. If he refused he was shot in the head.

way

The

German uni-

a

rest of the line

number who

after capture

many, many more claimed to have been recruited in likely to

than

persuading to take up arms against the

an especially brutal form of recruitment.

this

as liberators rather

were

joined up in

by the

this

Allies,

way than

is

have been the case.

These

forces recruited in the east had, sensibly,

from Germany's eastern

own

against their

front,

been posted away

where they would have been fighting

people, and been sent in battalion

—which

western front

is

numbers

to the

why they were now turning up as prisoners in

such huge quantities in France. But what was to be done with them? Technically they were traitors and turncoats, having defected from the

USSR,

the Allies'

ally.

But many of them claimed that their sur-

render to the Allies was in fact their liberation from forced servitude in the

German Army.

Instead of being put behind barbed wire, they

should be allowed to fight alongside the Allies against the Germans.

THE LAST ESCAPE

52

Adding Stalin.

As

to the complexity of the

far as

he was concerned

been captured by the Germans

problem was the

— and despite

attitude of

own son having

his

—there were no Soviet prisoners of

war, and never had been. Every true Soviet soldier died for the

motherland rather than surrender. Those

up and marched into

captivity

who had

put their hands

were therefore not Soviet

citizens.

Despite there being 5.5 million Soviet prisoners of war in Ger-

—appallingly

many

murdered

casually

not

exist.

16

many

so

But

also insisted

Stalin maintained

the fiction that they did

that their existence

was self-evident

his

own

would pay

—because

own

He

rewriting of history.

allies

wanted them

He

for their desertion with their lives.

on getting back

German camps the west. They

and

their guards, starved, beaten,

of them had fallen into the hands of his

back, and they

in

—

now

he would rewrite

in

by

treated

all

those Russian prisoners of war held

by the

liberated

British

and American advance

too would suffer for having surrendered to the

Germans.

And if they did not wish The prisoner-of-war camps

to return? in

Here he had an ace

to play.

Poland and eastern Germany were

about to be liberated by the Red Army. Thousands of British and

American At the

soldiers

and airmen would then

War Office

in

London,

a

fall

into Russian hands.

.

.

.

top-secret memorandum showed

the size of the problem. As of August 1944 there were 160,000 British just

—of whom

and Commonwealth prisoners of war in Germany

over 100,000 were thought to be in the zone that would be

erated by the Russians

—and

22,000 Americans.

17

lib-

The number

of

—the British

Soviet prisoners of war in the western part of Germany

and American zone any

—was put

at 365,000.

The

report refrained from

political analysis except to say that "repatriation

with by leased British

a

common

plan" and that "the

by the Russians are dealt with and U.S. Military Missions in

manner

will

in

should be dealt

which those

be closely studied."

Moscow were

18

re-

The

then given the

tough task of negotiating the "necessary arrangements" with the Russian military authorities.

A little education was needed for those unused to the ways of the

ABANDONED TO Russians.

THEIR FATE

53

From SHAEF headquarters, General Walter

Bedell Smith

wrote to the U.S. Military Mission in Moscow:

possible that the Russian Armies in their advance into

It is

Germany may over-run camps in which U.S. POW are located. Under these conditions, it is apparent that the evacuation and repatriation of U.S. a military thrust

POW will have to be effected by

eastward into Russia and thence outward via

northern or southern route,

a

Can you approach

ent.

as

may

later

be deemed expedi-

the appropriate military authorities in

Moscow with a view to making advance arrangements for processing such U.S. POWs. 19

Did

a three-star general really think the Soviets

American military operation deep into

He was

ence?

Even

and

difficult,

soon acquainted with

at this early stage it

their agreed

influ-

reality.

had to be assumed the Soviets would be

that they should put

that prisoners of

war

all

Union

first.

20

their efforts into ensuring

by the Red Army were sent

liberated

home. The Russians must not be allowed the Soviet

zone of

was made clear to British and American diplomatic

Moscow

staff in

it

would allow an

to transport

directly

them back

to

Unstated but crystal clear was the fear that

POWs would be held as bargaining chips. Marshal Stalin gave plenty of smiling assurances that British and American prisoners into Soviet hands

would be well

treated, but, as the

who

months went

fell

by,

getting any firm arrangements from the Soviet Foreign Office or the

General Staff of the Red

Army proved well-nigh

impossible. 21

Meanwhile, Soviet negotiators concentrated their attentions on those Russians

France.

camps ately.

By

in

who had been

caught fighting for the Germans in

autumn of 1944 there were 16,500 of them held in 22 Britain, and the Soviets wanted them sent back immedithe

What stirred

the Soviets into action was a

rumor

that

some of

—which was now France — to camps

the 16,500 were about to be shipped out of Britain

bursting at the seams with prisoners taken in

Canada and the United

States.

in

This brought Washington into the

THE LAST ESCAPE

54

argument. There the Soviet ambassador claimed that each and every

men in question had been "taken by force" by the Germans and therefore ought to be returned home without delay. Back in London, the matter had reached the War Cabinet. It seems that the issue there was not whether it was right to send these men back to a one of the

23

certain death

—

that Churchill

was not

their status as traitors

was anxious to retain

a

them," "all

24

men

he relented

back to Russia;

that unfortunately

He

a little.

no

ships

it

at "the Cabinet's deci-

mean

will

certain death for

ordered the Soviets to be stalled

may be

the apparatus of delay

—but

bargaining chip of his own.

However, when one of his ministers protested sion to send these

really disputed

used" 25

—and Moscow was

were available to carry

told

their prisoners

Moscow might well prove difficult when it came to Allied POWs who fell into Soviet hands. According to a memorandum to the Chiefs of Staff, "It may home

right away.

Behind

this

be necessary to go slow until

was

it is

a sense that

definitely clear that the Russians in-

tend to co-operate on the question of our

own

prisoners of war." 26

A

complex cat-and-mouse game was beginning.

The Foreign

Secretary,

Anthony Eden, went

to

Moscow

to

thrash out a deal, and over dinner with Stalin he secured a verbal

agreement

— "the Marshal's personal word,"

the mutual return of prisoners of war.

The

as

he explained 27

deal having been done,

Churchill was soon touchy about the whole subject tried to raise

it

again.

He

—on

when anyone "making

ticked off the Foreign Office for

unnecessary difficulties. It seems to me we work up fights about matters already conceded in principle. I thought we had arranged to

send a

all

the Russians back to Russia."

note to Eden:

"We ought

Shortly

understand after,

a

it

all as

soon

scribbled

as possible.

[the Soviet Minister of

was underlined.

Office

memorandum

diplomatically, recording that the

Secretary "consider

them

"All"

it."

War

A few days later he

to get rid of

This was your promise to Molotov Affairs] as I

28

Foreign

put matters more

Prime Minister and the Foreign

most important

to send these Russians

home.

A promise was made to Molotov in Moscow that this should be done as

soon

as possible."

29

Molotov had yielded on the general

principles

ABANDONED TO of exchanging prisoners of war.

THEIR FATE

He

had

precious of commodities to the Soviets

even take over

a

—

There would be

secrecy.

and

from each

side

to visit those in each other's zones of influence

and

command

liberated,

officers

during the evacuation period.

The

agreement was revealed by Major General Gepp.

meeting attended by top brass from the

all

on that most

on the camps that

were liberated or about to be

side of this

also yielded

intelligence

"prompt and continual" sharing of

would be allowed

55

War

Office,

harsh

He told

SHAEF, and

of the services that "His Majesty's Government had agreed to re-

turn

all

10 Soviet nationals to Russia regardless of their wishes."

There can be no doubt implication that

point

men would

if necessary

and

that this far-reaching decision

be forced back to

—with

Stalin's Russia, at

gun-

in the face of overwhelming evidence that they

would be slaughtered when they got there interests of Allied prisoners of war

—was taken to protect the

who were about to

fall

into Soviet

hands. In Washington, staff at the British embassy prepared a

orandum

its

that admitted as

much, and gave

terparts. It stated that the British

it

to their

mem-

American coun-

government had been

when

Union overruns Germany, they are almost certain to come across a number of our prisoners of war, whom, naturally, we want properly treated. It is felt very strongly in London that the treatment of our men in Germany will depend very largely upon the way in which the Russians are treated in the United Kingdom. influenced by the fact that

the Soviet

31

It

was

a position

with. Forcing

even

if

men

that regime

some Americans were most uncomfortable

to return to the tyranny of a

was an

grain. Secretary of War

Communist regime,

ally in this particular war,

went against the

Henry L. Stimson was among those who ob-

jected to forced repatriation, and Washington's original stance also reflected this principle.

swung around 180

But then,

degrees.

in the

lead and return Soviet prisoners of

the President could have

autumn of 1944,

The Americans would war by force

made such

a

it

quietly

follow the British if

momentous

necessary.

Only

32

Roo-

decision.

THE LAST ESCAPE

56

had seen the bigger

and

this

was the policy the two Western leaders would formally adopt

five

sevelt, like Churchill,

months

later at the Yalta

political picture,

summit meeting with

Stalin,

shape of the postwar world was settled. Underlying

it

where the

was

a simple

matter of reciprocity. If they wanted to be certain of their prisoners

coming home from

territory

under Soviet control, they would have

to guarantee the return of all those Russians in Allied hands it

meant turning

do with

The

theirs

a blind eye to

what the Russians were planning

when they got them back

planners had done their

bit.

now

clear that the

There were setbacks such

to the motherland.

autumn turned

But, as

1944, their scheme for getting the hold. It was

—even

POWs home

if

to

33

to winter in

had to be put on

war would not be over by Christmas.

as the disastrous

Arnhem campaign

in late

September. Paratroopers dropped behind enemy lines to seize a bridge across the Rhine were cut off and routed.

many was slammed six

The door into Ger-

shut (and would not be forced open for another

months). Several thousand more Allied troops joined the already

overcrowded ranks of prisoners of war.

At the same time there were more and more warnings about the dangers facing the

POWs. A

gested that "Hitler

POWs

in his

would be

may

note with top-level distribution sug-

use as a

last

card a threat to murder

hands unless the Allies come to terms. His object

to avoid unconditional surrender

the final stage of the

Soviet Union."

all

34

and to cause dissension

war between the United

States, Britain,

This came up for consideration

DPW that

at the

in

and the

War Cabinet,

little

could be done to offer

the prisoners direct protection. Because the

camps were too widely

along with a view from the

dispersed to tain

make

a military

operation feasible, "there will be no cer-

method of protecting them." The only course

mend was by now

familiar: the issuing of a

of the retribution they faced

None

if

of this was likely to

Intelligence gleaned

warning to the Germans

they acted in still

could recom-

it

a criminal

the anxiety

from coded messages and

among

letters,

manner. 35 those at

risk.

and reports by

ABANDONED TO escapees

who made it home, showed

Germans were of

said to be "nervous

hostilities."

fears

57

about the intentions of the

At Oflag 79 near Brunswick the prisoners

in the camps.

36

THEIR FATE

about possibility of shootings on cessation

At Nuremberg the men of Stalag XIIID had

extra

concerns because the SS were very active nearby. Stalag 344 at

Lamsdorf was being

secretly organized into fighting units,

would be the hard core of any

resistance to the

Germans,

which if

that

proved necessary, but there, as elsewhere, there was concern about

how The

they would fare

if

they became involved in guerrilla warfare.

Senior British Officer in the old castle at Spangenberg (Oflag

IXB) was unsure

that,

when it came

to

it,

he would be able to enforce

the "stay-put" order for longer than seventy-two hours

he pointed out, among those under Italy

especially,

command who had been

his

in

and had paid for their caution (and their obedience) with so

many more months help.

—

Those

in the

The

of captivity.

camps asked

reports added

up

to a plea for

for "representations [to] be

made

to

the General Staff for protection to be arranged, especially where there are officers, as they

seem

most danger from the SS."

to be in

A practical way of providing such protection was naval lieutenant

who had managed

special prisoner-of-war

camp

to

make

for sailors,

his

suggested by a

way home from

the

Marlag Nord, near Bremen.

His direct experience suggested that the 800 guards would present little

danger.

Most of them were "men of the 50-55 age group. Their

fighting spirit

was negligible and their loyalty

nil.

The NCOs were

of poor quality while none of the officers had seen active service." 37

Nor was he concerned about reprisals from the local population. What worried him was "deliberate Gestapo or SS murder, as part of a policy of 'burning boats' to

induce the

German

civilian

population

to continue the war."

The lieutenant had south of the

camp

a plan.

He said there was open country to the

"well suited for gliders and paratroopers," but he

warned against any premature action this

might

to free the prisoners, because

result in the very outbreak of killing they

to avoid. Instead, activities should be

naissance flights over the camp.

were trying

monitored by regular recon-

"From such

indications as football

THE LAST ESCAPE

58

matches in progress, washing hanging on the possible to judge

if all is

well."

Some

line etc,

it

should be

signal should be arranged "in

the event of distress or difficulty," at which point a relief force could

be flown

in.

Bravely, he volunteered to lead such a mission.

That the Germans were capable of the worst no longer doubted. Grigg put inet listing a

He

turned from

mood

memorandum

before the

was

War Cab-

dozen instances where Allied prisoners who had surren-

dered during the blood. 38

a

sort of atrocity

France had been murdered in cold

latest fighting in

also reported that prisoners of war

Germany under one

in the

who had

of the swap schemes feared that the

camps was worsening. Normally

guards and inmates were

fraternization with

civil,

the

between

relations

now

but

prisoners by civilians and guards had

ceased through fear of the SS and Gestapo. In

members of

recently re-

German

staffs

some camps

have hinted to the prisoners

that they will be used as hostages or killed. It

was generally

there was a serious danger of the SS shooting prisoners

felt

on

a

large scale during the period immediately preceding the cessa-

tion of hostilities.

The same memorandum noted

that the

responsibility for security measures" to

For

all

the concerns

fears.

That autumn,

for daring rescue plans. level

—

do with prisoners of war.

coming from the camps, the

the prisoners were on their own.

with their

SS were taking over "some

They would have

a series

truth was that

to learn to live

of proposals had been

Each had been considered

at the

made

highest

and turned down. One suggestion came from Combined Op-

erations, based at the

U.S.A.A.F Eighth Air Force, acting entirely on

own initiative. It envisaged an untidy ending to the war, with the German armed forces defeated but with resistance continuing among the SS and fanatical Nazis. Amid this chaos, the prisoners of war would experience "untold suffering and hardship." They must be brought home as quickly as possible to leave them to take their its

39

—

chances would be "an unforgivable indictment." So

all

resources

ABANDONED TO would be diverted

would

forces

THEIR FATE an

in their direction for

59

Airborne

air evacuation.

seize airfields next to camps, then the

camps them-

Heavy bombers and transport aircraft would then fly in to take prisoners out. With all resources thrown in from RAF Bomber

selves.

the

Command

and the U.S. Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces, the whole

operation could be completed in twenty-four hours, though take

up

to a week.

There would be

casualties, especially "if

essary to fight for the security of the airfields," but these

worth risking

if

Two weeks

it

might

it is

nec-

would be

the suffering of the prisoners was alleviated. later,

on

a

Thursday morning

in

Room

342 at the

DPW offices in Curzon Street House, the idea was buried with faint The senior SHAEF representative preferred his orgaown plan already at its final stages, he assured the meet-

enthusiasm. 40 nization's

ing

—

—for food drops to the camps, which he thought would use up

most of the

available aircraft in

for planes to be diverted

Europe.

He supposed they could ask

from the war in the Far East, but he thought

The man from the Air Ministry said Bomber Command was expected to take

permission for that was unlikely.

no one had told him that part. Two wing commanders took

it

in turns to

warn

that the ap-

Combined Chiefs of Staff would be necessary. Eight of the thirteen at the meeting made no contribution worthy of including in the minutes. If the Combined Operations plan was ever going proval of the

to

fly,

there was

little

A

fortnight

went by and there was another

Norman

here to encourage

41

Brigadier

was one of the old school,

World War veteran and holder of a

man

initiative.

Crockatt, the Military Intelligence officer with special re-

sponsibility for prisoners of war,

a

it.

DSO

of action, though just turned

42

and

fifty,

a First

a Military Cross. Still

his

problem with the

SHAEF plan to drop supplies to the prisoner-of-war camps was that he thought it impractical. 43 Take the issue of two-way radio transmitters.

When to drop them was a delicate decision. The plan envisaged week

doing so

a

would be

far

too

after hostilities ended, late,

leaving the

but Crockatt thought

camps without

tion for a dangerously long period.

However,

if

direct

this

communica-

the wirelesses were

dropped too soon, when the German guards were

still

exercising

THE LAST ESCAPE

60

"might give the enemy an excuse for shooting our

control, this

P/W." by

He then revealed his lack of trust in the headquarters planners what some might have thought

stating

many would be without

to be obvious

electricity supplies,

and that therefore only battery (heavily underlined)

He

be of value. aircraft

should

also

fly

would do wonders "act as a

had doubts about

sets

were

likely to

a suggestion that low-flying

continuous patrols over the camps. Certainly for the

morale of the

this

men below. But it might also

warning to enemy guards."

The importance

SHAEF plan in

—that Ger-

"owing to bombing,"

of Crockatt's

was

intervention

The

this:

had been drawn up on the assumption that conditions

Germany at the time

of an armistice would be reasonably orderly;

he assumed the opposite. Dropping foodstuffs without dropping

armed troops

and protect them was ridiculous.

to secure

He

had no

doubt that deployment of parachutists and airborne troops was "essential."

He

also

and

structions,

wanted secret agents sent into the camps with

officers

largely private soldiers

parachuted in to take charge of camps of

where there was no proper command

event of things going wrong

ture. In the

mass shootings"

in-

—he recommended that

—"any

atrocities,

retaliation

struc-

such

would have

as

to be

"immediate" (again underlined), another reason for having a proper

on standby. What he envisaged was no

attack force

Germany

sive airborne operation into the heart of

there was his plan

still

likely to

came up

be

stiff

at a

resistance to the Allies.

than a mas-

time

The

when

fact that

for consideration in the days immediately after the

debacle of the airborne operation at to be so

less

Arnhem may explain why it was

comprehensively shot down in flames.

Crockatt took his plan in person to

SHAEF

on October

1.

There, two brigadiers gave him the courtesy of an audience and said they would pass on his suggestions to those heading the assault on

—Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's

Germany

and General

Omar

Bradley's 12th U.S.

servations. Crockatt left the

2 1st

Army Group

meeting with

little

Army Group

—for

their ob-

hope that he was

get-

ting anywhere. "Advance provision for prisoners of war bristles with difficulties,"

44

he concluded.

ABANDONED TO

THEIR FATE

This feeling was confirmed three weeks considered reply, on one side of paper.

45

later,

61

when he

Most of his

operational suggestions were dismissed with one line

ered practical," "not considered advisable." cussion.

The

eleven specific

— "not consid-

explanation,

no

dis-

use of parachutists and airborne troops as outlined by

him was dismissed with

a curt

"This

not agreed."

is

not even be bothered to get Crockatt's correctly,

No

received a

and the

off our territory.

initial

46

was wrong.

At the end, the

letter

The writer could

—

name right it was spelt inThe message was clear: Get from

SHAEF

acknowledged

the likelihood that paratroopers would have to be used to safeguard prisoners of war, but stated that that

would be

a

matter for the army

groups to decide and would only even be considered consistent with operations." In other words

reasonably in the circumstances

—the

when

"if and

.

.

.

—and perhaps not un-

priority of the Allied

com-

manders was to win the war. The plight of hundreds of thousands of prisoners held in

enemy hands was not at the top of their list;

defeat-

ing Hitler was.

—weariness of the war and of the warring between departments — permeated DPW memorandum that — World-weariness

itself

listed

a

the proposals for direct action and the responses jected," "discussed

that "there

is little

and rejected." 47

"rejected," "re-

The memorandum concluded

which can be done

in the

way of actual protection

by force of arms." The only general agreement was, yet

again, that a

warning should be issued to the German military and the German people about their conduct.

be released were

The

precise

wording and when

will

IV in

Vic Clarke's

highly probable." In fact confirmation first

eastern

such evacuation was on

in being

had submitted

his

its

way.

that

SHAEF

—

albeit

From

Sta-

Germany, news had been received of Sergeant

official protest

gone through

He

is

—of the very

lag Luft

memoran-

be moved back by the enemy as he withdraws."

agreed that "this belated

Crockatt's

numbers had mentioned "the likelihood

to his opposite

camps

should

under discussion.

still

On one other matter there was agreement. dum

it

about the ordeal he and his

moved from Heydekrug

to

men had

Gross Tychow.

account to the Germans on August

5 for pass-

THE LAST ESCAPE

62

ing on to the Swiss Protecting Power.

months

It

had taken three and

London much

to reach Geneva, and was not seen in

a half

before

the end of November.

Shortly

after,

more alarm

bells

began to ring

in Whitehall.

A

DPW report at last noted that Himmler had been given overall control

of prisoners of war in

Germany and that officers of the SS "are Wehrmacht in control of the

gradually displacing officers of the

German tance

military machine. It

on the subject of

highest authorities."

48

is

possible that

POW can be taken without reference to the

It

added that the SS had not actually taken

over the day-to-day running of the camps

change

camps" cially

no decision of impor-

—"there has

as yet

been no

in the type of officer selected to take charge of the actual

—though

Gestapo interference was on the increase, espe-

The German

over escapes.

military continued to realize that

any mistreatment of Allied prisoners of war would lead to similar action being taken against their

men

in captivity,

swelling considerably as swathes of France

But "those to rules.

fell

whom power is now passing"

whose numbers were to the Allied advance.

might work to different

For them, reciprocity would not be allowed "to interfere with

may

whatever steps they

consider necessary to preserve

German

se-

curity."

The made

a

fact that

Red Cross

were not getting through

airlift

also

supply plan, which was based

that the prisoners of

from

half of their food that, as

SHAEF

mockery of the

on the assumption

supplies

war would continue

their usual sources. It

to get

had occurred to no one

descended into chaos, they might be facing a situa-

Europe

tion of near famine.

Over

in

Washington, the need for direct action to protect

oners of war was cans held by the

or more.

The

now

surfacing as an issue.

Germans was thought

The number

to have risen to

realization that 35,000 of

them were

pris-

of Ameri-

some 50,000 in areas that

would soon be controlled by the Russians caused consternation. The

him to It went

Chiefs of Staff made a direct approach to Eisenhower, asking

prepare an airborne operation to protect "our nationals." the

way of the Crockatt

plan.

Ten days before Christmas,

49

the Chiefs

ABANDONED TO of Staff had watered

down

their

THEIR FATE

demand

63

for a full-blown operation

to a request for "a broad outline plan."' Priorities

and unambiguously

were now

stated: "Protective troops are

clearly

only to be em-

ployed where their use does not conflict with gaining victory in battle." It

turned out to be

a sensible precaution.

Two

days

later,

on

December 16, the Allies would be rocked back on their heels as eight German Panzer divisions backed by fourteen divisions of crack infantry thrust through the wooded and mountainous Ardennes area in eastern Belgium, forcing a gaping hole in the U.S. First Army's front line

and threatening to reverse the whole outcome of the war. The

Battle of the Bulge yet,

was

a

savage warning that Hitler was not dead

and that there was much to do before any prisoners would be

coming home.

3:

Out

Cold

into the

There was something Dickensian about Christmas 1944, and not just

because of the 6 inches of snow that

fell

in the night, cov-

ering the pine trees beyond the barbed wire, dusting the roofs of the

barracks and the watchtowers, and managing to turn the vast acres of Stalag Luft

III,

near the east-German town of Sagan, into a charmed

few hours. Nor was it because of the shiny decomen had hacked out of old tins and strung in rows their rooms. What was so special was the spirit of Christmases

place, if only for a

rations that the

across

past and Christmases to

come

that shone in the camp.

eighty gave voice to Handel's Messiah, accompanied by a tra.

Then,

choir of

full

orches-

in their hundreds, the prisoners trooped to "church,"

ing the theater in the center

compound

their heads to

wrapped

tightly

keep out the bitter cold, they resembled

nativity-play shepherds,

This was despite

come

a Scrooge-like

fill-

to overflowing. Standing

there in long, ragged coats with blankets

kempt

A

to hear the

around

a flock

of un-

good news.

beginning to the

festivities.

In

previous years, the months before Christmas had been used to squirrel

away the odd

tin

of meat or paste, any treats from

could be kept and brought out for the of

Red Cross

feast.

Not

home

that

this year. Supplies

parcels had jdwindled. Luft III was 100 miles southeast

of Berlin, 60 miles from the border with Poland, and too close for

comfort to the advancing Soviet army.

On

the choked railways and

roads, supplies for prisoners took second place to soldiers

and arms

THE EVACUATION OF

STALAG LUFT

III,

JANUARY-FEBRUARY

1945

AMarlag

ML Nord

BERLIN a

-%

Stalag

MA

ll'CKEN W A L D E pre mb erg Stalag

Luft

MUSKAU SAGAN

Key

<^—

A

POW

route

POW camp 50 miles 50 kilometers

III

THE LAST ESCAPE

66

heading for the battlefront. For weeks the 10,000 inmates of the camp's

was

compounds had been forced

five separate

German

rations: sour bread, sausages of

said, the occasional

human

that there

congealed blood (and, so

at previous

to juice

up the merriment

Christmases. Precious few ingredi-

ents could be found, and in any case the guards had cracked

the illegal

1

stills.

The Germans had promised

but no one really expected

it

it

moldy potatoes, thin barmake a man vomit. Nor were

home-brewed alcohol

had been

local

fingernail),

ley or pea soup, cheese with a taste to

there the caches of

depend on

to

to arrive.

would be

there

A terrible

down on beer,

year was about to

end badly. Sagan was famous for the escaping

activities

of the

cers held in captivity there. Unlike at other camps,

was

minority

a

activity,

air- force offi-

where escaping

here the "tally-ho boys" were always top dog.

At any one time, more than two-thirds of the prisoners were helping out

—whether

running up rets"

of dirt or forgers of

as diggers

civilian clothes

false

papers or tailors

or lookouts keeping an eye on the "fer-

who poked and prodded

their

way around

the

compounds look-

camp opened, 100 of them involving

ing for tunnels. In the twenty-two months after the

Germans logged 262 escape attempts, tunnels. Most had failed, of course, but some had been spectacularly successful. Two men had made it all the way home in 1943 after digging a tunnel from the middle of the compound disguised from the Germans by the wooden vaulting horse which covered its entrance the

2

—

and was

in constant use

by

burrowed away below the

a

squad of gymnasts while the escapees

surface.

Success had led to overambition and disaster. In seventy-six mainly British officers exited

March

1944,

from the north compound

through the most famous tunnel of the Second World War. Theirs

was the Great Escape;

Hitler's response

He

fifty

personally ordered

nous poster went up in

all

was the Great Retaliation.

of those recaptured to be shot.

camps, addressed "To

all

An omi-

prisoners of war"

and warning that "Escaping from prison camps has ceased to be sport

.

.

.

Breaking out

is

now

a

damned dangerous

act

.

.

.

a

All police

OUT INTO THE COLD

67

and military guards have been given the most

on

sight

life

are almost nil."

all

suspected persons

The murders and that,

nine months

.

.

The

.

strict

chances of preserving your

the threats cast a pall of

later,

had

not

still

orders to shoot

lifted.

gloom over Luft

Some

III

of the prisoners

were cheerful enough, busying themselves with plans for the

future,

confident that the war really was coming to an end and that they

would soon be Chilians his

time on drawings for

again. a

One would-be tycoon was spending

camper that he planned

to put into

mass

production after the war. But for others the approaching Russians 5

signified not liberty but death. Flight Lieutenant

stager

who had been

known any of the ferent compound called.

down

fifty

7

who had been massacred

—but he

felt

could never understand 4

"I

Ron Walker, an old

a

bombing

had not

—they were

in a dif-

would share

sure he

raid over

He

had given up hope of ever getting home.

Diisseldorf,

"I

shot

in 1941 after

their fate.

how we were going to

survive," he re-

thought the Germans wouldn't be bothered about us and

they would simply shoot us down. There was a real danger

be murdered.

we would

—

Germany was in turmoil how would we survive it? I we would. Xot everyone thought that way, but

really didn't believe I'd

been

a

prisoner a long, long time."

perate plans drawn

up by senior

He

officers

was not party to the des-

on the escape committee

in

They would go on the offensive: German compound,

case a massacre looked imminent.

attack the guards with bare hands, storm the seize

some guns,

Then came

a

die but take

some of the

small miracle to

lift

bastards with them.'

the gloom.

A

few days before

Red Cross parcels arrived, and out of them tumbled canned turkey and plum pudding, cigarettes and cigars, candles a Christmas cornucopia. The Americans in the west compound even had an unexpected seasonal visitor. They were shivering Christmas

a

batch of

—

in the cold night air as the roll call

on Christmas Eve, longing

warmth of sleigh bells.

was taken on the parade ground

to be dismissed to the comparative

rooms, when they heard the impossible sound From behind one of the wooden huts came

their

of

THE LAST ESCAPE

68

a small

white

wagon

suit,

carrying Santa Claus, resplendent in a red and

men

pulled by two

dressed as reindeer. As

we

watched hopefully, Santa made the rounds tossing out bundles of mail to each group as he passed. Faces were a as

we returned

Christmas to

to the barracks. Santa

camp

this lonely

little

brighter

had brought the

Spirit of

in the wilderness

where the

ever-burning light of hope at times grew dim. Mail had been

allowed to accumulate over a period to permit Santa's

was one of the "not to be forgotten" days

Over and

his

roommates tucked

cuit crumbs, sugar,

each

slice

at

RAF

compound,

in the north

in.

at

Sagan.

Visit. It

6

John Hartnell-Beavis They had managed to save enough bis-

and dried

fruit to

pilot

bake

a cake,

and they took

a

teatime on Christmas Day, along with bread and butter

and jam from the Red Cross

That evening they

sat

down

and vegetables, cooked

parcels.

But the best was yet to come.

to thick soup, tinned turkey, sausages,

in a makeshift oven.

For most of them that

was enough. Their stomachs had shrunk, the unexpected

feast

was

too much, and they gave up, groaning with pain and pleasure, before

they reached the pudding and half

Not

a

pound of whipped cream

each.

on

until

Hartnell-Beavis. As a matter of principle, he pushed

every scrap due to

him was gone and he

—

eighteen months of captivity

In another hut in the same

—

felt

for the only time in his

full.

compound

a stray

American was en-

new boy, shot month earlier. With no room for American compounds when he arrived at Sagan, he had

joying British hospitality. Lieutenant Joe Lovoi was a

down him

in his

in the

B-17 bomber scarcely

been assigned

a place in a

Canadian airmen,

all

hut of sixteen English, Australian, and

of them

three-year-old under their

a

camp

veterans.

They took the

twenty-

wings. Things would be done correctly

They played bridge not poker, chess not checkers. On Christmas Day they all bathed and shaved, even though the water was close

here.

to freezing,

and then put on their cleanest clothes. "There were smiles,

handshakes, happy greetings, and

warm

embraces," Lovoi recalled,

OUT INTO THE COLD and get

a special

menu whose

— "sardine

69

mock-sophistication he would never for-

au toast" for breakfast, "sausage au pain

lunch, and "pate cockerel" (chicken paste

on

frite" for

a cracker) for supper."

That evening, Lieutenant Onafrio Brancato blew on his fingers to warm them up, took up his guitar, and, as usual, began to pick out a tune. Another young U.S. flyer, he had arrived at the same time as Lovoi, and his music had helped break the

He

ice.

sat in the

middle

of the hut, and the others collected around him or just lay on their

bunks and joined in gle Bells,"

and

at a distance.

finally

They began with

then "Jin-

carols,

"White Christmas." Outside, the wind howled

against the window, driving the sleet against the door as they sang

and dreamed of home, each one of them "staring straight ahead, for

under

fear that the witness

his eyes

would be noticeable." As

for

what lay ahead, "only God knew when and where our next Christmas

Day would be

spent."

In his bunk that night, Lovoi lay sleepless and restless, unable to get the thoughts of

home

back in the kitchen of setts.

out of his head. In his mind's eye he was

his parents'

home

in

Cambridge, Massachu-

"The atmosphere was unusually quiet for

a

normally vocal

My three unmarried sisters were almost in robotic fashion. My father,

Ital-

ian immigrant family.

going about

their activities

Ottavio, sat

slumped

in a kitchen chair, staring into

empty

space."

Lovoi 's imagination was uncannily close to later discover.

He was

—

reality

as

one of four brothers away fighting

he would

in the war,

The Not a

but he was the one his parents were worried to death about. others were safe enough, but Joe was

word had been heard about him

MIA—missing in action.

since

November

16,

when

his plane

failed to return to base in Italy.

There had been no message from the

War

who had

Department. His

War, had slumped into

father, a

fought in the First World

depression and spent hours leaning on the

front gate, staring at the street and

remembering the children

play-

ing there or just hanging out, in better times. Stirred to do something, he tried to join

up

at the Military

Recruiting Office in Boston,

begging to be sent to Europe so he could search for Joe.

THE LAST ESCAPE

70

He

pleaded his case in his broken English.

American

peel potatoes and cook for the

pert tailor and could sew torn uniforms.

He

said

he would

He was an ex-

forces.

Through

his tears,

he

proudly showed the recruiting officer his U.S. Citizenship Certificate.

He

certainly did not lack the courage, but his de-

when he was

pression deepened

He was

rejected because of his age.

56 years old.

The one person who

never lost hope was Nancy, Joe's mother, a

devout Catholic. That Christmas, even though her boys would be absent from the family home, she set up the nativity grotto as usual in

an alcove on

rounded by she passed

Her

landing halfway up the

a

bright, colored lights.

it,

—

a

manger scene

sur-

would pause each time

murmur a prayer for her missing son. over the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child in her

cross herself, and

eyes flickered

arms, then

stairs

Now she

moved on

to the figure of Joseph. Falling to her knees,

she looked into the face of the saint and hesitantly whispered, "Is

Her

my

head.

Her

scream brought her husband and her daughters rushing to her

side.

son alive?"

them. "He's

"Joe's alive!" she told

Three thousand miles away, with joy at her

home

in

conventional method

in

England, another mother wept

an outer-London suburb

—she

down

its

alive!"

as

—through

a

more

learned that her missing son was also

Flying Officer Eric Hookings was another

alive.

shot

saw the statue nod

tear-stained eyes

newcomer to Sagan,

over Holland just weeks before and lucky to survive after

falling straight into the

death's-head

emblem on

arms of the Waffen SS. his cap

had

A

major with

held a pistol to his

threatened to pull the trigger. Later, the two guards taking

Sagan had had to

fix

bayonets to hold off a

mob

a

head and

him

to

German women Dortmund railway

of

RAF uniform at station and tried to attack him. He was now housed in Belaria, an over-

who

noticed his distinctive blue

flow

compound

at

Sagan some distance away from the main camp.

There the prisoners had managed

to hide their

guards, and in Hookings's hut there was carols

and good wishes

all

around.

hooch

illicit still

from the

to drink, along with

"We created our own internal hap-

OUT INTO THE COLD made

piness and

the

71

most of it because there was no point

in

doing

any other. But most of our thoughts were with families and loved ones at

home." 8 And that was where, on Christmas Day

"missing presumed dead"

The

—

a prisoner,

December 1944 lost weekend. Not for him the

frozen

rest of

but

alive!

was, in the words of Joe Lovoi, like diversion of hockey matches

camp

to captivity,

he had quickly

fallen into the en-

summed up by one army major

life,

on the

from the

pool, using skates that had recently arrived

fire

YMCA. Though new nui of

telegram

from the Swiss Red Cross saying that he was no longer

arrived

a

itself, a

"an endless Sat-

as

urday and Sunday that never succeeds in getting round to Monday."

Another old stager sank into depression and recorded, hind

me

When At

of time.

will I

least the

The monotony and

dumps

at

break out of the darkness into the light?"

news was

brighter.

Antwerp. Without

The German

diesel, the

Germans had made

its

madden-

10

offensive through objective, the fuel

Panzers stopped in their

in the front line.

But good news

dered the execution of

demand

all

still

rumor. Hitler,

prisoners of

war

it

like

word of mouth

received on secret radios and broadcast by

around the camp, could not

their

it all is

and the Allied counterattack began to iron out the temporary

bulge the this,

of

futility7

the Ardennes had stalled, falling well short of

tracks,

look be-

"I

and see an endless arch of wasted years and, looking ahead,

just a tunnel

ing.

9

was

said,

had or-

unless the Allies diluted

for "unconditional surrender." It did not matter that,

we will see later, no such order seems actually to have been given. Xor that, with hindsight, such an order was highly improbable. Hitler's generals and even some of his henchmen may have been 11

as

ready to talk terms, but the fuhrer was not

mor had

a life

of its

own and was

a negotiator.

highly believable at the time, given

what everyone knew about the Nazi mentality and cism. Allied governments

plans accordingly it

had the cold

would come

to believe

To every prisoner gazing

steel

But the ru-

it

Hitler's fanati-

and make their

into an uncertain future

edge of reality. Joe Lovoi for one believed

it.

"I

thought we prisoners-of-war might have to pay the price of 'unconditional surrender,' that there

was

a real

danger we could be shot.

We

THE LAST ESCAPE

72

didn't discuss

about

it

it

much, though.

On New Year's Eve,

Stalag Luft III was strangely quiet.

bunks and buried their heads,

their

new

year offered

little

his guitar that

then turned into

up, then the rest joined

tenor matching bass until they sounded like a

"We

Men took to

gloomy thoughts. The room Brancato broke the

The Australians perked

"Waltzing Matilda."

choir.

just to think

lost in

comfort. In Lovoi's

strumming of

silence with a casual

in,

was scary enough

It

yourself."

full

male-voice

sang ourselves out of breath," Lovoi recalled, "and then

there was a

lull."

Brancato 's guitar

the silence again, this time

filled

room became very serious as we hummed along with him, and as we did so, we were forming a human ring, clasping each other's hands until the human bond was complete. We'll take a cup of kindness yet we sang out at the top of

with "Auld Lang Syne." "Then the

.

.

.'

our voices." All

around the camp the word was that they were going to be

marched out

— despite the weather, despite the obvious lack of transargument that

port, despite even'

to let the Russians overrun the

it

would be

camp and

another 10,000 hungry mouths to feed.

some

Two and

Red Cross

The

prisoners looked for

a half

weeks into the new

parcels arrived and, after conferring with each other, the

and then rather than store them for for

in

year, a fresh batch of

senior American and British officers decided to release

up

Germans

from the increasingly nervous guards, but they too were

sign

the dark.

easier for the

take over responsibility for

what might

lie

later.

The men needed

encouraged to eat three hot meals also

there

fattening

ahead. Apart from the Christmas blowout,

they had been on restricted rations since September.

The men were

them

Now they were

a day.

encouraged to get

fit,

and the numbers speed

walking or running the %-mile perimeter track of each compound

went up letin

dramatically.

board telling

laps a

all

day while they

On January 23

an order was posted on the bul-

American prisoners that they should get still

could.

As they padded around,

in ten

lap after lap,

OUT INTO THE COLD

73

bodies steaming in the subzero cold, the breathless talk was of where

they might be going, and when.

For

all

the expectation,

when

the

The temperature had dipped even

moment came

farther and the

it

was

a surprise.

snow was

falling

heavily on the night of January 27, 1945 as guards rushed from hut

"Ram! Runs!" The Russian advance had been quicker than

to hut.

anyone could have anticipated. Stalin's

winter offensive had begun just a fortnight

earlier.

On

a

300-mile front stretching from the Baltic to Warsaw, 163 Soviet di-

German

visions swept forward against a defensive line of just 30

Riding in new American-built trucks and troop-carriers

visions.

instead of advancing to keep

di-

up with

countryside in

on

foot, the soldiers

more than

a

week.

Red Army were

able

through 100 miles of Polish

their tanks as they knifed little

of the

They bypassed

city strong-

holds whose garrisons Hitler had ordered to slow their progress

they could be

mopped up

just 95 miles

from Berlin

hit

by

later

— and now the forward divisions were

itself.

The Third Reich was

tottering as

if

sledgehammer.

a

Ron Walker stood at the door of his room and looked out in dismay. They were to leave for an unknown destination. They had thirty minutes to get ready. "We could take with us only what we could cam'.

room, as

A

like the

men

feeling of terrible desperation broke over me." His

hundreds of others

in Luft III that night,

was in chaos

scrabbled together what they could. Discarded cigarettes

tered the floor.

Food was top on

the

list

of priorities.

What

lit-

they

couldn't earn' they tried to eat there and then. Layer

on

clothing was put on, with

One prisnew pair of

little

regard to rank or service.

oner recollected wearing his blue airman's tunic and

a

khaki trousers, two thick wool sweaters, an overcoat on top,

cap on his head,

a scarf

his hands. Finally

give his soles

Out

his neck,

a

naval

and two pairs of gloves on

he slipped an extra pair of socks over his boots, to

some

and ill-kempt."

around

layer of

grip in the snow.

The

effect

was "wild-looking

12

in the corridor there

were optimistic shouts that "the Rus-

sians are only 15 miles away." If the prisoners could delay leaving as

THE LAST ESCAPE

74

long ing

as possible, their liberators

how

Russian

Ja English

to say

—

—

here.

am

"I

offizier

Some began practic-

an English officer" in

north compound people stood around

just in case. In the

listening to

would be

what they hoped were guns, and there was

a general feel-

ing that they would be overrun that night or the following morning.

frozen River

Army was

still

60 miles away, pushing across the

Oder which marked

the Polish border and then turning

In fact the Soviet

back to encircle and lay siege to the

Over

in the west

compound,

can contingent from their huts. before shuffling out of the

bugle

a

Men

warmth

makeshift packs on their backs. close

German

called them.

1

stood, heads

they were

up

set free

their way.

Nor was

Among

Russians being so

from

New York.

he recalled,

we must

"all

as

he

through

destroy this

He wasn't averse to heading westward out of

Lieutenant

Bill

conclusion that the Soviets had

work

in prayer,

by the "eastern horde,"

allies; yet, as

Ethridge,

little

whichever side they were on, and were to

bowed

a navigator

the last decade our government had told us

communistic combine."

the Ameri-

in the snow, their

The thought of the

he wanted to be

Yes,

-

of Breslau.

summoned

to line

brought no cheer to Joe Cittadini,

He wasn't sure

call

city

who had come

to the

time for prisoners of war,

just as likely to

put Americans

forced-labor battalions as any captured Germans. 14

in

more sympathetic to the Russians there had for some time been a rumor that the guards would turn a blind eye to anyone who wanted to stay behind and await the arrival of the Red Army. those

The German and asked

if it

gun quickly

sergeant

was

who had

true.

supposedly said

pulled

with the sleeves

as

was approached

A snarl and a menacing wave of his machine

set the record straight.

Bob Neary

this

on

his

15

pack (made from

a

shoulder straps) and a blanket

buttoned-up roll,

shirt

making sure

that the

logbook and drawings he had meticulously kept throughout

his stay

were

sessed.

safe.

Around

his

He

was wearing every

head he wrapped

a

stitch

of clothing he pos-

hood fashioned from

to protect his ears. Thirty minutes after midnight, he

Americans from the south compound who into the night.

Some dragged

sleds, hastily

a scarf,

was among the

headed the

column out

made from Red Cross

— OUT INTO THE COLD

upended wooden bench. Guards with regulation packs

crates or an

on

marched alongside, some with dogs on

their backs

prisoner had a gift in his arms that

was tossed to him

as

he

leashes.

Each

— an unopened Red Cross food parcel

left.

He also took on board a last-minute

warning from the Germans: Anyone shot.

75

who

lagged behind would be

16

The same uncompromising

threat had been conveyed to the

senior-ranking U.S. officer, General Arthur Vanaman.

He was

play-

ing bridge with three of his colonels in his

room when a German ma-

camp was

to be evacuated in half an

jor interrupted

them

to say the

hour and that anyone trying to escape or anyone

falling

out along the

way would be shot. Vanaman stood up, looked the German in the eye, and told him they would have to be prepared to shoot him first.

He

had spinal

these

injuries

—the

meant he was sure

theless,

he went out

thought

it

to be the

at the

all.

They began into a single

file

to

first

fall

head of his men.

a miracle that the

the journey at

result of bailing out of a plane

One

of his senior officers

middle-aged Vanaman was able to make

17

in formation, four abreast, but

soon deteriorated

The

stretching miles into the distance.

the sleds began to break

up

after the first

of the prisoners found

it

flimsiest of

few hundred yards. At

there was a lot of shouting from the guards and even

Some

—and

by the wayside. Never-

exhilarating to be out

some

first

banter.

on the road

enjoying "the freedom of walking through the countryside after so

many years

of confinement," as one of them put

was driving hard into their eyelids

mates

and any exposed

later,

within the

faces,

and

The

flesh.

sank to 17° below zero. first

few miles

ice quickly

But

a blizzard

formed on

temperature, according to 19

They had

many were

hours the guards called them to

18

it.

their esti-

only just started, but

already exhausted. Every two

a halt for a

ten-minute

rest,

and they

snow and gasped for breath as the storm raged around them. Those who sat on the road itself found their flung themselves on the

trousers frozen to the surface. 20

harder to get up and plow on

Each time

it

became harder and

—so much so that Joe Cittadini pre-

ferred to keep going rather than risk seizing up.

As he marched he

THE LAST ESCAPE

76

glanced to either side of the road, and in the eerie half-light cast by

moon on

the

the

snow he saw German

civilians "slinking

the small trees and bushes, gathering what

we

discarded as

forced to lighten our loads." Cans of margarine were the

along in

we were

first

to go,

then other weighty and bulky items. In the snow by the roadside,

a

straw-stuffed mattress lay next to a typewriter.

The

prisoners were not the only people

on the move

that night.

Refugees fleeing ahead of the Russians jostled for room on the road.

To

Ethridge they seemed to be carrying their entire

Bill

lives

with

them:

bundles, small pieces of furniture, long-handled scythes, hoes

and crosscut saws. They were mostly to be useful in the

German

men and women

too old

army, plus small children under 10

Many were bandaged or walked with a stick. A few rode two-wheeled carts. An old man explained to me that the

or 12. in

wooden trunk and two

small

made by up.

his grandfather

was carrying had been

and he would die before giving them

gave him one of my two chocolate bars and thought

I

lucky

we were

how

in America.

His own parents, back in just

chairs he

Illinois,

had been born in Germany.

one generation away from being on the other

side.

He was

Other

pris-

oners, however, were less generous in their thoughts about these

German

civilians

now running

for the misery their country

the world.

It

for their lives.

This was their reward

had brought to the

could hardly be called unjust.

rest of

Europe and

21

The POWs were still marching as the night faded and day broke; and now, in the morning ful picture

around them. Not

the road, but rection,

light,

German

all

and refugees crowded

some heading in the opposite diothers coming up behind, haggard and

They begged cigarettes from the them Kamaraden, as if somehow they were sud-

wounded, returning from the denly

just prisoners

troops too:

toward the Russians;

prisoners and called

they could take in the whole mourn-

on the same

side,

front.

united in misery.

OUT INTO THE COLD By mid-morning

77

the prisoners had reached a small

Freiwaldau. Already they had

come

1

town named

8 miles, hurried along

by their

guards with dire warnings that the Russians were only two days be-

hind them. Those

at the

head of the

line

found shelter from the driv-

ing sleet inside the buildings of a labor camp.

Those who

ones.

arrived later

Some

could out in the open.

They were

had to warm themselves

lit fires,

the lucky

as best

they

wood from

ripping planks of

buildings while the guards weren't looking, knowing they might be

shot

if

killer,

The

they were caught stealing.

and any risk was worth taking

cold was a

if it

more immediate

increased the chance of sur-

vival.

Here many men dumped the Neary abandoned

loads they had been carrying.

virtually everything

and wrapped the rags round

and ripped up

his feet to protect

His treasured logbook and sketches stayed

—

his only towel

them from the

—

now

for

Bob cold.

stuffed into

the front of his jacket. Bill Ethridge lightened his load too, giving

away

man

a

can of powdered milk and trading his cigarettes with a Ger-

guard for a piece of smoked sausage. His feet were

cold "and seemed

no longer part of my body." The

were nearly worn through. Fearing and socks and massaged little bit

of feeling returned,

ever survived

this, I

solid. If

slept

if I

could help

back on. Others

awoke

who

it."

if I

He

took theirs

to find the leather frozen

they could not find some heat to thaw them out,

marching through the snow

his shoes

the time vowing to himself "that

his boots

them while they

with

twenty minutes, until a

would never be cold again

was lucky to be able to get off and left

all

he took off

frostbite,

his toes furiously for

numb

soles of his shoes

it

meant

in bare feet.

After a day's rest, taken in the cold and wet, the marchers set off

again into another subzero night. Six inches of

morning.

Men were

der was disappearing.

The word came down

men who had

to find

somewhere

fell

before

the line that one pris-

oner was already dead from cold and exhaustion. of six

snow

dropping with frostbite and twisted ankles. Or-

Bill

Ethridge knew

decided that enough was enough and were going to hide

and wait for the Russians.

He

never dis-

covered what happened to them. In fact escape could never have

THE LAST ESCAPE

78

been easier himself.

—

man had

all a

But most,

be escapee

like

do was walk off into the dark and

to

John Hartnell-Beavis, an

when he was back at

lose

enthusiastic would-

Sagan, could see no point. "It would

have been akin to suicide," he decided.

The column was soon swept by through

when

a thickly forested area

there was a terrifying

approaching and about to

They were marching

panic.

over snow that had compacted to ice

commotion and shouts

that a plane

was

column. Prisoners scrambled off

strafe the

the road, plunged into the forest, and threw themselves into the un-

dergrowth. Joe Cittadini's heart was beating wildly as he lay in deep

snow and

waited.

Toward the

rear of the line,

some of the guards

in-

terpreted this dash for cover as an escape attempt, dropped to their knees, and fired volleys into the darkness. Several prisoners were

hit,

and the word was that two were badly injured.

A

on by

ridiculous story traveled quickly along the line, passed

German guards alike, that Russian tanks had attempted an ambush. The Germans, in a constant state of anxiety that Stalin's invaders were about to overtake them, believed it. The prisprisoners and

oners were ready to believe

it

too,

and some began to shout out that

they were camarada, Americanisha, and "prisoners of war." But there

were no Russians to heed them. The cause of the commotion turned out to be

a cart

the icy road.

with

Amid

a small

boy

at the reins

the darkness and the

been mistaken for the Red Army.

The march resumed, and passed a barn.

roadside inn and slept

He

column strung out

drawn wagons

that

it

became if

they

after falling asleep several times

joined a group

on the barroom

pulled himself up and set off again, but

panions could go no farther.

on

bolting horse had

drop out and take shelter

Bob Neary gave up

while actually marching.

fear, a

lost control

22

as the

easier for exhausted groups to

who had

They

floor.

who stumbled Four hours

more than

into a

later

thirty of his

he

com-

could only wait for the horse-

were accompanying the column to pick them up,

and in the meantime pray that the rumor that stragglers were being shot was not true.

OUT INTO THE COLD Ethridge was also close to giving up.

Bill

of his companions around

we do?" They

can to

ward

It

79

him and asked

looked

himself,

coated their faces and

off the cold,

He

lips

at the state

"How much more

with margarine, to try

and staggered on.

would have been easy just

drop in the snow and pass out,

to

even though we knew that would mean we would freeze to death.

We

found more than one prisoner huddled asleep in

a

snow bank, apparently unnoticed or avoided by the Germans.

We

pulled

them

to their feet, slapped

them hard

in the face,

then pushed them back on to the road.

But some could not be roused.

who was marching with

Donald,

on the second night

A British chaplain, Murdo Mac-

the Americans,

out, Lieutenant Jenkins,

football player, decided to die. I heard the

along the straggling

line:

It

was not

summons

rations. I stayed

found

with him

till

he died,

up with the main column,

The summons came

just the prisoners

passed I

He insisted on giving me what

closed his eyes and ran to catch

three miles away.

an All-American

"Padre Mac, you're wanted."

Jenkins on his back in the snow.

remained of his scanty

remembered how

again and again. 23

who were

suffering.

Guards were

dropping out too, and some of the prisoners took comfort in that

one of them had died of the

was

a favorite

among

cold.

He was an older man,

suffering rifle fell

picked

it

We

up and threw

it

away

into a

ordered us to

lift

Shorty,

a

rumor

as Shorty,

more sympathetic

from an injured to the

leg,

treat-

and when

ground and Ethridge

bank of snow.

took turns carrying him, two

around our necks. Then

known

Another,

the prisoners and got

he eventually collapsed his

ment.

24

at a time,

with his arms

German officer in a car saw us and who was unconscious, into his vehi-

a

THE LAST ESCAPE

80

But when he realized the guard's

cle.

his

gun and threatened

soldiers arrived.

We were

round and told the

snow when he

the

they found

us.

all

searched, but then Shorty

he must have dropped

Soldiers

went

—once

most vigorous of

the

dragged along on

his rifle in

off and searched until

a sled

astonished to see a guard he

"ferrets"

—out

by two children from

cold and being

a village.

But what was

worrying about the guards was that they seemed to have no

really

idea

came

it.

RAF bombardier Geoff Willatt was knew

was missing, he drew

He radioed for help and four armed

officer fell.

rifle

where the column was heading. Willatt saw from

that they

—

like the prisoners

their behavior

—had not been told the destination. He

began to doubt "whether we are going anywhere. Perhaps we are

marching endlessly west, death

if

we have

For the next

in

which

to sleep in the rest, as

many

case,

snow?"

just

how many of us will freeze to 25

prisoners as possible crowded into an

They had come more

abandoned inn by the

side of the road to sleep.

than 25 miles in

than 24 hours, and Ethridge's feet were more

less

painful than ever. But others

were

in

much

greater distress. "Ten had

passed completely out and a few others were delirious.

could to comfort one that he

had to

who needed Another

who had

really lost

pull himself together because

I

did

what

I

kept reminding him

he had

a wife

back home

him. This seemed to help." 1

2 -mile

march through the night brought them

town of Muskau, where they were allowed unexpected

it.

I

hospitality.

to sleep.

Some German women had

to the

Here there was set

up

tables in

the street and were serving coffee, soup, bread, sausage, and sympathy.

They

offered their enemies God's blessing. In a quiet voice, the

headmistress of the local school hoped "you boys will be going soon."

home

26

That night there was no marching, but there was consternation. new accommodations

Ethridge and his companions were directed to in a factory with a

huge smokestack. Stories about extermination

OUT INTO THE COLD camps had reached the

by some sergeants who had

prisoners, retold

arrived at Sagan via Buchenwald.

They panicked momentarily them

sight of the chimney, until a guard told

with

warm kilns and room on

out.

Here, despite the dust and the

their strength.

it

was

at the

a brick factory

the floor for almost everyone to stretch

they could rest and recover

dirt,

For them the worst was

what they now learned was

81

over. It

was

just 15 miles to

immediate destination.

their

A senior of-

wrung some information out of one of his German counterparts. They were going to the railway junction at the town of Spremberg. With the weather easing a little, they would make it ficer

had

finally

there easily the day after next. It

of

was

a

time to take stock of injuries. Walter Steck saw hundreds

men around him who needed

bite

and exhaustion.

much suffering," he

"I

medical attention because of frost-

human

never knew

beings could stand so

declared. But at least there

help them. Slave workers

were willing hands

to

who labored in the factory brought hot wa-

ter.

A Polish boy repaired the sled that one combine had dragged all

the

way from Sagan. And not

that there

for the first time they

were people around them

were reminded

in this central-European night-

mare whose chances of survival were even lower than

theirs.

—

The stragglers had time to catch up among them Joe Cittadini, who had dropped out at the last village. His blistered feet would go no

farther,

rested.

and he had reluctantly

A guard

let his

roommates go ahead

as

he

him and thirty other casualties, and the hay wagon to be hauled into the Muskau

stayed with

next day they piled into a

brick factory, "a wonderland of dust and toasty warmth," as he recalled

it.

The

factory

was very large with prisoners camping

nooks and crannies. As friends

I

spotted one of

him. "Hey,

Bob where

I

them on

are

all

his blanket. I

the guys?"

He

me. Then I realized he was kneeling in deep ing the

Good Lord

in all the

wandered through looking

for bringing us

through

for

my

came up behind

didn't turn to greet silent prayer, this

hardship

thanksafely.

THE LAST ESCAPE

82

Those

at the

head of the column could

damage done

the

now

take time to repair

to their bodies, their minds, their souls. But, be-

hind them, thousands were

still

Ten thousand men marched

the bitter road from Sagan to

over

five

toiling

through the snow.

days and nights. Their stories were similar, but each man's

struggle was his own, a unique battle to survive, assisted

determination not to give

tive

Spremberg

in.

by

You helped the man next

a collec-

to

you

as

you plodded on through the snow, head down, each foot forward triumph of willpower, getting through the ordeal

and

as the last

ready nearing

man

its first

left

Sagan, the front of the column was

middle were Joe Lovoi and

at Freiwaldau.

Onafrio Brancato,

his buddy,

from the north compound of Luft

al-

By then more. Somewhere in the

major stopping point

the line was stretched out for 15 miles or

off

you could.

had taken nearly eight hours for the whole camp to be evacu-

It

ated,

as best

a

III at just

who had

before 4 a.m.

set

"The

only way to march without getting your head frozen was to bend at

bow your head into the teeth of Nobody spoke, saving all their en-

the waist, twist your shoulders and the freezing gale," Lovoi recalled.

ergy for their

legs.

The moaning of the wind and

the crunch of boots

were the only sounds. Thousands of pairs of feet had already passed this

to

way and hammered

walk

the

snow

in the footsteps of those

into a hard surface, and

however, the road had already reached

Lovoi saw as

still

a

"we

tried

ahead of us." For some prisoners,

horse-drawn wagon go

its

end. As he sat taking a

by. Several

bodies lay on

rest,

its floor,

as death.

He

and Brancato began chatting to each other

anything to keep up their

spirits.

now and

Every

—

just small talk,

then they would

Then the chatter their heads down again and

gasp as the wind found an opening in their clothes.

stopped

as their faces froze

marched on you

in silence.

are so tired

it

and they put

Lovoi remembered getting "to

doesn't matter, so

Eventually, they too reached

you

just

a

point where

keep plugging along."

Muskau. Arriving

in daylight, unlike

OUT INTO THE COLD those

who had gone

83

ahead, they could see the abandoned factories

They too warm brick

and office buildings of what had once been a pottery town. could

now

and

shelter

ovens were

all

dwindling provisions.

and

best places near the

taken, but just being

Lovoi and Brancato found

in vain for

The

rest.

dry spot, sat

a

They

under cover was

split a

something to wash

a

in itself.

small can of deviled ham, looked

down with, and then

it

bonus

down, and dug into their

lay

on the

floor

slept.

Ron Y\ alker was among the last to leave he and his companions

had

at least

before they began walking.

Sagan, which meant that

however broken,

a night's sleep,

A German

guard warned him that the

road outside was dangerous because Russian fighter planes were patrolling overhead. will

Another summed up

"You

their chances glumly:

walk with refugees, sleep with them, and probably die with

them."

was

It

when they

8 a.m.

and there were

set out,

casualties al-

most immediately. This group included the longest-serving prisoners,

and they tended to be the

had taken their stantly

toll.

As men

least

fell

The

fit.

commander con-

behind, "our wing

walked up and down the column shouting encouragement or

threats to

anyone he thought was about to give up.

dous example of the best type of regular

Walker "did not think take a drink

were too like

years of semistarvation

from

numb

his

I

He was a tremen-

officer."

could be so cold and

water bottle, but

it

live."

was frozen

to untie his parcel of food.

He

solid.

But help was

tried to

His fingers

at

Un-

hand.

those in front, the prisoners at the end of the line were marching

in daylight,

and

in villages they passed

through German

girls

came

out with bread and coffee in exchange for soap and chocolate. His

memories were

all

of

how

friendly the

Germans were, and how

they were of the war. "I think they genuinely

morning,

after

an overnight stay in

felt

sick

sorry for us."

One

some

local

a school, prisoners let

children take turns having rides on their sleds. In their Hitler Youth

uniforms, they giggled and screamed just like youngsters at play the world over, and Y\ alker was left contemplating the absurdities

of war.

THE LAST ESCAPE

84

For the 2,000 British prisoners

compound, the march was, ers.

Being

in Belaria, Luft

if possible,

overflow

Ill's

even worse than for the oth-

from the main camp, they missed the rumors.

at a distance

Eric Hookings had absolutely no idea they were about to be evacuated until the

moment

"What

three in the morning.

going on?" he thought

him out of

yelling guards forced

as

the bloody

hell's

his

hut

at

happening? What's

he grabbed newspapers to

stuff inside his

overcoat as insulation.

We

were marched straight out with no

road more or their guns. fying.

less straight

delay,

pushed on the

away by Germans prodding us with

We had no idea where we were going. It was terri-

Even those

in the sick

bay had to go, and there were

of them. Jaundice, dysentery and scurvy were

rife

lots

and we were

lousy with vermin and covered in sores and suppurating

all

wounds.

They slept in

barns and cowsheds at night, nestling up to the cat-

warmth, "woken intermittently by the

tle for

cries,

coughs, and wan-

some of whom were mentally scarred for life." There were thoughts of escape, "but where could we run to? Better to stick with the misery of the march. There was safety in numbers and comfort in numbers, and warmth at night in being close to each derings of colleagues,

other."

But

an old

woman came

their guards

were particularly inhumane. In one

to the gate of her cottage with acorn coffee.

"She probably had sons or grandsons of her this

bedraggled string of exhausted

men

own and took

passing her door."

stepped forward and smashed the cups with his

never

village

rifle.

"To

pity

on

A guard

this day,

I'll

know why."

On

the fourth day

Hookings went down with dysentery. Racked

own vomit and excrement, he felt at the "God only knows how I got through as we

with pain and filthy with his lowest ebb of his

life.

staggered from one barn, cowshed or pigsty to another." There was

no

sign of the sun, and gray days fused into endless winter nights.

remembered coming

to a railway siding

where men and boys

He

in tat-

OUT INTO THE COLD tered

German uniforms were

getting

85

down from

a line of railroad

cars.

They were

emaciated, badly wounded and as filthy as

but they had

had been to

this cadaverous,

hell

haunted look of terror,

we were, as if

they

and back. They were the remnants of a crack

German army unit that had been fighting on the Russian To see the enemy, our captors, in far worse condition than some of us, lifted what little hopes we had and put a little front.

aspiration into our souls. cigarettes for

some of

We

exchanged our few remaining

the food they

still

had.

We

were both

They were disillusioned with the war as much as we were. They had had their share of physical wounds. We were wounded mentally and by the experience we had just beaten people.

gone through.

We were camped in this siding for some time, guarded by Germans who in turn were watched over by their own SS troops.

One

of the SS generals had two geese, obviously in-

They were too much of a temptation for starving men and one of the geese disappeared. The SS general's fury knew no bounds, and it was only the tact of the Setended for his dinner.

nior British Officer that saved those involved from being shot.

The German demanded compensation

for his loss

were compelled to give him our cigarette

rations.

Hookings and cattle cars for a

his fellow prisoners

and we

were eventually loaded into

journey of seven days and nights.

We never left that truck in all that time. Occasionally the train stopped and the doors were opened and bucket, which, since

many of us had

we emptied

the

dysentery, was disgusting

outside. We had We heard planes but we did not know

beyond imagination. But no one was allowed

no idea where we were. whose they were.

We

slept

where we stood, leaning against

the next man, day after night after day.

THE LAST ESCAPE

86

When

they arrived at their destination, they were driven out

new

bayonet point and into trucks that took them to their Stalag IIIA at Luckenwalde, to the south of Berlin. It

home

at

camp)

would be

their

for the rest of the war.

We had traveled hundreds of miles on foot,

lorry, cattle

truck

through the utmost depravity, sickness, hunger, and despair.

We had

we thought

experienced despondency of such depths

we would never

recover.

But there was always that

little

spark

of hope, the thoughts of seeing our loved ones and, for me, the idea that

The

one day

I

might be clean again.

rest of the prisoners

of war

who had

started out

from Sagan

new camps, but in different parts of Germany, many hundreds of miles apart. Muskau had become a makeshift tran-

were

sit

also arriving at

camp, with prisoners constantly arriving and camping out wher-

ever they could find shelter.

was potluck. Far too many were

It

crowded into the town's cinema; another small group spread themselves out

on

heated coach house of

soft straw in the centrally

country mansion just outside the town

—the home of

man count. There they had the ultimate Some stayed in and around Muskau for moved

on.

Those we

left

a

wealthy Ger-

luxury: a flushing toilet.

three days before being

warming themselves

brickworks had

at the

time to recover their strength before being marched on to the road yards

different times,

marked down

By now in,

depending on which camp and which

and the

rife

Only those

pulling sleds

—cursed the better weather

as

they

wet cobbles and tarmac to Spremberg. Soon, abandoned piles

lined the road.

ning

were

the subzero temperatures had eased, the thaw had set

hard work in the absence of snow

sleds

train they

at

for.

the biting chill of the wind had abated.

toiled over

rail-

Spremberg. Different groups were being ordered out

at

a

of clothes and equipment they had once carried

So too did

lines of men squatting.

through the column

—

started,

some

Dysentery was run-

said,

through corned

OUT INTO THE COLD beef and fore

he

it

Spam

behind

column.

his place in the

me, I'm not going any

make

so

many

"I don't care if

he yelled

farther,"

to

he

as

sat in

stops

they shoot

agony by the

The guards waved machine guns at him as they went

side of the road. by.

and then been eaten be-

in the cold

John Hartnell-Beavis had

defrosted.

fell far

had frozen

that

87

Eventually he pressed on, and reaching Spremberg was an enor-

mous

relief for

him.

Here, for the blance of order.

first

time since leaving Sagan, there was

sem-

a

A German field kitchen doled out stew, the best Bill

Ethridge had ever tasted

—or so he thought,

the "beef" was horse meat.

A

raid

up the track and the marshaling

by

until

he was told that

bombers had

British

yards, but workers

just

beaten

were hard

at

it

them back in service. Meanwhile, small groups of Home Guard soldiers none of them young men were digging in, their guns pointed eastward as they waited for the Russians. "Some hopes getting

—

—

of stopping the advance," thought Geoff Willatt.

For most of the Sagan prisoners of war the marching was but there was side of

no sign of an end

still

seventy to a

car.

filth

ventilation.

Many

sides,

of these

which

men

also

and the stench were overpowering.

bucket was passed from their heads

—

On a siding out-

into a cattle train,

There were no windows, and the only

through cracks in the wooden

come

to their journey.

town one group of prisoners was packed

it felt

man

to

man

also provided

light

came

some wel-

had dysentery, and the

When

the overflowing

—sometimes, by

to Joe Cittadini as

over,

necessity, over

though "we had truly been

baptized in hell." Stops were frequent, but the doors were never

opened.

During one of these stops

a

new hazard emerged.

A fierce

hail-

storm suddenly lashed the

train,

machine-gun

squadron of American fighter planes.

bullets

from

a

or so

it

seemed. In

fact

it

was

A

them as they zoomed over at Ethridge and those around him were unscathed, but

prisoner looking through a crack saw treetop level.

the

word was Finally,

that in other trucks prisoners had died.

on Sunday, February

they pulled into the southern

4,

eight days after leaving Sagan,

German

city of

Nuremberg,

piled out

THE LAST ESCAPE

88

of the trucks

march

bomb

—grateful to be

in fresh air again

—and

on

set off

a mile

new home. On the way they stumbled around huge The city was clearly under regular attack from Allied

to their craters.

bombers. As he marched through the gates of Stalag XIIID, Ethridge

He remembered

worried.

— was to be off target

own

his

and

flying missions,

wing or

"just a slight tip of a

a

the

wind and the bomb would be deflected way offside,

rail

yards into our

new camp!" One nightmare was

how

sudden like

easy

it

shift in

from the

over; another

was

about to begin.

Nuremmany days at

Joe Lovoi found himself heading even farther south than berg.

He

Muskau

and the column he was

in

had stayed for

before being marched to Spremberg and loaded onto a train.

In his car they organized a rotation so that everyone changed posi-

moving from the cold

tion once an hour,

heat generated by

He

all

choked on the stench of and take

grit his teeth,

walls

on the outside

his

feces;

he would have to close

mind somewhere

else

—anywhere

On

worse than the march.

We

we

could slow down,

of cargo.

in like pieces

march we had some

the

could walk a

little

we could speed If the

his eyes, else

some ways

stop the claustrophobia overwhelming him. "In

turn our heads,

to the

those bodies in the middle and then back again.

liberty.

to the right, a

little

—to

it

was

We could

to the

left.

Now we were jam-packed

up.

guy next to you moved, he moved you."

They made the best of it and managed to joke with the guard who rode with them in the car "we were kidding him and we took

—

his rifle

He

away from him. You should have seen the terror

thought we were going to shoot him.

back.

It

was

just a joke

this last stage

but

it

of the journey

We

in his eyes.

laughed and gave

could have been very dangerous."

a

number of prisoners

it

On

did indeed try to

escape. Thirty took advantage of a stop to get away. It was foolishness, just as

it

had been

earlier.

They were

physically exhausted, they

had no idea where they were, and they were

all

rounded up within

a

few days. Thirty-six hours and 400 miles after leaving Spremberg, the train pulled into

VIIA looked

for

Moosburg, 30 miles northeast of Munich. Stalag

all

the world just like the

camp

at

Sagan they had

left

OUT INTO THE COLD twelve long days ago.

It

89

had the same double barbed-wire fencing,

high wooden watchtowers with machine-gun emplacements, and low, gray

wooden

barracks,

from whose windows the prisoners already in

residence were staring at the

new arrivals. Here

space and even less privacy than before.

less

there would be even

Here

a

man

could

quickly go mad.

Meanwhile the German war machine and transport system continued to disperse the

The

many thousands

train that Hartnell-Beavis

of

POWs

across

was put on took him on

a

Germany. three-day

journey in conditions he described as "a hell hole" until they reached

Bremen

in the north of

Germany. by

his fellow travelers lay side

On an achingly hard

floor,

he and

side like sardines, overlapping each

other so that some inevitably ended up on top of others. Half of

them were Hanover Nord, was to

ill.

For one whole night they cowered

as the train sat in

station during an air raid. Finally they reached

Marlag

camp normally reserved for naval prisoners of war, which be their new home. The Red Cross had already condemned it a

as unfit

and

insanitary.

Beavis thought

it

As he walked through the

gates, Hartnell-

"the most derelict collection of huts

I

had ever

set

eyes on."

For Ron Walker, enwalde.

like

Eric Hookings, the destination was Luck-

On the way he talked to

a friendly guard,

who

gave him an

apple and his considered opinion that "the best thing would be for the Americans and British to occupy the whole of

quickly too." just

was

60 miles, but

break out

up

It

to the

a stop

at the

and go journey that took 22 hours to cover

end

as the prisoners

spirits

marched

were high enough for singing to in pouring rain

camp. Voices rang out with

"Keep the

Home

Germany and

"It's

a

from the

station

Long Way to Tipperary,"

Fires Burning" and "Take

Me

Back

to

Dear Old

They were soldiers again, in step and in tune. The community singing was brief. At the gates they were made

Blighty."

camp was in total darkness because of an air-raid warning. Then the Germans insisted that every man had to be deto wait. First the

loused, showered, and searched thoroughly before being allowed to enter. It

was eleven hours

later before

Walker got

to his quarters,

THE LAST ESCAPE

90

close to tears with fatigue.

He hunted

for a spare

bunk and collapsed

onto the bare boards of the one he found. "Twenty- four hours I

was

still

lying there and

to have a look at

haustion.

ably

.

.

.

me.

When I

if you

thousands

like

asked

want

The Sagan

He

later

my friends called one of the British doctors said I

was suffering from dysentery and ex-

him whether

I

would

live

he replied, 'Prob-

" to.'

evacuation was over, and at the end of

Walker who

didn't

know whether

it

there were

they wanted to

live

They had nearly frozen to death in Germany's worst winter for fifty years. They were racked with disease, hungry, and exhausted. Some had not made it at all a small number, impossible to be preor die.

27

—

cise

about in the circumstances. All bureaucracy had gone by the

boards. After the

first

few hours in the blinding snow on the way out

of Sagan, no one, not even the guards, was counting. Geoff Willatt

reckoned

that,

of the 2,000 prisoners from his

compound

at

Sagan,

300 collapsed with cold and exhaustion during the march, along with

40 guards. Most were helped to the end of the road, but not other estimate was that, from the entire column, ing

fifty

—though whether escaped or dead no one could

frightened, sick, their comrades.

all.

An-

had gone misstell.

Exhausted,

most prisoners did not ask what had happened For now

it

was enough

just to

have survived.

to

Fears of a Massacre

4:

As

the

men from Sagan on

reflect

enemies had been that

settled into their

new camps,

a fearful

epidemic of dysentery and the bitter cold

had sapped their strength and morale. And

on

ter five days

they could

experience in which their most dangerous

a bruising

killed

that hard road, then agonizing hours

them too. Afcrammed into

now out of danger. But the question constantly whispered among the huddled groups was "What do the Gercattle cars, surely

mans have

they were

in store for us

While the

now?"

tens of thousands of

pondered an uncertain

future,

POWs

word about

ning to reach home, sketchy though

knew

their

far east

it

spread across

Germany

the marches was begin-

was. In Britain, those

husbands or sons were held in camps in Poland and the

of Germany had seen the news of the dramatic Russian mili-

tary advances and

had drawn the obvious conclusion: Their

were about to be released. They pressed for information, and, sponse to their requests, on January 22, 1945 the

very informative. "So far the

soon

Red Army,"

as reliable

But then

it

it

It

was not

Commonwealth prisoners-of-war by "An announcement will be made

is

available."

hinted at bad news, with the

be freed by the Soviets.

1

said.

information

prisoners might not, after

in re-

War Office has received no information

of the release of any British and the advancing

War

men

Office issued

approved by the Prime Minister himself.

a press release

as

who

all,

have been

"It is

known

left

first

indication that the

behind in their camps to

that the

German

authorities

THE LAST ESCAPE

92

have been moving to the west prisoners of war and

camps which

from

are likely to be overrun. It should be appreciated that in

the present conditions in tails

civilians

Germany it must be some time before deThe hopes of relatives were

of these transfers reach London."

dashed.

A few days later, ambassador

in a top-secret

coded telegram from the British

Foreign Office in London received

in Switzerland, the

confirmation that prisoners were indeed to be moved. 2

The

Swiss

were the Protecting Power for Allied prisoners of war, and one of their inspectors far southeast

just

returned from a

of Germany.

He

Upper

Silesia in the

had been to two of the big camps

the prisoners westward

away from the Russians. They would

be on foot and expected to march a day,

visit to

and learned that the Germans were making urgent plans to

there,'

move

had

which was the maximum

regulations.

The

Swiss thought

at least

laid

20 kilometers (12.5 miles)

down

in

Geneva Convention

—wrongly—that

it

was already too

late for

such an evacuation, "owing to rapid advance of the Soviet

troops."

They were

—righdy—concerned about "the

by prisoner health and equipment

as well as

copy of the telegram was circulated

as a

the appropriate ministries in Whitehall,

Then mans

came confirmation from

caused

weather conditions."

matter of top priority to

A all

marked "Immediate." Ger-

a different source, as the

— always expert propagandists—

version of events was heard.

difficulties

tried to

On January

make

sure that their

31, at 6:15 in the evening,

those tuned to the European Service in English from Berlin heard an

announcement

that Allied prisoners

were marching westward

at their

from Stalag Luft

own

request!* It

III at

Sagan

had originally

been intended to leave them to be overrun by the Russians, the Ger-

man announcer

said,

but the prisoners of war had refused to

stay.

"They did not want to be left on any account and preferred to remain in captivity in Germany than be liberated by the Soviets. They begged the camp commandant to arrange for their withdrawal from the danger zone and gave their word of honor not to try to escape during the evacuation process." The program made a further claim, echoing the growing feeling among the military in Germany that it 7

FEARS OF A MASSACRE

was time for the

enemy was

Allies to recognize that their true

Union. "Thirty

viet

93

officers

and

a large

the So-

number of men volunteered German armed

to fight against the Bolsheviks in the ranks of the forces."

To

press

home

the point,

that British prisoners liberated

into joining the Soviet forces,

it

gave what

later a similar story

said

was evidence

by the Russians were being pressed

and when they refused they were be-

ing shot or arrested and "taken off to an

few weeks

it

unknown

appeared in

a

destination."

A

Norwegian newspaper

under the headline "British Flyers Preferred German Imprisonment

Ron Walker, who had been in Sagan and had marched out of it at gunpoint, was amazed when he read the report at his new camp, Stalag IIIA at Luckenwalde. "Who are the to Bolshevist Liberation."

Germans

trying to fool?" he wrote in his diary. "Themselves per-

haps." 5

The German

propagandists' attempt to

sow dissension among

made no headway in Whitehall either. A War Office memo made it clear that the Russians were "our allies" and Germans were "forcing" the prisoners to march west. 6 It

the Allies

of February 15 that the

predicted a calamity. "It

is

obvious that under the present weather

conditions and with the disorganization which must exist in that part

of Germany, our

men

will

be exposed during the long marches to

very great hardship and danger."

of-War Committee met 7

be done "to

One

assist

Members

"as a matter of

of the Imperial Prisoner-

urgency" to see what could

and protect them."

thing that puzzled the committee was what motives the

Germans had

in

provided only a

hanging on to their prisoners.

legalistic

explanation

—that

The Germans had

in evacuating the

camps

they were merely removing the prisoners from the danger of a potential battle zone, as

Geneva Convention.

they were obliged to do under Article 9 of the If this really

was their reason, then the situation

could quickly be resolved. General Eisenhower had put forward a proposal whereby Berlin would be formally relieved of that obligation.

"Compelling these

men to travel subjects them to much greater

danger and hardship than would be involved in leaving them behind. Instead of moving our prisoners, the

Germans should

leave

them

in

THE LAST ESCAPE

94

their

camps or

agreed safe locations to be overrun by our

at

This would also

relieve the

Allies.

Germans of the burden of maintaining

them." 8

Germans to hold on to the prisoners was that, if released, they might be armed and thrown back into the fighting. To counteract this, the committee recommended that the government should try to strike a deal in which the Germans would be given an undertaking that men liberated in this way "would not be used in the British or American forces against Germany for Another possible reason

for the

9

the duration of hostilities." However, great deal of uncertainty about

On

clear that there

he wrote, adding

a

the evacuations.

"We

number of question marks

In London, reports began to accumulate. sage from the International

toward the west foot,

was

really

still

up

a

to.

copy of the agenda, one member of the Committee scrawled

his

own comment about

his

it is

what the Germans were

is

still

know why,"

for emphasis.

On February

Red Cross warned

being carried out in most

don't

17 a mes-

that "evacuation

difficult conditions,

on

without food, in severe cold. Prisoners of war are being assem-

bled in transit camps with no reserves. Further evacuations westward

The next War Office memo noted that "some 12 camps involving 60,000 men" were now on the move, and said that the Swiss inspector in Upper Silesia had actually witnessed the departure of the men from and northwestward are projected day

in similar conditions."

a

one particular camp." They had gone out with and "a

10

a loaf

of bread each, and the

Red Cross

parcel

is

a

Red Cross

parcel

memo added — optimistically— that

regarded as an adequate supplement for one

week." (Those actually marching might have been tempted to

ask,

"Supplement to what exactly?") But the dangers were recognized.

"The

distances involved are in

miles. Stalag is little

VIIIB

doubt that

is

some

cases as

much

as

350 to 400

reported to be destined for Nuremberg. There

in winter conditions great hardship

must be

in-

volved."

The Combined to the

Chiefs of Staff in Washington were also coming

same conclusion. They had received

prisoners being

moved "under

"reliable information" of

conditions imposing great hardship

FEARS OF A MASSACRE likely to result in considerable loss of life."

and

Directorate of Prisoners of War in

95

12

Three days

London drew up

later,

a list of

the

twenty-

two camps in the way of the Russian advance. Information about

them was

sparse and at least

were simply described

two or three weeks out of

On the same day, February United States and

13

21, prisoners' relatives at

7

Many

westward" or "marching west-

as "transferred

wards" and "destination unknown."

date.

home in the

in Britain got the first inkling that a disaster could

The American Red Cross reported that "prisoners Germany are being marched deeper into the Reich through

be in the offing. of war in

temperatures ing."

14

as

low

as

The news was

chairman, at

a

30 degrees below zero without proper cloth-

given by Richard Allen, the organization's vice-

meeting of the Red Cross branch

in Brooklyn,

and

was picked up and passed on by newspapers and radio newscasters.

am sorry to tell you that, with the there

who

is

real cause for

"I

structure of Germany breaking up,

concern for our prisoners of war. Those of you

have someone in

German

prison camps must be ready for bad

news."

News was the commodity that relatives of prisoners of war were constantly starved of. Good or bad, it was always in short supply. This lack of information began when a man first went missing, and the first indication that a husband or a son might not be coming home was

in a telegram.

With

a

war on, everyone came

to dread the arrival

of the delivery boy on his bicycle, the knock on the door, the omi-

nous brown envelope thrust into your hand.

opened the door of her home

It read,

The note

Fry's

mother

London, on Satur-

in Islington, north

day July 31, 1943 and feared the worst. senger handed her was marked

Doug

the uniformed mes-

"On His Majesty's

Service

—Priori

ty."

"Regret to inform you that your son 1812146 Sgt. Douglas

Robert Fry

is

missing as a result of

30/3 1st July 1943. Letter follows.

immediately communicated to you."

air

Any It

Her first instinct must have been

operations on the night of further information will be

was signed OC,

1

5

Squadron.

that her voune^est son

1

'

was dead.

THE LAST ESCAPE

96

The the

Monday brought a glimmer of hope. Having dispatched telegram, Wing Commander J. D. Stephens had then written post on

straight

away from the

to express also to

airbase at Mildenhall in Suffolk

my deepest sympathy with you

encourage you to hope that he

upper gunner of an

ther was heard.

down, and

aircraft

enemy

mission over

It

in

is safe.

your anxiety but

He was

the mid-

engaged on an important bombing

territory,

and

nothing fur-

after take-off

appears likely that the aircraft was forced

if this is

the case, there

is

some chance

that he

may

be safe and

a

prisoner of war.

There could be

a

long wait ahead before she knew for sure, he warned.

"It

may be two

to three

months before any certain information is ob-

Red Cross. May I on behalf of the whole squadron express to you our most sincere sympathy, and hope that you will soon receive good news." His praise for her son must have helped her to cope "he had done excellent work and successtained through the International

—

fully

completed nine operational

flights ...

he

will

be very

many friends in the squadron." many similar letters the wing commander had

much

missed by his

How

day was unknown. There would have been

members of from

and

as

many

again for

later

Stephens's

own

family

over Germany. But Mrs. Fry had hope

—

—he was

Those of us who wait control

room

killed in action

as the chaplain from Mil-

denhall reminded her in a letter of sympathy.

fails

the other planes

another officer would have to write in a similar vein to

Wing Commander

ics,

all

squadron that had not returned the previous night. Three

his

weeks

Fry's crew,

written that

at least six for the other

He wrote:

for the crews to return,

whether

in the

or on the flare path or the ground staff mechan-

always feel a deep sense of personal loss

when an

aircraft

Of all war news, "missing" is the hardest one to Although we are always hopeful, we must not be too op-

to return.

hear.

timistic

nor too

sad. Yet I

would

like to stress that

what

is

un-

FEARS OF A MASSACRE

97

known to man is known to God. Wherever our loved ones may be, we may confidently commend them to Him, and in so doing find comfort and strength for ourselves. You may be sure that your son

sorrow, as you

was

would not wish you

to be

overcome with

may be sure that his prayer for himself and crew

less for safety

than for loyalty and devotion to duty.

Whether Mrs. Fry was cheered by this wise mixture of pride, patriotism, and faith we do not know, but it must have been more comforting than the curt letter she received

the Air Ministry a fortnight

later,

There was, however,

"great regret."

to the relative of a

man who

from the Casualty Branch of

which

set out the facts, albeit

a short leaflet

headed, "Advice

missing," which listed the procedures

is

the authorities went through to trace missing men. Again, all

with

it

would

take time:

Continuous

efforts

are

made

up the machinery

to speed

whereby the names and camp addresses of prisoners of war can reach

this country.

prepared by the

The

means

official

is

by

enemy government. These

time to compile, especially

if

there

is

a

lists

lists

of names

take

some

long journey from the

place of capture to a prisoner of war camp.

But there was

chance of earlier news:

a

"Capture cards" ter capture

news received

That ter

And

is

filled in

by the prisoners themselves soon

and sent home to their

in this country that a

why you

you may

af-

relatives are often the first

man

is

a prisoner

of war.

are asked to forward at once any card or let-

receive, if it

is

the

first

news you have had.

there was a warning about false hopes:

which may well be raised

if

you

listen to

one other possible

channel of news, namely, the enemy's broadcasts. These are

THE LAST ESCAPE

98

listened to

and

by

official listeners,

The few names

day.

of prisoners given by

nouncers are carefully checked.

and

this is

prisoners'

working continuously night

They

enemy

an-

are often misleading,

not surprising, for the object of the inclusion of

names

in these broadcasts

is

not to help the

relatives

of prisoners, but to induce British listeners to hear some

which otherwise they could not be made vantage of listening to these broadcasts

to hear.

is

The

tale

only ad-

an advantage to the

enemy.

With only

this

somewhat

stark information for comfort, the

waiting went on for Mrs. Fry. But there were

more

official letters.

She had been dependent on her son for an allowance of week, deducted from his pay, and that would

still

17s. 6d. a

be paid for the time

being (but not indefinitely); his personal effects would be kept in an

RAF

depository and would be returned to her only

firmed dead;

if

if

he was con-

she wanted to put a notice in the press about her miss-

ing son, she was told not to disclose anything other than his name, rank, and

number

the enemy."

— and certainly not any "information of value to

The RAF Benevolent Fund wrote

need of temporary

financial assistance.

ber there was no news

to ask if she

had been

details

flying.

it

—which was good news—but

as

September

The Red

crew of seven had been

killed,

sources

it

was known that

though they were

a prisoner,

no information about the

but

it

was not

five

Germany was

of the

as yet unidentified.

Doug Fry. There was

of the seventh crewman. The prospects

fate

did not look good, and the tone of the letter reflected this.

port from

Cross

had received about the plane in which her son

From German

One named man was

in

As August turned to Septem-

turned to October there was news that was bad.

wrote with

was

The

re-

"grievous" and "can but add most deeply to

We wish you to know that every effort We ask is being made in order to clarify this distressing situation. later an fortnight your suspense." A our sympathy in you to accept your already great

anxiety.

.

.

.

.

Air Ministry letter confirmed the facts from the

deeply sorry for "your prolonged anxiety."

.

.

Red Cross and was

FEARS OF A MASSACRE

And

then,

when

mother was the had pinned

all

all

seemed

to know.

first

her hopes on.

99

Doug Fry was

lost,

found. His

She received the "capture card" she

He

was

alive

and in Stalag Luft

III at

Sagan.

Now she could be busy. There was much to do. The Air Ministry and the Red Cross had to be given the glad news. parcel to prepare

first

—the

Then there was his

next-of-kin parcel as

was

it

officially

known. Instructions arrived from the Red Cross on how she could get extra coupons in order to

buy clothes

the parcel, and where to send

long

as

it

to send to him,

There was no postage charged

it.

carried a next-of-kin label. She

any messages on the clothes

how to pack

—not even

as

was told not to embroider

his

name, though she could

Under no circumstances was she to mention his squadron. Chocolate (a pound and a half maximum) and soap (no more than 1 1 oz.) were allowed and, for convenience, would be supplied by the Red Cross at a fixed price. Under no circumstances could she send "photographic apparatus, field glasses, sextants, commark

this in ink.

passes, electric torches

and other instruments that could be used for

naval and military purposes."

hoped

that "he gave

A

cheery note from the Red Cross

good news of himself in

his letter

and that you

soon hear from him again."

will

At

his

squadron in Mildenhall

a parcel

was

also being prepared,

with 500 cigarettes and some books and records.

He

got The Saint

Goes West by Leslie Charteris, Artie Shaw's "Begin the Beguine," and

Benny Goodman

the

former colleagues

Orchestra's version of "Bugle Call Rag." His

at the insurance

company

in the City of

where he had worked before the war took up Mrs. Fry

a postal

order for £2

5s. Od.

to

a collection

buy presents

London and sent

for his next

parcel.

Just before Christmas she had a letter from the

Red Cross

saying

Doug had been moved from Stalag Luft III to Stalag Luft VI. "It may interest you to know that this camp is situated at Heydekrug, about halfway between Memel and Konigsberg." At last she could that

relax. It

was four and

his mission.

a half months since

Now she knew he was alive

he had and,

if

failed to return

from

she took out an

atlas,

THE LAST ESCAPE

100

she could even put her finger on the place where he was. Mrs. Fry

could sleep at night.

It

was

a relief to establish that a

but a prisoner. But, after that,

loved one was not missing or dead

it

was never easy for those

at

home

taking their ease in comfortable chairs, and with reasonably

stomachs, to imagine or understand the

life

were now leading on the other side of Europe. real.

Communication was censored. In the two

ficers)

fall

husbands and sons

their

It all

seemed so un-

letters (three for of-

and four postcards they were allowed to send each month,

prisoners did not bother trying to describe where they were and un-

der what conditions they were living, because this would simply not get through.

1943,

RAF

airman

remembered

Norman

Leonard, shot down in February

trying to indicate to his father back

sex that at one stage he had been put in handcuffs

—

home

in Es-

a retaliatory act

ordered by Hitler after he claimed that the same had been done to

German Back

prisoners in Allied hands.

at

down,

it

my

squadron

was sent to

I

my

had an old bike and when father.

He

but that the chain was missing, and

wrote he had got I

replied in

"Don't worry about the bike,

I've

But the German censor didn't

like that

to be really careful

loved ones

what you

I

was shot

my bike

my next letter:

got plenty of chains here."

You had

said.

knew you were OK, not

and cut

it

out.

You had

to ensure

your

bleat about the bad things

but emphasize the good. 16

Propaganda could be made out of the smallest thing. The Germans

Red Cross inspectors at Leonard's camp that the water-storage tank was a swimming pool, and, according to Leonard, "the Red told

Cross duly reported all

this

and produced

a

pamphlet that was sent to

how well we were being looked after!" those at home were ignorant of the real facts

of our families saying

Not surprisingly, which accounted

for those incongruous letters prisoners

would get

FEARS OF A MASSACRE

from home asking what the beer was

The

who

fiancee

for

me"

to

who

nor did the mother

some

know

to

if

would you

he was using

about

Official publications

Cross obliged by issuing peared to steer

a careful

a

rights

at the

very

father's boss de-

his father

proud of him.

the burden of relatives.

The Red

sale for sixpence, that ap-

route between alarming those worried about

and overreassuring them.

—twenty-six

—and

you asked

POWs were few. The War Office was

Germany

lished in 1942

letter

Right

"

time of idleness profitably, so

pamphlet, on

their loved ones in captivity in

like?"

1

note from his

this

Red Cross shoulder

glad to let the

camps

a

improve himself and make

that he could

May

wrote, "In your

slippers. \\ nat color

girls.

a letter, "Darling, I

clearly did not quite grasp the reali-

end of the war, one prisoner had

manding

Germany, or the

implored her sweetheart in

hope you are being true ties;

like in

101

rough

their

It listed

the

time the pamphlet was pub-

at the

location. It explained the prisoners'

and the organizations looking

after their interests. It gave a

veiled warning: "the treatment of prisoners of war in food, clothing,

housing, entertainment, discipline, varies greatly between camps and at different

times in the same camp. WTiether a

'cushy,' as the soldiers say,

cipline, or

of the

whether

it is

camp

is

comparatively

administered with severe dis-

with bare or hostile justice depends on the temperament

camp commander." And then 18

minimum standards

set

it

reassured: "there are certain

up by the international convention which was

signed by Great Britain and

Germany among

and in general the terms of

[this]

Germany, except

as regards

other signatories

agreement are

fairly

.

.

.

observed in

food and clothing. There have been

grievances but after negotiations these are usually corrected as they

Those who had run the gauntlet on the road to Gross Tychow or seen friends lying dead on the barbed wire may have disagreed

arise."

with

this assurance.

The pamphlet made

life

and uncomfortable but not

one camp try

in the

life,

with danger.

It

described

mountains prisoners could go for walks

and even have meals

on bird

out to be dull but endurable, cheerless filled

at

how

in the

country inns. "At one camp, after

in

coun-

a lecture

permission to study the birds of the countryside was

THE LAST ESCAPE

102

given." But then, just in case this

"Do not

tioned,

camps

are an

these examples give

let

Those —the majority—with work du— enough "hard routine work preferable to is

monotony of prison

the

ture of

have

two dozen

And

detail.

a

cau-

it

that prisoner

smiling.

seemed happy

ties

you the idea

improvement on holiday camps." Photographs gen-

showed men

erally

seemed too easygoing,

yet

"it

according to the caption under a pic-

life,"

and pickaxes in hand, on

soldiers, spades

would be

highly agreeable

a grave

mistake to gather

and there

life

no need

is

to

.

.

.

a

work

that they

worry about

them."

The all

overall

message was

a stoical one:

means, but not too much.

doubtedly approved

was an attitude the government un-

Be concerned

of.

gloves for them, send

Red

It

them

all

the parcels and help

There was much about activities

education courses, reading, sport

men from

the

made

getting

for prisoners of war, knit

make waves. Make

Cross, please), but don't

stead.

worry about your men, by

— and

"browned

to send books, sporting

camps

in the

their

off."

you can

(via the

contributions in-

—

theater, music,

importance in stopping

Every encouragement was

equipment

—

cricket bats, balls,

and

stumps were particularly needed, since the Germans had none

"The

clothing, and lots of letters. letters

from home and food

highlights in a prisoner's

parcels," the

providing the extras in prisoners'

lives that

ference to their welfare had fallen to the St.

pamphlet

stated.

would make

Red Cross and

life

are

The job of all

the

the dif-

Order of

John, and the best thing relatives could do was to support these

charities wholeheartedly.

Doug

Fry's

a club that

mother made

met once

a

week

full

Red Cross. She went to West End of London, and there

use of the

in the

she talked to other mothers in a similar situation.

They kept in touch

with each other constantly, pooled information, helped each other out.

She knew when her son was moved from Stalag Luft VI

dekrug down to Stalag Luft IV at Gross Tychow, but she

him

after the

1945.

POWs were

then

Hey-

lost track

marched west out of Luft IV

Nobody knew where they were

at

in

of

January

—not even the Red Cross.

Betty Batchelder had nothing but praise for the

Red Cross when

FEARS OF A MASSACRE

—

Harold, her husband

Batch

—disappeared

The Red Cross was dle

all

Cross Luft

very, very helpful.

But

One

of Batch's uncles

more information. was

actually confirmed that he

III at Sagan].

nickname of

his

and he was able to whee-

in the organization

sorts of people to get

who

known by

always

June 1942.

in

was quite high up

a pilot

103

I didn't

It

was the Red

alive [and in Stalag

get any information from the

War Office. They didn't keep you updated with regular letters or anything like that. I presume there were just far too many prisoners for them to do that. Or perhaps they didn't want us to know, because they

make

knew we would be

But

I

did

contact with one or two of the other wives in his squadron

whose husbands had been shot down, and letter

horrified.

if

one of them got

a

we would immediately phone each other to say that we'd

heard and the boys seemed to be

all

right.

She and Batch had been sweethearts

all

19

their lives.

"We met

small children," she explained:

I

was

went

five

to the

gether, I

and he was seven.

same school and were

and Batch and

I

The

link

friends.

did the same.

was going to marry him.

together.

We both had older brothers who I

They

played to-

think even then

I

knew

We hated the days when we weren't

between us was

very, very strong right

through our schooling, when we went from the infant school to the junior school,

school.

We

somehow

and the junior school to the senior

would meet

in a

group of other youngsters and

we always used to pair off. As the years we were very happy with each other's company. We told our parents we wanted to get married, and at first they said no, that we were too young. But then, when the bomb raids started, my father decided he ought to let me or other

went by we

have

realized

my happiness while

ary 1942.

I

I

could.

We got married on 3

1

Janu-

was twenty years old and Batch was twenty-one.

as

THE LAST ESCAPE

104

Batch had joined up

hood yearning

to

fly.

as

soon

He was

as

he could, anxious to

house

as a civilian for the

had commandeered

it

boy-

posted to 102 Squadron at Topcliffe in

war

Yorkshire. Betty, a trained telephonist, joined in the

and went to work

fulfill a

War

effort too,

Office at a large country

in Essex.

In the middle of June 1942, just five months after their wedding,

he had some leave, she wangled some time

weekend

We

off,

and they spent

a

in Yorkshire.

had dinner

in a lovely old inn,

and then went back to the

hotel and nattered in the lounge with the other service people

and girlfriends and wives staying there.

would have been awful

if I

I

am so

glad

had said no. But when

I

went.

I left

It

him on

Monday morning I had a strange feeling. Back at work, I was on duty when a sentry came up and said he had a telegram the

for

He hoped

me.

took

and opened

it

wasn't bad news, but

it it.

It just said,

ported missing on duty

I

had to

tell his

think he knew.

I

"Your husband has been re-

last night." I

could do was just get on with

I

was so shocked. All

I

my job.

mum, and

that was the worst thing of

all;

she adored him. She was quite convinced she would never see

boy

was equally convinced that

if

he had got

out of that aircraft alive he would get home. But

it

was weeks

her

little

before

I

Then word came

got confirmation from his

alive

and

POW camp.

in a

It

via the

Red

Cross,

commanding officer

was

that

a fantastic relief. I also

escaping and getting

know that if there was any chance home he would.

For weeks she

on the

knew him

his

I

heard anything.

I

and then he was

again.

well

way through

pen, for that he ter. It

all

enough

lived

to

illusion that

of

he would somehow cut

the barbed wire and get back to her.

It

did not hap-

her longing, and after three months or so she accepted

would be gone

for a long time.

"And then

I

got his

first let-

was very brief and he indicated that things were not particu-

— FEARS OF A MASSACRE

lariy

good

in the

had to play But

a

rigid

camp. But

at least

game of patience then

he was until

105

alive

and

well. I

knew

I

he came home."

wartime bureaucracy meant that the patience of wait-

The Red Cross had

ing relatives could be sorely tested.

a rule that it

would pass on prisoner details only to the designated next of kin.

That meant

that if a

and no one

else.

wife had gone

man was

Sometimes,

married they would deal with his wife if

there was a

in the family or the

away (some were evacuated), mothers were

no way of finding out what was happening to contact them.

time spent

rift

left

with

to their sons or even

how

Another matter of deep concern was whether the

as prisoners

would count

as active service

when it came

to

totting up entitlement to be demobilized after the war. Parents and

wives worried that their

queue,

when

men would

in their opinion the experience they

should entitle them to jump

Many relatives

it.

It

how

they

worried some of them that the

Office was the ministry responsible for

probably rightly

had been through

of prisoners were far from happy about

were treated by the government.

War

be pushed to the back of the

POWs. They

felt

—that the military arm might not always have the

men in captivity as its priority. All this unease burst House of Commons debate in November 1944. One hun-

best interests of

20

out in a

dred and

fifty

MPs signed a motion calling for a senior minister to be

given specific responsibility for

all

prisoner-of-war matters. In put-

ting the case to the House, Lieutenant Colonel Louis Gluckstein,

MP for Nottingham East, spoke of the "disquiet felt by relatives that the present system of divided ministerial responsibility tory."

Almost every government department, he

some

sort in

POW matters, and "there

is

said,

plenty of

is

unsatisfac-

had

room

a say

of

for over-

lapping and even conflict." At present, coordination was through an

interdepartmental committee presided over by the Secretary of State for

—

War

a function that

could only be "a rather vexatious additional

task in an already rather over-burdened life."

minister to take on this job would

make

life

A specially designated

better for everyone.

Gluckstein had cross-party support for his suggestion, and a

THE LAST ESCAPE

106

Labour MP spoke of prisoners of war having

—

country" Attlee,

a

"a special claim

on

this

sentiment with which his party boss agreed. Clement

Labour leader and Deputy Prime Minister in

Churchill's coali-

tion government, did not agree, however, that the present arrange-

ments were not working, and rose to defend the and their

relatives

their suffering

had

POWs

"most profound sympathy," and he

his

and their

status quo.

anxiety,

"which

is

felt for

one of the great human

problems of the war." But he did not accept that there was "grave

among

disquiet"

and he was insistent that the majority of

relatives,

way matters are being handled by Protecting Power and the International Red

families "have confidence in the

the Government, by the

Cross."

There were

discussions between

government departments,

but not "conflict." There was absolutely no need for "one superminister."

Attlee was challenged by Irene

Ward,

MP for Wallsend, who ac-

cused him of "complacency" on an issue that really was causing great anxiety.

very

She

critical

said that

War

of the

the matter rested. tives

—

senior officers she had talked to were

Office's

handling of

POW

their

Rela-

men would ever get home in the chaotic last months of

Over in the United

States,

Mai

They had

their

He was

it

was.

mem-

the long years that she and her hus-

—and those distant times when they had

been together. They had married year after meeting.

as

Parsons's only comfort was her

Her mind went back over

band, John, had been apart

in the spring of 1942, less than a

then twenty, and she was eighteen.

own apartment in

a Victorian

Indiana, and spent "the carefree days of two cycling,

But there

The government would not be budged.

the war—would have to make do with the system

ories.

affairs.

they faced the most distressing time of all, uncertain about

as

whether

many

swimming, playing tennis and

house in Lafayette,

young people in

love, bi-

and

friends.

visiting family

These were the days of the 5 -cent Coke and the 10-cent hamburger.

Even the out a

'blue-plate special'

lot."

21

It

was

a

was never more than 50

cents, so

dreamy time, overshadowed by the

we

ate

reality of war

FEARS OF A MASSACRE

107

and the certainty that John's call-up papers could arrive

at

any mo-

ment.

We

dreaded mail

day

listed the

each day. His two brothers had en-

arrival

Harbor.

after Pearl

many

shortly after, as did

of our friends.

came, and in October 1943 he

took for

off,

he had warned

me, and

me

watched

as I

My brother

left for

followed them

Then

he was going to drop something I

saw

a

cardboard box floating

—

down but, though I looked for it, I couldn't make me wonder what would happen if he were him

off,

find

seeing his plane

fly

did

to drop out of

—

away

But everybody was in the military then and you it.

It

it.

somewhere over Germany.

a plane, just like that box,

strange waving

John's turn

England. As his plane

It

was

really bad.

just

accepted

never entertained any thoughts that he might not come

I

home

or something horrible might happen.

I just

knew he was

going to come home.

Mai had thought about going to university, but she now changed her mind. The war effort came first, and she took a job in a Lafayette factory making fuel cells for bombers. Letters came regularly from John in England, telling her about his crew and the things they got up to in their spare time trips to London, for example but there

—

—

was nothing about the missions they went on.

Then, on February before tion.

I

21, 1944, he

It

was

a

week

heard from the government that he was missing in ac-

This was

nights. I

went

get through prisoner.

difficult

to stay with

it.

The

very

a

Then,

I

me.

was

and they helped

weeks,

I

me

to

found out he was

a

information was unofficial. There were people

picked up John's

mans.

time for me, particularly the

my parents,

after three

here in the United States

It

was shot down.

name on

got over a relief

fifty

and

who had a

shortwave radios and they

propaganda broadcast by the Ger-

telegrams from total strangers telling a joy to

know he was

alive. I felt

sure he

THE LAST ESCAPE

108

would be taken care It also

meant he

protected by the Geneva Convention.

of,

didn't have to fly

anymore.

there as a prisoner of war than flying

I felt

on missions.

Mai's coworkers did not share her optimism:

cockeyed.

"They kept

telling

foolish to think he would.

I

him.

lieved

it

I

I

her

was

work

that

had

all

husband.

What

that. I

She was

a picture

of a sol-

his wife

meeting

if

these people around

he came on a

me

saying

it'll

just stared at that ridiculous photograph and be-

would happen

to

me one

She eventually received official

at

my

Greyhound bus? There were never happen, and

myself believe

Greyhound bus and

a

kept thinking about

"I

let

said lots of prayers for him."

I

on the wall

uniform stepping off

dier in

he wasn't coming home, and

was going to

I

went to church every day and inspired by a calendar

They thought

should prepare myself for the worst, they

But there was no way

said.

me

he was safer

a

day."

telegram from the government with

confirmation of John's captivity and an address at which to

contact him. She started to write every day, and occasionally she received a reply.

The

—

mother's dog

remembered was trying to

after

two months, mentioned

his

grand-

strange thing to include, she thought, until she

a

that the animal

was

a

Pomeranian and deduced that he

her where he was. (He was

tell

eastern Pomerania.)

him

first,

Then,

dried up, and she

at the

at

Gross Tychow, in

beginning of 1945, the

would not discover

until after the

letters

war

from

that this

was when he was out on the road marching west. At the time, she and the other wives and mothers

—"only

knew next to nothing

that the

was coming to an end and some prison camps were being I

worried

We

were

went

to

a lot

liberated.

about him then, because information had stopped.

living

on rumors and wondering what was happening.

mass every

But hope was

home

no inkling of the

day.

much

shouldn't have so

waiting at

war

all

People in

my

office

were

still

saying that

I I

hope."

that

Mai and

had. Perhaps

it

the thousands of other relatives

was fortunate that they could have

tragedies about to overtake their loved ones.

FEARS OF A MASSACRE

Those very

first

Poland were

109

evacuations of the camps in eastern

Germany and

But was there more to them than

just a panic re-

frantic.

action to the rapid advance of the

had begun on January

12,

Red Army? The Russian

offensive

and had quickly gobbled up more miles

Not that the German

than anyone could have expected. 22

authorities

were unprepared. The order from on high to prepare for evacuating the

camps had been issued months before

Keitel's instructions for the defense of fiihrer's ity.

in Field

Marshal Wilhelm

Germany, issued from the

headquarters on July 19, 1944 and with Hitler's

author-

— and one has to presume because there no docushow precisely what happened — was to the army

Presumably

ment trail

fall is

23

to

left

it

who ran the camps, to work out the details and implement them when necessary. When the orders to move came, they and

air force,

were very

And hands

—

and

late

left

no time

for delay.

the orders applied to each and every prisoner in as if

surrendering anyone the

German armed

German

forces

conquered was tantamount to accepting the end of the Reich

But

all this is

German

speculation: Precise

prisoners of war in those last

had

itself.

intentions toward the

months of the war remain obscure.

Accounts of what happened from the German side are rare indeed, but two

camp commandants

lied interrogators after the war,

insight into events.

at least

were questioned by Al-

and their testimony provides some

Von Hovel,

the

commandant of

a

camp

in

the north of Poland, reported that "months before" he had been

ordered by his immediate superior to draw up plans for an evacuation.

24

The

order to proceed came during the night of January

19-20, and the guards were to begin marching the

men

out that very

morning.

The

plan was instantly out of date: Quarters had been arranged

at a village to the west,

but

this

turned out to have already been over-

run by an advance party of Russians.

had to head in

The

a different direction

falling straight into the

prisoners and their guards

altogether

—north—to

avoid

hands of the Red Army. "Confusion ensued,"

I

THE LAST ESCAPE

10

von Hovel

told his British

Von Hovel

received one

Army interrogator more more order confirming

than a year

their

new

later.

line

of

march and where they should spend the next night, "But that was the

we received. From that moment on, the Stalag had to act on its own resources" as the column headed west and north through ice and snow They occasionally made contact with military order

last

.

.

.

headquarters and with prisoner-of-war authorities in other areas

they passed through, but in essence they were on their own.

They were also in a race against time. Von Hovel recorded that "the enemy was following close behind about one day's march be-

—

hind us," and so the days up to the end of January were "very stren-

uous" for prisoners and of chaos

German

guards

alike.

—lack of proper accommodations, no

kettles to boil water, trucks that constantly

that

His account was one field kitchens

broke down, and packs

had to be abandoned by the side of the road.

oners through flight and

illness;

or even

"We lost many pris-

hundreds lagged behind and were

picked up farther back by other units or by police patrols." Russian tanks caught up with part of the

were liberated

—

or, as

column and

he described

it,

"fell

a

thousand prisoners

into Russian captivity."

His choice of words was revealing of that underlying attitude of the

Germans,

their conviction that the British

scared of the Soviets as they were.

Hence

and Americans were

as

the false claim by the pro-

pagandist on the radio from Berlin that Allied prisoners at Sagan had

pleaded not to be

Germans

left

The

behind to be liberated by the Russians.

believed the Allies

would soon be joining them

against the Bolshevik hordes, and that was another reason

in a

war

why

they

were not prepared to leave their prisoners of war behind in their camps.

An

even more confusing story was told by Theodor Lorentzen,

commandant of another POW camp based in the north. 25 In the summer of 1944 presumably as a result of Keitel's directive of July 19 he too received orders to make preparations to evacuate his

—

—

camp, and an elaborate plan was worked out. There was even

word

for the operation

—Walrus. On January

23, 1945,

picked up the phone and ordered Walrus to begin.

He

a

code

Lorentzen did not say

FEARS OF A MASSACRE

who

told

day with

him

to

a party

do

this.

One

of his senior officers

though he did not make

received an order that the

men

(and possibly

this clear),

power plant

fully operational. Interestingly, a

the very next

of 2,000 British prisoners plus guards. Lorentzen

himself stayed behind with the bulk of his his prisoners,

left

at the

some of

because he had also

camp was

to be kept

he said that this order had come from

general of the Waffen SS.

A month

later

Lorentzen himself was on the move

from the highest

in response to orders

1945

I

"On February

14,

come from the fuhrer [Commandant of Prisoners of War

received an order purporting to have

through General Major Ihssen for the

Danzig

stood by us

all

and American prisoners-of-war

area] that all British

would be evacuated

fall

in the land.

—apparently

that

to the west at

no

British or

once and that

it

must be under-

American prisoners-of-war should

into the hands of the Russians."

The commandant's

account

is

interesting because of its

ambigu-

ities. It is

unclear about whose orders he acted on. Reading between

the lines,

it

seems that he ordered the evacuation of his prisoners on

the very day that he received an instruction from the SS that

everyone should remain where they were. that Lorentzen, an

army veteran of the

We

First

can only speculate

World War, may have

been trying to protect the prisoners, and perhaps even himself, from any deadly intervention by the SS.

If true,

it

would confirm the opin-

some experts that tension between the military authorities the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe and the SS was a significant

ion of

—

factor in the forced marches.

Out on

the road, for

all its

dangers,

it

was easier to keep one step ahead of the organization that ran the

most

terrifying killing

It is difficult

had accrued a state.

machine the world had ever seen.

now to fully grasp the extent of the power that the SS in Germany by the end of the war. It was a state within

Under Heinrich Himmler,

the SS ran the concentration

camps, the forced-labor factories and the extermination policies that

were

at the heart

of Nazi Germany's ruthless regime of fear.

Un-

THE LAST ESCAPE

112

der his direction, millions were butchered with an efficiency that

more chilling. He and his SS generals routinely spent hours deliberating on the minutiae of their horrendous acts,

made

their fate even

creating endless forms, ness of mass murder.

and

lists,

files

To Himmler,

and Russians to make way for paperwork, nothing more.

a

impose order on the busi-

getting rid of 30 million Poles

Greater

was

It

to

Germany was

this logical

problem of

a

reduction of

evil into

—the to put pseudocivilized veneer on human savagery— that inspired one German general to Himmrighteous legality

ability

a

in-

call

man from

ler "a

another planet."

26

Though he

consistently presented

way he went about his Nazis alike. Only Hitler

himself as a nice person, the cold-blooded

work was

inspired terror in victims and fellow

said to be entirely without fear of him.

Their comradeship went back time very

a

a

long way. Himmler

laboratory assistant in a fertilizer firm

first

distinctive black

iron discipline.

Himmler maneuvered

the levers of

power

to power. In their

held together by

the SS into a position

—were under

The

police

his control,

where

it

—including

and through

German nation had been distilled into a vast card He even had his own army units, the half-a-million-strong

Waffen SS.

A large part of Germany's economy was also under his con-

and Himmler was believed to have transferred large amounts of

own use and that of his favorites. Third Reich collapsed, Himmler amazingly, given the

money into banks As the

overseas for his

crimes that were stacked up

would survive ally

came

the whole

index.

trol,

—had been one of the

elite force,

in the country.

the secret police, the Gestapo

them

one

uniforms and shiny black boots, with their insignia

of double silver flashes, they became an

all

at

of the Schutzstaffel, the "shock troops" dedicated to the de-

fense of their fiihrer years before he actually

held

—

it.

Despite

— against him — had

all the atrocities for

no doubt

that he

which he had person-

been responsible, he saw no reason why he should not replace

Hitler,

make terms with

the Allies, and prosper in the postwar

world. His SS troops were therefore busy trying to hide the evidence

of what he and they, in the tration

camps were

name of the

fiihrer,

had done. Concen-

to be razed to the ground; not a single inmate

FEARS OF A MASSACRE

was supposed to

survive.

The

113

bodies had to be buried.

The

task

proved too great even for Himmler's killing machine, however, and those

still

alive as the

advancing Russians, then the Americans and

the British, got closer to the terrible secret of the Final Solution were

marched anywhere tation that they

in their distinctive striped uniforms in the expec-

would

tioned behind the justice to deserters

die along the way.

German and

front line and

defeatists.

sta-

handed out summary

Lampposts,

were hung with corpses of those who had was

Other SS troops were

trees,

said too

and bridges

soon that the war

lost.

Meanwhile Himmler was trying surrender

—terms that would

still

many and Europe. He had been as far

back

war headed

for

sand Jewish

lives

leave

its

him

as a

Now his

of

major player in Ger-

putting out feelers to the

autumn of 1944.

as the

own terms

to negotiate his

efforts

West since

redoubled

as the

obvious conclusion. Secretly he traded a few thou-

with the Red Cross and the Swiss. 27

He was in talks

with the Swedish authorities and with senior U.S. intelligence agents.

And

there can be

lied prisoners

no doubt

that having a large

number of Al-

of war in his hands would add considerably to his bar-

gaining position.

With Himmler and

the SS in control, the future for the

looked bleak.

And

sian advance

one thing was

west.

for those waiting in

Whatever the

cost.

certain:

camps

POWs

in the path of the

They would have

to be

Rus-

moved

5:

The Retreat from

was the epic length of the journey,

It made great

War. From

its

march from Stalag Luft IV

the

—yet

Stalag Luft IV

unrecognized its start

man on May

2,

—

acts of

Gross Tychow one of the

heroism of the Second World

on February 6, 1945

—which,

the journey

at

seeming endlessness, that

to liberation for the very last

in a serviceman's typical jaunty

attempt to turn hardship into humor, the prisoners dubbed the

Shoe Leather Express ting out

the

—covered close to 500

from London and tramping north

way on

highway

to

to Aberdeen.

Or

New York and,

starting

to

miles. It

was

like set-

Edinburgh and then

all

from Washington along the

having passed Manhattan, continuing on

to Boston.

—

—

Room, an RAF observer, lived and logged every one of those miles. They are there in blistering, bone-aching, stomachchurning detail in the diary that he, like so many others, managed to Cecil

keep on scraps of paper, cigarette packs, farmyard rubbish, anything

he could lay the

his

hands on during overnight

memory might

play tricks, persuade a

stops.

man

1

Later on in

life,

in his old age that

it

Then he could turn to the record he had made at the time and know just how bad it had been. Stalag Luft IV had never been a good camp to be in. The gauntthe solet that the men had to run when they arrived in July 1944 had not been that bad

after

all.

—

called "run

up the road"

—was

a

foretaste of the hard

regimen

imposed by the guards. In an atmosphere of bullying and intimidation, the prisoners

were cowed into being more submissive than

at

THE LAST ESCAPE

116

many other camps. A Red Cross report after a ternational agency visited the

camp warned

"the relation between the prisoners of tense.

:

The

fear

RAF

and

no uncertain terms

war and the Germans

went deep. The guards

light in practice-firing their

in

delegation from the in-

in the

is

that

very

watchtowers took de-

machine guns down into the compound,

how "we would hit. As we lay flat,

Sergeant Percy Carruthers remembered

throw ourselves on the ground, hoping not to be

hearing the metallic chatter and the thuds of the bullets in the

many of us thought

ground, cises

this

was the end.

were intended to cause panic among

us,

We suspected the exerundermine our morale

and put our nerves even more on edge." Later, 3

if

Doug Fry wondered

these target practices had been "rehearsals for getting rid of us." 4

One size

of the guards was particularly unforgettable, not just for his

—he was

must have walk with

at least

felt

his

6 feet 6 inches

uneasy about

head bent down and

his

to disguise his extreme proportions.

looked Neanderthal. But universally

known

as

tall

his height,

this

—but

as if trying

This had the opposite

him

his

He

effect:

name.

He

was

Big Stoop, and the prisoners learned to avoid

him, saving up their thoughts and their revenge for

John Parsons was not a man arrived at Luft

tendency to

a

back hunched over,

posture gave

He

for his brutality.

because he had

IV he had

to flinch

a better time.

from horror. By the time he

survived the unspeakable

— seen friends

with their intestines hanging out or their faces burned out of recognition; cradled a dying

man

in his arms;

watched

all

as a fellow

prisoner went stir-crazy and was shot while trying to escape. But in

Big Stoop he encountered terror that imprinted forever. Parsons

itself

on

his

mind

was being subjected to an intimate body search for

contraband.

You stood before your

a

number of guards and they would look

mouth, rectum

ears, nose,

to conceal something. I

the

had

— anywhere you might be able

laid

my clothes on the counter and

Germans looked through them, and

handed back to

in

the

first

thing they

me was a little woolen military cap. I was stand-

ing there naked, and

I

put

it

on

my head. I suppose it must have

THE RETREAT FROM STALAG LUFT

117

IV

looked pretty comical. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, struck so hard that

I

slumped

Then Big Stoop

the hell was going on. fle

to the floor.

I

What had

I

done?

Then he

I

didn't

know what

stuck the butt of his

my neck and put his huge feet on my

in

hobnail shoes that he wore.

didn't

was

I

ri-

back with those old

know what he wanted.

stuck the muzzle of the gun in

my

mouth. Amid the noise, the screaming and the pandemonium, I

heard

a voice

—

He made me I

did as

I

—

think

his, I

get

say,

up and stand

was told even though

I

"Disrespect." at attention in front

of him.

was in so much pain that

I

could hardly stand. Finally someone said, "At ease, soldier,"

and to

was allowed to get dressed and he

I

my

hut and

Stoop had

because he

just

I

had dents in

like a

maniac.

made

gestures.

felt like it I

me

go.

back from

He

I

went back

his boots.

Big

could take against you

that day, and then he

would behave

never heard him talk much, he usually just

His hands were huge, so large that they looked

abnormal even for the

The

my

a cruel, sadistic streak.

let

size

of his body.

5

knew

camp's American doctor, Captain Leslie Caplan,

all

— about Big Stoop's hands "out of proportion to those of normal person" — and the damage they could do. In witness a

6

fearful

state-

a

ment to a war-crimes-tribunal investigator after the war he described how the guard "beat up on many of our men. He would cuff them on the ears with his open hand and the pressure

on the eardrums some-

times punctured them."

Sergeant George Guderley had seen those hands in action too.

B-17 gunner shot down

in

September 1944, he arrived

at

Luft

IV

with two other newcomers and encountered Big Stoop right away.

There was

this

huge guard standing there with

a

couple of his

goons, and he said in German, "Take off your clothes."

German and

so

I

didn't understand

He

started to

do what he

said,

I

speak

but the other two

and they didn't get undressed quickly enough.

started yelling at them,

and then he ripped off his belt and

A

I

THE LAST ESCAPE

18

swung it at this his as

guy's

head and beat the

out of him.

He put

hands up to protect himself, and Big Stoop interpreted that

an attack on him and he beat the guy even more.

that buckle

made were

He was in really bad

so deep

new

could see the bone in his

was

it

who were

prisoners,

I

The wounds skull.

shape."

In this atmosphere of fear

of

hell

difficult to

keep up the morale

arriving in large numbers. Allied

bombers were now pulverizing Germany from every

and

direction,

number of planes in the air, there were out over enemy territory. Percy Carruthers

inevitably, given the sheer

more crews forced to bail saw the horror on the faces of newcomers, and

He

and would not wish

Perhaps only

it

home, happy and laughing, or having

From

flying high,

sorry for them.

faced as captives,

on anyone.

few days ago they were

a

felt

now

had been through the degradation they

in the local

pub

at

a shindig in the mess.

on top of their profession, they would be

re-

duced to the humility of incarceration and to the indignity of standing naked and being harangued by

They appeared

to be so well fed

a hate-filled

and healthy

as

they stared at

the emaciated frames of older prisoners like me.

stones under

dering

my

enemy.

I

was two

normal weight. They must have been won-

how long it would be

before they were just as gaunt and

undernourished.

Then, at Stalag

1945 began,

as

Luft

—and

IV

it

a

new

type of prisoner started turning up

became

clear that

something momentous

was happening. These new prisoners were mainly British

who had been

captured by the

Germans

as far

back

as 1940,

soldiers

and they

came in long columns with stories of being force-marched from

work camps and

Stalags in 'the east, just ahead of the advancing

Army. More and more heading west. One, with

a

arrived, stayed,

a private

Red

and then marched out again,

named D.

A. Harpin, passed through

group which had already been on the march for ten days from

THE RETREAT FROM STALAG LUFT their

work camp 150 miles away to the

how

they arrived at Gross

February

2, "all

quarter of a treat for cel

and

Tychow

east.

He recorded in his diary on the evening of

at 7:30 p.m.

very tired," and were issued by the

liter

119

IV

Germans with

man got a quarter-share of a Red Cross parcigarettes. The newcomers had a whole day's rest be-

them, and each

fifteen

fore being

marched out again on February

unaware that they had

4,

another 520 miles to trudge and would be on the road until the 9

week of April. Even sight.

at this early stage in their trek

very hungry and exhausted.

They

to allow their blisters to heal before they

last

they were a sorry

Carruthers described them as "footsore and limping,

clad, obviously

enough

a

of barley soup. 8 But the other prisoners wangled a

dirty, ill-

stayed just long

left.

But there were

thousands more to come." In these matter-of-fact words, Carruthers described the begin-

nings of that massive exodus that would soon see the arteries of Ger-

many clogged by

millions of displaced people heading west in

varying degrees of terror and horror.

about being swept up in

And soon we and to the

it

fields

muscles,

was

just as matter-of-fact

ourselves were to be herded out

and woods,

perience frostbite, hunger, tic

He

himself:

colitis,

in snow, frost, rain

thirst, blisters,

on

to the road

and sun, to ex-

swollen limbs, spas-

dysentery, pneumonia, freezing cold and

many other afflictions we could never have contemplated. The Russians had now reached the River Oder to the south of our camp, had taken Breslau and were moving north. 10 Flap

and panic took charge.

We

were to leave the following

day.

Kitchen wagons would go with the column, drawn by oxen or horses.

We were also told the march would be by easy stages in

a south-westerly direction

where an empty factory was reported

to be suitable for housing us.

quite untrue, as

we were

to be

This information of course was

marched west

as quickly as possi-

Oder before the Russians Hurriedly we made makeshift packs

ble with the object of crossing the

were able to cut us

from

shirts

off.

and whatever other suitable

articles

we

could find.

THE LAST ESCAPE

120

The brew pot was never while we worked late into

tea continuously

the night, preparing to leave.

who had been

Carruthers,

and we drank

still

evacuated from Stalag Luft

Heydekrug, forced into the hold of

VI

a ship for that dreadful Baltic

"cruise," then into a stifling railroad car, before being chased forest track at

again. If they

at

up

a

bayonet point, was one of thousands on the move

had known what

stand their ground. If they had

lay ahead, they

known

might have

for certain

tried to

how precarious the

German hold was on this area, they might have considered resistance. The Russians were very close indeed. Farther south, their drive toward Berlin had already taken them west of Gross Tychow, which

was now

danger of being surrounded. Advance Russian troops

in real

held crossings over the to

do was race north

Oder

at

Frankfurt and at Stettin. All they had

and the Germans would be trapped

to the coast

and their prisoners free men.

A corridor mained

for the

50 miles wide along the Baltic coast was

Germans

if

into the heartland of their lied

airmen

knowing

intact. But, at

just

how

move them.

They

All those

had been knocked out of them. They would do

George Guderley was dismayed

He

as

to hear that Luft

was

close

gave no thought to resisting the

months of intimidation,

beatings by Big Stoop and the other guards, had worked.

uated in just a few hours.

that re-

how

desperate their captors were and just

they were to being encircled. efforts to

all

Oder and back country with their column of 10,000 Althe time, the prisoners had no means of

they were to get across the

a

member

all

The

those fight

they were ordered.

IV was

to be evac-

of the camp's escape

committee, though there were precious few escape plans for them to consider. Tunneling Baltic coastal plain,

off the ground.

was out of the question

in the soft sand of the

and anyway the barracks huts were raised

What

3 feet

the escape committee had spent most of

time deliberating was what to do

when

the Russians arrived.

its

THE RETREAT FROM STALAG LUFT

We

didn't

worry that the Germans might

121

IV

try to massacre us.

Despite the way they had treated us, there was no suggestion that they

would turn on us and

us

kill

all,

so

we

didn't

draw up

We thought the guards would just go We were sure we would be liberated by them. We could hear their artillery in the disany

real defensive plans.

and then the Russians would turn up.

tance from around the beginning of the year

—huge barrages

that got closer and closer. We discussed how we could let them

know we were here, how we could help them to liberate us, what would we do when they came crashing through the gates. This confidence that they would soon be free changed dramatically at the

pound was

end of January, when the leader of the American comcalled into the office of the

commandant, Oberstleutnant

(Lieutenant Colonel) Aribert Bombach, a short, thin-faced a staunch Nazi.

He

was

told,

"Have your people prepared

man and to

march

You will not be left behind for recapture by the Russians." There would be no option to stay put: Everyone was going west. Those who were sick would be sent ahead on special trains, but the 11

out.

only form of transport for the rest would be their

As the word went around,

just as at

own two

feet.

Sagan and every other camp

where an evacuation was ordered, prisoners

frantically tried to

loosen their muscles, exercise their lungs, harden the soles of their feet.

Some found

the whole idea monstrous. Joe O'Donnell, an

American B-17 gunner shot down ten months "We're it

aviators; we're

not marchers."

and got some training in

—

fast! "I

to survive a severe Baltic winter

had made

me unfit. I had

12

earlier, protested,

But even he saw the sense of

realized

and that

all

we were going

to have

that inactivity in

camp

to catch

up

in

Guderley made plans for what

lay

ahead with his closest friend in

the camp, a boy barely out of his teens friendship was astonishing

one

hell

whom he

of a hurry."

called Buck.

Their

—one of those unbelievable coincidences

of war. Five thousand miles away from Chicago, in the middle of a desolate forest in eastern

Germany, they discovered they were

THE LAST ESCAPE

122

neighbors at home. WTien he arrived fellow,

Luft IV, Guderley,

at

had made the rounds of the huts

"Anyone here from Chicago?"

cheerily,

friend,"

C

in "I

compound,

was

a sociable

calling out

just trying to find a

he recalled:

and then in one room Chicago," and

I said,

I said,

I said,

We

do you

live?"

and he

said,

from

"Up on

And he

had grown up

"So did

I."

He

told

me

his

name

"For Christ's sake, you're not Big

Buck's brother are you?" Big

of mine at home.

called out, "Yeah, I'm

"WTiere did you go to high school?" and

he went, "Lane Tech."

was Buchholz, and

guy

"V\Tiere

I said,

the north side."

this

Buck was

a beer-drinking

said, "Yes, that's

in the

me. I'm

buddy

Little Buck."

same neighborhood. The coach

of the softball team he played for lived just two doors from me.

But he was three years younger than me, and when you're

a

teenager that age difference puts you in another group completely. That's

very close. with,

why

I'd

never met him. But

He was someone I could

which

is

very important.

It's

of-war barracks. There are so

crammed together

The two

of them

very un-private in a prisoner-

many people

in a small space.

can relax with, and for

me

made

now we became

exchange private thoughts

with their beds

You need someone you

that was Little Buck.

plans to stick together on the march,

which was not going to be easy because they were "I was in barracks 10 and he was in barracks 4"

correctly, that they

that Little

try to link

for each other.

that

in

— and they guessed,

hut order. That meant

Buck would be somewhere out ahead of Guderley, but

we would we got

would be marched out

in different huts

up and then

travel together, to look out

We had no idea what was going to happen once

outside the camp. But there was always the possibility

something awful might occur, that some German

civilian

or the SS might start shooting at us. There were lots of niggling fears in our minds.

We had an agreement:

If we

got sep-

THE RETREAT FROM STALAG LUFT arated and didn't see each other at

Chicago.

And

and see the

was

Hank's Tav-

at

if

one of us didn't make

it,

the other would go

other's folks.

A beer

buddies had a target, a fixed point in an uncertain future.

Hank's

—

a glass of Chicago's best

counter, cool and a

it

neighborhood hangout of mine on the north side of

ern, a

at

on the march, then

solemn pledge that we would meet up again

a

The

all

123

IV

welcoming

symbol of a time when

at the

Three

—would be

all this

a

Star,

on the

sitting

beacon for both of them,

would be over and they could perch

bar and jaw over what they had been through and

how

glad

they were to be home.

The cold

zero

—and

Guderley reckoned, close.

IV swung open on February 6, 1945. It was snow was falling. The Russians, George were just 15 miles away, maybe only 10. That

gates of Luft

—below

"Behind

us, the noise

of battle was very, very real."

A rumor

traveled through the ranks that, according to a guard, Hitler

dered that the prisoners should be

presumably

trousers,

from trying

to escape.

as

made

to

had or-

march without

their

an extra hardship and to discourage them

The commandant,

it

was

said,

had decided to

defy his fiihrer and had refused to carry out this instruction. 13

Roger Allen was among the

first

to set off,

and he

felt a

mixture

of fear and jubilation.

The

fact that

we were being marched out meant that things Allies. But we also discussed the pos-

were looking up for the sibility that

they were taking us out to shoot

us.

You'd have

been mad not to think there was

a

but

where we couldn't function.

it

didn't scare us to the point

Let's just say

joking.

we were

chance of that happening,

apprehensive. But, as

left,

we were

We were Americans, and we could handle this! I guess little bit of bravado about We were trying to

there was a

it.

how long we would don't think the German

keep each other going. But nobody told us

march

we

for,

or

when

it

would

guards themselves knew. 14

stop. I

THE LAST ESCAPE

124

Guderley was

I

was

in a

happy

just

good mood

to be out

too.

from behind the barbed wire.

I

had

compound and wondered what was we could see a sawmill, some houses, a

often stared out from our

down

the road.

railroad.

Now

There was

at ourselves, at

lots

of joking, smart-ass remarks, laughing

our plight.

It's

what people

do, as a coping

how the body reacts. I can't explain this but it must say something about how excited we were because, mechanism.

after

our

It's

first

funny

night outside the camp, sleeping in a barn, lots

of the guys woke in the morning and said they had had a wet

dream

was so unusual. Sex was not something

that night. It

that ever occurred to us in the camp.

We dreamed of food, al-

ways of food, but not women.

I

been too hungry or

worn down.

whether

it

to

last

In the British

night?" "Oh,

really,

a

march

bloody panic!"

I just

release. It

to evacuate Luft

Cec Room. "Camp Leader

was

don't a sub-

IV had come

whole

lot

of us, with the

on foot

at 12

We guessed that, since we'd been moved out of Heydekrug six months before because the Russians were advancing, the same

—

move us it was just a question of when. But there was no official communication. We were just' turfed out that morning. I remember having a sense of foreboding. No matter how bad a camp you was

likely to

are in,

you

happen here. They were going

feel safe

as

crashes into the bar-

noon today," he wrote. Doug Fry was caught on the hop too:

that we're being evacuated

"What

we must have

But that night,

too."

racks at half past midnight and wakes the

news

15

"Do you know what happened

me

compound, the order

a total surprise to

day's

all this activity, this

of discussion the next day

me

can only think

was the exertion of the

know, but there was ject

tired or

and

settled.

You've got

a

to

roof over your

THE RETREAT FROM STALAG LUFT head and

bunk

a

Now we

to sleep on.

125

IV

had no idea what lay

ahead.

Whereas the Americans appear

to have

had some sort of advance

warning of the evacuation, the British contingent, less

on the

tle bit.

ball.

it

seems, had been

That wouldn't have surprised the Americans one

They always tended

to see the

Limey prisoners

adaisical in attitude, badly dressed, ill-kempt

lit-

as rather lack-

— and undisciplined. In

return, the British often dismissed the Yanks as loud, bombastic, self-

centered

men

— and undisciplined.

was the natural

It

rivalry of military

indulging in chauvinist banter rather than bigotry, and rarely

involved any real animosity.

The

biggest difference between them, in any case, was due not to

The AmeriThey looked at

nationality but to length of service behind barbed wire.

cans were generally

much newer to prison-camp

—most of whom had been sometimes more — and came the

the behavior of their transatlantic captives for

two or three

years,

conclusion that they had gone "laid-back" might have been

man was

a prisoner,

his incarceration.

He

allies

to

soft.

"Experienced," "canny" and even

more appropriate words. The longer

He

had gone through the stages of anger and hurt.

head against what he could not change. then that was just

to adopt an attitude of "seen it

again,

a

it,

If that

rather than beat his

meant he became

way of coping. The

when the decisive moment came. Room remembered that, after they were given

the

before"

to react

true to their national stereotype,

tins

single tea

brewed

tea.

British in his hut,

They

—

"it

did,

The

was so sweet and strong, you could stand

right in the cup!"

however,

bag they had into the pot and use up

of condensed milk they would be unable to carry.

heaven

British tended

—which was often

But

it all

news that they were off in twelve hours' time, the throw every

in-

true.

made them slower

Then

a

the less likely he was to kick against the fact of

learned to play the system in order to beat

stitutionalized,

life.

Even then

a

few

men went back

a

all

the

result

was

spoon up-

to bed,

on the

grounds that the Germans were always giving orders and nine times

THE LAST ESCAPE

126

out of ten they came to nothing. But

this

was no

and

false alarm,

at

midday, ready or not, the prisoners were on the move.

he

Room picked up his hastily made pack— "my pathetic bundle" as called it— and two rolled-up blankets. He had just gulped down a

hasty meal of

warm

potatoes in their skins.

Now he was

we had

to be issued with a third of a loaf of bread, "the first a

month." Then

— and desolate was

it

was

seen for

out, past a line of sentry boxes standing

never thought we'd ever see them

"I

astonished

empty

like that."

He

elated.

Fry was not. His hut had assembled in the open

air at

horrible," he recalled.

"There was

snow already on

6 a.m.,

the ground."

sued with were heavy

arms were already

—

full.

when it was a blizzard

Some men

still

dark. "Horrible, 2 feet

of

were

is-

parcels they

— and unwieldy

to

men whose

—whether malicious or out of

—that they were going only

would not need these

having been

ditched them almost right away,

convinced by talk from the guards

the road and

earlier,

blowing and

The Red Cross

7 lb. apiece

ignorance Fry never knew

few hours

set off a

extra rations.

few miles up

a

"They came

to re-

gret this later," he noted ruefully Carruthers saw dozens of dis-

carded tins of food lying in the snow and thought abandoning them "absolute folly."

That found

a

night, covering himself in straw to try to stay

moment

jaunty flavor to

to

make

his first diary entry of the

ice, slush,

out across

strike

lage)

had

snow.

We

are

muddy fields and

all

good time on roads covfeeling fresh.

issued by the horrible

cowshed

Huns and

to get a

I

for the night.

me on

No

food

have to creep unobserved

cup of cold water. Wizard

during the night a rat bites

Then we

cart tracks, to Naffin (a vil-

where we are bunged into barns

into the

Room

It

it:

First eleven kilometres are covered in

ered in

warm,

march.

sleep,

the cheek, gnawing his

but

way

through the straw, one blanket, pullover, scarf and cap. Some teeth!

—

1 1

miles that day

a

THE RETREAT FROM STALAG LUFT

127

IV

—

The journey to hell had begun. Nobody but nobody not even German guards had any idea that this was Day 1 of 86.

the

—

It

was

after the first

few days that Guderley began to wonder

where we were going and when

we

or three

Spam

We

eked out our supplies

it

know

it's

going to go bad on you

Would

here on the march? night, if

down.

ers slept, but

there be any

It didn't

you were

barn, but the guards lie

can of salmon or

a

if

you

it all

don't.

be-

But

was gone we didn't know whether we were going to

get fresh supplies.

At

—

but then you have to eat

will last three days,

cause you

look very

lucky,

Red Cross

likely.

you managed

would pack us

parcels out

to get into a

in so tight that

no one

We took it in turns to stand up while the oth-

you only ever got an hour's

sleep at a time before

move around and give your space to somebody If there was no barn, we slept in a field, in the rain and

you had else.

going to end. Before

all

we had been told we would be on the march for two days, but we were now well past that. The food was

running out.

could

was

out

set

when

it

to

snow.

Each day began one foot

in front of the other,

think of the hell

worse

to roll into the next.

we were

in.

We just kept going,

marching on and trying not to

And

the weather was getting

—driving wind and rain and rain and snow mixed, and

so cold.

Guderley knew that Buck was somewhere ahead of him in the column, but he could find no chance to sneak ahead to join him.

He

was marching with three members of his bomber crew who had been in the

same hut

as

him, and one of them was in trouble right away.

He had broken his leg when we were shot down. He bailed out against the slipstream, and his foot caught

between the gun-

THE LAST ESCAPE

28

sight

and the

seat.

He was trapped,

and

it

was only because the

exploded in midair that he was blown

aircraft

clear.

He

had

multiple fractures and had been in the hospital, and he was all those months later. But the Germans refused him be evacuated by train as one of the sick. They said he was mobile enough to march. But he was in a bad way from the start. I helped carry his Red Cross parcel for him, shared it with another of our crew. But I lost contact with him after a still

limping

to let

few days.

He

teamed up with another prisoner and they de-

cided to stick together, and

of guys.

home much

It

him

didn't see

in the end.

did the same with another couple

after that,

At the time, though,

mud

that stuck in

were smeared with

across bare-earth fields.

reflect

on

this

would, he realized,

World War for those little

I

it,

Room's mind

I

know he made

it

wouldn't have given

He reckoned

and take

now have no

in the eye. It

who had

modern

in those early days.

and so were the

each foot from the cloying black

would

though

for his chances.

was the

lanes

I

I

he had an extra

soil that

a

men

The

after

tramping

5 lb.

weight on

caked them. Later on he

strange delight in the

mud.

He

trouble looking veterans of the First

was commonplace between 1939 and 1945

fought in the trenches in the previous war to be-

soldiering as soft.

wallahs have nothing on us

Room

recorded that "the

last

war

—they can no longer crow about the mud

they used to plough through."

As he marched through the rain and place to sleep

when

the

in barn,

he prayed for

a field.

warm

"Bloody awful night," he recorded,

and again no food from Jerry." Around him on

march were airmen of many

nationalities

Czech, Polish, South African, Australians,

—"English, Canadian,

New

Ahead and behind was a ragged, mainly Americans. As they marched briefly along from

a

the night came, only to find himself having to

bivouac in the middle of

"no room

sleet,

Tahiti."

straight road that linked

Danzig and

Zealand and one suffering

army of

the side of the

fast,

Stettin before they turned off

THE RETREAT FROM STALAG LUFT onto

a

country track, the

glance. It

of the column could be taken in at

size

— was awesome "thousands of men, three

ing into the distance and

a

abreast, stretch-

we looked

strung out;

all

129

IV

like cattle in a

herd, not military in the slightest."

Not that they had the road to themselves. On the contrary, it was crowded with German evacuees and other lines of prisoners of war, also on their way to God knows where. Some French prisoners came begging for cigarettes and fought among themselves to grab them from outstretched hands before was plagued by dle

thirst,

their guards hustled

and in desperation he broke the

on the ground, persuading

himself, against

water was "moderately clean" before drinking

Room

them

all

reason, that the

it.

had the comfort of his chosen buddy by

raid

on Cologne. At the end of

marched 20 miles

his side

hot water brought to us by

toll

first

and

blisters.

a

we

a pilot

1,000-

first

knee-deep

"Wash our

farm.

Russian slave worker and

a

time since

of marching such distances

potholes and ruts"

on

—

day in which they had

(the last three in the dark along a road

in snow), they lay exhausted in a shed

boots off for the

a

pud-

ice of a

by the name ofJack Paul, who had been shot down on the

bomber

Room

off.

Room

set out,"

I

feet in

take

recorded.

my

The

— "and not on tarmac roads but over

—was horribly apparent

as

he stared

at his bruises

In fact the surfaces they marched on could hardly have

been worse. "Rough ground," remembered Percy Carruthers, "deeply rutted with

snow covering the

depressions.

unable to 'read' the ground and

Some

many of them

of the boys seemed

fell

heavily."

Five days into the journey they were issued with a quarter of a loaf of black bread per

man. Until then they had had to

raid the fields

through which they marched to find potatoes, turnips, beets, any old root crop that they could

through

a

gnaw

on.

Xow, amazingly they passed

small village and found buckets of cold water, fruit juice,

and hot ersatz coffee

left

by the roadside

for them.

"What

has

come

over the Germans?"

Room

would have spat

without hesitation and called us 'Luftgangsters'

at us

asked himself. "At any other time they

and 'Terrorfleigers.'" Percy Carruthers,

a little farther

back in the

column, witnessed the same display of kindness and hospitality

as

he

THE LAST ESCAPE

130

passed through the village, but the guards around let

them

stop.

him would not

He remembered a little old lady hobbling along beside

the column, "obviously disturbed by our plight and saying 'Kinder,

—Oh

kinder,

warum, kampfen wir?'

fight?"

When

dashed

it

As not

he grabbed

a

children, children,

cup of soup from

guard

out of his hands.

for

Room,

last long.

his kindly impression of the

The

German

civilians did

very next day, marching though a largish town

Greifenburg (though he recorded

called

why do we

a villager, a

it

in his diary, consciously or

unconsciously, as Grief- not Greif-), he was shoved out of the

and into the gutter by "a particularly nasty-looking reckoned wanted to

kill

prisoners pooled whatever

recorded,

"The boys

My share

is

as

German coins they had,

men

buy

a small sheep.

it,

and

it is

divided

have four sheep between them. This

is

higher mathematics

say, "I've

vital

—

vital

isn't

me

for a present!"

never seen comradeship

—

to have

each other through

which

—

albeit

muted

recorded, "Feb 12. Jack's birthday. Today, he's 24. Gets

an extra cup of water from

was

Room

among 600 men. knob. Meanwhile, 100 German officers

slaughter

as big as a sugar

Room

would

night the

together with cig-

taught by the Fiihrer!" There were celebrations too

ones.

One

treats.

and chocolates to make the equivalent of 50 marks, and Car-

ruthers negotiated with a local farmer to

and

who he

him.

Occasionally there were small unexpected

arettes

civilian"

way

it.

like

A

lifetime later

we had on

he

that march. It

your good friend along with you. You got

My friendship with Jack lasted

for fifty years,

bad." In his diary he paid tribute to his friend: "I never

knew Jack would always help me, or I would help Jack. You're always chivvying each other along. There was no chance that we were going to leave each other by the side of the road. Good God, no. Never. Together, we would get there, sooner or later." gave up because

I

Carruthers celebrated Jack Paul's birthday too, but in a black

mood verging on

despair.

We had now done over weather on

less

than

«

135 kilometres in extremely cold, wet

a loaf

of bread and a few boiled potatoes,

THE RETREAT FROM STALAG LUFT

131

IV

along with weak potato soup and a cup of barley. Broken could not be properly cared for

ters

infected.

This was

which was

a situation

serious, claiming the life of

the lives of many more.

blis-

and many were becoming

one of my

become extremely

to

men and 16

threatening

How long could we endure?

Meanwhile, despair of a different sort descended on John Andereveryone down

He

Corps sergeant.

son, a U.S. Air

—and

was convinced he was

especially himself. It

the march, he caught a whiff of freedom and decided for him.

He

letting

began when, early on in it

was too heady

stopped by the side of the road to relieve himself, the

column walked on and rounded

bend, and suddenly he was on his

a

remember thinking, Tm But the feeling was short-lived. "I had no way of subsisting free.' by myself in my condition. I had no weapons. I had no food. I didn't even know where I was, except that I was somewhere in Germany. I own. "There wasn't

a soul in sight

and

I

" 17

could do was to catch up with the rest." Back in the

decided that

all I

safety of the

column, he was ashamed of himself for not making the

break on that lonely, snow-blown road. In his mind, he beat himself

up

for

what he had done

—

not done

or, rather,

sad case of "misery loves company.

most of the time during self.

.

this period."

.

.

My

—

a

it

down

as a

morale was pretty low

He had no need to blame him-

Almost everyone on that march spotted

one time or another

— and put

a

chance to get away

at

moment when he was on his own and a quick

dash would take him into hiding. All but a very few passed up the opportunity.

even in

a

Their chances of survival alone in

main group. To

realize that

was

common

And, anyway, cowardice was not at

a hostile country,

or

group of two or three, were slimmer than staying with the

Anderson. Waiting for him

Oak-Leaf Clusters

at

a

sense, not cowardice.

charge anyone could ever level

home was an

for his "courage, coolness

Air Medal and three

and

skill"

on bombing

missions over Germany. In his absence, the citation was sent to his

mother on the very day

that he

marched out of Stalag Luft

the outset, however, he found the the other men.

He

was not

as

IV.

From

march tougher going than many of

prepared for

it

mentally, largely be-

THE LAST ESCAPE

132

cause,

from the time he bailed out during

in

August 1944,

as

any

man

his

imprisonment had

parachuting into

enemy

a

bombing raid over Berlin

until

now been as trouble

free

He

had

territory could expect.

been swiftly captured, and was not threatened by

He

trigger-happy Gestapo officers.

being subjected to the violence of

a

had arrived

or fearful about being there.

churchgoer, and he set to

He

Luft

that he

was

a classical

musician and a

work coaching the camp choir and running order to evacuate the camp came, he had

When

given so

thought to what lay ahead that he packed

to carry with him, brary.

how

He

and

had started

it

a

all

his

music

book he had borrowed from the camp

but not finished

li-

and he wanted to know

it,

ended.

it

But very quickly walk became

book

the

IV without

was never depressed

Bible classes. little

or

"run up the road," and had in-

made himself so busy in the camp

stantly

at

irate civilians

his right foot

a limp.

He

began to give him problems. His

lightened his load by ditching the library

— "there was no time for reading anyway"—and,

onizing, his

hymnbook

behind." But

still

too,

though

after

much ag-

was heartbreaking to leave

"it

he labored under his burden, and friends

it

rallied to

carry his pack for him.

done

If they hadn't

down by do.

We

that, I think I

letting the others

alities

that

tions in

which

suffered,

a

man

I felt

I

was

also worried that I

weak, and

I

was ashamed

my pack for me.

but his conscience troubled him throughout

Anderson was

went with

But then

down.

had to carry

feet got better,

the march.

wanted to

I

heard rumors that anybody dropping out would be

that others

His

quit, just lain

the road, though that was the last thing

shot. I worried about that.

was

would have just

a

good man

—too

sensitive for the cruel re-

a struggle to survive.

These were not condi-

could always do the right thing.

When

others

he was tortured by doubts about himself. There was, for ex-

ample, the night

when one of his companions went

to fetch water

THE RETREAT FROM STALAG LUFT

from

a well.

He brought back half a pint in a cup,

133

IV

among

to be shared

himself and three others, and asked for his share to be kept for while he went out again to try to get

him

some more.

we split the remaining quarter between us and drank it. Then he returned. He had queued for more water, but the guard had turned him

Time went on and Nelson

away

at the last

minute.

he had his share of the

did not return, so

He came

first

back believing that

at least

cup waiting for him, only to

dis-

we had drunk it. He was very angry. Many times I what we had done. My conscience hurt. We had be-

cover that regretted

trayed him.

Then, when Anderson, under

wagon

sick

that brought

walk behind.

"I

guilty about that.

him.

I

know

his

to him.

He

didn't

happened

man

his feet

I

wish

I

were again giving him prob-

with rheumatism

almost gave him

I felt

had to ride on the

up the rear of the column, because he was

doubled up with dysentery and lems, he worried about a

doctor's orders,

who was

having to

my place on the wagon, but I didn't.

had, because to this day

name, and

I

I

worry about

have no way of finding out what

probably made

but

it,

I

would

still

like to

know."

The

crippling pace was unrelenting, and

mans

to slow

forced the

down. With threats and

no one could get the Gerbutts if necessary, they

rifle

column of frozen, exhausted, and

sick

men

to keep going.

Carruthers remembered making representations to the Germans,

but they would not listen to our pleas.

They

insisted that

we

had to complete 140 more kilometres in the next few days. This was an ominous prospect, and

would be many serious

them

this, all

it

was

casualties ahead.

they would say was "Befehl

clear that there

But when we told

ist

Befehl"

— "Orders

THE LAST ESCAPE

134

are orders"

—and the Feldwebel [Sergeant] patted

and then pointed

now

Stops were

his index finger to his temple.

taken hurriedly,

if at all.

his revolver

That was

final.

Guderley remembered

being forced along

westward into the sunset, doing between

at a pretty fast pace,

35 to 50 kilometers a day with

comfort.

We

had to urinate

dysentery had to

no

as

we

we were

shame about

this. If

bowel movement, you

and crapped

in the street gutter.

derwear and keep going.

no one had any

just

Out

dropped your trousers

We just had

do

to

it

in

reach

in the snow, relieved themselves

where they walked because they had no other option. just passing the disease

in their efforts to

close the trap.

The

line

It

man

of the River Oder from the south to

at the

—and they had to reach

caught by the

wide estuary where

tide,

it

before the Russians

be overwhelmed. 18

was the night of February 14 when Guderley's part of the

umn swung out over the miinde.

coastal flatlands

sick.

an approximation of

col-

and arrived outside Swine-

Those around him That night would stick in many memories

They had been marching

were exhausted and as

forces

the Baltic Sea. Their immediate destination was the

Swinemiinde

or, like a

Red Army

fast,

place to escape, to cross the river, and get

last

back into the haven of north Germany, was

Oder meets

push the column

the Russians were closing in

pressing in from the east behind them, while other

were now pushing up the

We were

from one person to another.

The Germans were frantic They firmly believed that

ferry at

our un-

We also weren't allowed to stop for a

we could do was

all

had gone before us had soiled

the

we were

in the country

down and grab a of snow and stuff it in our mouths. But the people who

drink of water, so

on.

who had

passing through a village and you

not even allowed to drop out.

handful

walked. Those

themselves. Pretty soon,

soil

had to have

a

stops allowed for personal

hell.

for eight days.

They

slept in each other's shit.

They

— THE RETREAT FROM STALAG LUFT froze without shelter in flooded foxholes.

men found Roger

it

from the vicious

nearly drowned

They cowered beneath bombing raids.

Civilized

hard to believe that humans could sink so low. To

was

Allen, the cold

before in his

They

cold.

135

IV

and he and

life,

nothing he had ever experienced

like

his

buddy clung

to each other

on

the ground under their overcoats in an attempt to keep each other

warm. "I wasn't a terribly religious

but that night

I

prayed.

man," Guderley

The problem was

that

open land and there were no barns.

We

which was pitted with bomb

from

craters

recalled,

we were out on

were put a

previous attack.

The wind and the rain were vicious, and some we could find some shelter by getting low in a digging ourselves into the earth

itself.

wouldn't stop and the crater just

filled

ble out or drown. All that

some

fir

tection,

trees

was

left

of us thought crater,

almost

But the snow and rain up, so

we had

to scram-

was to break branches from

and lay them on the ground

as

some

sort of pro-

and then, with our blankets, huddle together to share

our body heat. Four of us slept together only

in a field,

like that. It

was the

way we would have got through. But the ground we slept disgusting. The snow was the color of khaki from hu-

on was

man excrement from

who had

those farther up the column

stayed there before us.

That night bombers came over the

area again, trying to

knock out some German submarines moored

in the river.

too far from us an anti-aircraft battery was

firing,

chunks of shrapnel were coming down from the terrifying.

We

had no helmets to protect

happening made

more

me

so angry.

so than ever before.

I

Come

us.

Not

and big

flak. It

was

But what was

was determined to survive hell or

high water,

I

was go-

That was without doubt the worst night of The dawn broke at around six o'clock, maybe later,

ing to get home.

my

life.

and

I

peeked out

knew just one

at the

mud

—that

thing

I

and the misery around me, and

had survived.

I

THE LAST ESCAPE

136

That night stayed just

because

aching back,

it

was

vividly in

Cec Room's memory too

He

his birthday.

my

me"

feet tell

through the night

my

though I'm 55." The day had been marked mis-

I feel as

erably with what turned out to be a long haul, 23 miles run, so

—and not

was twenty-five, "but with

as

—and

—"a record

then he had not expected to

live

they waited for the ferry across the Oder estu-

"No accommodation in barns, so we rough it out in the open, or cleared woodland. Make a tent from bracken but it falls down. Jack and I curl up together and we kip down on the grass with my overcoat beneath us. Heavy frost at night and we wake up absolutely frozen. Can hardly feel my feet." ary.

As darkness had being entranced beauty of the

as

he stood in

stars. "It

winter skies," he ger.

fallen that night,

said,

a large

Percy Carruthers remembered

open

field

was one of those lovely

and

its

and looked up

at the

clear crystal-domed

very magnificence indicated acute dan-

A cloudless sky meant a heavy frost and body-numbing temper-

atures.

We

longed to have the shelter of some barns, but there were

none

to be seen.

the night just

an advanced

The Germans told us we would have to spend

where we stood.

state

Many of the

boys were in such

of physical fatigue that they just folded up

on the wet ground. In the whole of my life

I

cannot remember

seeing such a totally dejected and alarming sight. There were well over a thousand Kriegies

ered together on this

tal.

site.

19

of varying nationalities gath-

What hope was

there for any of us

in a

snow-covered

He He

determined to stay awake, fearing that to sleep would be

field?

wandered around the encampment, lined up

hour for

a tiny

cup of thin barley soup, then

the handful of faltering fires that had been

tried to

lit

brown paper sack along

warm

hour

after

himself at

on the frozen ground.

But eventually exhaustion was too much for him. a large multilayered,

for

fa-

He

had picked up

the way, and

now he

THE RETREAT FROM STALAG LUFT

up

rolled himself

Then he

in

with another

it,

drifted helplessly into a sleep

man

137

IV

warmth.

to share their

from which there was no cer-

would ever wake. Cec Room had done the same.

tainty he

Most of us thought was

very, very cold

to sleep, Jack

and

I

that

we would

freeze to death because

it

—minus 19 was one estimate. Before going looked

at

tion and thought, "Here's

each other with an

of resigna-

We

didn't

we woke up

in the

hoping for the

really expect to survive. But, miraculously,

air

best."

morning, every one of us.

Bodies everywhere were white with frost

was more

That morning, the column was pushed possible.

—but they were

alive. It

than they had thought possible.

across the river as soon as

"There was no hanging about," Guderley

recalled.

We were up and out on the road down to the river. We crossed on the

a

barge pulled by a tugboat. As

German

before then up.

guards lightened up a

we reached the other side, little. They had been edgy

—worried that the Russians were going to catch

They knew that if they were caught as

of prisoners their utes.

life

guards with

a

group

expectancy would be measured in min-

On the far side of the river they could relax, for a while at

least.

But,

crossing the river

if

beginning.

The column

felt like

an end, in truth,

it

was

reassembled on the other side

—

just the

a crucial

now between it and the advancand plodded off again. They were heading west, that

150 yards of deep, dirty gray water ing Russians

was

all

was

at the

—

anyone seemed to know. But where they were going and what end of this apparently never ending road was

a

question so

THE LAST ESCAPE

138

immense

—so beyond answering—that the prisoners stopped even

asking. All that mattered

brew of

tea,

was the next

step, the next rest, the next

the next opportunity to eat. "I put one foot in front of

the other," said Guderley, "and just kept doing

We were heading

unknown destination at a careless pace. We didn't know where hell we were. We were dispirited, hungry, sick, tired, confused."

to an

the

it.

The Deadly Road to the West

6:

had Now German they

reached the west bank of the River Oder,* the

officers in

stock.

idea

But

it

was soon

what to do

charge of the column had time to take

clear to

next. V\Tien the

George Guderley column came

from the prisoners' weary shoulders and the the freezing rain trying to stay tle

shelter they could find.

The

weary

had

to a halt, packs

little

dropped

POWs milled around in

warm, or took advantage of what

lit-

exhausted simply slumped to the

ground, too tired even to spread out too, a distance away, as

that they

a blanket.

The

as their prisoners

guards huddled

and looking

just as

The haven they had at last arrived at would The bridges and the ferries destroyed behind

bedraggled and defeated.

not be safe for long.

them would be repaired or bypassed soon enough, and then the Russians

would again be advancing on

Guderley saw an

"They didn't have

officer

radios,

ting their orders from.

when he could that was,

tell

their inexorable drive to Berlin.

approach the guards and give instructions.

and

it

was

a

Apparendy the

find one.

He would

go to next." There

is

officer

used

who they were geta

telephone

if

and

ring in to headquarters, wherever

them where he was with

1

mystery to us

the column, and be told

no record of what the German

where to

authorities

were

planning for the prisoners from Gross Tychow, or even of who was giving the orders that would determine whether they lived or died. Ac-

cording to the commandant in charge of another column of prisoners

*See

map on page

115.

THE LAST ESCAPE

140

who

followed this same route,

managed

that he

make

to

since leaving his camp. ceived. It

the

seemed

2

it

was only

after

he got over the Oder

contact with his superiors for the

column would

that the

head west, stopping on

just

way to seek instructions on what to do and where seem

to arrive

fighting and sending

The

time

But he was vague about what orders he then re-

to

the absence of instructions, just surviving off the land. that did

first

go and then, in

The

only orders

were those picking out any guards capable of

them to join the forces digging in at the front line.

prisoners were

was

their ultimate destination

some 300 miles away on

ignorance. Later

left in

camp

a prison

would appear

it

in the

that

west of Germany,

the other side of the next natural north-south

defensive line, the River Elbe. But

not saying. "They didn't

tell

if

us very

the guards

much

knew

at all,"

this

they were

Guderley

recalled.

Those of us who spoke German would get what we could out

who were

will-

them and judge by

their

of the guards. There were one or two of them ing to

You would

talk.

sidle

up

to

body language whether they wanted try

and glean

how many That was sick,

if

the

and

little bits

miles

pieces:

we were going

to chat.

Then you would

where we were going

to have to

POWs could be bothered to try and find out.

and starving, for day

after

day they would

now

The

less

everyday

Cold,

trudge west in

conditions that seemed to worsen with every weary step.

were going was

next,

march tomorrow.

Where

they

of an issue than their chances of surviving at

life

Germany was

of

collapsing around

all.

them

as

millions of refugees clogged the roads west. In the chaos, the prisoners

had to seize what food they could wherever they could. Guderley

was so hungry he remembered looking and seeing I

it

as a piece

would wonder

That's

if I

how hungry

I

of meat.

was

own forearm

My own arm, for Christ's sake.

could bite into

it

—so starving

take a bite out of the south a

at his

end of a

bull

and not hurt myself. I

would have

tried to

going north! Once in

while the guards would actually requisition some food and

— THE DEADLY ROAD TO THE WEST cook

it

up

in big slop pails for

had to scavenge for

800 or so of us. But usually we

what we could

through there might be

a store

stored in bins for animal feed,

was

could,

chew

of all,

if

neck.

There were

them

We would skin

a lot of

passed

could raid and

Or there would be grain we would grab a pocketful if and them

and eat what

out,

we would

it,

and closer

closer

could throw a jacket or whatever over its

we

there were chickens around,

use the grain to lure one of

and snap

we

farms

fire.

the hulls off and spit

inside. Best

On

find.

of potatoes

then cook them in a tin can over a

we

141

it

and grab

feathers

and

it

until

you

by the head

all,

and boil

dead animals along the road

it.

—mostly

emaciated horses that had died pulling a wagon of refugees.

They would recent, if it

just leave a

was

still

horse lying in the ditch. If

it

looked

warm, we thought nothing of cutting it up

for meat.

The

days were just a blur of walking anywhere from 10 to

20 kilometers. Most nights

we

stayed in a barn.

There would

be two or three hundred of us, drenched to the skin, no food, stinking of shit.

We just had to make the most of

it.

Three of

us would sleep huddled together in the straw under a blanket.

The

lucky guy in the middle was the warmest, but in the mid-

dle of the night

chance to to try

we would

warm up.

switch positions so each of us got a

We also kept our shoes under the blanket

and get them semi-dry for the next

Now that we were

beyond the

river

suade the Germans to allow us to start

own

water. This

day.

we were

little fires

was an old prisoner-of-war

powdered-milk can could be converted into

able to per-

and

trick.

boil

our

An empty

a mini-stove.

You

could get a very fierce heat out of burning just a few twigs

enough

to boil

times, until

it

some

water.

A

tea

bag was used many, many

was absolutely drained.

Guderley was wiser than most, and careful about the water he chose to boil up

—

"I

avoided the khaki snow!"

fortnight before falling foul of dysentery.

He lasted more than a

THE LAST ESCAPE

142

I

was trying to be

There was nothing and we were

my

hands

all

wash

to

absolutely

enough water

barely

in,

With

it.

filthy

them

hands and then

man

loses

Nothing embarrasses him any more. movement, you like

an animal.

just

This

a description that

can airman Bob Otto, erley.

as

He

lick

your

lips

and

his self-respect.

all

you need

If

dirt in

You'd rub

a

bowel

let fly. I felt just

We were being herded along like cattle, and we

like cattle.

not

clean.

drop your trousers and

were acting

is

to drink,

There was so much

filthy.

dysentery, a

was impossible.

filth it

didn't think I'd ever get

I

your face with your you'd had

but in the

careful,

who was

had grown up on

a

would have

trudging

a

sat easily

with Ameri-

mile or so ahead of

Gud-

farm, and he had never treated animals

badly as he and the other prisoners were being treated now. Fifty-

five years later,

he would return to that northeastern edge of Ger-

many and shudder ability to

people in the bunch," he

down and shame

memories.

at the

A

private, dignified

man,

his

be anonymous helped him to survive. "I was just one of the said.

get through this."

—the worst time of

all

3

He

did his best to "keep

He remembered vividly—and

my

head

still

with

for him:

We were in a huge barn and I was sleeping in the middle with fifty

guys on each end and

step over

the way.

all

By

I

got dysentery.

those other bodies, asking the time

I

got to the door

I

had to get outside,

them it

to

move out of

was too

late. I

had

my trousers, and all I could do was strip down out in the cold and take my long Johns off and throw them away. It was so very degrading. All my pride had gone. filled

Dysentery would catch

a

man

in his guts with

cramps for which

the only relief was to chew, on charcoal. In Otto's case this worked,

and he was better

a

few days

later.

But then the pain

in his

bowels was

replaced by the pain of hunger. His insides, utterly emptied, called

out for sustenance, but there was

little

or nothing at hand.

THE DEADLY ROAD TO THE WEST I

was so hungry

home my mother looked

got

I

my stomach was rubbing against my

We were close to starvation. I lost about 25

backbone.

when

I felt as if

say was "You're awful skinny, son."

kept pies

me

—

going.

It

at

me

and

lb.,

and

she could

all

was thoughts of her that

used to dream about her cooking: about

I

pies of every sort; even pies filled with chocolate bars. I

kept promising myself

when I let

143

got

home

was going to eat

I

— and that

paper again in

my life.

I

much

as

as I

could

would never ever be without

Never.

I

toi-

didn't think about dying. I

suppose that was always

a possibility, a fear that lingered at the

back of your mind, but

I

took that

I

In the end,

grew up

kept thinking with every step

was going home, and

was going to keep going

I

just

it

as

I

long as

wasn't going to give up. I

where the winters

cold was. But this was worse than there was nothing right into your

I

are hard, so

it.

it

We

and

I

try to circulate

shivered

continually, day after

weeks

day

all

all

it

was

and

flap

little.

But

feet a

your

cold was there

after day. In all of those terrible

remember ever being able to stand around a fire warmth on me. Others may have, but I don't recall

don't

feel

would never be clean

lice

The

all

but

right,

your blood

the time.

that I ever did. Cold, filthy, exhausted. I

knew what

bone marrow and drain you of

—anything to

was hopeless.

I

would penetrate

It

worse when we stopped. You had to stomp your

your arms

fight.

had ever experienced. And

you could do about

When we were walking we were

strength.

I

could.

was the cold Otto found hardest to

in Idaho,

I

and itching

all

again.

the time.

At one point

I

thought

We were lousy too—covered in

It

wasn't really living:

It

was

just

existing.

homemade pies, there that kept Bob Otto from giving in. The first was his

Apart from the thought of his mother's

were two things

God. "There

is

no question

that

He helped me

through. Back in the

THE LAST ESCAPE

144

camp one of

the sergeants was a former pastor, and he organized

Bible studies and survive

The

my

attended regularly."

I

He

took his inspiration to

from the psalms. 91st was encouraging: It gave

my

refuge and

fortress ... in

me strength

Him

— "The Lord

will I trust. Surely

.

.

Thou

.

shalt not be afraid for the terror

by night, nor for the arrow that

flieth

by day

.

.

give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in

My faith was being put to the lost

it.

In fact

I

down

human

to

test

on

.

For he

thy ways."

all

that march, but I never

was strengthened. Some people

dirt

and degradation were

beings.

left

behind

dreamed about her

me. She had been

all

at

him going was

the thought of the

home.

the time. She was so very important to

my high-school sweetheart and the only girl my wife. We had only just got married when

I

ever wanted for

I

was called up, and she stayed behind working on the

dio station in our

hometown.

I

had been back

leave while I'd been stationed in the States,

good times

together.

and made plans

shall

allowed such terrible things to hap-

thing that kept

young wife he had

I

God

it

blame Him. The

didn't

The second

think

I

might question why pen, but

he

from the snare of the fowler and from the

shall deliver thee

noisome pestilence

once

is

in

remembered those

I

my

head for our

a

local ra-

few times on

and we'd had such

as I

marched along,

home and our

future. In

my mind I wasn't here in the middle of the rain and the cold, my feet aching, ill and hungry, I was in another land where I was

safe

and with

her.

You had

to live in kind of a

dreamworld

or else you would go crazy.

She was

his

beacon

in those dark days

and nights

—

just like the

beer with Buck in that bar in Chicago that was hovering in front of

George Guderley and luring him on.

THE DEADLY ROAD TO THE WEST

Room

Events were conspiring against Cec

Room

and

145

mate Jack Paul.

his

of a boot, and from then on walked with a per-

lost the heel

—

petual limp. Five miles of a cobblestone road flayed their feet

might

walk on

as well

bed of nails,

a

night they found a cellar to shelter fellow prisoners using

But

it

it

in,

couldn't hurt any more."

"I

One

only to be rudely awakened by

as a latrine.

things lifted their spirits.

little

4

A

generous farmer meant a

"Hot water in a tub and I have a shave, teeth! Three hot brews and a cup of pea

pleasant change one night.

wash and even clean

my

soup. Morale up by leaps and bounds." But food

becoming a constant worry. "If we

—the lack of —was it

Room confided his thoughts to his diary:

have to rely on our minute quantities of Red Cross food we'll

never see England again, I'm sure of

"We

said nothing. mistic.

Our one

But to

it."

didn't really talk about

his

We

it.

companions he

tried to

we were going

consolation was that

How many would

get there, however, was an increasing worry.

"Several blokes have disappeared from the column;

Where

the hell they are

moment, with the food

off at the

we

toll

situation as

own two

feet. It

It

off the

was

a

march

—

be tal]

and the Germans

was sickness that

on the marching men,

as

Room knew only

now

as if he

would have

too

ill

to

walk on

to be found a place

But fortunately the column halted, and

though a

Room

German

The

really sick

is

best

were taken

or carrying on with the hike. Anything could happen.

know

of."

The

bitterly

total

number of deaths

— cold weather

who

be half dead to

—going into dock [hospi-

taken out during the night with internal trouble and

The

on the Febru-

did not rate the chances of those

hospital. "You've got to

among them. I'm not sure which

that they passed on.

as

his

stayed in the same farmyard for a

chance to rest and recover.

were sent away to

it is, it

March began they

ary ended and

week.

looked

at the rear.

get smaller

But

too well because his friend Jack Paul was

wagon

we

don't know. Bit risky buzzing

are rather panicky with the trigger finger."

was taking the biggest

westwards, in

Next stop the Thames!"

the direction of home.

every day.

be opti-

is

Two men

we heard

now nine

"I've almost forgotten

later

that

we

what

it

THE LAST ESCAPE

146

to be

is

"We

warm"

—

left

worried about

Room in little it

doubt that many more would

inwardly, but

we

didn't talk about

it,

die.

because

morale had to be kept up."

On

the last day of February he struggled to scribble

thoughts, even though "hands too

throughout the

warmth

day,

damn

cold to write."

He

his

shivered

attempt to get some

his feet in a vain

into his frozen toes as he assessed the situation three weeks

after leaving

Gross Tychow. Things looked very bleak.

was appalling. More a

stamping

down

men were

sickening.

He

The weather

recorded the death of

prisoner from an infection, and declared the "lack of medical sup-

plies

now

serious."

But then the mood changed. Out of the blue on that gray truck arrived with American across country

from the

Red Cross

day, a

parcels, driven 100 miles

Baltic port of Liibeck.

There was one

parcel

each, and the joy of getting one, sifting through and then savoring

dampened only by

contents, was last

till

the thought that

it

would "have

knows when

the end of the march, and heaven

its

to

that will be."

The arrival of the parcels was more of a miracle than Room realized. The Red Cross was trying to track this column and the many others wending their way across Germany but its drivers had no real

—

—

idea of where precisely It

to

it

was.

— was Vic Clarke "dear old Vic" —who found them, according

Doug

Fry.

5

The

sergeant gave the

German

guards his word of

honor that he would not escape, found himself a bicycle from somewhere, and would ride out ahead of the column or off along the roads

and lanes

in the

surrounding countryside searching for the Red Cross

convoy or places where

it

had dumped

supplies.

Fry remembered

catching sight of Clarke "pottering about and going off and coming back." His foraging trips lifesaving forts.

—

as the

would become even more

vital

—even more

weeks went by But Clarke paid dearly for

his ef-

When others were sheltering and resting, he was always out and

about, working and worrying, accepting the burden of responsibility.

In helping to keep others alive he exhausted himself, and

long before he went

down with pneumonia,

it

was not

dysentery, and frostbite.

THE DEADLY ROAD TO THE WEST

WTien the march resumed unexpected

warm

relief:

On

after a

seven-day

halt,

brought an

it

the move, prisoners at least had the chance to

Cec Room, pressing on through driving snow, soon weak as a drowned rat," though the pace was so slow "even a

up. But

felt "as

snail

would pass

were

getting closer to the war.

above there was evidence that they

us." In the skies

They had been force-marched

cape being caught up on the eastern front.

Xow

was the problem. "Plenty of fighters and vapor

The

147

U.S.A.A.F. are very

much

in evidence.

ping. Lovely sound, but too near for

Xot civilians

surprisingly, air raids

the pants

swear

the western front

under

feet!

Hear the bombs drop-

my liking."

changed the attitude of the German

go past, apparently he hates us.

like fury

20,000

trails at

me

they passed. In one town "an old codger gives as I

to es-

I can't

do

a kick in

a thing, just

my breath." Encounters like this would happen

more and more. In another town an "old lady and gent of some 80 summers start knocking the boys about with their walking sticks. Can't hit back otherwise the guards will clobber us. Just have to take these swipes. Eventually, the guards call

them

off.

We

them

pitied

more than anything." But kindness had not disappeared altogether, though tended to come

less

from charity than from

Carruthers did cloak-and-dagger business with a

who

it

fear of the future.

now

Percy

German farmer

helped the prisoners, on a promise that he himself would be

when

protected

the British

Army

arrived

—which, he was assured by

6

the prisoners, was an inevitability. Sacks of peas, beans, carrots, potatoes, swedes,

and onions were quietly made

available,

behind the

backs of the guards.

Room a

continued to note even' place they passed through with

name, and

into

each

Karow

.

.

.

in his account, as

— other "Mecklow

Y\ alnshof ..."

just a village

name on

at \\ alnshof, for

no doubt on the march, they merged .

.

.

Jungershof

.

.

.

Alt

Schwerin

Most would have no meaning

a signpost

—but

a

few were

significant. It

example, that he slept with pigs in

seems, to the discomfort of the pigs.

.

.

.

—they were

a sty

was

— much,

it

THE LAST ESCAPE

148

We

had bedded down for the night, lying

in this lovely soft

straw in a barn, just the two of us for about half an hour, and

it

Then we heard a grunt and we saw three or four pigs in the sty with us. They took a poor view of us at first, but when they realized we weren't going to harm them they stayed at their end and we all fell fast asleep. The next morning we feasted on some of the rotten potatoes the seemed

like

such luxury.

pigs.

We

were desperate.

skinned them until just the good

bits

were

farmer had put out for the

good

a

make

a

And

day.

damn

The town

bit

we were among

the fact that

town,

of Gallin

—another name, another place—stood out

had

just arrived,

cer in his Luftwaffe uniform leave

a

The march was winding

a train

and

— to

tears

all

clearly just

his wife.

As they threw themselves

Room was consumed

home

—and he could only

still

feel the

desperate childlike

emo-

and thoughts that overwhelmed him then. "You think about a lot: just to

be back home, safe in a bed, in a real bed.

blanket wrapped round parcel, I

"It made own homecom-

with jealousy.

that "in about three weeks' time, we'll be doing that."

Fifty years later, he could

tions

German officome home on

eyes turned to a

and smiles and hugs and happiness

hope and pray

home and

past the railway station of this

who had

and was being greeted by

into each other's arms,

deep longing for

us think of home." His thoughts raced ahead to his

ing

pigs didn't

of difference.

because an incident there brought loved ones.

and then

A good night's sleep and some food — that made

cooked them. it

left,

We

me which my mother

and that blanket was

was determined

to bring

it

had sent

my link with home. back, and

His mother was often there in

his

It

mind on

had

a

in a clothing

was pretty

I did. I've still

I

got

it

the journey.

special,

upstairs."

On more

than one occasion, forced to do something against his correct upbringing, he thought of her, "Picked up a dirty old piece of bread this

morning, weeks ing. If

my

old,

but

I

scraped

it

poor mother could see

and chewed

me

it.

Better than noth-

now." But he should have

heeded her words, because he then went down with dysentery.

THE DEADLY ROAD TO THE WEST

Guderley had they had

made

149

not found Buck, nor heard any word of him since

still

—an— and he sought out the "hospital," an area in

their plans

back in the camp.

He too was now ill

other case of dysentery a barn,

which Dr. Caplan had commandeered. Caplan was

a

tower-

ing figure for the American marchers, just as Dr. Robert Pollack was

Caplan was

for the British contingent. vival,

though he took it hard

suffer,

a

grow weak, and

as

die for

a source

he watched

his

of strength and sur-

comrades, his patients,

no good reason. After the war he gave

medical man's account of the march to war-crimes investigators:

Hundreds of men

suffered

from malnutrition, exposure,

trench foot, exhaustion, dysentery, tuberculosis, and other diseases.

So

little

water was issued to us that

snow from the ground or from latrines.

Men

their feet.

drank water or

collapsed from hunger, fear, malnutrition, ex-

haustion, or disease.

on

men

ditches that others had used as

Mud

Many marched along with large abscesses

and cold brought

grene and amputation.

I

and even gan-

frostbite

personally slept beside

men

suffering

from Erysipelas, Diphtheria, Pneumonia, Malaria and other diseases.

Dysentery was so

common and so severe that wherever

our column went, there was a

trail

of bloody movements and

discarded underwear (which was sorely needed for warmth).

He

and other volunteers marched

and when they saw

ing labored, his legs giving

encouragement.

If

he

fell

with the stragglers,

at the rear

a prisoner in trouble

7

—slowing down,

his breath-

—they would walk with him, giving

way

totally behind,

then a medic would stay

with him, in the hope that his Red Cross armband would offer some protection against whatever the

could not keep up. "In that

way

Germans had

in

mind

the straggler was

for those

much

who

less likely to

be bullied by the guards," Caplan recalled, "but sometimes

it

didn't

work, and both medics and stragglers were gun-butted."

A substantial "slow party" established itself at the back of the colat its own pace. A few farm wagons were comman-

umn, proceeding

THE LAST ESCAPE

150

deered to carry the

and, "uncomfortable and cold as those

sick,

wagons were, there was

long line of

a

room

every morning. There was

means of power

—no

men

waiting to get on them

for only the sickest."

or even horses

cars, trucks,

With no other

—the volunteers

themselves pushed and pulled the carts along the rutted roads and

snowy

tracks in Diirer-like scenes of

come from

that could have

barbaric European wars of 500 years ago.

Caplan had so

equipment and so few medicines that he was

little

reduced to the level of tients.

human misery

a

medieval surgeon in dealing with his pa-

Before listening to a man's chest for signs of pneumonia

he would

first

have to scrape off the

before putting his bare ear

from

lice

his patient's

—he had no stethoscope—to the

he had to lance the hundreds of abscesses he treated was

body

skin. All a razor

blade.

For medicines, we had some Red Cross a small salves.

supply of bandage, tape, aspirin,

For hot water

we made

cases,

parcels,

bottles,

we heated

bricks.

charcoal and let the patients

low the powder.

I

had

a small

lice

which gave us powder, and

For dysentery

chew

supply of sulphur

it

and swal-

pills

which

were doled out only to the most serious cases of pneumonia.

And not even

then,

it

would seem. One prisoner who came down

with an infection in his lungs and was so delirious with fever that he

thought the snow was purple said small piece of cheese.

Often talk."

all

tell

is

the toughest device ever built, for

it is

and wonderfully made. You fellows are young. You

are far stronger than

you

realize.

amount of punishment and make good as ever. Hundreds of men it,

him was

these suffering men:

The human body

done

the doctor could give

a

Caplan had to offer the sick was what he called "a pep

He would

fearfully

all

8

and you

will

do

it

too.

You can a

take an unbelievable

snappy comeback and be

in this

as

column have already

— THE DEADLY ROAD TO THE WEST Caplan was

right:

Each man on

that

march had

151

to find his

own med-

icine within himself or die.

The

lucky ones had friends to pull them through, as Guderley

was about to discover. In the makeshift

slumped figure he barely recognized ized

it

was

he stumbled on

hospital,

at first.

To

he

his horror,

a

real-

Little Buck.

He was

terribly

weak and

he had given up.

in distress;

condition that a lot of guys succumbed

to.

It

was

They would

a

just

stop bothering, and even refuse to be helped. "Don't do any-

—"I'm OK." But they weren't.

thing for me," they would say

They were wasting hell are

away, dying.

you doing lying

there,

yelled at him,

I

"What

you son of a bitch?"

It

the

was no

time to be nice.

He needed a kick in the ass — something to get

him

to

me

pissed

and I

off,

said,

make him

fight back.

But he

was utterly

distressed.

He

was

as

good

never going to get home, so I'm just going to die.

just

looked

"I'm in bad shape. I'm not going to make

Being dead

better than this."

is

I

as saying, lie

told myself

friend back at it

home, and

since he wasn't

I

I

I

had to do

my best

around to look

was up to me. Then, looking round,

"I'm

here until

something for him. His older brother, Big Buck, was

him

at

it."

after

saw some big cans

of fresh cow's milk sitting on the ground in the courtyard.

There were two 5 -gallon cans of cream and one 10-gallon can of milk, waiting for one of the Polish slave laborers to load

them onto Here was

a

wagon and

take

them

into the creamery in town.

a potential lifesaver. "If only I

could get some of that

for Buck," I thought.

Guderley formed to

make himself look

a plan. like

someone who was

spruced himself up as best he could

someone important

fully entitled to

milk and just take one. milk was just

He

as if I

Then

I

walk up to those cans of

swaggered back to where the

was acting under orders, or maybe even

THE LAST ESCAPE

152

Then I reached out and grabbed the handle of a can of cream, and when nobody shouted at me to stop I walked out with it. The guards stared at me, but they did nothing. They must have thought I had permission. giving the orders.

Guderley hurried over to the sickbay and handed the can to Dr. Caplan. "See what you can do with first

swig goes to him"

Buck put the can

down

bled

ple of pints inside

that

it

that as

such

a

and

him

good

tasted pretty

—and he pointed

to his lips

his face

he

this,"

at

said, "just as

long

as the

Buck.

and gulped, and the cream drib-

his chin,

but he managed to get a cou-

—maybe more. Then

—best thing

I'd

was passed round the other

had for

it

a

was

my turn.

It

long time. After

was concerned

patients. I

hadn't had anything as rich and as fatty as that for

I

long time

If I died, I

I

would

might be pretty sick. But

I

couldn't care

less.

die happy.

The cream had barely been consumed and the can hidden under straw when the guards came looking for it. Guderley was immediately suspected

and accused.

They were shouting and

me

yelling,

and

they were going to shoot me.

I

I

was scared. They told

denied

wasn't me: that they must be mistaking oner, that it.

I

we

all

looked

was standing

there,

alike.

me

it

—told them

it

for another pris-

But they weren't having any of

and they were

all

around me, holler-

ing that

I

had stolen the property of the Third Reich and that

was

a

crime for which

this

I

I

would be

shot.

stood in that barnyard in the cold, waiting to

would

leave

me

then come back and shout threaten to put

thought that

me up

I'd finally

were going to

die.

They

for a while standing at attention there,

kill

at

me

and

and wave their guns and

against the wall.

gone and done

it.

Was I

I

scared?

I just

was resigned. They

me, and there was nothing

I

could do about

THE DEADLY ROAD TO THE WEST

it.

suppose we had lived with the possibility of dying for so

I

long

—

was always something that might happen to you

it

prisoner.

wasn't being brave or noble, but

I

myself that

telling

The one

Buck.

I

was glad

thing

I

me down as

could put

I

as a

do remember

I

had stolen the cream

if it

helped

wasn't going to do was try and run, be-

cause then they would

feel justified in

shooting me.

They

"shot while escaping." which was one of

their favorite expressions I

153

— one they liked

just stood there and waited

them

to taunt us with.

So

out. I'd seen scenes like this

before, back in the camp, and there was always a lot of fuss and

shouting before everyone calmed down. .And

what happened. gone away

went

for so long that

to sleep.

The ter.

He

I

And

that

next morning

life,

cream

it.

There wasn't

that.

think

I

it

just

to see Buck,

that

if

me

I

and he seemed bet-

he would have died. I'm not sure

much

that

did was give

him

sustenance in the cream. his will back.

On

terrible conditions, a little thing could

And, anyway,

and

he hadn't had that cream he

stomach gave him hope.

in his

my barn

sneaked back to

all

that.

went

I

would never have made about

I

was

said I'd saved his

But what

that's precisely

out-waited them, and eventually they had

Feeling that

that march, in those

make

a

huge

had accepted responsibility for Buck.

to be like his older brother.

He

was so

sick

difference. It

was up

to

he could hardly

my

job to make sure he was going to make it we had promised each other at Hank's. At that point we were near a town called Xeubrandenburg, and there was a prisoner-of-war camp there. Our medics

stand, but

home

it

was

for that beer

got permission to take our sick there, but only

a

few of them.

The camp was already overcrowded, and they would only take those who were so ill they would die if they were moved any more.

We left Buck there.

camp, and

Cec

I

Room

didn't

also

Jack Paul had not

know

I

if I

watched

had to leave fully

as

would ever

his

he was taken off to the see

him

again.

buddy behind. Despite

his rest,

recovered and once more was too

ill

to

THE LAST ESCAPE

154

march. lost

He was

left

with the stragglers.

ing to get you through."

Room also became sick,

soiled his trousers so badly

the floor

devastated. "I felt

We were mates, and it was your mate who was go-

without him.

ney continued,

Room was

a place

wrapped only

and

he

in his illness

he had to throw them away. As the jour-

was found for him

in a

in a blanket, "cold

and miserable, in

wagon and he

on

lay

a

heavy

rainstorm, blankets soaked as usual." In three days he had eaten one

spoonful of tinned salmon and evacuated his bowels seventy times. After

all

his exertions,

Vic Clarke was also too

ill

to continue,

and

Percy Carruthers, whose responsibilities had been growing throughout

—

the march, assumed leadership of half the British contingent

German and had shown

because he spoke

himself to have a knack for

nosing out the best places to sleep and the best supplies of food. "a serious talk" with the

umn, explaining

German officer in

that they

would

all

largely

He had

charge of his part of the col-

waste a lot

less

time

if

he was

al-

lowed to go out ahead of the column on what had been Vic Clarke's bicycle

and make advance arrangements with farmers on where they

The German saw the sense in this and, "from then on it was not an uncommon sight to see me pedalling along, sitting on the crossbar, with a German guard seated on the saddle with his rifle over could be billeted.

his shoulder. Christ,

weight

I

had

lost

it

was hard work sometimes. Those three stones

in

would have helped tremendously."

Carruthers would pick somewhere to stay for the night, and then discuss food all

and hot-water supplies with the farmers.

accounts, be very persuasive.

up water then and rived."

He would

there, so that

He would it

them

ask

would be ready "when the boys

He ate a little

a

ar-

else.

Meanwhile, winter was turning to spring, and

Room

could, by

then cycle back to the column and complete the

walk along with everyone gave Cec

He

to start boiling

lift.

He began to

a

burst of sunshine

shake off the effects of dysentery.

— "a few small spuds and

a

handful of old carrots"

—but

preferred to live with his hunger rather than have the illness return.

Main

trouble

easily

and

I

is

Can count the old ribs quite suppose I'm more than 6 A stones. [He had

weakness, now.

don't

l

THE DEADLY ROAD TO THE WEST lost 2 stones in just state.

a

No Red

over a month.]

cannot continue to

We

boys here are in

a

are told

we

a

Camp

Lead-

have been in touch with the Red Cross Distribution Cen-

tre at Liibeck.

Need

won't feed

Up

us.

days, covered

and

2Yi

think.

Germans can't or we have been on the road for 37

for parcels

to date,

is vital,

and

the

288 miles and our food supplies have been

2

meat (from the Germans)

food parcels from the Red Cross. Speaks for

itself I

9

At night he dreamed of fish and chips chips. I'd

quid." But

—"never-ending

pay 20 quid for some right now,

was another wish that came

it

true:

mates. "It was wonderful to be together again, but

demonstrative about

if I

plates of

only had 20

He met up

Jack Paul again. Paul had recovered, and rejoined

again'

high rate of

are to proceed to Ludwigslust, 20

loaves, 4/5 lb. margarine, 2/11 lb.

fish

grim

cup of watery soup. They

march much longer without

miles away, and then transport will be provided. ers

a

Cross food, hardly any bread, and our food for

day consists of a few spuds and

sickness.

The

155

all

we

his old hut-

weren't over-

'Hello, Jack.' 'Hello, Fred.' 'Nice to see

it.

—that sort of thing." Room disguised

—

away from

me

—was "There's no way that I'm

again.

letting

you

Behind

his true feelings.

the polite, handshaking reserve, what he was really thinking

admitted years later

with

as

him

he get

No bloody fear."

man who made the horrific journey from Gross Tychow had a moment when he stared into the face of utter despair. For Joe O'Donnell it came on March 12 Day 35

It is safe to

say that every

—

when

I

ter. I

had

my reflection in a dirty, ice-encrusted pool of wanot seen my face since we set out. I was a harried,

saw

starved, unshaven,

and unbathed skeleton, that once walked

with pride and dignity and self, as

companions.

I

now walked with

animals, like

urinate and defecate in the

my-

woods and

THE LAST ESCAPE

156

the streets of towns like a dog. As

why I was

questioned

own

In his

reflection he

dignities that only

had noticed

here.

his

man

stared into that icy pool,

I

"Why me?"

saw

I

asked.

the horrors of war and "the in-

all

can force upon another man." For weeks he

companions deteriorate into the

now

eyed creatures" they

I

10

"thin, pale, wild-

mind had fooled him into him too. It was a shock to see

were, but his

thinking that this was not happening to

himself as he really was, and to realize he was the same as they were.

Around me were 2,000 mirrors. They were my own reflection. I no longer needed that icy pool to see my degradation. This was

my

day of reckoning.

with dysentery, and

I sat

down

It

was raining.

beside the road.

I

was

sick

We'd heard

rumors that the Gestapo were behind the columns and any stragglers

would simply be

thing like 120.

I

shot. I'd

was ready to give

gone from 160 in.

lb.

to

But two guys got

some-

me

to

out of my wet clothes, made a bunk out of made some hot coffee. One of them was a gunner from my plane and we'd been shot down together, but I the barn, got

me

straw and they

was so

gone that

far

Next morning pened

—

guys ...

I

I

I

wouldn't have

was back on

I still

didn't recognize him.

my

feet.

if it

wasn't for those two

think about that day 5 5 years

thousands of others endured on the march. bastards.

"little

just collapsed.

known anything had hap-

But

O'Donnell meticulously recorded the were

I

Once on our

later.

indignities he

The

bodies,

lice,

and the

for example,

they always sought

greener pastures, traveling from our necks to our waist or vice versa,

and we would continually pinch and squeeze to interrupt their travels.

We

always lost the battle and conceded that

thousand

you

will

come to its funeral. At They were much more than

sleeping."

stant itch to be scratched: they

Back

in the

camp

if

you

night their crawling

were

kill

one, a

would stop

just a nuisance, a

also a time

bomb

con-

of disease.

Dr. Caplan had given regular lectures on what he

THE DEADLY ROAD TO THE WEST

157

described as "that close, but treacherous companion of mankind,

which has devastated armies, which

bomb, and which has tients, carried

typhus

killed millions." fever.

—and

11

Lice, he

an atomic

reminded

his pa-

But the hygiene he had pressed on the

on the march. O'Donnell remem-

prisoners was not possible out

bered trying

carries a wallop like

—to

clean himself up. "I

failing

went out

to a

my face and was shaving away with the razor but nothing came off. The water had frozen on my beard and I pump, put some water on was

just scraping

away

at ice."

Then there were the routines for coping with the most basic of human needs, normally so elementary and easy, but in the conditions of the march turned into torments of indignity. O'Donnell recalled

weather so bitter that

it

was impossible to urinate without help.

could unbutton and get the old flies

good At

like ice.

had to get down on

his knees

first it

a

and put you back together.

was pretty humiliating but in the end

meant we were ties.

Another guy, hopefully

because your fingers were friend,

"We

but you couldn't button the

fella out,

it

didn't matter if

it

more indignitrench would be dug by an

surviving." Defecation involved even

At an overnight stay on

a

farm

a slit

advance party, or they would use the trench abandoned by prisoners ahead of them in the

a

group of

column who had been there the night

before.

On one occasion the previous occupants of the barnyard toilet covered the trench with straw instead of with earth.

One

There he was, dripping with for us but

it

refilling the

trench

of our guys stepped into the trench, hip deep. crap. It

wasn't funny for him.

He

was

like a

comedy show

stripped off every stitch

of clothing and, after breaking the ice on the water trough, rinsed his clothes while he bathed in freezing water. ered, but I

If a

doubt

if

the procedure was complex. strictly

He recov-

he ever forgot.

man wanted to go outside

match was

we

It

during the night to relieve himself,

would be pitch

forbidden because of the

black,

fire risk.

and lighting

a

A signaling sys-

THE LAST ESCAPE

158

tern

to

was used, and the person concerned would be passed from man

man, following the

of his friends in the darkness, "Hey, Red,"

calls

"Over here, Joe," and so on. Outside, the biggest difficulty was to avoid stepping in another man's mess and then trailing it back into the barn.

O'Donnell admitted that he was "not above eating anything.

wonder how many German farmers pets after ers did

—

what happened

realized

I

to their

we left their farms. I would have eaten a dog or a cat." Othamong them T. D. Cooke, who shared a dog with two Rus-

sian prisoners of war.

I

told

them

They went I

hacked

if

they killed

it,

off and

came back

five

that

it

up and we

though we barely got But we threw time

we

ate

in

uncooked

good they were.

it

some

partially

much

we

as

would skin and butcher minutes

cooked

rats

was

it

later

it

warm because we

carrots and

it.

with the dog.

in an old boiler,

only had a

little fire.

a real treat.

Another

—raw—and you'd be surprised how

12

And, when there was nothing as

I

else,

Cooke

ate grass

—

"just as fast

and

could."

O'Donnell did the same:

We

stopped by

pulled soft

them

and sweet,

the small the

a rye field

and

little

shoots were coming up.

out, scraped off the dirt, like the cattails that

and

ate

grew

them.

in the

I

They were

swamps near

town where I was born. But those days of starving on

march

still

affect

me.

I

got used to making do with

less

and

my stomach. I can't eat like other people even now. My wife gives me hell every night because she'll cook two potatoes less in

and I'm

fall after just a half.

For O'Donnell, Day 35 had been friends he

had survived.

his worst.

With

the help of his

— THE DEADLY ROAD TO THE WEST

my

But, after that,

my

emotions and

159

would

feelings

still

from one extreme to another. One minute you wanted up, the next

you

told yourself that

direction, the Allies

some point

that

a

us.

But other days had touches of that

we heard

a

report that

earlier depression

some guys had both

because of gangrene, related to frostbite. morale."

We knew it had to end

thing as defeat.

— and we had the arrogance of young Americans

no one could beat

"the day

in the right

were advancing toward us and we could

not contemplate such at

we were going

go

to give

It

was

about them

amputated

legs

a bitter

blow

to our

13

John Anderson narrowly escaped a similar fate. His feet had given him trouble from the very start of the march, and they were

now beyond feet

help.

The problem was

frostbite. Strangely,

remained frozen they didn't hurt. But,

and the spring thaw began, so

his flesh

and "Dr. Caplan told

but he only had it.

I

a

me

razor blade.

I

to burn.

his toes

Any

hint of

were turning

know how he would have done

suppose they would have had to put

terrifying thought."

while his

weather improved

was considering amputation,

that he

don't

began

Xow

heat on his feet and he was in agony. black,

as the

me

out somehow.

It

was

a

14

Eventually Anderson was

left

with

a

dozen others

in a

barn with

them while the column moved on. The Germans came, picked them up, and put them on a train. Anderson pressed his feet against the cold glass of the window to refreeze them a

medic

to look after

and ease the pain enough for him to to grit his teeth

and

let his feet

fall

warm up

asleep.

But

again, despite the

caused him. And, in the end, he was lucky. "I didn't lose the doctor suggested.

thaw out and

I just

and even today,

I

The weather warmed up enough

just

had

agony

this

he

finally

my feet like for

them

to

could not stop the process. But ever since then,

never cover

my

feet at night. I prefer

them

to be

cold."

His conscience

still

troubled him, however.

acted with supreme decency to

him and he

On

the march,

men

felt spiritually uplifted

by

THE LAST ESCAPE

160

those times as

when he had been helped

nothing short of "miracles." But he found

with the selfishness he also witnessed as

food or

a place in the

He

to survive.

this

men

described

fought for scraps of

warmth. "Some days we were

animals, complaining and fighting each other."

by the cruelty of men who had

them

hard to reconcile

just a

He

bunch of

was bewildered

humanity, and he tried to

lost all their

block those memories out of his mind, "because they were the low point in

my entire

life."

By now, with March nearing this

its

end, streams of

men

pouring across

northern edge of Europe were beginning to flow together. Cec

Room

spotted another group of prisoners taking

of the road. Familiar faces smiled in recognition. tingent of

easy by the side

it

They were

army boys who months before had stopped

for a while en route

stant camaraderie

from

we

call

filled

out the good old

the

air.

"We

IV

in Piccadilly

on

a

brought thoughts of home. That night

dreaming wild dreams of freedom.

yell at

Army cry 'Are we down-

roar back emphatically, 'No!' You'd think

meeting each other

con-

camp near Danzig. The excitement of in-

— Englishmen abroad —

one another and they hearted?' and

a

a

off at Luft

night out!"

Room

My God,

And

we were

that again

"couldn't sleep at

what

I

all,

won't do when

that day dawns."

There was was

in sight.

march

new

air

about the marchers now,

a sense that

an end

sense of discipline returned too, and they began to

in step again, just as they

Tychow. out;

a

A

A new lightness

had

in the first

few days out of Gross

crept back into Room's diary.

The

sun was

snowdrops were blooming; suddenly things were "wizard"

again.

The

guards were being generous with bread and margarine.

Another Red Cross parcel was

Room and Jack Paul dined powdered milk. "We cross the River

issued,

on bread and jam, prunes, and

and

Elbe. Rhine next stop, boys, then dear old Father really

hot by

now and

were marching

in

I'm perspiring

deep snow and

mosquitoes." Even

so, the effects

ice

like

and

Thames. Sun

mad. Seven weeks ago we

now

we're being bitten by

of long-term exhaustion and lack

THE DEADLY ROAD TO THE WEST of food were not shrugged off so a

triumph of mind over

been on February

A

The spring in their steps was man was a shell of what he had

easily.

Every

the day they had set out.

was waiting for them

train

cheered.

6,

flesh.

161

at a

town

Never had men been so anxious

raced to the cattle cars

called Ebstorf.

to be locked inside.

—once symbols of degradation—eager

form of transport that was not

their

own

battered feet.

They They

for

They

any

didn't

mind where they were going, as long as it wasn't under their own steam. Memories of earlier train journeys seemed miraculously wiped from

their minds.

cided to blow

from them

all

at the

their

Crammed

into the railroad cars, they de-

remaining food rather than have

camp they were being taken

jam were hauled out of packs and Red Cross dived in I

— except Room. "This

have been longing for

With else

a

is

the

Spam, cheese, and

parcels,

All too

German

ror of a

and everyone

tragic

the dysentery back, he spent a horrible night

on board.

—

as did

Room

everyone

soon they were back in the claustrophobic hor-

prison train they

knew

so well

from the journey to

Gross Tychow. "Everyone swears he prefers marching to earth,"

snatched

moment of my life. weeks and now I am sick."

most

blow-out for

to.

it

this hell

on

declared.

To make matters worse, the train stood in a siding all night, with them locked inside, packed eighty to a car. The smell and the distress rose in equal measures.

Next morning, when the short

—

just

over two hours.

train set off, the journey

They

was mercifully

arrived at Fallingbostel in north-

west Germany, halfway between the

cities

of Hamburg and Hanover,

and the gates of Stalag XIB were waiting for them to walk through. Joe O'Donnell was glad to get to Fallingbostel, and "as we approached the

camp I remember

was

a strange situation

the familiar smell of burning

wood and

coal. It

—

the ones inside want to get out and the ones on the outside wanting to get in." But hell was about to take on a new

form:

We

didn't

got inside.

know what the conditions were really like until we Then we realized we were in a huge international

THE LAST ESCAPE

162

camp housing

prisoner of war

tens of thousands of people.

And there were more to come. We were put in a big circus tent with straw on the ground, animals again. Relief turned to despair.

We

had marched

place and be

In

fact,

no

we were

those miles just to end up in this

all

when we were out on

better off than in a

worse condition

—

little

the road.

food and only the

ground to sleep on. Two months of marching had been

for

And we felt as if we were nothing too. We were back where we started. I was desperate. For me it was Day 35 all nothing.

over again, but worse.

As Percy Carruthers and

his

companions entered the camp, they

A funeral party was lining up. The

had an inkling of what was ahead. coffins

were

A few

laid out,

days later

and they counted no fewer than it

fifteen of them.

was Easter Sunday, and John Anderson

cele-

brated the resurrection of Christ with special prayers. "I was lucky to

be

alive. I

was thankful

His wish would not be granted.

and diseased prisoners of war ing to

make themselves

been distraught

if

they

Wish I were home. Soon, I hope."

to be alive.

The

bedraggled lines of exhausted

struggling into the

still

camp and

try-

home in worsening conditions would have had known that freedom was still many hard at

weeks away and their ordeal was

far

from

over.

To those who made it, that horrendous journey from Gross Tychow to Fallingbostel would always stand out in their memories as "the death march." How many failed to reach the end is unclear. Many men disappeared along the way, but the German guards had given up counting almost from the moment they left Luft IV. Conditions

were simply too chaotic along the way, and by the time they

arrived at Fallingbostel

however. Cec

nobody

cared.

Some

deaths were logged,

Room tried to keep a tally of those he knew about,

and

reached double figures from just those in the British contingent

around him. After the war* the British doctor on the march, Captain Robert Pollack a

hero

lives in

among

—who,

like the

American Dr. Leslie Caplan, became

the prisoners for his tireless

those terrible conditions

15

work

to save limbs and

—told Room that

as

many

as

150

THE DEADLY ROAD TO THE WEST

men might have

died on the march.

Room

verification of this,

"We

felt

Though

there

went up and down

He would come

no independent

is

the doctor was in a position to know.

tended to keep the same place on the march the line

163

the way, but he

all

and he knew the whereabouts of people.

along and say so-and-so had died

last night. I

don't

the end of

remember it happening in the first two weeks, but towards the march it was pretty regular."

Dr. Caplan also recorded the deaths of at least ten Americans,

but there must have been

move up and down

many more. While

column giving

the

deliberately positioned himself at his

medical work there.

up the meandering

line

could he ever

know what happened

to

it

The

Nor

who were

the sick and lame

German

We know

hospitals.

—John Anderson, for example—because

they were reunited with their comrades did not return?

about casu-

of suffering humanity.

all

taken off supposedly to be treated at

who

where he could, Caplan

aid

He may simply not have known

who made

was to

the rear with the stragglers and did

alties farther

about the ones

Pollack's policy

simple fact

is

later.

that

Whatever the number of deaths, the

But what about those

no one knows.

vast majority of

them were

undoubtedly the result of sickness, exhaustion, and cold. But there a persistent belief that

some prisoners were

also killed

Bomb

Clarence Brower, from the American 96th

bered that after selves in the

that as

I

night in a barn

a

some

hay to escape the march.

hope never

to see again.

POWs

It

This

was

butchered. if you fell

I will

fall

tried to hide

them-

[The guards]

set the as

barn on

fire,

and

they came out of the

never, never forget." 16

common belief that those who fell behind were One POW, John Lensburg, wrote that "During the walk,

also a

behind, the guards prodded you with their

with the main column. If you

fell

behind with you. About

would

by the guards.

Group, remem-

He then witnessed "something

some of the men ran out they were shot

flames.

is

rejoin the

rifles

behind consistently,

five

or ten minutes

column without the POW."

17

On

a

to keep

guard would

later,

the guard

the other hand,

Sergeant Frank Paules, the leader of the Americans, wrote

Germans "allowed me

to

fall

back to the

rear.

up

how

the

We had to look out for

THE LAST ESCAPE

164

the casualties and protect the guys in the back from getting batted on the head by the guards

if

they were too slow." 18 His words certainly

suggest harassment by the Germans, but not slaughter.

It

could be

argued that the guards would not want to commit any act of murder in his presence, of

he was:

people, but the important fact

all

at the rear, the

is

where he

says

very place where others allege the killings

were taking place. Dr. Caplan, who was

also traveling at the rear with

the wounded, gave evidence that stragglers were sometimes "gunbutted," but he gave

no examples of men being

shot.

Although there are archive accounts of prisoners being

none of our interviewees who were on

chow had

this

killed,

march from Gross Ty-

happen or knew the name of anyone who

actually seen this

—and remains— powerful bethat POWs were murdered. Joe O'Donnell —who heard the ports that stragglers were shot but could not verify — made the

had died in

this way.

But

it

remained

a

re-

lief

it

common-sense point ately

around them.

If you

were up

that people only ever

saw what was immedi-

depended on where you were

"It

at the front

in the

column.

you wouldn't hear what was happening

at

the rear, and vice-versa."

Whatever the mortality

statistics,

there can be

what happened over those 500 miles amounted not

least

because

should have been sians.

Out on

it

where they were, to be liberated by the Rus-

left

marched much harder and

allowed by the Geneva Convention. rible sickness,

and sometimes died,

summed

"We marched

starvation rations.

No

result of that ordeal."

And

The

farther than

all

unnecessarily.

As Dr. Caplan

long distances in bitter weather and on

doubt many

men

are

still

suffering today as a

19

column had reached

"death march" would resume, and the hardship

and the dangers would increase

as the prisoners

the road again. Their battered feet to the battle zones

them were

Men froze, starved, suffered ter-

the ordeal was not over once the

Fallingbostel.

to an atrocity of war,

the road, arrangements to feed and shelter

up,

doubt that

was largely avoidable. The prisoners could and

nonexistent, and they were

it

little

where

Hitler's

were forced out on

would take them

army was

closer and closer

fighting to a standstill

THE DEADLY ROAD TO THE WEST and where

a

man

ily to a bullet

a friend as to

one from

life just as

eas-

a foe.

jump ahead of ourselves. We will pick up the story men from Gross Tychow later. Meanwhile it is vital to re-

But that of the

caught in the middle could lose his

from

165

member

is

to

that their journey

was

just

one out of hundreds of similar

made by British and American prisoners of war at this time, as the east of Germany was evacuated ahead of the Russians. And keeping track of them was proving an impossible task.

journeys

The

7:

Streams many

Rivers of

Humanity

of people were winding through the wreckage of Ger-

in those final

months of the

laborers, concentration-camp inmates,

German

war.

and prisoners of war of every

nationality flowed westward in the cold and the

where they could, Life was cheap. colossal traffic single

living off the land

One

remembered

other option, a perilous one:

left

of it by now.

getting stuck in a

fleeing soldiers trying to cross the

remaining bridge over the Vistula.

their turn in the freezing cold for

damp, bedding down

—or what was

British prisoner

jam of refugees and

refugees, slave

They

all

stood waiting

two hours before taking the only

They walked

over the frozen

river.

"We

heard later that the ice had given way and 70 wagons containing

German

refugees had gone through with heavy loss of

hard-pressed International

Red Cross found

it

life."

1

The

almost impossible to

keep track of the millions on the road and then try to feed them.

seemed their

was on the move, hurrying away from

that half the world

homes

It

in fear for their lives, or hurrying

had not seen for years. Central Europe was

toward homes they

a seething

mass of the

dispossessed.

More

than half a century

later, it

stretches the imagination to the

limit to take in the full extent of the evacuations. It

to grasp at the time.

Some

Allied prisoners of

was even harder

war had been on the

road for several weeks before a startled world had even begun to catch on to what was happening. All plans for bringing

had started with the assumption

them home

—then followed by the instruction

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY

would

that they

stay

where they were and wait

167

for their liberators to

come to them. But the kaleidoscope of men and camps had now been turned, and a

new picture was emerging. However,

accurate and up-

to-date information to bring that picture into focus was

now

almost

impossible to obtain. Mail to and from the far-flung camps in Poland

and eastern Germany,

had ceased with

erratic at the best of times,

That meant no more coded messages between camp

the evacuations.

leaders and Military Intelligence in ried on many of the marches —

London.

A secret radio was car-

column from Gross Tychow

in the

was smuggled in the pack of a different prisoner every

— and was listened to clandestinely

security

at

war and the Allied advance on the Rhine. But communication.

The

prisoners

—

day, for

it

added

night for news of the

was only one-way

this

could see beyond the tunnel

if they

of their present woes as they slipped and stumbled through ice and

snow and

starvation

—could keep abreast of events

or at least their leaders could. But when

it

came

to

in a

wider world,

making

that world

aware of their position or their plight, they were out of touch, isolated, all

One

but abandoned. of the

first

to grasp the scale of the

problem facing the hun-

POWs

dreds of thousands of British and American light in the

Vyse.

He

Red Cross in Britain, Major General

told a colleague in a

memo, "We

Sir

was

a leading

Richard Howard-

are about to witness a

complete breakdown of transportation in Germany," and that

him deeply concerned about how food oners.

2

Their

parcels

on the move from the

now

Nor was

the prospect of starvation," he wrote. east.

they are faced with

the problem confined

Consideration also had to be

given to prisoners "in camps which are not likely to be

whose position

is

known

moved and

To such camps an effort should He knew there could be no guaran-

accurately.

be made to get supplies by tee that air drops

air."

would get through

"no one can say that they

to the right people, but equally

will not reach

them."

He

suggested para-

chuting in 1,000 tons of food, in the hope that at least half of

100,000 parcels

left

to the pris-

been lowered by half rations since Sep-

"vitality has

tember and by exceptionally cold weather; to those

would get

—would get to those who needed

it.

it

"This would

^2.

THE MAIN

L

POW

EVACUATION ROUTES

Stalag XIB & 357 FALLINGBOSTEL

BERLIN

Stalag XIA

^«

<

jP

ALTENGRABOW HANOVER

•

•

A

WERDER

(

Stalag IIIA

a

Aluckenwald

Oflag 79

Rl'NSWICK

/

GERMANY Oflag S IVC

COLDITZ

Oflag ig XI IB HA D M A R

•

FRANKFURT AM MAIN

Oflag XIII

'

HAMMELBLRG HEPPENHE M I

Stalag XIIID

V \

DRESDEN

THE LAST ESCAPE

170

keep 100,000

men

alive for a

month, to say nothing of the

effect

on

morale."

The

retired general strongly

to the government.

"There

is

urged

no time

his colleague to

put

this

plan

Whatever the decision

to lose.

may be, we shall then have placed ourselves in a position to say that we have left no stone unturned. I might add that this particular stone has already attracted the notice of many relations of prisoners of war."

London reInternational Red Cross

Shortly afterward, on February 28, Washington and ceived details from Switzerland of what the

believed was the present position of Allied prisoners of war in Ger-

many.

The

come from Robert Schirmer,

information had

nization's delegate in northern

been

in

Germany

It

the orga-

appeared that he had

just

Pomerania and had seen some of the marchers on the road

possibly the

column from Gross Tychow, which was then well

west of Swinemunde, though traveling quite slowly. rived at an overview of the talking to other

Red Cross

He

had

to the

also ar-

whole prisoner-of-war situation

representatives in Berlin

after

who had knowl-

edge of other parts of Germany.

According to Schirmer, there were three main groups of prisoners of

war on the move:

march, and

a

a

northern line of march,

southern line of march.

3

On

a central line

the northern route

of

—that

corridor close to the Baltic coast through which, as we have seen, the marchers from Gross Tychow were traveling there were said to be

—

up

to 100,000 prisoners.

them were

at

Schirmer reckoned that the great mass of

present "resting" somewhere in the area between

Swinemunde and Neubrandenburg.

It

sounded

like a precise

enough

location, giving the impression of a situation well in hand. In fact the

more than 500 square miles, covered in forest and crisscrossed by a maze of country roads and tracks.

area in question was

and

fields,

Moreover, there was

a "rear

guard," which was

the "the roads west of Danzig."

hardly reassuring.

columns

—

Nor were

The vagueness

strung out along

of these locations was

the designated destinations of the

said to be "the region of Hamburg,

Bremen and Liibeck were 100

still

Bremen, and Liibeck."

miles apart. For anyone trying to keep

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY

171

more than

identifying the par-

track of the prisoners, this was

little

which the needle might be found.

ticular haystack in

was acknowledged that there were problems in the north.

It

That 80 percent of the marchers had dysentery was recorded, as the fact that they

ten "with

little

"the prisoners,

same rations"

were having

However, Schirmer

success."

German

officers

as well

and barter for food, ofalso

made

the point that

and German guards are eating the

—which would have come

Cec Room, who had seen

RAF

to scrounge

a single

as a surprise to the likes

sheep stretch to

a

of

meal for 600

prisoners one night while their 100 guards had four sheep be-

tween them. 4 Sixty tons of food had been ferried to the area on passenger

trains,

Schirmer

said,

and were being stored in

Neubrandenburg (where there was depots in other towns. trucks,

a

a

warehouse

at

camp, Oflag 67) and in smaller

The Germans had

provided him with two

and 22,000 food parcels had already been delivered to march-

ing prisoners. (Again, Cec

Room would

have been surprised.

ever Schirmer had doled his parcels out to,

would have

it

wasn't him.

to wait until February 2 8 until he got his first

leaving Luft IV) Particular attention was

group of 800

officers

who "were

drawn

WhoRoom

one since

to the plight of a

in a soft physical condition because

they did no work in their camps and, consequently, are in the worst condition yet seen.

[33-44

lb.].

Some

Some have

lost

between 15 and 20 kilograms

are not able to carry the 11 lb. food packages

which were given them." Apparently Schirmer had negotiated with the

German

guards for these

men

to be allowed to rest for three or

four days until they got better.

The

central line of

were

in a triangle

den.

A

march involved some 60,000

formed by the

cities

prisoners,

who

of Leipzig, Berlin, and Dres-

supply of 110 tons of food parcels had been established at

Luckenwalde, the camp where

a large

Stalag Luft III at Sagan had ended

number of the evacuees from

up about three weeks

earlier after

their

nightmare march and train journey. Marchers from other camps

were

also

heading there, and the word from Schirmer was that Red

Cross parcels would be sent out to them on the road. There was no

mention of the ordeal the marchers from Sagan had been through,

THE LAST ESCAPE

172

who had

only a reference to 300 "severely wounded" officers

behind in the Luft III hospital when the it

was recorded

case of hardship

prisoners of

war of various

Werder,

a

practically

who had endured

a military hospital

an eight-

on the River Oder

They had been "without light, Two blankets were provided for each man but there

town

heat, or bedding.

was

—that of 350 severely wounded

nationalities

day journey on coal barges from to

stayed

were evacuated and who,

now been overrun by the Russians. Just one spe-

was presumed, had

cific

rest

just outside Berlin.

no food or medicine. Seven

died." Otherwise, the pris-

oners were reported as being "in relatively good condition," particularly those

"where

who had

trains

Down

POWs

still

in the

run and which are relatively tranquil."

Germany was

south of

on the move. Schirmer put

their

the biggest collection of

numbers

know how many were

800,000, though he did not

can only have been

ican. It

at

an astonishing

British

The

vast majority

and the German borders and were

Washington was

sizes.

that "this

now

run-

still

were Russians, who

had been scattered throughout the myriad labor camps

columns of various

and Amer-

a smallish proportion, though

ning into tens of thousands.

in

Germany

reached safe areas in the middle of

in

Poland

being shepherded southwest

The message

received in

London and

group has suffered particularly because

it

has been repeatedly strafed by Allied planes, because of the bad

weather and because food."

They would

it

all

crossed the Czech mountains with but eventually end up in Stuttgart,

little

Nuremberg,

and Munich.

The Red Cross

situation report

was

difficult to evaluate.

had clearly been out to see some of the marchers

Schirmer

in the north,

and

had been present when some Red Cross parcels were distributed. But the

detail

cal trouble

he chose to highlight is revealing

behind

at

strafing; the

unknown

fate

of the

men

Sagan for the Russians to overrun; guards and prison-

ers sharing rations. It really

officers in physi-

because they had not worked and were therefore unfit to

march; the reference to Allied left

—the

all

added up to

happening on the marches

attaching to the Germans.

a

softening-down of what was

—and pointed away from any blame

It is

hard to

resist the

conclusion that

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY

173

Schirmer had seen what he was allowed to see and had reported back in terms that, while not pretending the evacuations picnic, nevertheless presented a picture of

westward were

an orderly and compas-

sionate exodus carried out in difficult circumstances. It close to reflecting the true awfulness of the situation

But

marked

a

came nowhere

on the ground.

some urgent supplies of food were now being earthe prisoners on the march, and some had even got

at least

for

a moot London wrangled about this mercy mission. The In-

through already. Whether any more would arrive became point as bureaucrats and military

how much help ternational

to give the

gasoline to run them.

from the war

The

Red Cross

Red Cross had asked effort,

5

men in

for

in

"hundreds of trucks" and the

But the vehicles would have to be diverted

and

SHAEF

did not think

bureaucrats had objections in principle.

the agreement had always been that the

own

trains to transport

job, the

Red Cross

it

could spare them.

Throughout the war

Germans would use

parcels. If trucks

their

took over the

German rail system would be relieved of "this burden." The 6

Germans might

by reducing

also "take advantage of the situation

even further the rations which they are

now supplying." Then

again,

Germans might "decide to seize the Red Cross trucks for their use." There was just as much anxiety over the request from the International Red Cross that, if trucks could not be provided, then at the

own

least the trains carrying relief supplies

attacks.

This raised the issue

should be protected from

— of immunity "a

difficult

air

question of

principle."

A

meeting of the Chiefs of

pected to

Staff,

call for action, called for

which might have been ex-

more

discussion instead.

were "administrative and organizational problems,"

it

There

was

told.

"Further information" was needed, and "farther consideration." best bet, in any case, was that "relief [not]

on the

7

Its

scale envisaged could

be supplied before the greater part of the movements [of pris-

oners] have been completed." That, in the chaos of a collapsing

Ger-

many, vast numbers of Allied prisoners of war faced starvation for

many months

ahead, not just a few days, did not seem to have oc-

curred to those at the meeting.

They

decided to

stall.

The Foreign

THE LAST ESCAPE

174

would be invited

Office

to obtain farther information,

and the

War

Office to "prepare a report."

men from

In due course,

these two ministries consulted the

Red Cross and came

Swiss government and the International

to the

conclusion that assembling a convoy of trucks raised "serious technical difficulties."

Even

drive the trucks

would be

if

Swiss drivers were allowed into

—which

difficult to find

the

Germans had not

yet agreed to

food and lodging for them.

down? WTiere would garages and

trucks broke

Germany to

—

it

And what if the

spares be found?

Armed guards would also be necessary on the convoys, but the Germans would have to provide them and they were unlikely to want to spare the soldiers for

The

this.

Problems, problems, problems.

Swiss tried to cut through them, to broker a deal. But the

British officials

seemed

to react with a bureaucratic lethargy, a will-

There was

ingness to be daunted by the hurdles.

particular concern

about guaranteeing that any supplies that went in under the auspices of the Allies gol to British and American prisoners only. fice

mandarin put

that,

his fool

down

with the

without naming names, he wasn't

lief to

Russians or the French. British

A War

Red Cross, making

it

Of-

clear

the business of bringing re-

in

Commonwealth and American

prisoners would have to gel priority treatment, he insisted, though

he wanted to be reasonable and flexible:

We would

not raise any question

if,

in a

camp containing 10,000

and American prisoners and 1,000 others, the parcels

British

w ere spread evenly.

perturbed

if

On

the other hand,

supplies sent to a

camp

we should be

for 1,000 British

gravely

Common-

wealth and American prisoners were regarded as available for the whole of that

camp

if it

contained,

say,

10,000 other

Allies."

Nevertheless, a relief convoy began to be assembled in to cross to

Lubeck

in

northern Germany, from where marchers in

the north could be supplied.

money

to

buy

fifty

run on burning

The

British

steam-driven trucks

wood

Sweden

Red Cross came up with the from Sweden, which would

instead of gasoline.

The

British

government

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY agreed to underwrite the cost of

oil

and new

175

tires.

From SHAEF

headquarters, General Eisenhower, the Allied supreme commander, cut through the red tape.

He had been given mil authority by Wash-

ington to deal with relief matters as he saw to the politicians

don to

and bureaucrats

at

also stepped back, agreeing that

SHAEF to handle since

fit

and without reference

home. 9 The War Office

He

Lon-

sending in relief "should be

left

they alone were in a position to do so." 10

Eisenhower ordered 100 army trucks to be made to Lubeck.

in

also gave the

go-ahead for two

available to

relief trains,

go

each with

500 tons of food, medicines, and other supplies, to head out from Switzerland for Moosburg, 30 miles northeast of

Munich

in south-

ern Germany, one of the points to which columns of prisoners of war

were believed to be heading. The

first

train left

on March

6.

The

next day a convoy of twenty-five trucks, each with a trailer carrying

enough gasoline

for the return journey,

of Switzerland and across the

headed out along the roads

German border en

route to the towns

of Karlsbad and Marienbad, where those on the southern line of

march were congregating. These were drivers, despite the safe-conduct deal

Germans and

The

brokered by the Swiss with the

despite the presence of a

areas they

if this

risky journeys for the Swiss

German guard on

were heading into were die-hard Nazi

each truck.

territory. But,

convoy got through, an additional 175 trucks were on standby

to follow

it.

For

extra security,

all rail

and motor vehicles were "con-

spicuously marked for air identification."

How many Red Cross parcels got through is impossible to say. Many who received them we know they were lifesavers. That is undeniable. At the same time there were men like Private W. Bampton of the East Surrey Regiment who walked from the far side of Danzig all the way to western Germany and had did,

and from the accounts of those

only one parcel the whole way. In his diary he wrote,

Cross parcels, and yet there must be thousands in where.

"Still

no Red

Germany some-

We have heard there were loads at Stettin and that they were

deliberately issued to civilian evacuees. Also

we know

that

we have

THE LAST ESCAPE

176

been deliberately inarched through towns where Red Cross stores

Why?" Another prisoner recalled 11

were.

getting three parcels in two

months, and having to share each one with four other men. "They put no

fat

on our gaunt frames, but they kept us

alive,"

he recalled. 12

For weeks on end, the closest others got was rumors of Red Cross parcels, but

no

parcels themselves.

Private Les Allan certainly never saw

ney across Germany.

I

lis

war ended

one

in his

badly as

as

marathon jour-

it

had begun.

A

nineteen-year-old stretcher-bearer with the Oxfordshire and Buck-

inghamshire Light Infantry, he had been

around Dunkirk tide ol

(

ferman tanks

chance

a

were told

then

it

to

do

men on

"We

to England.

as

was every man

1

le

were the

we could

sacrifice,"

m

job they put

Stuka dive-bombers and tank

to the

Sixty of his

in.

mothers

)n

one work party

broke

mv

jaw for

a

no reason

that

It

was

a

at Stalag

while

XXB

and sugar-beet

Then

I

factories.

senseless with his rifle butt and

could fathom." For four and

to

when

work camps. The

ice blocks from the river.

me I

home

endt-d up in

after that farms

away from dawn

years he slaved

"We

guard heat

a pris-

hair turned white overnight

on was sawing

was sent on roadworks, and (

comrades

was pulled from the rubble uneonscious,

East Prussia.

me

enemy and

for himself."

before she learned he was now 1.000 miles from

Vlarienburg

said.

as

'

the telegram arrived saying that her son was missing.

first

he

much damage

oner. Back in Slough, his

at

away

the beaches 30 miles

destroyed the building he was holed up

died around him.

the perimeter line

in

1940, desperately trying to hold back the

to give the

home

to gel

"We tire

May

in

dusk

—

just like tens

of other ordinary British soldiers, required

a half

of thousands

under the Geneva Con-

vention to work while imprisoned by the enemy.

Toward the end of December 1944 he was

in a

work detachment

with 200-300 other British soldiers at Konigsberg, a long the base

It

camp

at

Marienhurg, and freezing.

was about 25 degrees below and there was

the ground. sians

way from

3 feet

of snow on

We had a clandestine radio and we knew the Rus-

were on their way, and that led to terrifying rumors.

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY

Would we be

177

We could not We thought we

shot out of hand by the Germans?

imagine them handing us over peacefully.

would have

Then,

early

way out

to fight our

one morning, without warning, the guards forced them

up and out of the barracks hut thought

it

to avoid being massacred.

was

a

snap

to stand in the cold outside. xAllan

and, instead of pulling

roll call

on

his leather

to keep with

him and

in

trim ever since Dunkirk, he stuck his feet into the

wooden

clogs he

army

managed

boots, which he had

good

used for working.

I

went out on parade

like that,

and the next thing

were being bullied and threatened to march. out on to the road

our clogs

march of

— and

a

600 miles.

we would be on

They marched more

was

It

knew we

We went straight

dozen others

began what turned out to be

close to

Christmas, and

—with me and half

I

a

still

in

horrendous

couple of days before

a

the road until well into April.

than 100 miles back to the main

camp

at

Marienburg, where they merged with other columns arriving from the surrounding countryside. Together, they

bound

his feet tightly

with pieces of flannel that served as socks, and,

in his clogs, just kept going.

I

can truthfully say

nothing was all

left

went into the

He

that, if we

behind pot.

scavenged to stay

went through

alive.

We

wasted nothing.

tence, back to the caveman.

what was necessary

for

We

fall

the ground and

lived

his

A

a village,

—they

dog's skin

was

made

a primeval exis-

on our

march were

asleep in the snow.

know

town or

wits and killed

life.

thought the casualties on

Men would

a

alive.

Dogs, pigeons, chickens

excellent gloves or covers for your feet. It

He

headed west. Allan

all

You would

they were dead.

I

high.

see a

hump on

saw about twenty

like

THE LAST ESCAPE

178

We just left them there. More often than not we were too

that.

busy saving our

own

lives to

be able to help others.

survival of the fittest.

Sometimes

down and go

and never get up again, but

to sleep

self to carry on.

as if

just

I

was the

wanted I

We

were

in

to

lie

my-

forced

Thoughts of home kept me going. As

caping, where was there to go? 25

I felt

It

for es-

deep snow,

was

it

degrees below, and there were wolves in the forest. did see one

I

man

shot. It

was about

march and we were

in the

chap huddled up

the ditch and

in

and getting no response. dered his

rifle,

middle of

Then

and walked on.

man he

could do that to one

a

weeks into the

five

noticed this

a blizzard. I

German shouting

him

at

the guard just shot him, shoul-

My only thought was that if he

could do

it

me

to

next.

But we had

always been under that sort of threat as prisoners. Rifles and

machine-guns were always being pointed

at us,

and

all it

ever

took was an extra squeeze on the trigger and you would be

And nobody was

dead.

w bat

hail

happened

ever going to

Eventually Allans column three

months on

Stalag

I. ut't

after

from

line

of march. Allan could at

last rest,

though he

totally recover.

had been

them with

in

my

leaves

clogs for the whole of the march.

and rags

as insulation,

and

tied

I

stuffed

them

to

my

always kept a dry rag in my coat, and at night I would my feet to get the blood circulating. Because of this, by the

feet.

end,

I

I

those

only had very mild frostbite. In fact

men

in

army

ken ankle.

I

hit a

march bound

warm

their toes up.

hard ridge of it

I

was better off than

boots, because they never got to take

off and they couldn't

the

stumbled into Fallingbostel

IV and other camps who had been making their way west

would never

rub

enquiries about

the road, joining the tens ot thousands of men

along that northern

I

make

to you.

up

tight.

ice

But

I

and twisted

them

did have a broit.

A doctor on

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY

To

this

day he

hobbles. Mile after painful mile

still

Hitler's

Greater

Germany

mud,

wooden

clogs, disabled

in

to the other

him

he too had begun his march from a

the the

—from one

—through snow and

side of

ice

and

for good.

For Private Bampton there was

on

179

though

a different destination,

a Stalag

XXB work camp. He was

farm to the east of Danzig when the order to march came. With

Red Army only a few miles away, he thought about lying low in woods and waiting for the Russians, "but the winter was very se-

vere and the retreating SS were ruthless. Later on

regretted this

I

decision." After a few days, trudging through the dark, he and

two

other prisoners and a single guard became separated from the main

column.

It

was not an unusual occurrence. They kept going

until

they found another group of prisoners and teamed up with them.

But

it

ton saw devils

who you

was important to be wary about a

column of prisoners from

—many are

looked

left to die in

like striped

a

joined with.

concentration

of

pajamas."

Red Cross

parcels

was waiting

as

they marched

at the next village,

were about to be provided with transport. "Rumour the

morning only

to dash

trekked through the

flat

Oder, he reflected on

demand "There

for is

more

a

you up

in

noted. As he

that had been started because of Hitler's

this really

German people. here, yet Germany

Lebensraum for the

worth fighting over?" Three weeks

more than 200

miles behind

them

already,

group found themselves near Swinemiinde and camping

slept out in.

got through

He

Bampton

miles and miles of unoccupied land

out in the same bleak open

had

at night,"

lifts

or they

and featureless country by the estuary of the

war

into the march, and with his

you down

territory, for

wanted more. Was he and

Bamp-

— "poor

the ditches; they were dressed in what

There were constant rumors among the men a stock

camp

15

it I

field as the

For him too that was will

a

column from Gross Tychow night to remember:

"How we

never know."

forever puzzled about

what he saw of human nature around

him. At night there would be a fight for the best place to sleep and the pick of what

little

food they had.

Some

stolen milk almost provoked a

THE LAST ESCAPE

180

demanded

riot as other prisoners

their share,

and Bampton thought

When

he was in danger of being lynched by "a snarling mob."

pack was

rifled

column he was

his

and three packets of tea were taken he despaired. The

was now entirely

in

British, but, apart

from

his closest

buddies, he thought his fellow countrymen on the whole "a surly, miserable, rotten crowd.

He

I

can see

was not the only one who thought

badly.

Another

who had

British soldier

called that "the scenes at night a disgrace

One a

a terrible

when

own

people

side

started out at

I

know."

was behaving

Marienburg

re-

pig-potatoes were issued became

Bamptons thoughts turned

night

longed for

a

happy family day

of his mother's

a taste

rice

long to the Forgotten Legion/' ever, as the

lost for

his

in

not only to the army but to England." 16

Saturday, "always

proved.

change

first

He

[e

for

me

in

pudding. "But

was not

it

thai could

home.

now

as his

I

think

totally forgotten,

was

I

be-

how-

Red Cross parcel on February 28

a

come anyw here

mouth, and was

close to describing the taste

was "great." "Good old Red X!!" he wrote

and then moaned

It

the past," and he

stuffed chocolate and biscuits into his

words

except that

appearance of

I

forlornly to

stomach went into

a

painful

in his diary,

spasm because

of the prunes he had eaten.

But there was good news from

had not been forgotten cast

after

all.

home

— further proof that they

The secret radio picked up

from London: The marchers were

to get regular

a

broad-

Red Cross

food; they were also to be allowed to rest and to have "a definite destination as

Where

soon

as possible."

were they going?

The

latter

was increasingly important.

There had been talk of

Hamburg and

Then they passed a signpost pointing to Liibeck 172 kiloThe loneliness returned. "We seem to be forgotten. Nobody seems to know where to take us or what to do with us. Why don't they send us home instead of treating us like animals?" Hanover.

meters away.

He It is

scratched out his despair:

March

march.

I

recording

12

and we have been almost seven weeks on the

started off this [diary] taking a fiendish delight in a true

account of our suffering and hardships.

Now

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY I'm

of it

just tired

all

and

am yearning

181

and

for a bit of peace

a

place where we can make ourselves clean. Oh, God! What would

home. But I think the Germans

give for a day at

I

war

to us until the

is

over and

ill-treat

us as

much

will as

hang on

they dare.

The sight of an old friend from a camp back in Poland alarmed him. "He had been a 1 5 stone lad last time I saw him but I didn't recognize him now and I had to ask him his name to make sure. He was a mere shadow of

former

his

self,

unshaven and dirty and

respect gone. His helplessness had made him child-like

The

guards never ceased to be jumpy, and

self-

all

in his speech."

Bampton noted

that

two

of "our boys" were shot while trying to escape even very late into the

march.

He reckoned

that his

column

out from the depths of Poland way.

—

— and

some have died through

Finally his group Easter.

came

They were put

the others that had set

of the

lost two-thirds

"Hundreds have escaped, some were

cross-fire,

all

killed in

men

along the

German-Russian

lack of attention."

to a halt at the

town of Brunswick.

It

was

They had been laborers on a farm when they started the march. they were laboring on a bomb-damaged

to work.

within earshot of the Russian artillery

Now,

500 miles,

after close to

railway line and dodging bullets from British and American fighter planes.

from

"Our one hope

this hell

And

for

.

.

but

.

some

it

I

is

that our boys will get here

would never come

at

all.

gion of Hamburg, another group of prisoners

Marienburg back Hussars.

He

in

and release us

come that quickly." Somewhere in the re-

don't think freedom will

who had

set

January buried Trooper B. Smith of the 15/19

had gone down with dysentery, and for days

rades had carried

out from

him

until finally they

found

a

his

com-

handcart to push him

By then he had gone blind and was very sick. His friend Bandsman Charles Houston of the Royal West Kent Regiment helped bury him after he died on March 3. "We wrapped him in a blanket and put him in a grave in a small village cemetery. Since the column could not be delayed, we did not have time to erect a cross." One of the more extraordinary accounts to emerge from this in.

17

time

is

that of Private

F.

Coster, an Englishman

who had

fought with

THE LAST ESCAPE

182

the 5 1st Highland Division in the retreat to Saint- Valery near Dieppe

He

in 1940.

had spent four long years

at Stalag

Poland before, with the Russians almost

XXA

at the gates

Thorn

at

in

of the camp, he

decided to escape. Overnight, the ranks of German soldiers guarding

upon

the prisoners had thinned as reinforcements were called to

stem the Russian advance. Coster and

a large

to try

group of other

pris-

oners approached the main gate.

The

few guards

stood eyeing us apprehensively and ner-

left

vously fingering the straps of their

shrugged

his

We

shoulders and walked

We

the others.

off,

And was followed by

decided to make our way to the Russian

way hack

We

us.

had no idea how

tar

and frosty land,

was

.

to

dived

.

.

twaricb

.

open up on

down

casualties.

too

Russian tank nosed

and confronted

hillock

rades

a

.

friends

us with

.

.

.

We

our sledges

its

empty snowy,

way round

a

waved and shouted "ComEnglish." The Russians' reply

machine-guns. Instinctively, we

all

into the snow, and were fortunate not to suffer any

We

much by

niceties of war.

other way.

.

We

us.

think-

awav the Russians were,

hut after about an hour of marching through the ic\

lines,

to Kngland.

off enthusiastically through the snow, pulling

behind

of them

walked out to freedom.

ing that this would he the quickest set

Then one

rifles.

We

realized that the Russians

the

We

had been brutalized

Germans to be prepared to practise decided we would have to march home

the the

turned our backs on the Russians and headed

out of Poland into

Germany

where we would be sure

in

order to reach our

to receive a better

own

welcome.

1

lines,

"

Coster and his group headed west without any guards or escort.

They passed unchallenged through lines of German soldiers digging in. An SS officer asked who they were, was told they were English prisoners of war, and waved

them on

their way. Shells burst

them, and the sound of machine-gun

fire

sian fighter planes flew overhead, "so

low that

behind

got closer and closer. Rusin the dull light

it

was

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY as if

183

they were travelling on skis across the snow, rising only to clear

the hedges." Vistula,

They

got caught in a jam of people trying to cross the

and heard the dynamite explode behind them

was blown up by the retreating German

as the bridge

infantry. Sleeping

wherever

they could find shelter, and scrounging food, they kept going.

Then,

late

one afternoon, two SS soldiers stood

herded them to one side of the road

I

was very nervous, particularly

time.

Then

at

as

they

dressed in concentration-camp garb, feet.

made

us wait for a long

all

pitiful

we

Black-uniformed guards goaded them

handed them

surreptitiously

small amounts because

But one of our

men

we had

the jackboots trampled that to rid the world of as

a

Hungarian Jew who

way and

many Nazis

him from handing over

column of tortured women

came

a

own

rations.

words of comfort. His name

as

all

left

joined the British

he could.

his

attention to himself in this way, but to

hind,

of food, only

to preserve our

in Yiddish,

was Freddy Fried, and he was

When

bits

women

gave them every bit of food he had and he

spoke quietly to them

strain

women,

absolutely exhausted

onwards, prodding them with their guns. As the passed us

way and

gunpoint.

along the road came a column of

and dragging their

in their

I

had

before

Army

tried to re-

food and from drawing

no

avail.

The straggling

passed, and then, lagging well be-

very old lady, accompanied by

a soldier in black.

she came opposite us she stopped and sagged.

It

was

obvious that she could not go one step further. Without any hesitation,

We

he put

had great

getting at that

his revolver to

difficulty in

her head and shot her dead.

holding Freddy Fried back from

young German. Had we not done

so

we would

surely have been massacred ourselves.

One hundred and a

camp

for

fifty

miles due south of Stalag

RAF prisoners. This was

to the Polish border.

The march

XXA at Thorn was

Stalag Luft VII at Bankau, close

out from the camp was accompa-

THE LAST ESCAPE

184

nied by the severest of threats. As the

snow

in the early

men stamped

hours of the morning of January

7

their feet in the

19, the air so cold

was painful, a German corporal, a tough man in his who had been hardened by years of fighting in the North African desert, told them that for even' one of them who went missing five others would be shot. RAF pilot Alan Clarke was among a group who quickly raided the camps sports store, full of equipment that breathing in fifties

sent by the

down on wore

it

lay ahead.

his head,

as a hat

and pads

We

YMCA and the

what

able for

and another

lis

split a leather football into

One guy

with earflaps.

two and

put on wicketkeeping gloves

— anything that would give you an extra layer of warmth.

must have looked I

Red Cross, to grab whatever was adapt"One of us had half a rugby ball crammed

funny

a

lot

—or

sad,

maybe."

1

"

group took what the International Red Cross had described

as the central line

of march.

They

before the Russians cut them

off.

Oder to cross the river pace left many men too ex-

raced to the

But the

hausted to continue. Each morning

it

guards, and even

their feet or over their heads, to

get at

rifle

them hack on the

shots fired

at

took kicks and prods from the

road. Unusually, a check of

numbers was made

one point, and twenty-three were missing. Whether they had

caped or simply tunately the

fallen in the

German

es-

snow and died no one ever knew. For-

corporal's threat turned out to be a bluff,

and

the mass shooting he had promised was not carried out.

But the guards never relented ers until

one morning

all

in their

1,500 of

harassment of the prison-

them mutinied. They refused

leave the barn they had

been

stand up. Threats were

made with machine

deal of shouting,

in overnight, rejecting orders

guns, there was a great

and then

Germans gave in. They backed down, which was surprising. With hindsight it might have got pretty serious. They

the

and

if

the SS had been there

they most certainly would have. But

it

was so near the end of

could have started to open

fire,

the war, and they were so scared of the Russians.

and we were promised

a train.

to

even to

They gave

in,

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY

They were packed into

cattle cars,

and

185

after a horrific

journey lasting

three to four days they arrived at Luckenwalde, Stalag IIIA, just 25

miles south of Berlin. Clarke collapsed, past caring, in agony and so thin that he

was grateful

was sleeping on the dead than

alive.

have

just to

floor.

roof over his head, even

a

They were

all

if

he

"gaunt and wasted," more

20

Though filled with horrors, their journey across the center of Germany had, at three weeks, been mercifully short. It was a sprint compared with the marathon endured by those evacuated

in the

south. Stalag VIIIB was at Teschen in the far southeast corner of

Germany, on the point for

a focal

frontier with

work camps

Poland and Czechoslovakia, and was

at the

many mines

in the area.

Coming

from the seaside resort of Eastbourne on the south coast of England,

Regiment had no experience or

Private D. Swift of the Royal Sussex

but here he came in 1943, and here he worked.

knowledge of pit

life;

He

from the fighting

was

a captive

since then, step

by

step, Stalag

by

northern France in 1940, and

in

Stalag,

he had been transferred

eastward until he reached this farthest-flung part of the Reich. flight

from the Russians by

pletely

surprise.

He

just after

Christmas 1944 took him com-

and the twenty-seven other prisoners he

worked with were hustled out of bed by dle of the night

It

their

two guards

in the

mid-

and were on the road immediately.

was pitch dark

in the countryside

and freezing cold

trudged along narrow winding roads. Suddenly fire

The

from machine-guns and

Then

tanks.

flares

as

we

we heard gunwent up,

illu-

minating the snow-covered landscape, and we ran into a patrol of

German

soldiers

on

skis,

dressed

all

in white with rifles

Our German Kommandant spoke to turned out that we had been marching in the

slung on their backs.

them and it wrong direction and had wandered of a battle.

We turned round

and

slap

just

bang into the middle

kept going as

could in the other direction. In the next 48 hours, for

two hours

away.

only, so desperate

fast as

we

we stopped

were the Germans to get

We were keen to keep on the move too because the Rus-

THE LAST ESCAPE

186

were

sians us.

When

danger lost.

just as likely to

Germans and shoot we were out of the immediate to sleep. But by then we were

mistake us for

they finally decided

area, they allowed us

Apparently we should have rendezvoused with the main

body of

British prisoners

from Teschen but we had missed

them and we were on our own.

\s

they marched along country roads heading for the Oder,

German Home Guard

Swift watched elderly

troops digging in with

anti-tank mortars and heavy machine guns, saw the fear and the

hopelessness in their eyes, and was reminded of those days long ago

m

Fiance when

ble invader. In

it

had been

towns and

his job to try to halt a

villages

seemingly invinci-

along the way, the people were in

out-and-out panic. The SS were shooting Russian prisoners of war

and leaving their bodies

to line the very roads that the Soviet tanks

would soon he sweeping along. With good reason, the they would pay with their lives for this brutality. the chaos,

a

wrong move meant

death.

locals feared

No one was safe.

A party of Ukrainian

In

slave la-

borers had heard that their Russian liberators were close and had

up against

risen all

their guards, "but they

had jumped the gun and were

being shot." Swift's small

group headed southwest toward the mountains of

the Sudetenland, struggling through deepening snow. tight off frostbite in his ears. In a small village in the

forest that stretched as far as the eye could see he

home

of an old couple

who

fed

him

a feast

He

tried to

middle of a pine

was

billeted in the

of potatoes boiled in their

jackets ^nd, luxury of luxuries in those hard times, sprinkled with salt.

"We

all

sat

around

in the

lamplight thinking

how

marvellous

it

was."

Eventually they came

down out

of the mountains and turned

onto bigger roads, where they found the main column of prisoners "thousands and thousands of them"

Many were Russians, man guards:

and

still

—and

joined up with them.

being appallingly treated by the Ger-

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY I

saw

a

bodies

187

group of Russian prisoners lying in the snow, their twitching in death after being shot just behind the

still

ear or in the temple by the SS.

One

of our

own

guards was or-

dered to take a Russian prisoner into a field and shoot him.

The

Russian had to dig his

his prayers,

own

grave.

The guard

him

let

then he shot him. This guard was an elderly

and he came back shaken and trembling, muttering that

say

man he

all

wanted to do was to get back to Vienna and peace.

But then they caught sight of

beyond

all

human

column whose

a

pitiful state

was

belief:

A thousand, maybe two thousand people were standing beside made to wait for us to overtake because They were in blue and white striped and wearing big clogs. They had no over-

the road, having been

they were slower than us.

pyjama-type clothes

They were from

coats.

Auschwitz, which was in southern

we had come. As we

Poland, not too far from where

moved by them,

I

looked

at their faces. I

human

vestige, a flicker of

interest,

slowly

looked in vain for

of recognition,

a hint

a

of

understanding, anything in their faces showing they were

aware of us or anything. There was nothing. the weather, had sucked the

out of them.

life

zombies on the roadside. Their heads

luminous and

large,

ing, like

dead

think of them. scribe

The

what

trail

I

men I

What

staring, all the same,

not a

wrings

still alive. It still

food

we

flicker

my

of

feel-

heart to

my words are inadequate to de-

in those faces.

22

went on along minor

winding through the

like skulls, their eyes

but

have tried but

saw

The treatment, They stood like

roads, missing the

towns and

forests of Czechoslovakia.

received was watery dried vegetable soup and

that not very often.

We drank from cattle troughs. At night we

were packed into big barns but

I

don't

remember

taking

my

THE LAST ESCAPE

188

clothes off during the

afternoon

out of local

we

whole four months of that march. One

passed a long funeral procession wending

a village

and up to

a

churchyard.

way

its

must have been the

It

mayor being buried, because the entourage was

large

and

by black-plumed, black-

dignified. Fine black hearse pulled

draped, black horses. Wreaths and flowers covered the coffin. It

was

like

opening

a

window on

world

to a

I

had forgotten,

a

sane world after the butchery and the bodies on the roads be-

hind

Now

us.

their route took

many. They

changed

first

their

them out

Czechoslovakia and into Ger-

ot

headed north toward Dresden, then the Germans

mind and

the

column turned around and swung south

toward Bavaria. By now. they had come so sians that they it

thrust into

far

west to escape the Rus-

were pushing up against the Third American

Army as

Germany:

\n SS soldier

came by

us in a panic, telling our guards that

American tanks had annihilated

his unit.

[e

1

was the only sur-

vivor and he said he had torn off his insignia because the

Americans were shooting SS men.

and was wrapping instead of socks. his

his feet

Then

pocket, which was

with cloth, which was

all

he had to

all

all

down

he had

and he quietly sang

eat,

fiber Alles" in a

knew the grandiose schemes of had gone and

)ne of our guards sat

he took two wizened potatoes from

"DcutschLuhL Deutscbland

tion,

(

they had

mocking

Hitler, of race

left

tone.

He

and domina-

were ersatz socks and old

potatoes.

The

over the column, shot victory

the

roll.

march

be too

when an RAF fighter plane roared low up a German truck, and hurtled away doing a cheered. It was April now and we had been on

point was reinforced

"The

lads

since just after Christmas.

far away. I

We

was never so glad to see

felt

a

sure the end could not

23 spring as this one."

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY

189

In London, relations of prisoners of war were offered honeyed words

of comfort by the Secretary of State for War, Sir James Grigg.

On

February 28 he told the House of Commons that the

be-

ing

moved west under

conditions he described as "harsh," but that

"the representatives of the Protecting all

men were

Power

in

Germany

are doing

they can to secure improvements from the Germans, and their ef-

forts

have not been without some results." 24 These "improvements"

included an agreement that the sick and the weak would be trans-

ported by train and truck prisoners were

now

—which missed the point that almost

exhausted and

destined to be on the road for

ill

the

all

with dysentery and yet were

many weeks

to

come. Grigg

also

spoke

of British prisoners of war as being "transferred," and he highlighted

when this had movement of prison-

the period "between 19th and 24th [of February]" as

taken place. ers

The

clear implication

was that the

had been short and sharp and was firmly under control. This was

becoming

a

common

misconception in Whitehall.

Grigg's statement to the

DPW that

the

Commons, General Gepp

Two told a

days before

meeting of

"the latest information from the Protecting

indicated that the

moves of camps

largely completed."

25

Power

Germany had been Though the camps had

in Eastern

This was not the

case.

been evacuated, long and arduous marches were continuing, and

would do so

for a long time yet.

Magisterially,

government

Grigg

also claimed foresight

Cross, he said, "efforts had been

made

camps of Red Cross food

comforts, clothing and boots."

whatsoever. Nobody, least of

There

all

evacuation of the camps in the

to establish substantial re-

parcels, medical supplies is

no evidence of such

and

efforts

the government, had foreseen the

east.

mentions extra supplies arriving

The

moved and havsituation. With the Red

in having expected the prisoners to be

ing acted ahead of events to deal with this

serves in the

on the part of the

at

Not

a single prisoner's

camps

for use

account

on the marches.

notion that they had been equipped with "medical supplies and

comforts" would have had Dr. Pollack and Dr. Caplan gasping in disbelief.

As

for relief to the

camps receiving the marchers, and

to

THE LAST ESCAPE

190

POWs

those tens of thousands of British and American road,

we know

that a rudimentary operation

still

on the

was only now creaking

into action.

Nevertheless, Grigg

I

hope

I

pleased with himself:

have shown that the Government in

Supreme

Command

Allied

are doing

all

International stores

felt

in their

and the British Red Cross Society

power

Red Cross

which can be

this country, the

any request from the

to see that

maintenance

for vehicles, fuel or

effectively used to supply

our prisoners

is

met, subject only to the condition that such assistance will not

weaken the

on

attack

(

vermany and so delay the conclusion of

hostilities.

There was nobody

to contradict

idence available now accurate

it

fails

him

to back

then, but the

him

up. It

documentary ev-

would have been more

tbe minister had reported that the British

was actually doing

as little as

it

government

could gel away with to aid the pris-

oners, while trying to pretend to the relatives of those

men enduring

conditions of indescribable horror that there was nothing for to be (

them

concerned about. rrigg

may

well have had

over for the prisoners

appeared to be taking

good reason

when he made

that

to believe the worst

Commons

statement.

if

he had been party to

place ten days later between

bert Naville, a

He

his optimistic line after receiving reassuring

reports from the Swiss Protecting Power. In which case he

have been horrified

was

member

a

would

conversation that took

American diplomats

in

Berne and Gil-

of the Swiss Legation. Far from being re-

assuring, Xaville pointed to a total

breakdown

and an absence of reliable information.

2"

in

communication

Pressed by the Americans to

have Swiss inspectors on the ground report regularly on the whereabouts of the prisoners, he could say only that "telephonic messages are virtually impossible."

As

for identifying

POWs from the air,

this

was next to impossible, because their routes were usually along sec-

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY ondary roads and

it

191

was hard to distinguish them from any other

line

of marching men.

For a while now it had been dawning on many in senior positions in the Allied chain of

SHAEF,

command,

particularly the military planners at

that the orderly finale to the

going to happen.

From even

war they had envisaged was not

before D-Day, headquarters staff had

been preparing for the end, and, in

what would hap-

particular, for

pen when the Germans surrendered. Committees had pored over the precise terms of an armistice agreement and

would hand

military

in their

the conquered country was called

weapons.

An

how

interim administration for

drawn up on paper. The

Operation Eclipse, 28 and

German

the

a sizable part

of

overall plan it

schemes for getting the liberated Allied prisoners of war home

These covered every

ficiently as possible.

jolly

ENSA singers

mood

were to

while they waited to be shipped home.

arrive "as quickly as possible" but

given an audience

many

years

—the

who had been

a

task

it

would be

fall

into

enemy

The

—perhaps

men

in a

entertainers

as a precaution,

deprived of female

company

army groups on the western

to put the plan into operation

lengthy document marked "Secret

to

to the send-

for

entertainment parties" were to be "of male

"live

personnel." In February, the

whose

down

and comics to the camps to keep the 29

as ef-

from delousing

detail,

treatment to the supply of daily newspapers, even ing of

was

was elaborate

hands."

Its five

numerous appendices seemed

front

—each received

—on no account

to be allowed

chapters, eighteen sections, and

to cover every eventuality.

small tucked-away sentence gave the

lie

But one

to that impression. Informa-

movement of prisoners of war This sent many of the plans into

tion "does not reflect the considerable

which

is

taking place,"

cloud-cuckoo-land.

when they

it

stated.

was assumed, for example, that the Germans,

surrendered, would agree to feed the released prisoners

for the time being.

even now.

It

And

The

reality

was that they could not feed them

the medical arrangements were predicated

on there

being only a small proportion of sick prisoners, whereas by

now four

out of five

men were down with

dysentery.

THE LAST ESCAPE

192

The it

plan had been distributed despite growing reservations that

no longer

fitted the bill.

In the middle of January, one

SHAEF

planner had warned another:

I

have become

uneasy that some of the "Eclipse"

a little

mem-

oranda have not taken into account recent trends of thought. Plans are based on the assumption that

mal German surrender; and order;

(c)

that the

there will be a for-

(a)

(b) that there will

German channel

be comparative law

of

command,

includ-

ing the service ministries at Berlin, will be functioning; (d)

POW

that the majority of

camps and thus jority

POW

of

be found concentrated in

will

readily accessible to control; (e) that the will

obey the stay-put order.

whether any of these conditions

will

in

doubtful

It is

fact

ma-

apply during

"Eclipse."

Two months growing sibility

news of the evacuations sank

later, as

that there

in, fears

might be an outcome that had always been

but that no one had planned

for.

The

would have been

Suddenly,

official

easier to let

pos-

Germans of war when

fact that the

were hanging on to hundreds of thousands of prisoners it

a

were

them go was increasingly worrying.

documents were

full

of

fears.

Military Intelligence

received a particularly chilling piece of information from the military attache at the British

newspaper

what

it

called

prisoners and

under

arrest, and,

in

dated by sufficient

A German-language

plan" to be put into force on

Day

the

this plan, all preparations

the liquidation of

workers

Sweden. n

Himmler had "a devilish "N-Day" Niederlagstag,

According to

ical

in

Stockholm, quoting an unnamed but reliable source,

in

disclosed that

embassy

all

of Defeat.

have been made for

prisoners in Nazi hands, including polit-

the'

inmates of concentration camps, those

worst of all,

Germany. The

all

prisoners of war and foreign

larger prison

camps

bombing and machine-gunning, SS guards, by shooting.

or,

are to be liqui-

where there are

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY

193

The report said that "reliable SS personnel" were being infiltrated among the regular camp guards, and that camp commandants were being provided with Nazi Party "advisers" who had "carte blanche authority for N-Day."

The liability

attache

commented

that he could not vouchsafe for the re-

of the story, but he had had

Cross) told

of confirmation. "I can

a sort

Count Bernadotte

confidently report that

Red

(of the Swedish

of mine that he was most concerned over the

a friend

possibility of the

Germans running amok

Danish prisoners

in

Germany."

against

Norwegian and

Germany were how much more would

If the extremists in

planning to take revenge on Scandinavians,

they relish reprisals against the British and the Americans?

A

similar

warning came from the embassy

mors were coming from Berlin date,

i.e.,

that "the

in Switzerland.

Germans intended

Ru-

to liqui-

massacre, such prisoner of war camps as were in danger of

being overrun by the advancing Allied forces, rather than try to re-

move

prisoners or allow

government thought issue the official

them

that

to

fall

now would

into Allied hands."

be

a

good time

32

The

Swiss

for the Allies to

warning to the German people that had

first

been

discussed back in July 1944. Interestingly, the

but Hitler.

The

bogeymen

fiihrer, it

bombing of Dresden

was

in the

in these

said,

rumors was not Himmler

had been incensed by the carpet-

middle of February and had wanted to

take reprisals against prisoners of

war then. Himmler, apparently,

had restrained him. This indicated two things. neared, the jostling

among

senior Nazis to blacken the reputation of

others and whitewash their

own was

would have an important part ers, as

we will

see later.

33

First, that, as defeat

already in

full

—and

swing

it

to play in the fate of the Allied prison-

Second, that the destruction of Dresden had

indeed added considerably to the danger the prisoners of war were in.

The bombing

of the ancient city in Saxony remains

controversy. Eight

on

it.

deaths cal

The

hundred Allied planes dropped

resulting firestorm caused

a

matter of

their payloads

between 40,000 and 140,000

—the uncertainty of the figures reflecting the

fact that the lo-

population was swollen by vast numbers of civilian refugees from

THE LAST ESCAPE

194

who had crowded

into the city's streets in their flight

from

the Russians. It was, according to historian Ian Kershaw, "the

most

the east

ruthless display experienced of Allied air superiority

and strength." 34

Reprisals were very possible.

Combined Chiefs of Staff urged Eisenhower

In Washington the

to formulate plans to protect the lives of prisoners

from what were

He

should consider

German

described as "subversive

sending in troops by land or out

if

necessary.

lieved first

The

air,

elements."

35

men

and even bombers to ferry the

order of priority

—which camps were

—was to be decided "on the

to be re-

basis of potential threats of

violence," and he was to act "at the earliest possible

moment"

—

as

long, of course, as these operations did not conflict with "gaining victory in the battle."

The

tions to every division

an operation. to

A

general's response

under

his

command

war room was

special

up

set

was to

issue full instruc-

to cooperate in planning

SHAEF headquarters

at

monitor information on the prisoners of war. Intelligence arriving from the

desperate

in

tone.

Through

camps themselves was increasingly

clandestine channels,

on March

5 a

mes-

sage arrived from the Senior British Officer at Oflag 79 near Bruns-

wick with

a

request for "either sufficient airborne troops to be dropped

to guard the

dropped

to the

had to be

what he lessly

camp

in

SS and

against

PO\Y."

w

But

if

adequate numbers.

called

"penny packets"

hostile

Germans, or arms

either troops or

The

—

a

few troops

outnumbered by the guards, or

a

arms were sent they

thing the

last

SBO

handful of

rifles

that

He

would

said that,

Germans going on the attack, he and his men would break out into the wooded countryside. In the hope of

being rescued from the laid

to his

be hope-

event of the

attempt to

be

wanted was

who would

be useless for the prisoners to defend themselves with. in the

to be

air,

they would carry white cloth that could

out on the ground to make

and other requests,

a letter

SHAEF

P

1

5 feet high.

In response

stores stockpiled 20,000 rifles in

containers in readiness for air drops.'"

Other camps had been asking of the legendary Oflag

—notably the inmates

for help too

JVC near Leipzig.

Colditz Castle was a special-

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY category prison camp.

much

caused so

Germans

trouble to the

7

French generals

who had

held those hardcase escapees

It

highest security, plus a group of \ IPs

known. Some of the

195

that they warranted the

—the Prominente

were high-ranking

latter

officers

as

they were

—Polish and

—but others were chosen

for special treatment be-

One was

Lieutenant John Winant,

cause of their family connections.

an airman whose father happened to be the American ambassador in

London.

Among

nephew of Winston (Lord two nephews of King George

the British Prominente were a

W

Churchill (Giles Romilly),

Lascelles and the xMaster of Elphinstone), the son of Field Marshal

Haig, and

been

a

cousin of Field Marshal Alexander. There had always

a

handful of these special prisoners housed at Colditz, but

others began to arrive, as

if

the castle was a collecting point for them.

London by

Early in 1945, news of them was brought back to sick prisoner

who had been

deals with the

Germans.

rious danger, and he

time came, Oflag

He

went

IVC

now a

repatriated in one of the few exchange

thought the

War

to the

men

were

in Colditz

Office to urge that

in se-

"when the

should be the objective of a special parachute

operation designed not to strongly for action there

3

fail."

"

There were other voices pitching

— among them Pat Reid, one of only

British officers to escape

from the supposedly escape-proof

a

in

few

castle.

He knew the rambling building's secrets as if he had been its architect. He had one very direct suggestion: "Blow the garrison courtyard and the guard house to

bits

by very low accurate bombing and

then drop arms in the inner courtyard and give the officers to fight for their lives.

the rest." 39

The

DPW were

convinced, concluding

some such

suggestion was put to

SHAEF

in an area that the Russians

in a British task force

But plans were can zones.

it

drastic measure,"

"it 40

were expected to

liberate

would be considered provocative. camps that

A SHAEF memo

may well be when the

but

was turned down because Colditz

now going ahead

ations to protect those 42

chance

Simply warn them to be ready and they will do

necessary to organize

was

a

at great

fell

and to send

41

speed for military oper-

within the British and Ameri-

on March 17 spelled out the

scale of

THE LAST ESCAPE

196

the problem.

43

There were believed

ican prisoners of war in the

to be 257,000 British

and Amer-

whole of Germany, of whom 97,000 were

already in the British and American zones and would be joined there

by an additional 70,000 who were being marched by the Germans out of the Soviet zone. That zone, to be liberated by the

approximately 90,000 in the Soviet

left

Red Army.

It

was on how best to protect

Germany that attention. To boost the

the 167,000 in the western and southern parts of

Eisenhower's planners concentrated their

POWY camps air

morale, Allied fighter planes would

in

fly

over the thirty-five

which they were thought to be held, demonstrating Allied

supremacy

to the prisoners, their guards

and the surrounding

civilian population. It

was now accepted

sevelt, there

soeiates to

hostages.

44

was

a

that, as

all

in a

note to Roohis as-

of the prisoners" or to keep them as

speculated that "the object might be either to avoid

unconditional surrender or to save the

lives

Nazi gangsters and war criminals, using counter, or to cause dissension the war."

it

danger of "a deliberate threat by Hitler and

murder some or

He

Churchill put

among

of the more important

this threat as a

bargaining

the Allies in the final stages of

These thoughts were echoed by Eisenhower

in a

message

Combined ( Chiefs of Staff in Washington. He told them, "Acts violence may be perpetrated against prisoners of war and mas-

to the

of

sacres

might be instigated by SS troops or the Gestapo under cover

of the general disorder." 4

'

It

would be no mean

feat to stop this.

The

"penny-packet" approach would not do. "The camps are well guarded

and [enemy] military forces may be tion of prisoners of war

ments

if it is

must be

in the vicinity, therefore protec-

in force rather

than in small detach-

That meant sending land troops into line, and airborne troops into the camps

to be effective."

those camps close to the front farther back: •

Army Group Commander columns

to

will

be prepared to dispatch relief

POW camps near their axes of advance, provided

that such actions are not at the expense of the success of the

main operations.

First Allied

Airborne

Army will

be prepared

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY

197

to dispatch airborne detachments each of the strength of not less

than one battalion for the protection of

Ground

side of reach of our advancing

Once airborne troops had taken forces arrived to relieve them.

a

also

"These plans

will

to evacuate

Forces.

camp, they would hold

The

it

until land

prisoners would then ideally be

sent back to the west by road, but the

be on standby

POW camps out-

RAF and the U.S.A.A.F. would

them by

air if that

proved necessary.

enemy action of the maxiGermany and Austria containing

cover protection from

mum number of camps possible in

United States/British prisoners of war." In the

first

instance, however, because information

small reconnaissance teams

was unreliable,

would be dropped behind enemy

lines

near to the camps and would go to ground. Their task would be to

send back intelligence and to open up two-way radio communication with the prisoners. Volunteers were called for from British, American,

and Belgian paratroopers to go on sion,

this

"dangerous" undercover mis-

which was designated Operation Vicarage. One hundred and

They were to include rank of major. The group,

twenty teams were sought, each of three men. 102 British and American officers up to the

according to

its

appointed leader, Brigadier J.

S.

Nichols, also needed

"an attractive tide and proper status so members are proud to belong." 46

So the Special Allied Airborne Reconnaissance Force (SAARF) was born, and began to assemble for training in England at the end of

March

1945.

The

British Special Operations Executive

(SOE) planned

the training course with the help of the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and tion

it

was intended to have

sixty

by the beginning of May. "The utmost speed and energy

required and object

is

I

look to

all

under

will

be

my command to work flat out till our

achieved," the brigadier said.

was

It

all

remarkably similar to the sort of operation that

Brigadier Crockatt, head of MI9, had taken to in

teams ready for ac-

October 1 944, only to be sent away with

SHAEF planners back

a flea in his ear, his ideas

dismissed as "not considered practical" and "not considered advisable."

47

But

now

events had

moved

on, and

what had once been im-

198

THE LAST ESCAPE

practical or inadvisable

was not only possible but

needs of Allied prisoners of war were agenda. VVTien

at the

top of everyone's

to track

down 100

top Gestapo leaders and as-

impact on prisoners of war was considered. "Re-

sassinate them, the

quest your estimate as to the danger of reprisals on Allied

Germany," the mission's planners wrote prisoner welfare.

4S

The

The enemy might it

is

The

daring plan was conceived to drop hordes of secret

a

Germany

agents into

now

essential.

POW in

to those responsible for

reply was thoughtful:

well be

tempted to indulge

in reprisals

but

doubtful whether these would be serious or widespread

since the

number of ( ierman

prisoners in Allied hands

is

now

much greater than that of U.S./British POW in Germany. The consciousness of immediately impending defeat would so

moreover ad risk [to] Allied

to accept.

It

was

a

as a deterrent. } I

(

)\V as

a

is

therefore thought that the

result ot this plan

is

a

reasonable one

4

helpful response, but

had been requested the prisoners had Efforts

It

in

the

become

what was most remarkable was that

first

place. It

showed

just

how

significant

— and not soon enough, some might

on their behalf were redoubled

after

it

say.

Eisenhower sent

a

memorandum to everyone involved in relief plans. The The drive into Hitler's heartland from the had begun. Marked "top secret" and dated March 29, the mem-

round-robin

Rhine had been crossed. west

orandum

said,

"Present rapid advances necessitate that preparations

for relief of Allied prisoners of

tions to protect prisoners

drawn up

to

war should be completed." 50 Opera-

would now take

priority over plans being

drop troops into Berlin and Kiel.

51

This new sense of ur-

gency may well have been prompted by what Allied troops were finding on the other side of the Rhine. Eisenhower was told that

.American ground forces had liberated the

town of Heppenheim

a

prisoner-of-war hospital at

to discover "shocking conditions, 53 of

309 having died of starvation, infection and lack of medical care." 52

If

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY that

be

was the

state

199

of the hospitals, what must the camps themselves

like?

But there may well have been another reason why the release of the

POWs

had become

a priority. It

was dawning on the military

planners that the prisoners might be a crucial factor in whether the

war was

won

to be

swiftly or

whether there would be

a long,

drawn-

out ending. Pat Reid's plea for special help to liberate the inmates of Colditz raised an issue that began to resonate planners. Reid was

be taken away

The SS

among Allied

convinced that the prisoners there

military

were going to

as hostages.

move them from Colditz to the centre of may be (their redoubt). Something should be done for them before they are shifted. I am not a brave man but I know that if I was offered a last chance will try to

the Nazi ring, wherever that

to be free, preferably with a

Nazi hostage,

The

idea

I

weapon, rather than becoming

a

would choose the former course every time. 53

was taking root that the Nazis were planning to dig

for a last stand

and to use the prisoners of war

as hostages,

in

prolong-

many months. The suggestion was not new, but suddenly it took on a new urgency. If this was the master plan, the evacuations, the marches, the refusal of the Germans to give up their prisoners against all odds began to make sense. It was the Allied mil-

ing the war for

itary's

greatest fear that they

would become engaged

costly battle to rout the last of the

Bavaria and Austria.

Now

this

enemy from

on March

to prolong the

Austria."

1

.

54

war

...

2

by

1

a

is

shown by

saying, "it looks to

me

likely.

a

That

message he

as if Hitler will try

death struggle in southern

A U.S. Army special report listed the

Germany and

evidence:

A German officer in Italy states that his troops would withdraw

to

become

part of the

Army Group

Austria for the defense of the Redoubt.

and

the mountains of

looked increasingly

Churchill believed that this was the plan sent to Stalin

in a lengthy

being formed in

THE LAST ESCAPE

200

Himmler

2.

has ordered that provisions be provided in the

\ brarlberg [an area in the mountainous region 90 miles southeast of Munich] in February for 100,000 men. 3

1

,800 Signal Corps

men

trained for

mountain warfare have

recently arrived in the \ brarlberg. 4.

It is

reported that with Hitler and Himmler, the Nazis will

defend with 80 crack units of from 1000 to 4000

The Nazi

Party s complete domination of

men

each.

German thought

and action must be reckoned with. These people cannot surrender, and

a

determined continuation of the conflict must be

expected so long

as there

remains

a

semblance of ail army and

terrain to defend.

Everything pointed to "a fanatical last man' defense

doubt center." Ami as a

human

A memo from from

Italy

raid

a

behind enemy

special task force

lines,

up

this absolutely clear:

substantial forces to e\ acuate/protect

vious that only a

resistance.

field Marsha] Alexander, leading the Allied troops

And into the south of Germany, made

"May need forces or

would inevitably be at die heart of this

shield,

at the re-

the Allied prisoners of war, held as hostages and

POW."' A

It

was ob-

through either airborne

on the ground, could achieve

this.

Then, out ot the blue, an event occurred that threw into question the

whole argument

into the

camps and

career, the

sweet way.

he saw

sending troops ahead to fight their way

liberate the prisoners.

Not

for the first time in his

gung-ho American (General George Patton went I

le

as the

was notorious for

a

his impatience, frustrated

his

his

own

fellow

countryman General

reason for the slowness.

The

own

by what

overcautious advance of British Field Marshal

gomery and even There was

for

Mont-

Omar Bradley.

Allied front line

now

stretched 450 miles, from Holland to the borders of Switzerland.

With

their backs to the Rhine, the

Germans had been putting up

the fiercest of fights, taking huge casualties but also inflicting them.

The

British alone

had

lost

6,000

men

in their sector

of the line in

the latest push toward the river. But Patton, in the center of the

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY refused to take his time.

line,

on

"sitting

would be

their asses," as

He

he put

want

didn't

201

his

Third Army

waiting for the war to end.

it,

"foolish or ignoble," he declared.

Ordered

had assembled four divisions before attacking the

won

it

divisions.

back?" Inevitably, his army was the

was

22, and he

gomery his

to

own men, he stopped So

to wait until he

city

of Trier, he

you want

me

to cross the Rhine,

to give

it

on March

delighted schoolboy to have beaten

like a

That

Mont-

As he marched over the pontoon bridge thrown up by

it.

his trousers,

first

Do

to be

SHAEF headquarters,

with half that number and then cabled

"Have taken Trier with two

5"

and "took

in the middle, pulled

went too

invincible, in fact, that he

German

crossed onto

on the

soil

He

Rhine."

a piss in the

east

dered one of his tank brigades to make

down

on

the zipper

felt invincible.

far.

The day

he

after

bank of the Rhine, Patton or-

more than 40 miles into prisoner-of-war camp Oflag XIII a raid

enemy territory. Its target was the at Hammelburg. When his officers questioned such

a

high-risk mis-

sion so far behind the lines, one of the General's aides explained to

them law, in

quietly that Lieutenant Colonel

John Waters,

was one of the prisoners there. Captain Abraham

charge of

a task force

Baum was

of 16 Sherman tanks, 21 half-tracks,

propelled guns, and 300 officers and men.

of March 26, fought their self,

Patton's son-in-

way through

They

the

set

put

3 self-

out on the night

town of Hammelburg

it-

and then smashed through the barbed-wire gates of the camp.

The German

guards fought back, there was

sualties included

camp

Waters

—shot

in the thigh

doctor, a Serbian, saved his

life,

eration with a kitchen knife. But the oners,

army

a firefight,

and the ca-

and the backside. The

performing an emergency op-

camp was

taken, and 5,000 pris-

most of them Yugoslavian but nearly 1,300 of them American

officers,

The vehicles

were

free

—

for now.

task force prepared for to

carry

its

return,

though

it

only 250 American prisoners.

had room on Ironically,

its

the

wounded Waters was among the majority who would have to stay behind. It set off back the way it had come, but the path it had pierced through German lines to get to Hammelburg had now been closed behind

it

by three German

divisions.

The

task force was, in the

words

THE LAST ESCAPE

202

of Pattern's biographer Carlo D'Este, "chopped to pieces." Nine

men

were dead, sixteen were missing presumed dead, and there were scores

The rest were captured and returned to OflagXIII, which was now back in German hands. The liberators were now of other casualties.

themselves behind barbed wire. Patton's raid had succeeded in increasing Germany's prisoner-of-war population by upwards of 250.

They

included Patton's

own

personal aide and bodyguard, Major Al

who had gone along on the mission "for the thrills." The Hammelburg incident showed the dangers of any 58

Stiller,

to

leap beyond the front

news of it

filtered out,

line to protect

it

and

mission

free prisoners of war.

could not but give the planners

at

As

SHAEF

headquarters pause for more thought.

There were always plenty of military men who saw ventures such as the raid

on Hammelburg

to protect prisoners

as

too great

a risk.

when he

like these

put

intervention

would always be fraught with danger, always

threaten to lead to the loss of the very lives

Thoughts

Armed

it

was intended to

save.

had certainly troubled Field Marshal Alexander

down on paper

his

conclusions about the Nazi redoubt

and what should he done to save the Allied prisoners of war from being dragged into

it.

He

them "would provoke

stated his concern that

As

in

so

rect action at this time, the dangers his

argument turned

paign to warn

[the]

Germans could argue they formany of the discussions about di-

attack and the

feited their P( )\V status."

and

dropping arms to

in favor

enemy

seemed

to

outweigh the

of mounting

a

benefits,

"propaganda cam-

that in event of molestation of

POW,

all

personnel involved will be held to account as war criminals."

Here was another manifestation of the

idea that had been kicked

The Germans must be warned not to commit atrocities, and that those who did would be rigorously hunted down and dealt with. The idea had recently been given a new twist by a man who had every reason to know what he was talking about. Brigadier George Clifton was a New Zealander who had been around since the middle of 1944.

captured in North Africa, at El Alamein, in September 1942 and had

been

a

prisoner at Oflag XIIB near Frankfurt

camp was evacuated and he had taken

his

am Main

until the

chance to escape.

An

ad-

THE RIVERS OF HUMANITY

203

now he had

vance patrol of American soldiers had found him, and suggestion to

make

British officers

in the

hope of saving the

lives

He

he had been imprisoned with.

the dangers the prisoners faced, and thought "the

of the 268 other

was

tile

act

to

aware of

fully

most

tion to prevent the massacre of Allied prisoners of war

would be

effective ac-

by SS troops

drop pamphlets informing the population that any hos-

would be followed by

similar threat

would

Looking back, these had not been

it

large scale air raids."

also stop the

again, instead of leaving

them

to be liberated

to the

months been caught up to bedevil relations

United States

61

in the

He

German

explicit

a

prisoners

warnings

people already. a

allies

—and the third member of the

The

like

reason

warning had for many

wrangling that was

between the Western

thought

by the advancing Allies.

seems extraordinary that

made

60

Germans from moving

was that the wording and the timing of such

now beginning

— Britain

and the

alliance against Hitler,

the Soviet Union. Disputes were multiplying and intensifying. fate

a

The

of thousands of prisoners of war had for a long time been in the

hands of one

Now

dictator,

another dictator

their lives.

whose grip on them was being prised open.

—

Stalin

— threatened

their liberty

and even

Liberated by the Red

8:

The

German guard knew

Army

Though he was

about Russians.

all

onl\ eighteen years old. he could

these soft Englishmen a

tell

thing or two about the real honors of war. lie hail fought on the eastern front, the posting everj listened. life,

in

I

[e

had

|iist

icnnan soldier dreaded. Stan Moss

(

been through the worst experience of

marching west from Stalag J44

at

the hitter snow, threatened with execution by the

tighter plane. But this, the

in

young German

they had temporarily stopped to

what he had been through, and them,

as

from ahead, from the

either

You have

To prove it

his eyes

with dysentery,

told

him

at a

a

passing

camp where

was nothing compared with widened, the terror visible in

repeating, staring into space, reliving a always,

flanks, just

to retreat."

1

The

u

but they just keep on coming,

coming

and

life

—

his point,

his

theirs or

company had

their genitals

in,

they found

on the iron

you, and you have no

anyone

whichever

but,

They were

it

was, they

else's.

he told the story of

a village

near Leningrad

They had held it once, lost and then won it back. When they

recaptured.

to a Russian counterattack,

marched back

at

Russians were devils:

superhuman or Untermenscben^

didn't care about

that he

rest,

— sick

for looting

he remembered trying to halt the Soviet advance. "You

mow them down," he kept memory that haunted him choice.

alive

SS

cannonshot from

hail oi

a

own

Lamsdorfin eastern (iermany

another word tor stealing food to stay seeing friends slaughtered

his

a line

of dead Russian

railings of a fence

—

a

women spiked

by

warning to other Rus-

THE ADVANCE OF THE RED ARMY

aaaaa

Soviet front line April 15, 1945

aaaaa

Soviet front line

May 6,

1945

POW camp 50 miles 50 kilometers

THE LAST ESCAPE

206

women not to fraternize with the enemy. As the German told his

sian

horror

Moss was not

story,

himself or whether

this

into myth. But

it

it

sure

young

the

soldier

had

really seen

was one of those incidents that had passed message was

didn't matter, the

the Russians did. Moreover, this

What

if

is

This was what

clear:

what they did

own people.

to their

could they be expected to do to their enemies? This question

behind the visceral fear that was driving millions of refugees

lay

westward, away from the Red Army's line of advance. British or

To many

American prisoner of war thinking of lying low

a

to be lib-

erated by the Allies from the east, the propaganda gave pause for

thought.

Ron Walker, however, had ing seen the barbaric way the animals.

a

Germans

treated

Having been marched from Stalag Luft

ended up

He

nationalities.

a

a

fast

The

common enough

tears, filled

bunk and

condition in the

him

to the Russian

with disgust

from the

camp

linguist,

staring at the its own German and

to have

spoke

when

I

first

saw

believe that a Russian

What was

he saw

were peasants and barbarians.

Russian fighter plane

a

would have the

now was

was dark

dows were bricked

in.

no

how anyone could

found

it

remem-

difficult to 2

survive in such con-

the barracks, because most of the win-

up, and indescribably

tables or stools

Russians, the

I

"I

intelligence to fly one!"

water and excrement swilling around the straw,

in

a revelation.

just unbelievable

ditions. It

compound, and he returned

—and admiration. Until then he had tended

to believe that the Russians

It

alive

learning Russian, and interpreters were desperately needed.

job took

ber that

Sagan, he had

doctor had persuaded him to turn and

name: "pit-bashing." Walker, an expert was

—worse than

to tens of thousands of prisoners of

face the world again instead of lying in his

—

III at

had arrived there more dead than

march. Only the urging of

wall

them

at Luckenwalde, designated Stalag IIIA, a huge holding

camp south of Berlin, now home all

different view of the Russians, hav-

— nothing. And

Communists, the so

called

filthy.

floor.

There was

No

bunks, no

yet, unbelievably, the

anti-God nation, had

J

LIBERATED BY THE RED ARMY an

built

altar

with a cross and decorated

it

207

with scraps of silver

which

paper, bottle tops, and fragments of broken glass, flected the little light that penetrated the barracks.

my

shock

at finding

one of the most

it

transformed

beautiful things

love and patience had gone into literally

its

I

Whether

do not know, but

it

building,

though they were

dying of hunger.

He remembered

who had

the 400 Russians

how he and

previous camp, and

starved to death at a

companions had

his

tried to

guards shooting

me

haunt

at

them. "The sad songs they sang in the evening

for ever."

and the Russians,

it

Faced with

with sticks in

a field,

— "the

and the

Germans

choice between the

a

was no competition for Walker

bered the horrors he had seen

women

throw

German

food to them over the wire, only to be stopped by the

will

was

much

have ever seen. So

I

re-

as

he remem-

Germans beating Polish murder of our own friends as

some, driven by desperation, tried to climb the perimeter fencing."

The

suffering of the Russian people

was once to have

said that to be

drawn

a

winning

born British

is

hard to comprehend.

in the nineteenth century

ticket in the lottery of

life.

3

Russian in the twentieth century was to be an abject tion after generation

It

was

Similarly, to be loser.

Genera-

had been victims of one war or another. More

than in any other nation, Russian

women

bore their sons for the

World number of

slaughterhouse. Close to 2 million Russians died in the First

War

—twice

as many as the British, fifteen times the Then came the Revolution and five years of fighting beReds and the Whites. Then Stalin's purges, in which 10

Americans.

tween the

million peasants were either executed or starved to death for resist-

ing collective farming and an

unknown number

of dissidents were

eliminated or sent to labor camps for what were dubbed "crimes against the state."

The

Russian death

toll in

gion of 17 million. Put

the Second

starkly,

Adolf

World War was

Hitler's

war cost the

6 million Germans, and Joseph Stalin's resistance to

times as

in the relives

of

him nearly three

many Russian lives. Was it any wonder that the

Russians be-

THE LAST ESCAPE

208

haved without mercy

as

they

first

own

reclaimed their

country from

the aggressor and then proceeded to claim the aggressor's country for themselves?

As they marched west, the Soviet troops were en-

couraged by commissars and

political propagandists to "kill, as

you

storm onwards, you gallant soldiers of the Red Army. Break the racial pride

women. Take them

of these Germanic

4

booty." Their ruthlessness was not excusable, but

The Germans had had

able.

inflicted

called

it

on

word

a

Now

it

your lawful

was understand-

for the terror they deliberately

their eastern neighbors in order to

Scbrecklicbkeit.

it

as

subdue them. They

was being paid back with

interest.

Fear of the Soviets was widespread, but those British prisoners of

war who were among the had reassuring regime

in

home

XXB

as the

at

Russian back door

via the

stories to tell of their time as

walk and had been

at Stalag

uary 1945

to get

unexpected guests of the

Moscow. Captain X. Maclean of

too sick to

camp

first

the Royal Artillery was

behind in the hospital when his

left

Marienburg was evacuated

Red .Army swept along the

at the

Baltic coast

end of Jan-

and into East

Prussia.

As the camp emptied prisoners told by the Little

at

top speed, he was one of just over 200

Germans

to wait for transport. It never arrived.

more than twenty-four hours

gone, the spearhead of the Red

Army

rolled in

night the hospital was in the middle of lies

and for

a battlefield.

a

day and

a

Medical order-

ran around clamping steel helmets on the heads of bedridden pa-

tients

the

of the column had

after the last

and ushering those

German

resistance

who

could be

moved

to shelters. Finally

crumbled and the Russians took charge.

Maclean had nothing but

praise for his liberators.

weeks they "produced

much food and

as

could, pillaged from the countryside.

reported our presence to

Moscow and

A

Over the next two

medical comforts

receive visits

from

they

Russian officer said he had

appeared to have some idea of

the plan for dealing with recovered prisoners of war.

we would

as

He promised us

British representatives as

soon

as possi-

ble.'"

Then they were ordered The seriously ill went under

to be

moved back from

escort, but the

the front line.

remainder were

left to

LIBERATED BY THE RED ARMY

make

their

way east as

209

best they could. It was a haphazard journey, in

which they took transport where they could and walked could be found. Maclean described apparently the normal

Some

to the rear.

men

of his

German

soldier

was

it

moving

decided to stay behind with Polish fam-

than the uncertainties of the road. the lines of

and

as "hitch-hiking,"

method used by any Russian

they were billeted with, because

ilies

it

none

if

it

meant food and

They were

also

shelter rather

slowed down by

prisoners of war being shepherded along the

roads to the east, and by making sure that they were not caught up in the

wrong columns. The

fact that the British

spoke no Russian and

had to communicate with their liberators in German led to anxious

moments. This was not

a

good time

to be mistaken for a

German.

A train took them to Warsaw, which the Red Army had liberated only a

month

earlier

and which was

now

were directed southeast to Lublin, where they

two American

Then

officers

they took

From there made contact

in ruins.

from the U.S. Military Mission

a train to the

in

they

with

Moscow.

Black Sea port of Odessa, which the

Russians had decided should be the sole collection and exit point for

POWs being returned to the West. This journey was highly organized and on lently fed

by

on American

rations.

it

we were

excel-

At Odessa, we were received

Russian general and his staff and then taken to a barracks

a

to be deloused.

bage

—

make

The

food they gave us was soup and fried cab-

good by Russian standards. They appeared anxious

a

good impression. Our

officers

beds, blankets and a mess complete with

to

were supplied with

two

waitresses.

Other

ranks were given straw mattresses and blankets.

Finally, forts,"

they were cleared to leave.

They

were outfitted with new clothes

received

if they

Red Cross "com-

needed them, and were

then put on board a ship for the Middle East and then home.

War 19,

Office major

who

interrogated Maclean in

seven weeks after Stalag

Maclean considered

The

London on March

XXB had been overrun, noted, "Captain

that the Russians

had done their

best."

THE LAST ESCAPE

210

Others, however, were discovering that Soviet hospitality was

not always so generous.

Stalag IIIA was a brutish prisoner-of-war camp.

Ron Walker,

arriv-

ing there exhausted from Sagan, had begged to be let in as he and the

made

rest

of his column had been

rain

and cold. Soon he would be desperate to

here are by far the worst that

I

to wait outside for hours in the leave.

"Our

quarters

have encountered," he wrote in his

diary.

There are about 200 This all

is

an

in

our block and we arc terribly crowded.

enormous camp, there must be about 10,000 of from the resistance

nationalities including Polish civilians

movement Today

was February

[it

7,

1945] our

increased by the arrival of 5,000 Yanks

Frankfurt They only have tents to

was

[nit

on the ground

them

for

numbers were

who had marched from

live in

to sleep

and the straw that

on

is

soaking.

They

do not have an) water laid on and throw their water bottles over the fence dividing us tor us to nearly lynched today

One

fill.

of our chaps was

when he was discovered demanding an

American's watch before he would

fill

his

water bottle. This

place definitely does not bring out the best in people.

The

common

sanitation appalled

him beyond the point of

complaint of Luckenwalde prisoners.

This camp stinks and

I

mean

ments were never very good in,

usually a big

is

in

any of the camps

one has to search for

Couple

pits

I

have been

were dug and boards

No privacy and no flush. Here however

an added refinement.

the boards.

that literally! Lavatory arrange-

wooden hut where

stretched across them.

there

disgust

a place

The

pits are

not emptied so that

where the excreta has not covered

that with a lack of paper

and very limited

—

LIBERATED BY THE RED ARMY washing

facilities

and

it all

here in the summer,

still

demic

is

becomes very depressing.

God

forbid, I believe a typhus epi-

RAF man who had

Sagan, lived in fear of falling in the latrine.

He

If we're

a certainty.

Eric Hookings, another

ter.

211

had suffered so many indignities

been on the march from It

was no laughing mat-

already, but this

was

his ul-

timate nightmare. "There was a pole that you had to grasp to crouch

over the a

pit.

The

terror

horrendous death."

was that you would

in to

fall

what would be

6

Another Sagan man, Leonard Pearman, thought Luckenwalde "a terrible place,"

men

where only the indomitable fighting

kept them from going under.

get worse, and

it

did as

more

7

He

realized too that

soldiers

of the

could only

prisoners flooded in every day, dou-

—

Some were new captives many of them young overrun by the Germans in the early days of the

bling the population.

American

spirit it

Battle of the Bulge, shaken to the core

by their encounter with the

battle-hardened Waffen SS and stunned to be behind barbed wire.

Others were columns of marchers from the prison camps in the arriving exhausted and starved.

east,

Bunks were three-high; barracks

were crammed; marquees erected on the muddy ground were soon filled to

With

overflowing.

so

much unhappy humanity

to

contend

Germans rolled out more barbed wire, making sure the compounds were cut off from each other, minimizing the chances of collusion and cooperative action. There were roll calls all the time, but many men stayed in bed, too sick to make it onto the parade ground. The only thing that lifted spirits was a delivery of Red Cross parcels on March 2 the first to reach the camp for two months. It

with, the

—

felt like

raisins,

Christmas

as

Amid

the chaos,

morning he

lay in

Ron Walker had developed

bed and worked on

afternoon he tried to there

is

peanut butter, meat, jam, sardines, salmon,

and chocolates were poured out and shared.

mend

a routine. In the

his Russian phrase book. In the

his clothes or did

any water coming through the

taps."

—

some washing

And

"if

in the evening,

THE LAST ESCAPE

212

when

the electricity invariably cut out and there was

he would

"lie

on

how

light to read,

my bunk and dream of home." Hope sprang eternal:

Although today we have not enough to Al though

no

we

eat, to

smoke, to read.

we do not know and when we how much paper we

dare not wash too often, because

long our few cakes of soap will have to

last

we have to be careful use because we may not get any more. Although hunger makes us watch our friends when they divide a loaf into six parts, go to the

lava ton*

ready to snarl

if

there

is

might he the smaller. Vet underlying

hope

shall

I

and

He

he sitting

my

adorable

in

much

a

for so long, he

ularly to

buy

a

even

hill

lis

my

ration

hope,

be home, that

my mother

talking to

awful brother!

tops." \nd, having

been deprived of so

own

longed to have possessions of his

house, "preferably

the country tor then

in

peaceful mm\ beautiful," and to have 1

shall

I

is

quiet evening drive, stopping frequently to

the view from the

at

room

the drawing

this there

all

has passed

little sister, yes.

longed to go "tor

look

summer

that before the

own

the slightest sign that one's

— particit

will

be

sense of permanence.

a

dreaming contrasted with the discordant voices of the prison

camp around him. They were mainly

my

complaints: "I

am

so cold,

I

tire to

we came here"; "I'd just put heat a drink when the lights went

out": "In her last letter she said she

was going on holiday with Brian.

haven't been able to

feel

one of my bed boards on the So who the ration

was

hell

cut,

is

feet since

Brian?" Food was

a

constant problem.

and seven of them would have to make

day. "In addition

we

get three-quarters of a

same of potatoes, enough margarine

to cover

mug one

divided between five

two, but

it

men

The

arrival

more

a loaf last a

of bread and

we

get a

of some food parcels

— put the hunger on hold

was apparent that communications were

the chances of any

bread

of soup and the

slice

paste or cheese to cover a quarter of a slice. Twice a day

of mint tea or acorn coffee."

The

for an

now

mug

—one

hour or

so bad that

getting through were remote. Aircraft filled

LIBERATED BY THE RED ARMY

213

must have

the skies, there were frequent raids, and the roads outside

been nearly impassable.

It

would be

several

weeks before any more

parcels arrived.

What was yet

it

seemed

Today camp.

is

demoralizing was that the end had to be in sight, and

Is it

possible this that the

mean anything it.

On

to

war

me.

I

one could be the

I

last

it

keep

doesn't

can't get excited or particularly I

I

happy

have been more depressed during

was during the march and yet there

is

very good chance that the war will end next week or anyway

next month.

have had so

I think I know the reason for this depression. I many disappointments that my mind, or rather

subconscious mind, refuses to accept what is

of the war?

be over next week but

will

the contrary

the last few days than a

as ever.

Saturday, just another Saturday wasted in a prison

on saying about

away

as far

true.

But maybe that

fool myself again.

Oh

is

good

a

God,

I

thing,

I

keep on

maybe I'm

pray not. Please

telling

it

trying to

let this really

be

the end.

But who would their liberators be? That was the big question.

Who would get to them first? The Russians advancing from the east, or the British and the Americans advancing just as rapidly from the west? For

all

his

newly acquired sympathy

for the Russians,

Walker

own people. "I would not mind the Russian front staying where it is for now and the western front moving closer. If that happened, we would feel much more secure." Instead, the word whistled around the camp that they would not be allowed to stay to find out: The Germans were soon going to force them out on the road again. They would be had no doubt that he would prefer to be

marched somewhere

—though whether

set free

by

his

east or west, north or south,

no one knew. In Walker, the very thought "produced the same ing of despair as the

They had been

last

at

feel-

time."

Luckenwalde

for only three

weeks when the

THE LAST ESCAPE

214

first

of these rumors of another evacuation began. For more than a

month nothing happened, second part of ready to advance.

then,

on April

11,

Walker noted

move again. But this time it was not to A more sinister reason was suspected: we

Evidently

that "the

nightmare has begun." They were told to get

this

escape the Russian

are to be taken north to Berlin as hostages.

Hostages for what? Are the Germans going to write

a letter

saving "Dear Air. Churchill, please issue a warrant to allow

Herr Hitler

to

go

to

RAF

prisoners."

total

chaos and farce.

It

was

a false

assure Walker,

If

we

and

South America or we

It's all

going to end

alarm: they stayed put after

who

felt

sure that he

Stay here, this place will

if

as I

all.

But

to Berlin

were playing around

it

five

all

your

would, in

this failed to re-

see his

probably become

not very high. Yesterday afternoon

[U.S. fighter planes]

shoot

thought

would never

we move our chances of getting

alties are

will

home

a battle

zone

without casu-

Thunderbolts

about 3,000

at

again.

ft.

without any opposition.

How are we to fare if we have to travel

on the railway which

being constandy attacked? Perhaps for

once

fate

might be kind to us and the Russians

or even our cut us

Two

off.

days

is

own army make

What later,

a

start their attack

quick advance in the south and

the hell anyway, I'm nearly past caring.

—down the road

however, they were marching

to

the train station, to be loaded into railroad cars. For a day and a night the train was shunted from one siding to another. It was noticeable that the guards

were intent on currying favor with them: "All they

seemed interested

in

was

telling as

many of us

as possible that Hitler

a

Schiveinhund and that they were anti-Nazis and always had

been.

We lay in the sun on the railway embankment, made ourselves

was

hot drinks and discussed

all

the possibilities."

They

painted raf

LIBERATED BY THE RED ARMY

pow

in yellow paint

on top of the wagons done so

journey, and were glad they had

215

in preparation for the

after

watching

a train pass

through the station pursued overhead by a dozen Thunderbolts.

"Next there was

down

ing back

and

a large explosion

the track.

with enthusiasm to go on

It

was

all

a

cloud of black smoke com-

very exciting but

a train journey.

did not

it

fill

us

Most of the very few trains

running were travelling north carrying troops, coal and guns to defend Berlin."

And then they were ordered off the train to return to the camp. They trudged back up the road but with a lighter step, because,

—

Germans had provided transport for their packs. "We had the feeling that we were not really under guard but just allowing ourselves to be taken back to the camp for a short time." The stroll ended in dismay. While they were away, their barracks had "unbelievably," the

been stripped by other prisoners all

—mainly the Poles. Walker found on

the bed boards gone from his bunk, and had to sleep

a blanket

slung across the frame. But the sense that tomorrow would be a day unlike any other day was overpowering, and he

but very happy

fell

asleep "a tired

POW."

His optimism was misplaced.

Within flashes

a

few hours

which

lit

I

was woken by

up our

hut.

I

a dull

booming and

went outside and

it

vivid

was

like

hell. The whole sky seemed to be filled with airThey were pounding Potsdam, just outside Berlin.

looking into craft.

Flares of every colour were falling and

below these was the top

of an enormous smoke cloud which reached

with the red glow of the that

I felt

fires

It

I

to

merge

was so awe-inspiring

physically sick and started to shake. This

doubtedly finish the war but tion

below.

down

would un-

had to wonder whether any na-

had the right to employ such

a diabolical

means.

wondered too what kind of people the Germans were

And

I

to with-

stand attacks like that for so long or their leaders to subject their people to such horror.

THE LAST ESCAPE

216

Fear caused by the raid went deeper

when

there was yet another

change of plan the very next day and the prisoners were told that they were going to Berlin after

all.

We are to be moved in two days'

time.

We were also told that

Berlin was to be turned into a fortress and defended to the last

man.

We are going to be hostages. There is a real possibility of

being murdered.

soon

as

there

is

seems

nightmare

this

will

never end. As

dared to think that things were going to be okay,

I

a

It

new bombshell.

They were

Fear was again the master, only to be again dispatched. not to be

moved

They could

after

all,

"and so

only wait

Elbe after taking the city

all is

once more!"

The Americans had paused at the River o( Magdeburg 60 miles to the west. The

Russians were beginning to throw

were 40 miles

well,

a

ring of

armor around Berlin and

So near and yet so

,n\a\ to the east.

"Am

far.

excited and nerves completely strung up, even finding write.

Want

to talk over possibilities

The Germans

worried

stiff.

sights of explosion clouds

woken

in

Too bad

and look

at

it

maps

difficult to

all

for them. Several

terribly

the time.

sounds and

on the horizon today." Again they were

warned that they were to move.

the dead of night and

"We

could only go north and that means either being trapped in Berlin or getting through to the

Lubeck

area.

Walker put

his faith in the

mander Dick Collard, who was "I believe

he

be over- run.

may If

try to escape.

be

as

if

I

wish

it

Wing Com-

Senior British Officer, in

let

were over."

constant talks with the Germans.

be able to keep us here long enough to allow us to

we do move and

God, how

I

wish

the opportunity arises

it

would end.

I

I

think

never dreamt

it

I

shall

would

uncertain as this." Walker got into conversation with a Russian

prisoner, fine.

Both prospects are appalling,

Oh God how

alone the almost suicidal journey

who

assured

him

that

Living conditions in Russia

the Russians over-run us

Communist regime was were improving. "He thought that

life

under

a

we would be allowed

return to England //we wanted to!"

to live in Russia or

1.

Sergeant "Dixie" Deans

Stalag Luft III in 1942.

2.

Sergeant Cal Younger in

1939.

at

^he

Vf

up ^^^t

]

ft

j

i^^^^B^ft,

fl

TJr'-^f* I 3.

A

4.

Prisoners at Stalag Luft

typical

rations.

room

at

Stalag Luft

III

1^2 G

ra

III.

cooking their meager

5.

6.

Fourth of July celebrations

A secret earphone

powder box.

built into Sergeant

Vic

in Stalag Luft III in 1944.

Gammon's

plastic tooth-

To

Prisoners of

all

The escape from

prison

camps

is

War!

no longer a sport!

Germany has always kept to tbe Hague Convention and only punished recaptured prisoners of war with minor disciplinary punishment. Germany

will still

maintain these principles of international law.

fighting at tbe front in an honest manner non combat zones in the form of gangster commandos, terror bandits and sabotage troops even up to the frontiers of Germany. They say in a captured secret and confidential English military pamphlet,

But England has besides

instituted an illegal warfare in

THE HANDBOOK

7.

OF MODERN IRREGULAR

WARFARE: M .

.

.

the days

when we could

The German

warning

practise the rules of sports-

manship are over. For the time being, every soldier must be a potential gangster snd must be prepared to adopt their

Tbe

sphere of operations should always include the enemy's country, any occupied territory, and in certain circumstances, such neutral countries as he is using as a source of supply."

own

England has with these instructions opened up a non military form of gangster tear! Germany is determined to safeguard her homeland, and especially her war industry and provisional centres for tbe fighting fronts. Therefore has become necessary to create strictly forbidden zones, called death

it

tones, in which

on

all

unauthorised trespassers

will

be immediately shot

sight.

Escaping prisoners of war, entering such death zones, will certainly lose their Uvea. They are therefore in constant danger of being mistaken for enemy agents or sabotage groups.

Urgent warning

is

given against making future escapes!

camp where you damned dangerous act.

In plain English: Stay in the

out of

it

is

now

a

Tbe channel of pceeerving your on

nil!

strict

orders

sight all suspected persons.

Escaping from prison

8.

are almost

be safe! Breaking

and military guards have been given the most

All police to shoot

life

will

camps has ceased

to

be a sport!

"Dear John" were

letters

not in

uncommon the camps.

'...

I'm sorry, dear, but I love a soldier. I know you'll understand...'

.

.

.

9.

Reichsfiihrer SS Heinrich

Himmler

inspecting Russian

10.

POWs.

SS Generalleutnant

Gottlob Berger.

1

l.

Fallingbostel,

despite

12.

u

German

\" laager

to step over

it

at

(

1

>44.

Ulied airmen watch an overhead air battle

attempts to force them into the barracks. Stalag Lufi

meant being

W. The warning

rail

can be clearly seen:

shot.

~HS7K

13.

POWs

14.

POWs march

with

taking exercise at Stalag Luft

a secret

out of Stalag Luft

III

before the evacuation.

III (the

photograph was taken

camera).

im

ppr

~\

-

..

,f*

15. American POWs on the march out of

Stalag Luft

16.

17.

\ rest

stop on the

opposite:

march out of Stalag Luft

Wounded POWs

arriving at

III.

Moosburg.

III.

%»

.

r;

•*

is

&

\H )\\

ingly

L9. Buill to

house 14,000, Moosburg eventually held 130,000

Toward the end ol the cramped and difficult s.

war, living conditions

-j

became

increas-

20. Prisoners in a makeshift tent at

2

1

The

toilets at

Moosburg.

Moosburg.

22.

General Pattern arrives

at

Moosburg

after liberation

bvPOWs. v Moosburg

after liberation:

POWs mob

a

tank.

and

is

cheered

24. Stalag

1

IB, Fallingbostel, April 16, 1945: British

their liberators at the

camp

POWs

greet

gate.

and American POWs from Fallingbostel, April

25. British

released

1945.

Months of a

had taken their

17,

near-starvation diet

toll.

26.

\n American

POW

at

Fallingbostel,

April 20, 1945.

27. Fallingbostel,

April 20, 1945.

POW's

feet

This

were gan-

grenous from the forced march.

*"^*4

*:

I v-

Bfii y

^b

*

28. British prisoners at

-

Le Havre, awaiting transport home,

April

1945. In the background are American transport planes.

29.

Home

is

<

on the horizon: American prisoners catch

glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.

their first

5

George Guderlev with "Little Buck" (Wayland 30.

Buchholz), after their reunion in

America, July 1944.

George's mother wrote on the

back of the photograph,

"George bed

s first

day out of sick

— he looked

like a

home

—

when he

got

fattened

him up from

skeleton

I've 1

15

to 183 lbs."

3 1.

Back to the

site

P< )\V camp: (from (

reorge

(

riiderley,

and Roger Mien,

of their left to

Bob ai

(

right)

hto,

die Stalag

Lufi IV memorial in Poland,

2001.

LIBERATED BY THE RED ARMY

And then

the end came.

am no

simplicity. "I

But events had been

217

Walker recorded the moment with calm

longer a prisoner of the Germans," he wrote.

from calm, or simple.

far

On the night of April 20 the German doctor had rushed into one of the huts and called for the British doctor to help him.

"Our orders have

quickly,"

he

Most of

the prisoners thought this

said.

arrived."

There was

"Come

a groan.

meant they were about

to be

forced out onto the road and up to Berlin. In fact the orders that had

come were

in expectation of Russian tanks arriving at

The Germans were

camp

to defend the

to the last

any moment.

man. The doctor

had been told to prepare for heavy casualties and was assembling the medical help he could get. ties

among

He

fully

all

expected there to be casual-

the prisoners as well as the guards.

"The atmosphere was really tense, and then all the lights went out. In the darkness we heard the sound of a violin being played. It was so

beautiful, so peaceful, so full of

goodness that everyone

stopped talking and listened in complete silence for the next hour.

Whoever

it

was

will

never have

more

a

attentive or appreciative au-

dience."

At midnight, the wing commander brought gether in the darkened barracks.

He

had no

real

all

his

men

to-

news, but thought

the stories of the nearness of the Russians were probably exaggerated. Equally,

he doubted that the Germans would obey their orders

to fight to the death.

He

wanted everyone

to be

on the

ready to do whatever was necessary to safeguard their

made

alert

lives.

and

Precise

Walker could remember we really have allowed ourselves to be know whether we would have done anything to defend

plans were not

and, looking back,

only his deep anxiety. "Would shot?

I

don't

ourselves,

went

I just

to his

don't know.

bunk

I

think

it

came

quite near though."

He

that night grateful at least not to be en route to

Berlin.

The and

next morning two

fired their

for the

normal

cannon

German

fighters flew

at a target nearby.

roll call,

and then

The

low over the camp

prisoners assembled

at 10 a.m. the

Germans began

to

THE LAST ESCAPE

218

leave.

and

They went singly

furtively

—to begin with, then

in pairs,

streamed away in large numbers, taking off their uniforms

finally

and slipping into gates.

—and

The

civilian clothes as

soon

they were through the

as

prisoners crossed over the wire into what until

been the death zone

—

guards would shoot to

put

kill

now had

over the warning wire and the

a foot

—and lined the fence to cheer them

off.

Walker noted that by 12.30 soon

as

p.m. there

was

just

one old soldier

at the

main

gate.

As

he was alone the poor chap burst into tears but was

quickly comforted by our chaps a cigarette.

There

are

of the

just northeast

who

gave him a cup of tea and

some very loud explosions coming from

camp and

I

am

so excited that

it is diffi-

cult to think.

Senior officers

command

among

the 20,000 Allied prisoners started to take

of the camp. Order had to be established, and looting

stopped. Russian prisoners broke into the potato store, though no

one begrudged them long

their

booty

— they had been starved

— and when they were brought into

tance.

Meanwhile

patrols

for far too

line they offered

were sent out to

no

resis-

try to find the Russian

front line. WTiite flags were hoisted from the watchtowers, and a

POW

sign

"There

is

a

was

out in the

laid

rumour

that

we have

compound a

transmitter so

able to get in touch with someone,"

quickly

The wheel had

become

I

hope we may be

Walker noted. Some German

soldiers had surrendered rather than run

held prisoner.

as a signal to aircraft.

turned.

off,

and eighty were being

The camp had

a focus for refugees trying to

also very

escape the Russians.

They stood at the gates and begged to be let in, among them a German general. He was turned away. The day dragged on. It rained ceaselessly, and the cloud was low. Expectation turned to anxiety. Where the hell were the Russians? A patrol had returned with news that a German mechanized mortar unit was about half a mile away. What were they going to do? The town of Luckenwalde

itself

was deserted, and

parties of ex-prisoners

LIBERATED BY THE RED ARMY seized trucks and

has

moved

"The Wing Commander German headquarters. Good for him and I hope

went looking

into the

he can find

a nice bottle

for food.

of brandy!"

Walker contemplated the next few

The

alternatives

seem

or

we

time.

shall I

fears

It is

I

will return, in

be an embarrassment

will

we captured them and they be fought over, so

life.

if

did not ask for asylum,

dare not think of home at this just be-

end of the war.

were not groundless.

now

fire is

east

Germans

had always considered that we might be shot

fore the

His

crucial hours of his

to be either the

which case our German prisoners they claim

219

7 p.m.

and

ominous quiet some small-arms

after the

coming from the woods, some explosions

and some

to the north-

the southwest and east. At 8 p.m. a de-

fires to

tachment of SS troops with

a

major

seemed very angry and threatened returned to our huts, so

in

to

charge turned up.

open

we went! Where

fire

He

we all damned

unless

are those

Russians?

They came man,

at five in the

—or rather he

morning

a captain in a fur cap, arrived in a

earlier three figures

on horseback had been seen

at the

woods before they turned away and disappeared back had come. Remembering could

still

feel the

this half a

century

emotion, his voice cracking

"marvellous, marvellous"

It

hat,

among the

as

a joyride

this officer

he recalled that building, the

his jeep

POWs. When

on an

had gone. it

was

—

re-

camp with the two senior officers and German armored vehicle just outside the

turned, he headed out of the straight into the path of a

by excited

little

edge of the

prisoners, put

and then went back outside to find

had been taken for

A

Leonard Pearman

moment. In the headquarters

Russian embraced the senior officers

American

later,

car.

into the trees.

Now

Presumably they had reported finding the camp.

one

did. Just

reconnaissance

THE LAST ESCAPE

220

gates. Shots

were exchanged, but the jeep raced on and reached the

main Russian

forces,

and

at

9 a.m. on April 22 a truck

of Russian

full

troops arrived to formally liberate Stalag IIIA.

Walker, in the front row as an

official interpreter,

from the

sight of the feared hordes

took in his

"They were an

east.

first

incredible

some with immaculate uniforms covered in decorations and more ragged than we were but all looking as tough as hell. Then came their spearhead, six T34 tanks and 12 open lorries. The mixture, others

tanks drove at the wire fences and right through them." Another

prisoner recorded

with

a

how

big splintering crash the big double gates were brushed

made of paper and to a tornado of cheering the Red Army rolled majestically down the central road of the camp between the compounds while hysterically-happy

aside as if they were

prisoners shncked and waved and tossed cigarettes to the

smiling crews.

They were

could possibly imagine,

seemed

to be

as

all

tough

a

looking lot of men as you

bristling with

equipped not only with

and sub-machine gun

as well.

weapons. Each

a rifle

but with

The leading armoured

man

a pistol

lorries

were towing anti-tank guns while further back others towed mobile

guns and mortars.

flab

The

lorries

were crammed with

troops and they clustered on the backs and sides of the tanks like leeches.

It

did not go unnoticed that there were

nurses and soldiers

There was

—

still

all

armed, and

a battle to

had to

camp and

mop up

strafed the

in the

column

just as frightening as the

men.

German machine Two Focke-Wulf 90s screamed compound. The Russian spearhead

be won, however.

gunners were firing from the woods. over the

women

the resistance here before

1

moving on west

in

its

drive

to complete the encirclement of Berlin. Luckenwalde's 4,000 Russian

POWs,

starved and sick though they were, were thrown straight

back into combat. Within half an hour of their army liberating the

camp, they were rounded up, armed, and sent out to

fight.

"They

i

LIBERATED BY THE RED ARMY

made

they marched out with their

a tragic spectacle as

sickle flag flying

The

but they managed

a

cheer as they

other prisoners were not sorry to see

had scores to

221

left,"

them

go.

hammer and

Walker noted.

The

Russians

they had suffered under the Germans, and

settle for all

keeping control of the camp would undoubtedly have been more ficult

dif-

had they stayed.

But the Red

Army was

more manpower, and

anxious for even

suddenly the atmosphere in the camp turned nasty.

A tank stopped

in front of

me

and an enormous Russian

cer brandishing a cane shrieked at

on board and come and

me and others around to get

fight too. If the situation

so frightening the look of sheer horror

on

all

had not been

our faces would

have been really funny. Apart from the fact that

supposed to be non-combatants, middle of a

battle, that

offi-

how do you

RAF officers just do

POWs

are

explain, in the

not go to war

like

And anyway, we just wanted to go home! He took out his revolver and for a moment I thought we had had it but instead

that?

he

just spat at us,

which

suppose said

I

other tanks followed and they had

it all!

As he

some German

left,

two

prisoners on

God they looked wretched, poor bloody humanity! One Russian officer had a girl with him, presumably

board.

a

German civilian as she had a dress on rather than a uniform. However she seemed happy enough. She was laughing and hugging him. In the armoured cars that followed there were several girls,

all

dressed exactly like the men.

an arm band showing she was

a

nurse but she

One still

of them had

had

a

tommy

gun slung around her back. She was about seventeen, blonde and very pretty with uniform. She gave smiled at

me

me

bunch of wild flowers tucked

a lovely smile, the first

for four years

one exception to fighting

a big

all

and

it

time a

in her

girl

had

was wonderful She was the .

the other Russian troops

who seemed

drunk and incredibly tough. They appear to think

wounded is no reason to stop them have bloody bandages on their arms,

that being

fighting.

legs

Many

of

and heads but

THE LAST ESCAPE

222

brandishing their guns.

they are

still

pick too

many

Then, tanks

left.

quarrels with

just as quickly as

They

them

I

we want

don't think

to

in the future.

they had come, the rest of the Russian

roared out of the camp, smashing through remain-

ing sections of the fence as prisoners scattered to get out of their way,

and drove off down the road until nothing could be seen of them except

cloud of dust

a

Leonard Pearman was almost

in the distance.

sorry he had not gone with them, not taken up the invitation to go in

"They were marvellous," he recalled. "Absolutely great. They were like us." He felt new life in him "that we had hopes of living and getting home, and all because of the vanguard to battle for Berlin.

them." It

was only now that Walker grasped how lucky they were not to

have been caught up between the two armies. Sixty minutes more

The Germans

and the bullets would have been flying everywhere. had pulled out of the town

I.uekenwalde only an hour before the

ot

Russians arrived. The mayor had then

dered to the senior Allied

we were spared mishing was

a

still

officer, a

full-scale battle

going on

in

come

to the

Norwegian

camp and

general.

surren-

"That

why

is

being fought over us." But skir-

the countryside to the north, and the

"Some of our own chaps are ensuring that we don't." There were also Germans to be rounded up who had tried to hide among the POWs. The danger was clearly not over, because the next night the camp was strafed by a German fighter plane. Walker heard it apprisoners were instructed not to go out of the camp.

proach and

circle

overhead before

its

engine note changed

as

it

went

into a dive.

Suddenly there was the most appalling noise heads as

mous tier

it

opened up with

firecracker going

its

off".

cannon.

The men

It

in

sounded

didn't have

had happened to

me

just

anywhere

above our

like

an enor-

the second and third

of bunks leapt off and crashed to the

bottom bunk and

just

floor. I

was on the

to go! Terror like this

once before when

I

caught sight of

LIBERATED BY THE RED ARMY

my

the reflection of

aircraft just before I bailed out.

my mind flashed to home and my mother.

Both times that

burning

what happens when we think we

is

desperately

make one

But luck was on

seemed more

223

we

There were no

his side again.

likely

are going to die

grasp at the things

last

—we

love.

casualties. Survival

than ever now, even though shells from Russian

guns were flying over the camp to targets

in the distance.

Despite his confrontation with the Soviet tank

wanted the

Perhaps

RAF men

to join the fighting,

about the Russians, more of whom were

commander who

Walker remained

now

positive

arriving.

This afternoon one of their colonels came to inspect the

He

camp.

looked very smart in his brown uniform.

them seem

extraordinarily decent and they are doing their

best to help us.

They

bring us most things

their

method of obtaining

town

is

these from the

to light. Six bodies

shall

I

They ask quite Some horrors in

were found

compound, together with hope

we want, though Germans in the

quite straightforward.

they are refused, they shoot.

come

never forget

a

in a

whip and

how cruel

the

for the last four years.

As

far as I

politely but, if

the

camp have

hut in the Russian

several truncheons.

Germans have been

the Russian prisoners, nor the indignities that

I

I

to

have suffered

can gather the Russians have

behaved in an exemplary manner. prised,

Most of

The Germans

are very sur-

and well they might be because they don't deserve the

slightest bit of mercy.

But others were

less

hands. Alan Clarke

comfortable

felt less safe

remembered Russians

Some

Two a

at finding

themselves in Russian

than he had under the Germans.

stealing watches

from Allied prisoners.

9

Russian behavior surprised Walker too.

of our chaps got hold of fishing rods and settled

nearby lake to wait for

a bite.

Along came

down

a couple of

at

Rus-

He

THE LAST ESCAPE

224

sian soldiers

threw

a

who watched them

covered in dead stand

why our

There was

women

in the

fish,

and the Russians

could not under-

girls

We

and another

girls,

1 1

male

officers

were quite pretty but

all

and

2

women.

very squat by our

had prepared tour barracks for them, one for

women, one

for the

male soldiers

women. They nearly died of laughter we were dying to segregate the sexes, al-

tor the

realized

though there was no question sharing the same

that the officers

billets as the soldiers.

tion whatsoever in

would consider

There

is

no segrega-

where they sleep or what they do.

they line up tor inspection, the girls line up with the

Completely random fashion. ply,

number of

—and much raising of eyebrows.

the male officers, one for the

when they

just

a diversion for the Allied prisoners in the

Red Army ranks

of the

standards.

and then

The surface was soon

chaps were so angry with them.

There were 150 men, 50

Some

for a few minutes

couple of grenades into the lake.

1

low does

it all

When

men

in a

work? Quite sim-

the penalty tor getting pregnant as a front-line soldier

is

to

be shot.

(

sian

)ther prisoners were forthright in their descriptions of the Rus-

women

soldiers. "1 lusky

behinds," said one. preters

who now

This,

Ama/ons with

large breasts

and larger

however, could not be said of the inter-

arrived:

Young, smart, attractive and speaking good English, they were dressed in well-fitting, military-style tunics with stand-up close-fitting collars, short pleated skirts, silk stockings

jackboots.

Each of the

girls

The Norwegians

invited

that she had fixed

up

come and spend

one of them to

a nice little

town and she then openly to

wore captain

s

rank epaulettes.

tea.

She told them

apartment for herself

in the

Roman Catholic padre The poor man's embar-

invited their

the night with her.

and

LIBERATED BY THE RED ARMY rassment was extreme.

oned

The

it

was

He

his size rather

was

225

of a man, and

a giant

we

reck-

than his cloth that attracted her.

veneer of civilized behavior was thin. Pearman recalled

girl soldier sitting

on

tank with an elderly

a

German guard

a

she had

taken prisoner. She was holding a bayonet to the man's throat and asking the British whether she should

slit it

now

or

They

later.

re-

had been one of the more humane guards, so they

membered

that he

called out,

"No, don't hurt him," and she stopped, though no one

knew

she carried out her threat

if

later.

This undercurrent of vio-

lence and revenge was ever present. Walker, as interpreter, arranged for

two of

his friends to

borrow

rifles

from the Russians to go out

hunting rabbits.

Duly armed, they

set

out with two Russian soldiers.

from our camp the Russians had

set

up

a

cage for the

Not far German

prisoners and on reaching this the Russians ordered out six of the

Germans and

told

them

to walk

on down the road. "Shoot,

shoot!" yelled the Russians, followed quickly by two guns be-

ing dropped by the

camp

my

as fast as

friends as, very shaken, they ran back to

They blamed me

they could.

understanding, for getting

my translation wrong.

But there was no misunderstanding when three Red

who had

fought for the Germans arrived

for help.

The

Allied officers

for the mis-

at the

handed them over

Army

camp

deserters

gate and asked

to the Russians,

who

marched them down the road and shot them.

The

emotional side of the Russians came as a surprise, though

could be unnerving. Walker was introduced to a Russian

huge man, well over topped by tions

a

and in an immaculate uniform

magnificent fur hat," who, after seeing

had been

in the

camp under

how awful

condi-

the Germans,

me in a bear hug which I thought would crack my ribs said, with tears streaming down his face, "Oh my eagle,

grabbed

and

six feet tall

it

officer, "a

THE LAST ESCAPE

226

my

eagle,

little

you had

again,

how

could they treat you like this?"

wise you were soon facing a gun. the

time

first

lunged

at

Then

to be terribly careful not to upset them, other-

a

On

seeing a Norwegian for

Russian did not recognize his uniform and

him with

his bayonet.

When he realized his mistake,

he insisted that he came with him to the town, where they both got hopelessly drunk.

They

are great drinkers. It

seems to be their favourite

pastime. At a recent dinner party for senior officers there

were numerous

came

it

proposed by

toasts

to the turn of our

all

present.

By

the time

Wing Commander most

of the

heads of state and well-known generals had been toasted.

He

named

stood and

those three well-known generals Free-

man, Hardy and Willis

—

in fact the

chain of British shoe shops" to repeat the

name of

a

well-known

—and the Russians solemnly

names while the

British contingent tried to

tried

keep

straight faces.

The men ten eggs,"

causing real trouble, however, were the French. "Rot-

Walker

called them.

"Four have already been

killed in a

brawl with some Russians and our chaps are constantly arresting

them

for thieving

up trying tired,

of

and other charges, their own

to control them. it all."

Oh how I want to

officers

get home. I'm tired, so

His wish seemed close to being realized

spread that the Russian and American spearheads had

There had been

a historic

fantry and the 58th

Elbe

just

having given

as

news

now linked up.

meeting of troops of the U.S. 69th In-

Guards Division of the Red Army on the River

40 miles south of Luckenwalde on April 27. East had met

West with handshakes and smiles for the cameras on both sides. The next day the rumor was that there were Americans in Luckenwalde. "Surely," Walker wrote in* his diary, "someone is going to get us out of here soon."

Gradually he realized that the Russians did not share his sense of urgency.

A bigger game was being played,

and he was getting

LIBERATED BY THE RED ARMY

227

very concerned about the political situation. There did not

seem any

happen?

on

the link-up between the Rus-

and the Americans took so long.

sians

to

why

military reason

for too long.

time

I

hope

I just

this

What on

is

going

waiting to be evacuated does not go

suppose the real problem

I

earth

is

that for the first

have allowed myself to acknowledge what a terrible

existence this has been. Filth and squalor, appallingly

crowded

—

and conditions, not enough food, hemmed in by barbed wire now I'm supposed to have been liberated it is just the same. Of course I'm the

Germans but

—I'm

ily

I

want

to be

home: not England necessar-

my patriotism and nationalism went my own home with my loved ones.

afraid a lot of

long time ago

He

terribly grateful for the Russians driving out

still

—but

in

talked to one Russian officer,

go to Berlin and then on to Paris."

a

who told him, "Tomorrow we The idea that the Red Army

was planning to continue westward brought Walker up with

a jolt.

The Russian They are tired of

"But what about the British and Americans?' he asked. replied,

"Oh

fighting and that

had

just

there if not,

is

well

we

to

shall

worry about them.

have to see." Appalled

at the

been unveiled to him, Walker asked himself,

reason for the delay? Strains

no need

Is

prospect

"Is this the

another nightmare about to begin?"

were beginning to show.

This afternoon

a

the most evil face

Russian general arrived at the camp. I

have ever seen and

a

He

had

temper to match. This

exploded because although our Senior Officer sprang to attention and saluted

him he

did not stay at the salute while he ad-

dressed him, which apparently

army.

The

general's escort

is

customary in the Russian

cocked their guns and

a

tragedy was

only just averted by some hasty explanations.

Nor, when he had the general have

satisfied

good news

himself that his dignity was intact, did

to convey.

"He

said the

exchange of pris-

THE LAST ESCAPE

228

oners was not a military matter but a diplomatic one. In his opinion

we would be under

some considerable time." The prisoners of war should move to a

their control for

Russian proposed that the Allied

may have been a humanitarian offer, but it had political implications too. The Senior British Officer refused. His orders from London were to stay put. "He was quite adamant that we would not move from the camp different

until

row

camp, with better conditions than Stalag IIIA.

It

arrangements for our evacuation were made. After

flaming

a

the general stormed out but his last action was to order that the

watchtowers be manned by Russian guards and patrols reinstated along the barbed-wire perimeter.

We

really are

back to being

pris-

oners."

now

April was

more than

a

turning into May, the

total suspicion. After

witnessing

— and

with the general, he sat in an office with

She

is

blonde, very shy, dressed in

ATS. She

is

gering her her

I

Germans had been gone

drinking

tommy

a

gun.

wonder what my

cup of coffee

They never

interpreting

—the exchange

young Russian

a

interpreter.

uniform similar to our

a

— but her

free

hand

fin-

is

go of them. Looking

let

at

feelings are for the Russians after to-

Most of them

are very friendly, but they have

no

idea of time and they are apt to promise the world and

do

day's events.

nothing.

Do

I

trust

More and more

them?

No

longer, I'm

lines

on

their lives in their hands.

The

situation

fifty

all

a

to

own. But they were taking

was increasingly

hajd rifles

volatile.

slung around their backs they

brandishing sabres. Never have

pear more quickly.

saw

their

camp

Cossacks rode into the camp,

and although they

were

afraid.

prisoners were slipping away from the

American

try to reach the

Next day

for

week, and Walkers trust of the Russians had turned to

Through

the

I

seen

POWs

disap-

windows of our barracks we

Russian officer shouting at them, presumably telling them

j

LIBERATED BY THE RED ARMY that

we were

allies.

At that they galloped

off,

229

obviously disap-

pointed that they could not have taken a few chunks out of us!

A few

days later came the development that Walker and

all

the

other Allied prisoners had dreaded. Events started well enough,

however, with a few Allied prisoners getting away in individual acts of liberation. friends

and

"Some American

relatives

whom

jeeps came, their drivers looking for

they took with them. In one of the jeeps

was an American war correspondent looking for

him and they drove Dad." But the

rest

best

out.

I

was so

excited, so

was allowed

it

in to take

and wounded from the hospital. This did not bode

sick

The American

trucks waited outside. Alan Clarke was in a

group that managed to

slip past

the guards and get

on one of them.

was gleefully shouting, "We're going home, we're going home"

when Russian soldiers ordered him they fired shots in the

air,

When he was slow to comply

off.

"and of course we

all

jumped

were back in camp again." Flight Lieutenant Tony Barber a

prominent British

politician

Exchequer) was climbing onto fire

went over

The

his head.

He

off

and we

(later to

a truck

when

a burst

of machine-gun

quickly got down.

Russians had refused to accept the credentials presented by

given five minutes to leave.

loomed

They were

as the

Americans were

told to get back to the River

Elbe, where the U.S. military advance had halted, or else they join the prisoners behind the barbed wire.

trols

be

and Conservative Chancellor of the

the American drivers. Confrontation

all

Then

Cross trucks arrived, and there was an alterca-

tion with the Russians at the gate before

He

wait.

wanted to weep."

A convoy of Red

well.

found

news of all. "We heard that the Americans

were nearby with seventy trucks to take us

away the

He

bet that guy thought he had one great

off. I

had no choice. They would have to

came apparently the relieved, I

his son.

The convoy

would

left.

Pa-

of Russian soldiers were then sent out to round up those pris-

oners

who had

attempted to get away.

around the camp

at

Armed

guards were stationed

50-yard intervals, and another cordon was set up

THE LAST ESCAPE

230

2 miles away.

The

prisoners

—

for that

warned they would be punished

if

is

what they were again

—were

12

they tried to leave.

Walker's anxiety was complete:

So where does not?

that leave us? Will the

just don't

I

know whether

by the Russians or

them

are

still

thing will be that

we

will

deliberate obstructionism

masses of red tape, because most of

very friendly and try and re-assure us that everyfine.

just

I

wish they would not keep on saying

be really welcome in Russia!

member what prisoners

just

it is

convoy come back or

is a

I

diplomatic one, not let

us

go

a

military one."

Moscow

until

we must

parade the next morning.

sorry,

—"we were be-

This was continued by the Senior British Of-

ing held as hostages."

Tin

So presum-

gives the okay.

Barber had no doubt about what was happening

ficer at a

re-

"The exchange of

the Russian general said.

ably they will not

think

I

[oolongs recalled,

"He

told us,

The We thought we

chaps but we're not going back with the Americans.

Russians won't

let us."

That's

when

the fear started.

were going to be shipped off to Russia, to Siberia, and into their labour camps." In his diary

and

(it

was now

May

7),

Walker recorded

his frustration

his fear:

The Russians have about

us.

at last

stopped pretending that they care

Five miles away there

waiting to take us

home

but

It is

convoy of empty trucks

who

get to

shoot

it

at

because

end

are

any attempt to

a

few days

all

the goodwill,

all

I

the

where sentiments of undying friendship between the

Russians and ourselves were made, have resulted in

how

we

an absurd and dangerous situation and

have had enough. So within parties

a

we cannot

surrounded by Russian guards cross the wire.

is

the future in a

is

to be? Is the defeat of the

war with Russia?

this. Is this

Germans going

to

LIBERATED BY THE RED ARMY

Meanwhile, Pearman was told very sorry.

I

know how you

Yalta

Soviet officer.

L

feel,

but

Agreement has been

until the Yalta

"The

explicitly I

by

am

a

231

Russian colonel, "I'm

not allowed to

let

you go

fulfilled."

Agreement?" the bemused Englishman roared

"What

the hell

is

that?"

at the

9:

Hostages of Stalin

carving up of Germany had begun even before The had been And kitchen fully plucked.

most powerful men Yalta, a

table

the chicken

where the three

world met to pick over the carcass was

town on the Crimean coast of the Black

would be broken that

in the

the

Sea. Inevitably, bones

in the process. In a fifty- room,

white-walled palace

had once belonged to the czar but which had since gone to seed

and was riddled with

Western

allies,

on February

lice, Stalin,

the Soviet leader, entertained his

Churchill and Roosevelt. In

4,

a

week of talks, beginning

1945, they divided Hitler's collapsing Third Reich

into zones of occupation and redrew the borders of Poland in a 1

way

would soon make 6 million Germans refugees. Like gods,

that

in

seven days they created the postwar world. As a side issue, they also

nodded through

a deal that all

prisoners of war would be returned to

their countries of origin, regardless of the wishes of individuals. It

was Churchill who raised the matter,

telling Stalin that 10,000

home

Russian prisoners of war in Britain had already been returned

but that 90,000 remained.

them? Unspoken by the :

large

What

British

did the Marshal want

done with

Prime Minister was the

numbers of them were Russians who had defected

fact that

to the

Ger-

mans and had been captured wearing the uniform of the Wehrmacht.Stalin asked to have

them back

government looked on them

"as quickly as possible."

all as

The

Soviet citizens, he said.

Soviet

He

re-

quested that there should be no attempt to induce any of them to refuse repatriation.

As

for those

who had

fought for the Germans, "they

HOSTAGES OF STALIN will

be dealt with on their return to Russia."

ment from Churchill or Anthony Eden,

233

The threat drew no com-

his

Foreign Secretary. In-

the Prime Minister agreed that the prisoners should be

stead,

repatriated,

and said the only

them home.

Earlier there

difficulty

was finding the ships to take

had been some dissension within the Amer-

ican ranks. In preconference discussions with the Russians, the Secre-

Edward

tary of State, repatriation,

had

Stettinius,

idea of forcible

tried to argue for a less all-encompassing definition

of the phrase "Soviet citizen." Stalin,

unhappy with the

Knowing

this

was nonnegotiable with

Roosevelt had simply bypassed his colleague's

sensitivities.

Churchill then turned to the issue of British prisoners of war

who had been

liberated

well treated. "Every

by

Stalin's troops,

mother

in

England

and begged for them to be

is

anxious about the fate of

her prisoner sons," he told the Soviet leader. that "very few"

had been liberated by

would probably be more soon.

be sent to Russia to help get them home.

was enshrined

all this

Eden and

his Soviet counterpart,

The agreement was for

a

some months anyway

were concerned. Already

response was

his armies as yet,

He agreed

ruary 11,

Stalin's

but there

that British officers should

On the

in a formal

following day, Feb-

agreement signed by

Vyacheslav Molotov. 4

confirmation of what had been happening

—

at least as far as the British

a shipload

and Americans

of prisoners of war had been sent

back to Russia from Britain, and there had been unfortunate scenes

The Americans

at the dockside.

—

after first resisting

repatriation but then falling into line with their

own

prisoners

it

compulsory

because of anxiety for

—had had the same experience. In December

1944, Soviet prisoners of war held in a

camp on

the west coast of the

U.S.A. were sent home, but not before several of them had committed suicide by jumping into the sea from the ship they had been

forced to board.

5

The need

come more urgent Poland and eastern oners of war.

to cooperate with the Russians

had be-

Red Army moved closer to the camps in Germany containing British and American pris-

as the

A War Office memorandum on January 22,

1945 noted

unequivocally that "one of the reasons for us repatriating Russians has of course been the question of the treatment likely to be ac-

THE LAST ESCAPE

234

corded to our

own men, and

greater importance."

6

I

think this point

is

This was not the time to be

now assuming stalling,

and

troop ship was pulled off other duties to speed up the process.

a

The

Chiefs of Staff were anxious that the political quid pro quo should be pressed home.

They asked

generosity of our action

make sure that "the should be impressed upon the Russians with the Foreign Office to

maximum chance of reciprocal treatment for any of our men who may fall into Russian hands."" That was the hope. That was the deal. The big question after Yalta was whether the object of obtaining the

the Soviets were playing the British and American their

own

choosing.

Sir James Grigg, the Secretary of State for

serious doubts.

War, was quick to have

He was no admirer of the Russians. As allies they were

loyal only to themselves

— they "did very

little

eyes but their own," as he later expressed

H

it.

for anyone's beautiful

The

on the agreement with them when he took up

man who had

anxieties to the very

to

game or one of

Anthony Eden

signed

it.

pen to voice

his

On February 22

were stopping

that the Russians

ink was barely dry

even though

this

shall therefore

had been

requirement agreed

know nothing about what

some of them

ers until

a specific

is

arrive at Odessa.

done more

for them,

9 be inflamed against the Russians."

British servicemen

in

"We

If,

as I suspect, shall

they bring

be responsi-

and public opinion may well

He

were "wandering"

interior,

at Yalta.

happening to our prison-

back stories of hardship and even maltreatment, we ble for not having

he wrote

British liaison offi-

from traveling beyond Odessa into the Soviet-occupied

cers

his

guessed that hundreds of

Poland and southern Russia

without anyone looking after their interests, and he was worried for

them.

He

suggested threatening to delay the next batch of Soviet

home from Britain. Eden replied with reasMoscow had now given entry visas to British liaison offi-

prisoners due to be sent surances. cers,

he

said,

which dealt with the immediate

inclined to issue threats to hold

would "not be wise

.

.

.

and

in

on

He was not He thought it

difficulty.

to Soviet prisoners.

any case we are most anxious to get

rid

of these people as soon as possible."

The

Russians, however, were

still

insisting that

any Allied

pris-

HOSTAGES OF STALIN oners went

home

they sent them

the long

way around.

Odessa, and

east, to

Instead of sending

many were,

on the way. Some would not make

ting lost

235

British prisoners died in a train crash at

it

as

at

Grigg

them west,

feared, get-

Eight liberated

all.

Krakow on

way from

their

Katowice to the Black Sea. Twenty-three were seriously injured, and another fifteen hurt. 10 Then a group of British

news

rived in Odessa with

wounded companions behind self, as

but

at

numerous

the British ambassador reported,

was being done to

little

in finding ships

Army medical staff ar-

had had to leave sick and

that they

hospitals. In

Odessa

it-

numbers were building up,

get them home. There were problems

—or so the Russian authorities claimed. The

situa-

tion was further complicated by Stalin's maneuverings over Poland,

where

a struggle

Communist

was going on

for control.

Moscow backed

a

pro-

interim government; the British and Americans wanted

free elections.

The American ambassador

that Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister,

in

Moscow was

certain

wanted to link the return

of British and American prisoners to recognition by Washington and

London of the Moscow-backed puppet government British

mail."

11

The

Once reluctant

stage

was

as "black-

London urged

caution. It was

— frightened, some might say—to send Molotov

is ill

"Our impression

will has

is

12

It

formal

a

that generally speaking the case that

not yet been proved," an

bassador in Moscow. prisoners

official

wrote to the am-

was thought that the slowness

in getting

home simply reflected the inefficiencies of life in the

Union rather than anything more which might be interpreted

on inducing Russians the

Warsaw. The

set for retaliatory action.

again the Foreign Office in

complaint. there

in

ambassador agreed, describing Molotov's attitude

applied, should give us is

[at Yalta], all

we

more

rapid results

which,

need."

if

on the

basis of

properly interpreted and

The ambassador

in

Moscow

some evidence of neglect and maltreatment of

our men," he cabled back, "but

ward such accusations without the Foreign Office

Soviet

"We should avoid protests

charges of bad faith and concentrate

to produce

Crimea Agreement

concurred. "There

as

sinister.

woke up

I

agree

full

it is

better not to bring for-

chapter and verse."

to reality

A week later

and urged the ambassador into

THE LAST ESCAPE

236

was receiving

action. It

stuck in Poland. to

The

far

too

many

reports of Allied prisoners

British liaison officers

must be given

still

full license

go and check on them. "You should leave the Soviet authorities

no doubt of the very great importance attached ing paid," the ambassador was instructed.

1

to

prompt

in

be-

visits

-

The kick in the pants for the Foreign Office appears to have come from Churchill. Told by Eden that there were problems brewing over the return of prisoners, he sent a personal note to Stalin re-

seemed

gretting that there

"We

parted at Yalta.""

There tive

is

to have

been "a

much

arc very

no subject on which the

lot

of difficulties since

distressed,"

he wrote.

British nation

is

more

sensi-

German hands and

than the (ate ot our prisoners in

their

own

speedy deliverance from captivity and restoration to their country. ter

I

your best your

The

should be

much

men

our men,

tor as

they

I

I

am

if

you would give the mat-

sure

you would wish

in the

west were about

500,000 of them

Those

terrible

to

Now

that the

Western

prisoner-of-war camps

territory, the

to he liberated.

And by

far the largest single

camps was the Russians. There were

combined

in the

marches from the

significantly, leaving just

do

are doing for

into our control along the Rhine.

German

national group in these

we

can promise you

reference to the Rhine wis significant.

had crossed into

east

British

had

and American

in fact

close to sectors.

changed the balance

123,000 British and American prisoners of

in the Soviet sector."

Stalin full

as

come

Allies

war

obliged

your personal attention as

we

— the "Bear,"

as

Churchill called him

—replied promptly,

of sweetness. "You have no grounds for anxiety so far as British

prisoners-of-war are concerned," he wrote. "' sharpness.

"They

Then he

are living in better conditions than

with Soviet prisoners-of-war in English camps,

number of cases,

suffered persecution

when

tried a little

was the case

the

latter, in a

and even blows." Then he

dis-

sembled. "Moreover, there are no longer any English prisoners-of-

war

in

our camps.

They

are en route for

Odessa and the voyage

HOSTAGES OF STALIN home." The date was March 23, and true.

at that

237

time the statement was

But the Red Army was advancing on more camps

walde for example

—with

American prisoners go home

mented

not to

clear instructions

let

—Lucken-

the British and

was certain he had ce-

until Stalin

his control of Poland.

The Americans after the Yalta

had

also

difficulties

with the Russians. 17 Shortly

meeting, the U.S. Military Mission in

tablished that there were at least 3,000

Moscow had es-

American prisoners of war

in

owned up to only 450. Most of them were stuck in Poland, but when a request was made to send in a team of liaison officers to make contact with them it was refused. Soviet hands, whereas the Kremlin had

As with the

British, the Russians

go to Odessa, but no

sentatives to area.

The

were willing to allow U.S. repre-

The

farther.

interior

was

reacted cautiously.

nobody's interest. Soviet

no-go

Military Mission was stunned at this blatant violation of

the agreement at Yalta, but, along with the U.S. embassy in it

a

Union

A confrontation with

The Americans were

to join the

Moscow,

the Russians would be in

mindful that they wanted the

war against Japan once Hitler had been

dis-

patched. Moreover, the realities of the situation were that they had

no way

to force the Soviets to speed

prisoners of split tle

among

war without

a

public

the Allies at this stage

diplomacy

up the

repatriation of American

show of

hostility

— and an open

would not help win the war. Gen-

—rather than outrage —was the only way. For public

consumption, problems with Stalin were to be downplayed.

On

the ground, however, negotiations continued until, after ten

days of wrangling,

team

to set

ruary 28

it

up

Moscow

in Poland.

finally

granted permission for a U.S.

Led by Colonel James Wilmeth, on Feb-

flew to the city of Lublin,

where from the outset the So-

viet military authorities put every possible obstruction in its way.

The Americans were virtually under house though they had flown in on they were

made

a transporter

to use a Soviet driver.

arrest in their hotel, and,

plane with their

own jeep,

Every move was watched. At

night Soviet troops slept in rooms next to theirs.

Wilmeth had no

communication with the outside world. The telephone operator had instructions to cut

him

off every time he tried to ring the U.S.

em-

THE LAST ESCAPE

238

bassy in

Moscow. Meanwhile, the American prisoners they did come Wilmeth that there were thousands of others

across confirmed to

them wandering around in Poland without help or transportation, and that some were even locked in "Soviet concentration camps, like

where they received

practically

Lublin, the Allied prisoners

being kept

in a

no food, no news, no nothing."

—91 Americans and 129 Britons —were

ramshackle building with broken windows, no doors, floor.

month without

they had wandered around Poland for a

They

In

19

and no heating. They slept on benches or on the

help.

18

They

getting any

and kicked by Red

told of being beaten, robbed,

said

Army

soldiers.

Wilmeth wanted

Russians refused to allow (

them

to arrange air transport to fly

)dcssa and then an exit by ship. \ phrase slipped into the

at

Yalta gave

them

The

agreement

The original document had given each

this right.

side the choice of transport tor taking

its

minute, Soviet negotiators had inserted

ment with the other

out.

on the overland route to

insisting

it,

party." As

prisoners home. At the last

six

deadly words: "in agree-

American historian

Patricia

Wadley

has concluded, "This change in Article 4 gave the Soviets total con-

over the

trol

effect the

movement of American and

United States and the British had agreed to

ation. Allied prisoners

when

British prisoners-of-war. In

would he held

at

hostage situ-

Odessa and returned only

the U.S. or I .K. repatriated Soviet prisoners-of-war."

no

alternative,

on

a train to

The

Wilmeth put

adamant

which they

the prisoners

With

— now numbering 267

Odessa.

Russians expected

fused to,

that he

did. Picking

Wilmeth

to leave Lublin too, but he re-

would wait

up

a

more

for

propaganda

him how abominably the

British

strays to turn up,

line that

and the Soviet press had been pursuing ever since told

a

Radio

Moscow

Yalta, the Russians

and Americans were treating

Russian prisoners of war in the west. In the ever souring atmosphere,

Wilmeth operate.

retorted that he was sick of Soviet

The whole

lies

repatriation exercise, he

run not by the Soviet

Army

and the

now

failure to co-

realized,

but by the secret police, the

was being

NKVD.

For

the Russians, this was a political operation, not a humanitarian one.

HOSTAGES OF STALIN

They were, however,

239

capable of embarrassment. Wilmeth's sus-

picions were raised one day

when he was

invited to visit a hospital in

Lublin, where he found seven newly arrived American prisoners of war.

They were

survivors of what the Russians

explain had been an accident.

A camp

been

liberated, but a Soviet tank

been

killed,

vived.

The

standing

had

in

fell

Poland

over themselves to

—Stalag IIIC—had

on the inmates. Many had

fired

and these seven were among the wounded Soviets offered explanations

—and

said they

were very

sorry.

—

who had

sur-

mix-up, a misunder-

a

Wilmeth had no choice but

20 to accept their story.

He finally left Lublin on March 28 sians,

who were

—much

to the relief of the Rus-

desperate to get foreign observers out of Poland.

Stalin's designs, his intention to

turn that country into a satellite of

Moscow, were not for the eyes of prying Americans. the U.S. Military Mission in

permission to

Moscow, General John Deane, requested

Lublin to join his colonel, the answer was no.

fly to

came personally from

Averell Harriman, the U.S. ambassador in

word with the Marshal.

would do fuss

at the highest levels.

Moscow, asked Roosevelt

Stalin replied in the

to Churchill a fortnight later.

same way

as

he

He could not see what all the

was about. His people were dealing

swiftly with

prisoners they encountered, but in reality they had not

many

It

breaking the word he had given at Yalta.

Stalin,

Like the British, the Americans protested

to have a

When the head of

all

American

come

across

of them, and those they had were already in Odessa waiting to

go home.

Harriman knew

this

was

a

lie,

and he told

his president so. It

was

proving impossible to get the Russians to stick by the terms agreed Yalta.

Harriman suggested

interests"

"retaliatory measures

—some economic sanctions, plus

of Soviet liaison officers in the west. likely to backfire.

war they

home

But

affect their

movement was more than

restricting the retaliation

By insisting on their right to move any prisoners of

liberated eastward to

Odessa

as the first leg

of the journey

the Russians had bought themselves valuable time. If the

Americans wanted the

21

which

at

game

a speedier repatriation,

they would have to play

the Russian way. Roosevelt fired off a bad-tempered letter

THE LAST ESCAPE

240

Government has done everything to meet your renow request you to meet mine" but there was no sting in

to Stalin: "This quests.

the

—

I

Stalin

tail.

responded with the absurd claim that there were only

seventeen Americans in Poland.

He

then accused the United States

of mistreating Soviet prisoners of war and also of failing to return a

number who had been captured were

going around

just

in

German uniform. The arguments

in circles.

Relations with the Soviets seemed to be touchy on

The

now.

Ron Walker

perience as

propaganda

camp

at

Luckenwalde.

What

he

— and,

first

as

He had started

a

the

a lot since

he might have put

found was

people

but were misunderstood, and after his

it

himself, speak as he

who had

initial

Communist

suffered terribly

happy encounters with

them he thought the Soviet Union "deserves an apology lies

subjects

the Russians, prepared to put aside the

—of which there had been

revolution of 1917

found.

in the

mind about

with an open

all

and diplomats were going through the same ex-

politicians

and slanders our press printed before the war."

::

for

But, as

all

the

we have

seen, the reality slowly

dawned

pawn

of international politics. In the Allied corri-

in a ruthless

game

as

he became their prisoner, and

Of necessity,

dors of power, the same thing was happening.

about the regime trayal

in

Moscow had been put on

a

doubts

hold; the great be-

of 1939, when Stalin had temporarily sided with Hitler, was

forgiven,

if

not forgotten.

London and Washington were prepared

to speak as they found. .And

what they were finding now was deeply

perplexing and deeply w orrying. Their so-called ally was obstructing their every

move.

For example,

on issuing

a

it

was

still

proving impossible to get an agreement

warning to the German people not to

prisoners of war.

On March

22, Churchill

complained

Roosevelt and Stalin that he had proposed channels as

far

back

as

ill-treat Allied

this

October 1944 and was

in a letter to

through diplomatic

still

waiting for a re-

sponse. Roosevelt cabled back the very next day with his approval, "if n Marshal Stalin agrees. " But the Marshal was not saying anything.

Not

yet,

anyway. In dealing with his partners, he was prone to make

trouble for trouble's sake. In the final weeks of the war, he never lost

HOSTAGES OF STALIN his suspicion that the British

making

—

many

a separate

would leave him

a deal that

as

own

and the Americans were on the brink of

peace deal with some faction or other inside Ger-

any hint that Nazi leaders their

241

like

out.

He

Himmler

or Goering were seeking

self-serving agreements with the

badly as Hitler did

when he

always reacted badly to

Western

got to hear about them.

Churchill's correspondence with Roosevelt his worries

signs that Stalin

25

He

summit

was not going to back down over Poland.

in the

this

filled

with

was no longer

Now,

told the if

sian version of 31, "It

is

at-

clear

He felt he

weeks ago he had returned from

House of Commons

that

he was honest, he would have to

true. "Surely,"

he said to the American

"we must not be manoeuvred into becoming parties

posing on Poland

March

six

Crimea and

Britain could trust Stalin.

president,

was now

was concerned by the increasingly

had been "defrauded." Barely

admit

—almost

24

about what he called "the deterioration of the Russian

titude since Yalta."

the

Allies

to im-

—and on much more of Eastern Europe—the Rus-

democracy?" Desperately he wrote to Stalin on as a sincere friend

of Russia that

appeal to you and your colleagues to

come

to a

I

make my personal

good understanding

about Poland with the western democracies and not to smite

down

the hands of comradeship in the future guidance of the world which

we now extend." There is nothing to suggest that he got any response. The Soviet Union was going its own way. Just six weeks later, Churchill would make his first reference to an "iron curtain" coming down over eastern Europe. 26 As attitudes hardened, direct action was taken. With the Rus-

now about to arrive at camps full of British and American POWs, such as Luckenwalde in the middle of Germany, Grigg sians

wrote again to Eden with

his fears for Allied prisoners

of war. "It

is

hand them over to the Americans moment" and not "send them marching back

essential that the Russians should at the earliest possible

to the rear to turn

up some time

up

happening

to prevent this

at

later at

Odessa." 27 Plans were drawn

one particular camp. The newly cre-

ated Special Allied Airborne Reconnaissance Force,

whose hand-

picked teams were in urgent training back in England under their

THE LAST ESCAPE

242

commander, Brigadier Nichols, would get

chance to go

their first

into action.

The

target

was Altengrabow, 45 miles west of Luckenwalde and

about 25 miles ahead of the front the time the plans were

known

drawn up.

of the American Ninth :s

One camp,

Army at

Stalag XIA, was

to be there, but the area could be overflowing with prisoners

evacuated from the 1

line

east.

Reports put the numbers there

at nearly

50,000, of whom 10,000 were thought to be British and 8,000

ican,

would have

drop

provoking the Germans into

to establish the facts without

retaliatory action against the prisoners.

Amer-

A secret

though the figures were admitted to be guesses.

Then ground

troops could go

forward from the American front lines to liberate the camp or camps.

men

Just after midnight on April 25, six teams of three

chuted into the area and discovered that the camp was

There was

little

tunately the

bad way.

food, and an epidemic of typhus was beginning. For-

number of

There were 20,000

in all,

prisoners had been grossly exaggerated.

of whom 2,000 were British and American.

However, conditions were deteriorating that a

in a

para-

badly. It

was

also suspected

detachment of the Soviet 28th Army was very close by and

would probably reach the camp before the American front overrun

it.

line

Contact was made with the German commander

could in the

area and, after delicate negotiations, he was persuaded to agree a

truce so that the British and to the Allied lines,

American

which were now

and Americans headed west with

French and Belgian

came

to a halt

of the

official

pended.

" :g

on

a

POWs could

make

The

just 15 miles away.

thousand of the

sick.

British

Hundreds of

made it too before further evacuations when the Russians arrived and, in the words

report on the operation, "ordered

The SAARF team headed back

all

evacuation sus-

smartly to their

leaving thousands of Russian and Polish prisoners in

hands. If the Russians had been after

been under orders from

Thanks

way

POWs

May 4,

prisoners in Stalag

their

XIA

Moscow

just as

more hostages

to seize the British

—

Red Army if

they had

—they were

a deal struck

too

late.

the

Germans, these pawns had been taken out of the game.

to Brigadier Nichols's raiders

lines,

and American

they had at Luckenwalde

and

own

with

HOSTAGES OF STALIN

243

As April ended, the Russians began to show signs of Their tight grip on the situation relaxed

a little.

Now

it

relenting.

was

just a

Moscow, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs suggested that, the American and Soviet armies had now met at the River Elbe,

squeeze. In since

no reason why prisoners of war could not be handed over the front line. It was what the Allies had wanted all along no

there was

—

across

more

trips

home

via Odessa, 2,000 miles away.

He

the U.S. charge d'affaires, was suspicious.

were, as usual, serving their

own

interests.

But George Kennan, thought the Soviets

This was

way of

really a

getting Russian prisoners in the west back as quickly as possible and

cutting short any debate about those

was

whose

status as Soviet citizens

in doubt.

But, by suggesting repatriation across the lines, the Russians had

made

it

an issue for the military to get involved with, as opposed to

General Eisenhower displayed

just the diplomats.

From Supreme

his impatience.

Allied Headquarters he told General

U.S. Military Mission in

Moscow

that he

Deane

at the

wanted the "thousands of

U.S. and British prisoners-of-war held in close confinement under unsatisfactory conditions" by the Soviets brought out

mediately.

30

If the Russians

shape up or "there

were being uncooperative, they had better

may well

His view was bolstered by

had been the senior

by plane im-

a

ensue most undesirable consequences."

report from the

Norwegian general who

Luckenwalde.

He told American diplo-

officer at

mats that conditions in the camp were "extremely bad," and that the Russian major

who had

taken charge was usually drunk and his

were "venting their resentment" on the prisoners.

31

When

men these

points were put to the Russians, they protested their innocence. But

they did agree to a formal meeting to resolve

May

16

all

sides got together in the

with Germany,

it

should be

been for more than

a

said,

city of Halle.

The war and had

week. Berlin had fallen to the Red Army, and

Hitler had killed himself in his bunker forces

problems, and on

officially over,

German

was now

all

on April

30.

had surrendered to General Montgomery on

armistice had

come

for everyone to

into force

go home.

on

May 8, VE Day.

The German

May

Surely

5, it

and the

was time

THE LAST ESCAPE

244

Eisenhower sent of forty officers troops.

his

Chief of

Staff,

Major General Raymond

There he found himself facing

Barker, to Halle.

—eight of them generals—and

They were

heavily

all

armed with

a Soviet delegation

bodyguard of

a

pistols, rifles,

fifty

and machine

guns, and had brought a radio truck for instant consultation with

Moscow. At the

first session,

the British and fused.

Barker proposed the use of aircraft to bring

American prisoners home. The Russians

They would not

allow Allied planes to touch

flatly re-

down on what

they considered to be their territory. Moreover, the Russian delegation had

no powers

They had come with

to negotiate.

their orders,

and they would not deviate from them. Barker had no doubt in

mind

that the prisoners

The

price being

ment of the

Yalta

demanded

in effect hostages.

for their release

last

a fresh it

endorse-

would be

degree." Barker stood his ground.

There

"Since an agreement had already been signed

this.

between the three Governments on

this subject,

enact any further ones," he recorded. practical details

was

Agreement, with an added pledge that

complied with "to the

was no need for

were now

his

32

on how the

Yalta

it

They were

was superfluous to there to

work out

Agreement could be implemented.

After spending hours on the radio phone to his superiors, the senior

Russian general relented, and they got

One

issue almost

sisted that

down

to business.

talks completely.

no Russian prisoner of war should have

must be provided that this

wrecked the

for the

whole

distance.

The

to walk. Transport

The Americans

was simply impractical. While every

Soviets in-

effort

to provide trucks, they could not be guaranteed. It

pointed out

would be made was

a point the

Russians reluctantly conceded, and an agreement was signed. Pris-

oners would be "delivered through army lines to army

each side"

at specified points.

33

At

last

commands on

the Luckenwalde "hostages"

were coming home.

Many

at Stalag

IIIA had not waited around for the international

wrangling to take

its

course.

They had

seen which

way

the wind was

HOSTAGES OF STALIN blowing, and after years as prisoners of the

about to submit to the prospect of new

four friends,

made

Germans they were not

jailers.

He

turned to anger and then to action.

245

Ron Walker's

packed

despair

his kitbag and,

with

his escape.

We found a part of the wire that had been damaged by the Russian tanks, crawled underneath, slipped past the Russian sen-

and ran

try,

woods

until

we were about

We

nearby woods.

like hell for the

2 miles

stuck to the

from the camp, and then

started walking west along the road, diving into ditches

when

any Russian vehicle appeared.

Towards evening we saw an American convoy heading in

our direction.

When

The

last lorry

the driver realized

his foot

who we

down, and we went

the Elbe. Crossing

When we

I

arrived at an

we reached

moment of my life. The

American camp, the commanding

officer

welcomed

any way they can," he told

everyone here willing to help

us. "You'll find

"Good luck, and may you

us.

soon be back where you want to be." These were the

words

I

had heard for four

in.

was going to get home.

you

in

of a rate until

at a hell

really

east

were, he turned round, put

was the greatest

it

nightmare was over.

stopped, and we piled

first

kind

years.

Walker had two thoughts nagging

at

him.

First,

he was con-

cerned about what was happening back at Luckenwalde. Second, he realized he

had disobeyed the "stay put" order and

be in big trouble I left

when

I

there was a strong

get home.

rumour

It

was not

true.

I

On

probably

My only hope is that just before

that the

Commanding

due to the extraordinary circumstances, withdrawn to remain in the camp.

"I will

can only hope the contrary,

it

was

Officer had,

his order for us

true."

Wing Commander

Collard,

worried about the gun-toting Russians and their belligerence after the American trucks were turned away, confined the entire British

contingent to the camp. Ironically,

when

all hostilities

were to

cease.

it

He

was

May

8,

VE Day— the

day

resigned as Senior British Of-

THE LAST ESCAPE

246

Leonard Pearman and

ficer in protest at the prisoners' treatment.

Alan Clarke had both attempted to get away in the U.S. convoy and

had been hauled back by the Russians. wait and hope.

going on

talks

next day.

On May

at

to his word.

The

Half

POWs climbed aboard, twenty-five men to a

was

a

going

But the Englishman was not

"Oh

to England.

A

let

Russian officer turned on

no, no. You're not going to

You

will see."

tortuous journey through countryside devastated by war.

Road bridges had and woods

miles to the Elbe.

them

home

all is

he called out to his mates, "Don't

said in perfect English,

Siberia, you're

pick

in jest,

4

going to Siberia."

fool you, we're

him and

fields

next morning there were 100

"You are going home, we are taking you to the Elbe,

totally convinced.

It

they could do was

19 a Russian general brought news of the

well," a Russian driver told Pearman.'

them

all

Halle and promised them they would be leaving the

He was true

trucks waiting, and the truck.

Now

collapsed, and detours had to be found through if

necessary. It took eight hours to drive the 60

There

a

convoy of American trucks was waiting to

With whoops of joy, they climbed down from the Rusand boarded the American ones. For some it was then a

up.

sian trucks

brisk ride across a swaying

pontoon bridge

—

built

by U.S. engineers

to replace the normal road bridge, which had been blown up

they were on friendly

soil at last.

—and

Others walked or went on barges.

Alan Clarke remembered crossing the river and seeing

a

batch of

Russian prisoners of war coming in the opposite direction, heading

He "We

east.

didn't give a thought to

what the Russians were going home

were just pleased to be going home ourselves. We didn't know anything about what would happen to them." The fate of those liberated Russian prisoners of war would not to.

35

be clear for years to come, though senior politicians and military

commanders must have had an inkling at the time. Certainly they would have realized there would be no mercy for those who had fought in

German

uniforms. 36 But

it

was perhaps too incredible to

think that Stalin would really exact revenge on every one of his soldiers

who had been

taken captive, dubbing them

dering them, driving them into labor camps,

all traitors,

filling his

mur-

gulag with

HOSTAGES OF STALIN

them and Western

their families.

Even

leaders, they could

was the enemy.

Stalin

was an

won.

If unpalatable decisions

then

was because, as the

it

with

ers

thoughts did cross the minds of

not be allowed to dictate policy. Hitler ally

without whom the war could not be

were made, deals struck with the

German

guards used to

knowing shake of the head, Krieg

a

Decades

The

if such

later,

made

ist

Krieg

men

1945.

war.

a

about the circum-

which Cossacks who had fought on the German

These Cossacks were described

in the last

as "victims

But

their fate led to bitter public controversy.

it is

side

had

weeks of

of Yalta," and

hard to see what

could have been done at the time.

else

Could

been

Stalin really have

knew

Churchill

that Britain

resisted?

was exhausted

Almost certainly

avoid

it,

and certainly not with

a different

Americans had one eye on Japan and the a ferocious

still

cus there.

37

war

Stalin

to be

Pacific,

he could

where there was

won, and were desperate to switch

their fo-

was the one with the appetite for more bloodshed.

—or perhaps because

—the Russians were prepared to continue the struggle.

was uncanny how often Red and American counterparts

march on

The

if

truth

is

six

enemy. Meanwhile the

Despite the losses the Soviet Union had taken

of them

not.

—and bankrupted—by

years of war, and he was not about to prolong hostilities

to

is

end of the war became

been returned to the Soviet Union to be executed

May

—war

mid-1970s and the 1980s, when allegations were

against British politicians and military

stances in

devil,

their prison-

tell

such decisions have been condemned by some.

forcible repatriation of Russians at the

cause celebre in the

247

to Paris

Army

soldiers

would

tell

that, after taking Berlin,

It

their British

they were ready

and London even. Uncanny and frightening.

that Stalin

won

the peace in

Europe because he alone

had the stomach for more war.

Those

British prisoners of

war held

in

Luckenwalde and other

camps overrun by the Russians were part of struck at Yalta.

a necessary bargain

RAF airman Leonard Pearman had no doubt that the

Cossacks paid the price for him to go home. In an interview conducted at the Imperial phatic that,

if

War Museum in London in

1989, he was

em-

the Cossacks had not been forced back across the

THE LAST ESCAPE

248

border into the Soviet Union, then he would not have been returned

home

for

many years,

mal outlook for us

if

if at all.

"Many of us

the terms of the Yalta

"We would

ried out," he said.

quoted with approval

a

felt it

would be

a

very dis-

Agreement were not

car-

38

He

have been sent to Siberia."

statement attributed to Grigg, the Secretary

of State for War, in 1945: that

"if the

choice

is

between hardship to

men and death to Russians the choice is plain." Even after Pearman and his Luckenwalde compatriots had crossed the Elbe and 39

our

were

thousands of British and American prisoners of

in safe hands,

war were

still

waiting to be returned in other battlefronts through-

out Europe. At the very time that the Cossacks were being dis-

patched to the Soviet Union, U.S. military sources estimated there

were

still

15,597 American and 8,462 British prisoners of war in So-

viet hands, waiting to

In one instance

be allowed home. 40

it is

claimed that the release of British and Amer-

ican prisoners of

war by the Russians was

handing back of

a particular traitor,

The camp

in

high

facilities

at Barth, a small

more than 9,000 by

percent were Americans.

The

I

had 6,000 air-force prisoners

bers had swollen to

were

fair,

It

as

had

a

but

num-

the spring of 1945. Eighty

camp

to be in:

was the regime, and morale was generally

severe shortage of food supplies. parcels

list.

town on the

in late 1944,

reputation as a good

— dipping only toward the end, when

Red Cross

on the

high on Moscow's wanted

question was Stalag Luft

Baltic coast. It

directly conditional

Even

were piling up

for six

weeks there was

this privation

at Liibeck,

a

was short-lived.

and prisoners were

al-

lowed to drive trucks the 80 miles along the coast to stock up.

Morale was restored

to such an extent that Luft

I

was the one camp

where, with the Russians approaching, the prisoners refused Ger-

man

The Senior American Officer, Colonel H. Zemke, told the German commandant that he had a trained "fighting force" who would resist any attempt to move them, and that, though his men could arm themselves only with knives and clubs, orders to evacuate.

there were thousands of the end they

would

them

bloodshed, marched his

against the hundreds of guards and in

The commandant decided to avoid any own men out, and surrendered the camp to

prevail.

41

HOSTAGES OF STALIN

Zemke

his prisoners.

sent out scouting parties in two directions

east to locate the Russians

ones

who

249

and west toward the Allied front

line.

The

went east ran into a Russian patrol just 20 miles away.

On May

Gordon Hemmings recalled, mostly armed with Tommy-guns and

2 the Russians arrived.

"Cossack types on horseback, mostly drunk." 42

The

prisoners

all

put on white armbands with

"American" or "English" in Russian on them, and were treated with respect. lessly.

The German

population in the town was attacked merci-

"These Russians were nothing more than savages armed to the

teeth. I

saw one of them with three or four gold pocket watches on

chains hanging from his hand, and he was swinging

amused

wall and appeared to be highly

at the

them

way

against the

pieces flew off

down when the main force arrived and a Rustook charge. The prisoners turned their efforts to clear-

them." Things settled sian colonel

ing mines from a nearby flying

airfield, in

home. The suggestion

stead was depressing

beyond

the hope that they

that they belief,

would soon be

would be going via Odessa

and

in-

VE Day was enlivened only

by ceremonially burning down the camp watch towers. It

was then that the two senior Allied

matters along.

They

contacted the local area

Army, who received the air.

Hemmings The

officers

all-clear

decided to push

commander of the Red

from Moscow for an evacuation by

said:

next morning [May 12]

we were

told to be ready to leave

Nobody really believed it. But we marched out of the camp and as we got close to the airfield we heard the sound of approaching Fortresses and we had to believe it. I

at three o'clock.

was in the fourth and

a half

Could

it

aircraft.

hours later

really

We took off at five o'clock and three

we landed

in England.

have been that simple, given the Russians' down-

right refusal to allow evacuation

by air

controlled? Historian Patricia

Wadley

at

any other of the camps they thinks not.

Four hundred

miles away, on the far side of Germany, a renegade Russian general

was being handed over to the army he had deserted three years ear-

THE LAST ESCAPE

250

lier.

The much

decorated and highly regarded Andrei Vlasov had

been captured by the Germans

them

against Stalin. Hitler allowed

Russian Liberation

men had ended up it

Army from in

and had joined forces with

in 1942

him

to recruit a 50,000-strong

Russian prisoners of war.

He

and

his

Czechoslovakia as the war came to an end, and

was there that they had surrendered to the Americans. The Soviets

were desperate to get

their

hands on Vlasov, and

was

a deal

struck.

Citing confidential government records in Washington as her evidence,

4 '

Wadley

says he

was handed over

in return for the

to airlift the prisoners of war out of Barth. "Vlasov at 2:30 p.m.

on

May

12," she says. "U.S.

circling the Barth airfield,

were allowed

agreement

was handed over

bombers, which had been

to land at 3:30 p.m."

44

Vlasov was executed in Moscow. Hundreds of thousands, per-

haps millions, of his fellow countrymen met tain

of

British ship, the

a

himself after delivering

a

Empire

Pride,

a similar fate.

The

cap-

saw what happened for

cargo of Russian prisoners of war to

Odessa. Thirty of them had gone under protest, and they spent the entire journey locked in cells.

When

the ship docked, these

men

were singled out and

marched or dragged and

into a

after a lapse of 15

warehouse 50 yards from the ship

minutes automatic

ing from the warehouse.

Twenty minutes

fire

was heard com-

later a

covered lorry

drove out of the warehouse and headed towards the town. Later

I

had

a

chance to glance into the warehouse when no

one was around and several places

about

5 feet

I

found the cobbled floor stained dark in

around the sides and the walls badly chipped for

up.

45

For many Russians, home proved to be this

was

balance

a all

time

when

the lives of

across Europe.

many

a terrible

death trap. But

prisoners of war

hung

in the

0:

1

From

Waiting for Patton

below they would have looked

bombs, but what destruction.

Not

through the

air like

fell

as if

they were dropping

from the Allied planes was not death and

this time. Instead,

thousands of

snowflakes caught in the wind.

the ground with their message to the

German

leaflets fluttered

They dropped

military.

of taking revenge on Allied prisoners of war, the urged. Their safety

and you It

will

is

—have no doubt— be called to account.

was April

23,

and the warning that had been discussed among

peated over the radio

The main

earlier,

Germans were

the responsibility of every single one of you,

The message

the Allies for so long had finally been issued.

ins.

to

Do not think

—

fell

on

a

Germany

that

was collapsing

—

re-

in ru-

month

Allied force had crossed the Rhine just a

and since then Bradley's and Montgomery's tanks had been

Germany almost unopWalter Model's Army Group B, ordered by

rolling east across the flatlands of western

posed. Field xMarshal

Hitler to dig in and defend the industrial heartland of the Ruhr, had

been surrounded and 325,000 German soldiers had surrendered,

among them

thirty generals

and an admiral. In the southeast, the

Russians had taken Vienna. In the northeast, the road to Berlin was

wide open. It

was already

had wished long

a

life

time for dying. Model, to his fiihrer

of German

who

just

months

earlier

and declared that "none of us gives

up

a square foot

est

near Diisseldorf and blown his brains out rather than go into cap-

soil

while

still

alive,"

1

had driven

to a for-

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MARCH

1945

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aaa Soviet front on March

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British

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1945

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BERLIN

100 kilometers

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EICHSTATT

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(J

WAITING FOR PATTON Others more fanatical than he might wish to take

tivity.

the

253

enemy with them as they could. For those so tempted,

as

many

of

there were

easy targets in the dozens of overcrowded prisoner-of-war camps in areas soon to be overrun

by the

invader.

For now, the inmates were

fish in a barrel.

Winston Churchill had made desperate ing issued a

month

earlier.

worded telegram

In a strongly

and Stalin urging them to approve

sevelt

have the warn-

efforts to

to

Roo-

he told them:

his plan,

We have long foreseen danger to these prisoners arising either in

consequence of chaotic conditions resulting from

collapse or out of a deliberate attempt ciates to this

murder some or

manoeuvre might be

render or to save the sters

lives

all

The

German his asso-

object of

either to avoid unconditional sur-

of the more important Nazi gang-

counter, or to cause dissension

this threat as

among

bargaining

a

the Allies in the final

2

Churchill accepted that bombarding a

by Hitler and

of the prisoners.

and war criminals, using

stages of the war.

a

Germany with

leaflets

was not

foolproof method for preventing a massacre:

An SS general is now in charge of prisoner-of-war matters in the German Ministry of Defence and the SS and Gestapo are 3

believed to be taking over control of the camps.

people a warning will have a limited

worst

it

can do no harm.

certain that the lar

On the

effect,

other hand,

On

though

it is

such

at the

by no means

SS have completed taking over from the regu-

army officers and on them the

letter

might have

real effect.

We should surely miss no opportunity of exploiting any duality

of control.

Roosevelt agreed to an immediate release of the warning. Stalin, playing power games, stalled. later,

L

Urged again by Churchill

three weeks

he insisted that the warning had to be signed personally by

all

THE LAST ESCAPE

254

three heads of state (which

would now mean Harry

the Americans, since Roosevelt had died).

Then the French decided to get name on the leaflet too. 4 Finally and Belsen having

just

wording be changed

camp inmates

S.

Truman

That meant another

De

involved.

for

delay.

Gaulle wanted his

—with the horrors of Buchenwald —the Russians suggested that the

emerged'

at the last

as well as prisoners

minute to include concentrationof war.

was not an unreasonable

It

suggestion, but, given that the Russians had liberated Auschwitz three and a half

months ago,

Agreement was

it

could have been

finally reached, the planes

made

earlier.

went out with

their

and the Germans were put on notice. "The governments of

leaflets,

Kingdom,

the United

the United States of America, and the

of Soviet Socialist Republics," the message

here issue

a

solemn warning

to

charge of Allied prisoners of

all

commandants and guards

war

in

prisoners of war have been placed. all

such persons, no

mand and

the competent

less

all

other

in

whose charge Allied

They

declare that they will

than the

German

in

Germany and German-

persons of whatsoever service or rank

hold

Union

said,

occupied territory and to members of the Gestapo and

German High Com-

military, naval

thorities, individually responsible for the safety all

6

and

air

au-

and welfare of

Allied prisoners of war in their charge.

Any person

guilty of maltreating or allowing

prisoner of war to be maltreated

on the

—

elsewhere

— whether

of communication, in

lines

will

a

camp,

any Allied

in the battle zone,

hospital, prison or

be ruthlessly pursued and brought to punish-

ment.

An

excuse of "acting under orders" was specifically ruled out. "This

responsibility

[is]

binding

in all

circumstances and one which cannot

7 be transferred to any other authorities or individuals whatsoever."

Against threats

all

expectation, there was

were issued

in return.

what has become known

as his

no response from

The month

Berlin.

No

before, Hitler had issued

"Nero Order," which was an

instruc-

WAITING FOR PATTON tion to burn

and destroy anything useful

255

—whether military or

a

rather than see

into the hands of the invaders.

16,

it fall

from the bunker

in Berlin,

he tried to

Then, on April

rally his troops for

one

time with bloodthirsty threats and historical grandiloquence, as

were

still

on the podium

Nuremberg and

at

massed before him, hanging on All his darkest thoughts

fate

threatening

is

front of the capital of the

German

he

— "the Jewish

—who were "attempting You

to eradicate our nation.

soldiers

to

know what

and children. This time the

girls

Bolshevik will experience Asia's old

if

word.

were about the Russians

German women,

last

the Nazi faithful were

his every hate-filled

Bolshevik arch-enemy," as he called them

smash Germany and

in-

bridge or an armored car or a store of grain

dustrial or economic:

He

fate.

Reich."

8

will bleed to

It

was time to

death in

fight,

not

to run, he thundered.

Whosoever does not do

The regiment

our nation.

acts disgracefully.

to be arrested

is

rank. In this soldiers.

duty

his

moment is

at this

or division that leaves

Whosoever

gives

you

a traitor to its

command

a

position

to retreat

and executed immediately, irrespective of his

hour the entire German nation looks to you,

By your

fanaticism,

ship, the Bolshevik

my

by your arms and by your leader-

onslaught

[will be]

drowned

in a blood

bath.

Ironically, at this

fortnight their

Bill

however, the greater threat to Allied prisoners of war

time was coming not from the dictator, besieged and just a

own

own

how

easy

life,

but from bombardments by

side.

Ethridge's fears about

target

his

away from taking

had been

he had arrived

totally justified.

at Stalag

Sagan, picking his

XIIID

way around

at

it

Back

was

for

at the

Nuremberg

the

bomb

bombers

to miss their

beginning of February after the

journey from

craters in the road outside.

These were the work of American bombers

—B-l

7 Flying Fortresses

THE LAST ESCAPE

256

being flown by able to

tell

men

him. His

just like

life

depended on them being

the difference between friend and foe from 27,000 feet.

During the next months he looked up and was and

distinctive yellow wingtips

tail

able to pick out the

from

sections of planes

his

own

Bomb Group as they headed for Nuremberg and its vast railroad

447

marshaling yards

—twenty-five tracks wide

were no more than

2 miles

from the

—

some places which camp. He took what comfort he in

could from them. "The raids surely endangered us in the stalag but

Germany was losing the

they also meant the increasing certainty that

war and we would soon be on our way home." 9

The bombing went on day and dawn

until dusk,

night

—American

B-17s from

then British Lancasters and Halifaxes in the dark.

— those not too weak from lack of food

The

prisoners

tion

was cut by half

as the daily ra-

—dug foxholes and trenches in between snow-

storms, and waited and watched. Joe Cittadini could not take his eyes off this grand

spectacle of

Pathfinder planes would

Germany's

come

At night,

defeat.

and drop parachute

in

flares

cendiaries to light up the target area. Anti-aircraft guns

up from either

side of the

British

and

in-

would open

camp.

Then for the next half hour the heavy bombers would fly in. The first bomb would get us out of our crude beds to huddle around the windows. Explosions and we would count the seconds

work out the

wooden

distance.

lit

until the

They were

rigid formations

oners.

lazily

from

to

day,

bomb

It

away.

Our

was exciting

American bombers

the

side to side at

same

targets.

in

10

about 3,000 feet thrilled the

There was no opposition. German

their absence.

too.

sound reached us to

sight of xMustang fighters nonchalantly drifting overhead

banking

by

came over

Nuremberg,

just a mile

barracks would shake with the tremor.

and disquieting. Then, during the

The

the sky over

But Allied domination of the

Colonel Walter Arnold of the U.S.

ing officer in

fighters

and pris-

were conspicuous

air

brought terror

Army Air Corps, command-

one of the compounds, would never forget one

raid

WAITING FOR PATTON

257

when panic swept through his men. "They were ing,

and praying.

and

fell

ened.

I

One young airman threw his arms around my waist

to his knees

told

hugging my legs,

him and

To Bob Neary,

in such distress, lost

and

would protect us."

the others that Jesus Christ

He

a slit

threw himself into

heard the sound of engines in the distance.

their loads into the city. "It

when he

trench

Then

soon became

a

the rumble got

were exploding

in the sky

like fireflies,

fires.

wing tip." John Parsons wept

brought down.

"It

was

hit

and

back toward the camp. Then,

were coming out of

it.

I

saw

it

made

it

on

as

he watched an

a

sharp

left

fire

turn and

just outside the fence, sheets

back to England."

of cordite and smoke hung in the

it. 13

Many

And

air for

from

RAF plane

this fellow trying to get out,

plane exploded and he went up with

and didn't make

Anti-aircraft

and spotlights were

desperately probing the heavens. Falling planes were to

dumped

raging inferno and the

night was as bright as day from the flares and the

wing tip

11

on the night of March 16 was "magnif-

12

nearer and turned to a roar as wave after wave of bombers

shells

fright-

the attack

icent, yet horrible." first

crying, yelling, wail-

came

of

fire

but the

of the planes were hit

after

each raid the stench

hours.

Len Jepps, a prisoner since 1940, who had recently arrived at Nuremberg from Lamsdorf, felt the full force of the Allied bombing when he was sent into the city to bring back a small supply of Red Cross parcels that had unexpectedly turned up in the rail yard. He thought himself strangely invincible as the bombs rained down "as though it wasn't possible for us to become the victims of our own forces after we had travelled so long a road and lived to tell the tale." 14 These were foolish thoughts, as he realized when he surveyed the damage around him afterwards. "It was chaos. Huge locomotives and wagons were strewn in all directions and fires were burning everywhere. An ammunition train was on fire and hundreds Private

—

of thousands of rounds were going off like a firework display. Oil tankers were blazing, sending

up huge columns of black smoke."

While Nuremberg burned, the prisoners coal,

and

in the

fires

froze.

There was

little

were kept going only by tearing planks from buildings

camp. This was

a risky thing to

do

—punishable by death, they

THE LAST ESCAPE

258

were warned. John Parsons took

from

a

chance and was stripping wood

a latrine

when me. it

I

He

realized there

my

right in

then

I just

life. I

was

a

guard standing

3 feet

away from

reached in his holster, took out his weapon and stuck face.

the lower

I

managed

to distract

him and

ran like you never saw anyone run before in your

got to the

open, and

Somehow

window of the

barracks,

which fortunately was

threw myself right through

I just

bunk and covered myself up with

it.

I

down in The guards

got

a sack.

came through and poked bayonets here and there and walked out.

I

was lucky

as hell.

"Home seems pretty far away right now," Ethridge thought as he wrote

a letter to his wife,

News came over the hidden radio that the Ger-

of it getting through.

mans were blowing up the Allied advance.

gloomy

Mary, not knowing what the chances were

all

"We

the bridges along the Rhine to try to slow

are

hoping that the big push

is

NOW!" The

him he might well be right. One was war would be over in a few weeks. Why else

faces of the guards told

overheard saying the

was the camp loudspeaker blaring out "In the

Mood" and

other

American dance tunes?

Hunger became a serious problem. Joe Cittadini remembered the Germans providing rancid cheese and soup in which the only protein was the worms floating in it which was "kind of discouraging." The POWs consumed the soup without looking too closely. Moose Moulton recorded that he had been a prisoner of war for ex-

—

actly a year

and

"I

have never been so hungry in

weight was down to 100 stone).

He

wrote in

lb. (just

my

life."

over 7 stone) from 190

his diary that

"my

ribs are sticking

my legs

look

like a scarecrow's."

black keys on a piano and

15

lb.

out

His

(13.5

like the

The

next

day he did not have the energy to get himself out of bed. "If only parcels

would come."

For others, sleep offered no

up

in his

bunk because

lying

relief.

At night Ethridge would

down made

sit

the stomach cramps un-

WAITING FOR PATTON

259

bearable. Supplies could not get through to the camp,

my last piece of Spam, Along with

bread.

that's all

a

bowl of thin barley soup

for about four days, if I

by

"I savored

along with one of my two remaining pieces of

the food for today.

then, as if

and

a miracle,

I

am

morning,

earlier this

have enough food on

my person to last

careful. After that, I don't

know." But

food parcels arrived by the truckload. Six

Red Cross trucks arrived from Switzerland. Ethridge gorged himself on toast with real butter, and mashed potatoes with cheese on top "PLUS gravy from a can of liver pate and powdered milk! For dessert, chocolate pudding.

The

relief

A great day!"

and the joy were such that the Senior American Offi-

Colonel Darr Alkire, offered to share the food with the guards,

cer,

whose

supplies had also run out. This

particularly since

he had

earlier

was seen

as "a

smart gesture,"

been bold enough to make an

official

complaint to the commandant about violations of the Geneva Convention. 16 targets

He argued that the camp was dangerously close to military

and that no proper

bomb

shelters

had been provided, that

food supplies were "less than that required for basic metabolism"

and of such poor quality that there was

a

danger of disease, that the

barracks were overcrowded with "only 19 sq. 1

19 cu.

ft.

ft.

of floor space and

of air space per man," and that there was no heat,

a short-

age of beds and blankets, poor lighting, and inadequate washing facilities.

fleas.

than

The

prisoners suffered from rats, mice,

Fifty rolls of toilet paper a

were expected to

month. There was no chapel,

gestion.

library,

lice,

last

miles away to the southwest

Nothing had come of this,

5,000

or theater.

Let the prisoners march to the Swiss border

—and stay there

bedbugs, and

men more

He had a sug-

—which was 150

until the

but, as Cittadini noted, "it

war was

over.

was heartening

to see our thoughts recorded in this manner."

In the end the prisoners were rection.

moved

—though

At the beginning of April, Patton was

wrong

in the

said to

be

di-

just 55 miles

away with the U.S. Third Army, but the Germans made

it

clear that

the prisoners were not going to be allowed to stay around to be liberated.

They were

weather had taken

L

to

march

southeast, to Bavaria.

a turn for the better

Fortunately the

—sunny and warm, the

first

THE LAST ESCAPE

260

snow and cold. The prisoners were of two minds. They would be moving away from the Allied front, but they would be spared the bombing, which in the last few weeks had days of spring after weeks of

become

intensive to the point of shattering nerves.

While some were

almost happy to be on the road again, Moulton was

logged every single

there had been 125 in his legs

not

fully recovered.

and weak that

We are list

had

I

—and some had come too close

"Got

my

doubt that

The

I

so thin

my knees in such

my damaged

I

have put

my name on

the hospital

knees. At least our bellies are

full

right

[they had stuffed themselves with every bit of food they left]

and the way Patton

what the Germans

What They

all

next day he wrote:

is

driving eastward right

might be overtaken. Expect the war tell

weeks

for comfort.

back-pack ready but we are

could march again with

ready to go again.

due to

now

all

He had

less sure.

in the past three

had been wrecked on the march out of Sagan and had

But

bad shape."

on Nuremberg

air raid

left

is

will do.

to

now we

end very soon but

can't

Russians are driving west too.

going to happen? We'll see very soon.

on April

3.

As they marched out through the

gates, they

looked back to see Nuremberg ablaze once more. Ahead lay only uncertainty.

But Ethridge was sure of one thing:

"I will

not miss

this

place."

While the marchers

set

out south from Nuremberg, forced out of

the immediate reach of General Patton and his army, there was a

camp 150

miles to the north that was directly in the line of General

Bradley's line of advance. Oflag hain,

and

it

had been

a

welcome

war who had arrived there from the vas,

east. It

a

IX was near the

village of

Ziegen-

sight for those English prisoners of

month

earlier after a

had shelter for one thing, even

600-mile march

if it

was under can-

and the promise of Red Cross supplies, though none actually

came. Jim Badcock,

a

navigator in

Bomber Command,

arrived there

WAITING FOR PATTON on March

12, 1945.

He

17

and

261

his fellow prisoners

had been on the

Germany from Stalag 344 at Lamsdorf, close to the border with Poland. They had experienced the same horrors as others whose journeys we have road for forty-nine days, tramping across the middle of

traced

more

—freezing cold weather, hunger to the point of

closely

starvation, sickness,

and

left to die.

even

and exhaustion. They had seen friends drop out

Now

was perilously close

if it

The main camp was were

also

either at rivals

full

to the battlefront.

of French and Russian prisoners. There

some American and

Arnhem

British troops captured fairly recently,

or in the Battle of the Bulge.

were housed

new home,

the survivors from the east had a

in three

marquees and

The 750 new RAF aron blankets on the

slept

ground, in rows, packed tightly against each other.

Many

of them

had had dysentery, but their guards refused to give them clean clothes in exchange for the soiled ones they had

marched

the whole lot of you shit yourselves to death," a

German officer told how close the

them.

was

It

a

camp

after a

chine gun at

hope

foolhardy attitude for him to take, given

Allied forces were. Just

the

in. "I

two days

earlier, fighter

guard unwisely drew attention to

planes had strafed it

by

ma-

firing his

them from one of the watchtowers. The planes had

wheeled around and their cannon had taken out the watchtower and seventeen French prisoners of war with

Badcock could only

on the "hard luck of being killed by your own people

reflect

ing a prisoner for five years."

and he lucky.

it.

felt

that

much

He

after be-

had been in captivity since 1942,

of what lay ahead would depend on being

For now, he could only crouch

Typhoons roared over each day back in the shooting war again

at

in a

narrow trench

noon, finding

after so

it

as the

RAF

"curious to be

long cooped up behind the

wire."

Then something happened might not be close to

German

fighters

its

come

end

made him worry that the war all. "We saw a new squadron of

that

after

into the neighbouring airfield,

all

the latest

type of Messerschmitt fighter." Could these be part of the secret

weapons the Germans had been boasting about, the fiihrer's sleeve?

trick

new

up the

THE LAST ESCAPE

262

We

thought that when our

will

murder them. The next morning we saw the Messer-

schmitts take off and

we

lot

come over tomorrow

feared they were going to

sun and dive on our planes

as

and then

came the

RAF

and

airfield

a

set off eastwards.

and shot up the

right

local railway

a

goods yard, the

mess of their

flying field.

mighty Luftwaffe 7

A

got

again.

new

our boys had

few days

later this

—on the ground. How

is

the

fallen.

This was something to celebrate. Clearly, the end

march

smart

in their

difficulty in landing as

squadron was captured complete

Then we

air-

on time, over

couple of odd factories. Half an hour after they

though they had

made such

in the

formed up over the

Then,

had disappeared, back came the Luftwaffe planes,

up

they came in and massacre them.

We needn't have worried. The Nazis field

sit

this lot

a terrible

shock.

really

was near.

We were ordered to get ready to We could just about

This caused pandemonium.

walk but marching was impossible. Furthermore,

we knew

(from our temperamental radio) that the Americans were only

20 miles away, so what was the use?

Where was

was pure Nazi bloody-mindedness.

We

we

resisted they

VVTien

it

came

go.

We

It

held a meeting of the

marquee commanders and the decision was

mandant we would not

there to go?

got the reply

to

tell

the

Kom-

we expected

—

if

would shoot.

to the crunch, half of the British flyers decided to

stand their ground, claiming to be sick.

The

other half left. Badcock

was the senior man among those who stayed, and for several days he had to deal with some unpleasantness from the remaining guards.

Then, one morning, no Germans came

to

unlock the compound

ter the night curfew.

We

waited until 08.00 hours and then

their hinges

and sent some

men down

we

lifted the gates off

to the

main part of the

af-

WAITING FOR PATTON

263

camp. They came back with the news that practically

Germans had gone.

Just 26 were

left,

led

time for us to take over. There was very the Germans.

Union

flag,

We

hauled

down

by

all

the

a major. It

was

argument from

little

the Nazi flag and hoisted a

which we had hidden away. This worried the Ger-

man major, who warned us that SS troops were still in the district, so we hauled it down and put up a Red Cross flag instead. As a precaution, we left the German sentries on the gate but we took over the running of the camp, including the cookhouse, so at least we got something to eat. But we weren't home yet. The Americans were still about 1 1 miles away. The next couple of days were the weirdest I have ever spent. still

We

were right

in the thick of the battle for

stuck in a prison camp, with

Germans

Germany,

walking about,

still

we were not really prisoners any longer. On the other hand we were not free to go outside. It was like being in a small neutral country. And we were very scared. What would happen if the Nazis counter-attacked? And what if the Americans mistook us for Germans and shelled the camp? The distant war got closer louder and louder in the next 48 hours and on Good Friday, March 30, 1945, most of but yet

—

—

us were up very early.

We

posted lookouts on any vantage

point to keep scanning the horizon for troops.

geant

was

sure

felt

right.

we would be caught up

A German ser-

in a tank battle

and he

Suddenly there was tremendous excitement

lookout spotted a column of

German

Tigers.

I

as a

looked in the

other direction and saw another column of American Sher-

mans.

We were right in the middle. I heard a bang and an un-

familiar whine, in

my

life.

and

I hit

Then came

the deck faster than

I

had ever done

the aircraft, ours fortunately, and

we

hugged the ground and crawled towards the trenches. Two kilometres away was a village, and as

ground we saw

a

white

flag,

local inhabitants forgot

hung out

all

their nice, clean

we looked up from

the

then another, then another, as the

about their beloved Fiihrer and

bed linen

as a

token of total surren-

THE LAST ESCAPE

264

The

der.

firing stopped.

and then the boys I

went

to the

guard was

still

For

out

let

main

moment

a

a cheer. It

gates

where

standing with his

German

I

said to

my own capture:

"For you,

nicht ivahr?"

he dropped

him the words "Ach

so

frightened-looking

and bayonet.

a salute. In

me.

It

to be

I

He

took

was

cut

it

it

and

now

a job

in

ate

sprang

best stalag

istfertig,

my friend, the war is over." With a grin, in his haversack

two with it.

was

It

his like

and produced an

(ersatz

cheese

of

bayonet and handed half to

manna from heaven.

to keep his fellow

done because no one knew

yond the

my

He

had longed to say ever since

enormous bread and cheese sandwich course).

over.

mein Freund, fur zu der Krieg

fumbled

his rifle,

I

all

a poor,

rifle

me

smartly to attention and gave

was

there was total silence

POWs in check,

for sure

but this had

what was happening be-

wire.

Obviously,

we were

right in the front line

and we must not do

anything rash which might place the camp in

peril. It

was no

Some of my chaps had been taken at Dunkirk we just had to be patient for the next three hours, but what a long wait it was! Then I heard a tremendous roar. Hampden Park, Wembley or the Kop at easy task.

nearly five years ago. However,

Anfield have never heard anything like

Army lifted

jeep,

complete with

a

crew of

from the ground and borne

What was amazing was

this.

A seething mass of here! A U.S.

The Yanks were

people was at the main gate.

in

six

husky GIs, was being

triumph through the

gate.

men doing the lifting had comb to their hair an hour be-

that the

hardly had the strength to

lift

a

fore. It

was pandemonium. Everybody was talking

at once.

On the

Strangers hugged each other. This was freedom at

last!

road outside, the main columns of the American

Army were

now

The GIs in the armoured cars seemed to be we were. One of them shouted and threw some-

speeding

as excited as

by.

WAITING FOR PATTON thing. I caught a sat

pack of 20 Camels. Real cigarettes

by the roadside

smoke.

It truly

was

for a

Good

moved 150 miles farof Germany. Lieutenant Kenny Dodson stood in

away in the

spearhead had

on the small town

distance.

He could see the half-timber houses,

the narrow streets, the people hurrying for shelter.

miss the castle that loomed over

was the next earlier

target. It

he and

his

river,

And he

them from the top of the

could not hill.

Here

A few weeks Remagen. Now

was midway through April 1945.

men had

crossed the Rhine at

the River Elbe was just 30 miles ahead. But

minor

a

Friday.

the turret of his tank and trained his binoculars half a mile

at last! I

few minutes and really enjoyed

A fortnight later the American ther into the heart

265

the Mulde,

on whose banks

first

they had to cross a

monstrous

sat this

late-

Dodson peered at his way. They had just flat-

medieval fortification, guarding the bridge.

map

to see the

name of the

obstacle in his

tened the village of Hohnbach, following orders to stop at nothing

and to meet any resistance by pouring in firepower and then driving

on over the rubble

them trouble

on the

town ahead going

village,

and

to give

few had dropped

a

Now it was time

But there was no sign of surrender.

way in. Dodson

on "the

this

too, this place called Colditz?

into the castle.

in

Was

had been lobbed into the

Shells

to blast a

that remained.

called out his order for his

Schloss," and the muzzle

front of the hilltop fortress.

also

commanded

shell

was loaded into the breach to

swung around

The

line of

to be zeroed

until

it

mobile

swiveled in the same direction. blast

gun

A

through the

was

fixed

artillery

he

high-explosive

walls.

A shell of

phosphorus was lined up to follow, to incinerate the interior and

anyone

inside. "Battery,

one round,

fire,"

he called down the phone. 18

Inside the castle, the 400 Allied prisoners of

away from being blasted into Suddenly,

down

oblivion.

By

their

war were seconds

own

side.

in the belly of the tank, the driver,

Macasland, yelled a warning. "Hey, lieutenant. Hold spotted a

Union

flag

it!"

"Mac"

He

had

being waved frantically from a window in the

THE LAST ESCAPE

266

French

castle and, farther along, a

tricolor.

"Don't do

I'm sure

it!

some of our boys are in there." A patrol was sent to find some civilians, who told them that the castle was a prisoner-of-war camp. Dodson should have known

He

this.

Army Group, which had been

was part of General Bradley's 12th

sent an urgent message from

headquarters two days earlier alerting giving a

map

reference

keep

this

was reaching

its

artillery shells air raids

that

it

contained

take appropriate

camp when uncovered by ground advance and

IVC, the

name

official

19

for Colditz, a

power struggle

conclusion. For days the Allied prisoners had

They had heard

the Americans were nearby.

of

Army Group will

HQ informed," the message added.

Inside Oflag

SHAEF

to the existence of Colditz,

(K 546935) and explaining

important prisoners of war. "12th action regarding this

it

known

the distinctive crash of

exploding in the distance, so different from the sound

on the

factories

and

oil installations

them awake every night

away, that had kept

they could see the glow in the sky from

of Leipzig, 25 miles

for a

fires

month. After dusk,

burning beyond the

horizon.

Captain Dick Howe, the British officer in charge of escape tempts, had been

among

the

first in

the

camp

to realize the

at-

war was

nearly over as he listened on the prisoners' clandestine radio to reports of the Allied charge into

announced

Germany. At breakfast on April

Americans were

that the

cheer went up and

a thrill

room, followed by

a silence

historian, recorded,

just 35 miles away.

A

of foreboding. As Pat Reid, the camp's

"There were so many imponderables

events taking place in Germany.

ries

Leuna,

of excitement ran through the vast dining

mosphere surrounding them and Berlin.

at

12 he

in the kaleidoscopic

There were maniacs

in the at-

nightmare of

at the

helm

in

Anything might happen." Chief among the prisoners' wor-

was that they would be hostages. At midnight, the Prominente

the castle's twenty-one

VIP

—

prisoners, consisting of generals and

others with important family connections

—were hustled out of

special individual cells, assembled in the courtyard,

their

and then pushed

and pummeled into buses. They were driven off to an unknown destination.

When he heard what was happening, the Senior British Of-

WAITING FOR PATTON Colonel Willie Tod,

ficer,

would prove

that

man

and imposing

a tall

a lifesaver in the

man commandant to

267

coming

days,

with a coolness

went

Ger-

to see the

protest.

Oberst (Major) Prawitt, white-haired, his face lined and visibly aged by stress, was in of doing the

how close

verging on hysteria.

a state

wrong thing

to be able to

the Americans were.

He

would get

And

to

him

there was a

door.

The

knew

also

advancing almost as quickly from the

He was too terrified right. He knew

do what was

east.

He

did not

know who

already

encamped

at his

night before, a division of the SS had marched into

work

Colditz village, fresh from performing "special duties" at a

camp

for

were

would not be the Russians.

first, but he hoped more immediate danger it

that the Russians

Jews

miles away.

3

The

camp's 400 inmates had been

slaughtered and their bodies burned.

Were

carry out a similar operation?

The SS

up positions

below the

in the buildings

the SS

now in

Colditz to

troops were digging castle,

in,

taking

carving out trenches,

mining the bridge over the Mulde, preparing to stop the Americans in their tracks.

Colditz their

They seemed determined

last

Allied prisoners

stand

if

to put

up

a fight, to

make

necessary. If that happened, the lives of the

would mean nothing

to them.

Tod took the letter the German was eager to show him from Heinrich Himmler himself, the head of state security. It ordered Prawitt to evacuate the Prominente immediately, on pain of summary execution if he disobeyed or if any escaped. GerIn Prawitt's office,

—

many might be

shrinking by the day as the Soviet and Allied armies

advanced from east and west, but the writ of the SS leader

still

ran

here, particularly with a division of his black-shirted soldiers,

still

the

most feared der,

in the land,

he told the British

camped

and carry it out anyway, over quences

—and

not

outside. Prawitt

officer. If

his

dead body.

just for himself.

throughout the camp, and

still

had to obey the or-

he refused, the SS would march in

He feared for the conse-

"There

will

be

many

deaths

the Prominente will depart," he told

Tod. "And what will you have achieved then?"

Tod returned

to his quarters, aware that he could

save the Prominente.

He

didn't even

know where

do nothing

to

they were being

THE LAST ESCAPE

268

taken,

bled

though he guessed

last

would be south, toward

it

redoubt in the mountains.

hundreds of prisoners

Now he

There might come

left.

Bavaria, the fa-

had to think about the

when

time

a

they

make a break for it: overpower the few remaining guards and make a dash for the Allied lines. If he got the moment wrong they could be slaughtered by the storm troopers and gangs of would have

to

Hitler Youth outside. But

up against the

lined

third possibility,

if

they stayed too long they could

There was

walls of the fortress and shot.

though the records of those anxious

last

all

be

also a

days in

Colditz do not show whether the colonel realized this right away: that

American

shells raining

was that

It

away from

as

to call a halt

fate rather

down on

the castle would

Lieutenant Dodson leveled his guns

when

kill

them

all.

than any other that they were seconds

friendly flags were spotted.

went forward into the town, ready

to take

at the castle,

only

American infantrymen it

street

by

street

and

building by building. As Allied reconnaissance planes flew overhead,

Prawitt called

Tod

and instructed him to get the

to his office

ready to leave at once.

He

men

had received orders from Dresden. "You

move out of the castle toward the east under guard." This was Tod's moment. He refused to move, he told the Ger-

are to

man commandant. He and

his

bayonet point, and they would

Below the their

castle

dugouts were

Shells

have to be forced out

at

with violence.

and from the woods nearby, the SS troopers in

in a firefight

were zeroing

punching holes

men would resist

in

with the American advance patrols.

on the town, and some reached the

in the roof, starting fires,

glas Bader, the disabled

RAF

castle,

and even knocking Dou-

fighter pilot, off his tin legs.

shelling concentrated Prawitt's mind.

He knew

The

he could not use

them would have war criminal when the war was

force against the prisoners: Shooting just one of

him dangling at the end of a rope as a over. Tod had made this perfectly clear to him. Now he decided to go one step further. If Tod would give his word of honor that he would keep the

German major from being

would quietly hand the

taken by the Russians, Prawitt

castle over to the prisoners.

His condition

WAITING FOR PATTON was agreed, and, smiling

at

Tod

269

—almost fawning over him—he sur-

rendered Colditz to the Senior British Officer.

For the next twelve hours, Tod and the lived

on

their nerves.

They convinced

forces in artillery range of the castle

was

inside.

The number

men he now commanded

themselves that the American

being deliberately avoided, but they could not be sure. just plain

bad shooting?

outside found

its

had taken over

precisely who

must have grasped

of near misses suggested that the castle was

What if it was

What would happen when the

U.S. artillery

range? Equally, they could not advertise that they

their prison, for fear of a reprisal attack

from the SS

troops in the town.

That ghostly

night, a

moon

lit

power cut shut

the sky, and the

off

all

courtyard of the castle or tried to snatch tories. fire

the lights of Colditz.

men huddled some

in the

A

cobbled inner

sleep in their dormi-

Explosions outside shook the building, and the machine-gun

seemed louder and longer

spring morning.

Freedom was

as

dawn began

so close,

to break

but one

on

a beautiful

stray shell or a re-

verse in the fortunes of battle, a counterattack, could result in the

dreams, the longing for home, being shattered.

Down in

the town, the SS were withdrawing, rolling their tanks

With

their last

Watton,

a painter,

over the bridge and heading away to the southeast.

tank over, they blew the bridge. In the

castle, John

mind away from danger, jumped as reached him. The chalk in his hand

retreating into his art to take his

boom

the

of the explosives

scored across the paper, across the face of a French officer

chosen

The job

this

morning

to

sit

for his portrait.

The

who had

picture was ruined.

bridge was not. In their haste, the SS troops had done a bad

—the

piers

were shaken but the roadway remained. The Ameri-

can advance would not be stopped.

Now

American tanks could be seen

in the streets below.

youngster in the khaki uniform of the Hitler Youth haps fifteen a

—

to

come

a

boy of per-

lay in the gutter, legs spread-eagled behind him, firing

machine gun. From

him

—

A

inside.

a

window above him,

She was too

late.

his

mother screamed

at

From behind an advancing

THE LAST ESCAPE

270

American

tank, a burst of bullets ripped into him.

and the GIs marched on over In the

He

rolled over,

his body.

courtyard, officers were standing in groups talking,

castle's

or walking the cobbles for exercise, as they had done every morning for years,

when

wooden

the

swung open. An American

gate

fantryman stood there and stared around him.

and stared back. There was

Those who had been looked up.

sitting

a

moment

A roar of cheering broke

which had begun to

fall

officers

stopped

of silence, of incredulity.

on benches and reading, feigning calm, the spell, as the officers rushed

Many

forward to greet the American. rain

The

in-

of them wept, but the light

hid the torrent of tears. Other inmates

hung out of the windows cheering

more Americans arrived. It was only later, after they had shaken Kenny Dodson by the hand and drunk the health of Winston Churchill and Vera Lynn and the Andrews Sisters, all in liberated German wine, that they discovered how close they had come to not going home at all. If Dodson had opened

fire

.

.

.

Stunned

away from being blown tion,

men realized they had been just seconds

to smithereens.

On

the very brink of libera-

with the worst seemingly behind them and

at last able to believe

men, they had come perhaps

closer to dying than

in a future as free at

as

any time

in this

long war.

Germany fell to the advancing Americans, the prisoners of war from Nuremberg were still strung out on the road south. "We know we are headed for Bavaria," Bill As more and more camps

in western

Ethridge noted as the column reluctantly marched farther and ther

away from

their

would-be

liberators, "but

we

don't

where." There was a lightness about them, however

compared with the Sagan.

"The guards

know exactly

—spring fever

icy winter blues of their previous journey

occasionally

showed

far-

from

signs of being relaxed and

now and then a hint of a smile would seem to say 'this will soon end and we can all go home.' " He had brought as much food as he could carry. "I

was not going hungry again!" But

ferent danger.

They had left the

British

this

time there was a

and American bombers

dif-

—the

WAITING FOR PATTON Lancasters and Flying Fortresses the fighter planes.

There was

a

—behind

rumor

sent to Allied headquarters alerting

that

them

271

at

Nuremberg, but not

word had somehow been column of prisoners

to this

of war. If so, the information had not been passed on to the Ameri-

now overhead.

can P-47 pilots

The

planes were

upon us and

side of the

column and

rained

down along

lets

firing! I

was walking on the out-

the ditch as soon as

I hit

the road where

I

heard

it.

Bul-

we had been and some Our guard fell in

clipped leaves off the trees above our heads.

men were

beside us. Several

hit

and subsequently bandaged

with socks, twine and whatever strips of cloth could be made.

One man had been pilots

killed.

had not made

nized us after the

a

20

We were

second

initial

pass.

most fortunate

that the

Apparently they had recog-

bursts and pulled

up

early.

Through-

out the following days whenever P-47s appeared overhead

come down low and wiggle

they would

their

tion.

We felt safe again.

The

threat of air attacks like this had been

wings in recogni-

much

in the

Colonel Walter Arnold, in charge of another compound

at

mind of

Nurem-

berg containing nearly 2,000 American and British prisoners.

had led the

POWs

out,

marching

at the

He

head even though he had

a

—

bum leg wounded when he was shot down, and still plaguing him. They had an escort of eighty-seven guards and two dozen dogs. Some way down the road it became clear that they were heading for the railroad station, where a train was waiting to take them to Moosburg and Stalag VILA. any

farther. Trains

mans fingered

When

were

their rifles

he learned

this,

targets, easy pickings for pilots.

to

the

safer.

Eventually the

—walking

would take

camp commander agreed

They could march the whole 100 miles south. German officer in charge of his group, Arnold plotted

abandon the

With a

The Ger-

and insisted they would have to take their

chance. Arnold would not be intimidated

longer but would be

Arnold refused to go

train:

route along back tracks and forests that they hoped would avoid

THE LAST ESCAPE

272

German troops and The dangers became more apparent when Arnold

not only American fighter planes but retreating

SS contingents

too.

scouted ahead one day and watched from a

a distance the

goings-on in

town.

A dozen German soldiers were in the middle of the street, surrounded by SS troops. We heard a lot of machine-gun fire, and the soldiers

fell

to the ground.

cause they were retreating. ders to the

column

They were massacred

be-

We stayed in the trees and gave orThe next day, the SS had all but we marched pretty damn

to keep quiet.

gone and we passed through

it

fast.

The

prisoners

went through more

villages, slept

overnight in

barns, and generally found plenty of food along the way.

of the column became

changed from

a catalog

a

Some

parts

slow meander, and Ethridge's account

of misery to more of a travelogue of a hike

through the rural delights of southern Germany. Only

fierce

show-

ers of rain spoiled the sightseeing, turning the roads into minilakes

and forcing the prisoners to tramp through ankle-deep mud.

\pril 10

— we crossed the Danube

river with

its

Nuremberg but

We are about

can't get a fix

spirits are

told

a beautiful

mind memories of 100 kilometers out

on how much

Moosburg, which we have now been

The

noon. Truly

gentle sounds bringing to

Strauss and his famous waltz.

of

at

is

farther

it is

to

our destination.

ebbing from high to low. Anxious about not

knowing when or how

this

word from home

December. Miss

since

journey will end. Haven't had any that.

Joe Cittadini was not impressed by the Danube, which he

thought gray rather than blue. this

was no holiday jaunt

after all

color reflected his

mood. That

was made clear by the cold eyes of

who lined up sullenly to watch the bedragmen march through. The mood deepened further when there

some towns' gled

The

inhabitants

WAITING FOR PATTON was

One

a casualty to bury.

with

whom

273

of Ethridge's buddies,

he had traveled ever since they

Edward Riding,

Stalag Luft III at

left

Sagan, developed a sore throat which turned to a virulent infection.

He was

dead within three days.

up along

Six of us lined

side the coffin in a village churchyard

and the German soldiers

We

fired three volleys

from

their rifles.

each saluted as the coffin was lowered. That night

thought about those makeshift graves hacked from the

snow during our winter march and were thankful had

friend

at least

been given

a

through of Roosevelt's death on April

lic.

The

some

we and

that our

decent burial.

This was not the only mourning they had to do.

clining for

ice

1

2

.

The news came

His health had been de-

time, though this had been concealed

brain hemorrhage that suddenly killed

from the pub-

him was

a terrible

shock. Cittadini was grief-stricken because he saw the president as

"more than our commander-in-chief, he was ness was shared by

perhaps

all

was not

champagne and

God

lost after

were

a

still

magazine of

overnight stop, just to cape. This

as a sign that

In Berlin, Goebbels broke out the

all.

low your greatest enemy.

21

very

mood

much

in charge.

for compassion.

bullets into the straw

make

was no joyride,

sure

as

made

The war was not

Each morning they

when they

no one was trying

left

an

to hide and es-

John Parsons discovered. "What the

guards told you to do, you had better do said.

it

of the guards picked up on this renewed defiance and

and they were in no

emptied

though, took

told Hitler, "Fate has laid

clear that they

lost,

The Germans,

has not abandoned us."

Some it

all."

a father figure; the sad-

—

for

your own good," he

His journey from Nuremberg to Moosburg was dogged by bad

experiences.

easy to

come

Whereas others by,

in the

column found food

he struggled. Sickness added to

morning he found

it

in training in the U.S.A. in 1943,

One The two

his difficulties.

hard to rouse his buddy, Paul Goecke.

of them had been virtually inseparable for years.

relatively

They had met back

had been together on missions,

THE LAST ESCAPE

274

were shot down together, and had been had was half mine and what

in the

same camps. "What he

had was half his." But Goecke was

I

ail-

ing.

He

kept telling

particular

me

morning

make

that he could not

we had had

after

woods because there was no other

it.

Then, on

shelter,

this

some

to sleep out in

he would not get

up.

The

guards were shouting, "Raus, raus" but he said he was

too

sick.

"Go on without me, John," he

said. I just

top of him and pounded the hell out of him. It I

was time to go.

blew.

got him up on his feet and put what clothes

I

could on him and with another

down They

jumped on

The whistle

man

I

him

started walking

the road. But others resisted the guards that morning.

woods because they were

stayed in the

were not going to move.

It

sick

and they

wasn't too long before

we could

hear machine-gun bursts in the woods. There was a lot of screaming.

We

pose they were they

just

kept going, did not even look back.

all killed,

just like that.

The

sup-

I

guards meant what

said.

This was reinforced days

later,

when Parsons saw

panions try to cut the corner of

through the woods and across road. "I told

them

that they 'If

warned them. About

five

The

were

com-

long hairpin bend by slipping

stream instead of sticking to the nuts.

you go down

were trying to escape. never came out.

a

a

several of his

The

guards would think they

in there, they will kill you,' I

of them stepped off the road, and they

guards killed them."

Meanwhile Goecke's condition had worsened, and

in a village

Parsons traded some cigarettes for eggs.

I

had some crackers from

rowed tled

a

a

former Red Cross parcel and

bor-

Klim [powdered-milk] can from someone and whit-

up some wood.

I

sat there

and poached both eggs. By

time Paul was very sick and hallucinating but the food

I

down him. But

it

somehow

I

this

got

was clear that he was not going to

WAITING FOR PATTON

me

be able to go on. Someone told

man in the village who might be from

cart

a

that there

able to help.

farmer and Paul was taken away.

in the straw with

my blanket covering him

was the

I

last

Parsons

time

saw him

275

until

I

was

medical

a

borrowed an ox

He lay in that cart and off he went.

we got back to

It

the States.

now had the sort of problem that anyone who marched He had lost his partner and was on his own. There

always dreaded:

was no one to forage for food with, no one to share with, no one to

on

lean

I

if

he got

sick.

And he

couldn't walk and

pull

all I

could do was

myself around with

wanted

to go, although

any energy that

where

I

—

did get sick

it

my was

elbows. a

lie

I

to the point

down on my belly and seemed

to

crude way of doing

might have had.

I

where

managed

to sleep that night and the next day

go where it

and took

potatoes from a pig pen and ate

them raw

I

some-

to find

I felt a little

could walk upright. But that was the day

ter so I

I

bit betI

took

was so hungry.

I

got in between the pigs and stole their dinner.

The column meandered on in oners

knew

that

somewhere out

a strange state

of limbo.

The

pris-

there, not far away, Patton's forces

were heading toward them. The secret radio told them the American general was driving toward Munich.

They knew

their destination

was Moosburg, which was close to Munich. At some point, they had

Ed Riding and the ones who had been killed taking that deadly short cut. Would it be too late to meet.

But when?

It

would be too

late for

them as well? By now the column was stretched out over many miles, and they straggled into Stalag VTIA over many days. Parsons's relief at passing through the main gates turned to fear when they were directed to an

for the rest of

area of showers.

They

we would have to take a decontamination thought we were going to be gassed. But they turned

told us that

shower.

I

THE LAST ESCAPE

276

out to be real showers, and ter

was

it

a pleasure to

warm wa-

have

and soap.

There was speak to him.

and pointed

He

gave

at his

Germans had

guy standing

a tall

cut

sound from

a

He

mouth.

it

out.

shower and

in the

I

tried to

an animal

his throat like

had no tongue. Apparently the

There were four other guys with him

who had been starved near to death. All the flesh on their arms had settled down below the elbows and all the flesh on their legs below their knees. They were the most pathetic group that I had ever seen. How could one human being treat another human being this badly? It made me feel so terrible to think that these men had been treated as they were.

The camp

at

10,000 men.

Moosburg was

overflowing.

It

had been

built to hold

Now there were 80,000— predominandy French (38,000)

and Russian (14,000). Nearly 14,000 were British and American, 22 and that did not include the constant new

some

said,

pushed the

total

arrivals,

whose numbers,

population to 130,000. There were 2,000

guards. Joe Lovoi had been there since early February.

marched from Stalag Luft

III at

Sagan to the railhead

at

He

had

Spremberg,

Nuremberg and way here. The lucky

and, while others had gone to Luckenwalde and

iMarlag Nord, he had been put on a train

ones were crammed in twelve to

headroom.

ended up as

in

He

and

a

of mud. Twice

prisoners arrived, though conditions inside

a

day there were

didn't have a clue

roll calls,

man

a sea

but Lovoi thought the Ger-

what the accurate number of prisoners was.

camp where

thought unwise to wander, and the whole place had perate air of "every

them

thaw turned the ground into

Discipline was poor, there were places in the

A

bunks with no

in three-tier

buddy, the guitar-playing Onafrio Brancato,

terrible after the early spring

mans

room

the

an old stable block sleeping on straw. Tents were erected

more and more

were

his

all

a

it

was

seedy and des-

for himself."

long trench served as

a

common

open-air latrine. Dysentery

was rampant, the queues endless, and using it

"just less

than torture."

WAITING FOR PATTON

Food was

scarce and barely

Red Cross

for

fit

human consumption. With few had

parcels getting through, they

out of large wooden barrels.

It

277

made everyone

plotting the advance of the Allied front line

to rely sick.

on sauerkraut

Time was

spent

on maps and counting

the days to liberation. But there were also old friends to catch with.

up

So many people were flooding into Moosburg that inevitably

some were former comrades from beyond the grave.

—and some even sounded

My heart stopped when I heard Lovoi, do

I

a

Brooklyn twang

like voices

yell,

"Hey,

have to travel halfway around the world to find

you and take care of you?"

It

was Vinnie Niemann,

a close

classmate from Navigation School. But he had been reported

MIA

(missing in action) about nine

out of his crippled B-17 after a

months ago

bomb

after bailing

hugged each other and

Meeting up

like this also

We

brought thoughts of home. Lovoi had his family think the

same

He thought of his brothers fighting in the Pacific against

the Japanese, and prayed they were well. close,

ear.

cried.

imagined that Niemann was dead. Did about him?

And

run over Hamburg.

here he was, with a lip-stretching grin from ear to

With

the end clearly so

he was more nervous than ever before.

Because

we had

a radio

knew we were going

to

we knew what was going on and we win the war. The question now was,

were they going to machine-gun us before then? sure

what they were going

was coming when

it

to do.

would

it

sooner or

Private Maurice

spondent eastern

lot.

He

Germany.

weren't

But we knew the moment

either be

"OK,

guys,

you're free," or "Here's a bullet in your head."

had to face

We

We

it's

over,

knew we

later.

Newey thought the Americans a particularly de-

He

and

Moosburg

after a

marathon trek from

his fellow prisoners

were on the road for

arrived at

THE LAST ESCAPE

278

months tramping through Czechoslovakia, and had marched on 400 miles

to Bayreuth before being put

on

close

Moosburg.

a train to

He had been a prisoner since the Battle of Tobruk in North Africa in 1 942 He had been imprisoned in the desert, then in Italy, then taken .

to

Germany, where he had been forced

But

his spirits

had been

were astonishingly high.

few months," he commented, "and we

in captivity for just a

were appalled

at their lack

like

They were

of morale.

washed and unshaven and seemed of British soldiers

work in a chemical factory. "Most of the American GIs

to

lying around un-

to be full of self-pity."

Newey made

a

23

The morale

huge impression on one of the

senior American officers, Lieutenant Colonel Al Clark,

come

to

Moosburg

British privates in

—arriving

directly

from Sagan.

He

recalled a

who had group of

—they might even have been the column Newey was

after

months marching from Czechoslovakia.

They were from one

of the regiments captured at Dunkirk

and had been separated from their

officers ever since.

They

had been sent into the mines to work, and here, four years later,

they came stumbling into Moosburg. These guys were

They had been marched all winter, and they were terrible shape. They put them in an open compound

skeletons. in

with no shelter for that night, and the next morning those

guys had their buttons shined and their shoes shined; they

were shaved, and they had

really

shaped up.

It

was one of the

most remarkable examples of high military morale

I

have ever

Meanwhile the marchers from Nuremberg were

settling in,

though they found Moosburg worse than anything they could have imagined.

It

was, however, thankfully free of the lice that had

plagued them back the

mud.

It

was ankle deep

area had been a ther, the

at Stalag

swamp

at

XIIID.

after just a

one

Bill

Ethridge couldn't believe

day of rain.

time and that

it

"We were

told this

was always wet. Fur-

mosquitoes breed here by the millions during the summer

months. That's something great to look forward to!"

He

discovered

WAITING FOR PATTON

279

—

—

made of wood from bed boards to doorposts had been whittled down to almost nothing by thousands of men desperate for fuel for their Klim-can blower-cookers. The slats of his bunk should have been 3 inches thick. They were just an inch and a half and by the time he left Moosburg he had pared them down to an inch. Miraculously they did not snap. Others did not have the comfort of a bunk but slept on the ground in tents with just a layer of wood shavings as a mattress. For some, arriving at Moosburg was a shock. Lieutenant Frank Stewart of the Lothian and Borders Yeomanry could not get over how "squalid" the place was. In the compound, clouds of smoke that anything

25

were

rising

open

air,

from hundreds of small

and there was

a

constant

hubbub

exchanged was. "The Americans were

would buy the blouse

off

food out of your mouth,

come

just

men brewed

fires as

as

tea in the

anything that could be

—they

terrible lads for trading

your back, the ring off your finger or the as

one of

his friends

60 miles, from the Oflag

put

at Eichstatt,

haven compared with most camps in Germany. valley with pretty views of forests

had read extensively from the

and

library,

a river.

it."

26

Stewart had

which had been

It

was in

a pleasant

While he was there he

played cricket and tennis,

—and

tened to the orchestra, and discussed theology

few days before being kicked out and sent to

a

all

lis-

that just a

this hellhole.

Stewart was a long-term prisoner, captured in France in 1940,

and had been through

five

other camps before getting to Eichstatt.

For months there had been rumors that evacuees would be arriving

from camps

in the east,

and they had seen columns of prisoners pass-

ing by on the road outside. But none had actually stopped, and in the

middle of April they themselves had been forced to move.

been

a disaster.

It

had

Half a dozen American Thunderbolts flew over and

raked the column with machine-gun fire, over and back, five times. Nine men died and thirty-nine were wounded. 27 He realized how close he himself had

lying next to

come

him on

to dying only when the

the ground found that a bullet had ricocheted

off a tobacco tin in his pack. lost his right

man who had been

A friend who

arm. Stewart wrote:

was

a

noted jazz pianist

THE LAST ESCAPE

280

Most of us had experienced no real personal danger for upwards of five years, and what we had we'd forgotten. We had seen

little

of battle and fighting and

was one of our consola-

it

tions for our generally uncomfortable

the war had passed us by.

unexpectedness of it it

I

jumped

real

it

was

this

and the complete

we were

all

extremely frightened at

has taken time to recover. For days

it

at the slightest noise,

aeroplane or nervy.

think

that accounts for the shattering effect

has had on us. Naturally,

the time, and

The

all

that for us, at least,

life

a

A typical

world disturbed him

every sort of humanity,

all

we've

everything has sounded like an

machine-gun, and everyone case of shock,

after,

I

is

and

restless

suppose.

Out on

greatly.

moving

north, south, east and west, having

"we met

the road,

aimlessly in every direction,

nowhere

but just keeping moving, waiting for

life,

particular to

head

for,

or the Russians, or the

Americans to catch up with them."

With

the arrival of warm spring weather, a

new problem

arose at

They had filled to overflowing and apparently could not be pumped out because there was no gasoline to drive the pump. An epidemic seemed inevitable. The senior Allied officer called a strike. No one would go to roll call. The guards tried to use force, pushing the pris-

Moosburg. In the

heat, the latrines gave off a terrible stench.

oners out onto the parade ground, but as soon as they get

more

left

them

the ones on the parade ground slipped back inside.

were brought

in; pistols

were drawn. Lovoi was horrified

at

to

Dogs

what was

German commandant bluffing? Was it worth even one man's life to find out?" It was the commandant who backed down, calling off his men and his dogs. The senior Allied officer held more talks with the commandant and then came out and ordered

happening. "Was the

everyone to missed but

roll call.

we

"We

lined

up

couldn't help wondering

night 'honey wagons' rolled into the latrine."

quickly, if

were counted, and

dis-

But

that

he had given

compound and

in.

cleaned out the

WAITING FOR PATTON

281

This successful defiance was a rehearsal for

much more impor-

a

tant moment. As Patton's Third Army rolled nearer, the comman-

dant called in the senior Allied officers and told them that the British

and American Bavaria

flyers

were to be marched out and taken deeper into

—to the redoubt where the Third Reich would make

There had been rumors about

stand.

But such

this for days.

its last

Now he was con-

move would contravene an understanding

firming

it.

had

just

been made between Berlin, London, and Washington.

the

Germans who

a

—through the Swiss

as

Protecting

Power

that

It

was

—had

re-

quested an agreement that Allied prisoners of war would no longer

be moved

if

liberated, those prisoners ing.

28

The

in return that,

when

would not be thrown back into the

fight-

the Allied governments

would agree

U.S., British, and Soviet governments had accepted the

proposal, and

it

came

into operation at midnight

nately the Allied officers in

Moosburg knew

on April

this.

22. Fortu-

Al Clark

remem-

bered that "we had been monitoring Radio Luxembourg and the

BBC and by sheer coincidence that night there was a broadcast about when

Germans told us to line up at the gate, we said, 'You had better check. There has been a new deal, and we ain't going.' And they checked and we didn't move." 29 There were more and more signs of liberation in the air. Nuremberg had fallen to Patton's troops, and Munich became the target for Allied bombing. American fighters flew over Moosburg and waggled their wings in recognition. One came so low and fast that it sent this

agreement. So the next morning,

the

everyone running for cover. As the fighting got raw, stress

Lovoi.

The men were

ordered to stay in their barracks, but

peeped out through holes

in the walls they

Allied soldiers in fields around the retreat.

closer, "nerves

were

was high, and anticipation was rampant," according to as

they

saw what appeared to be

camp and German troops on

the

Ethridge lay in his bunk "mentally helping Patton to come

through." Artillery shells flew over the

camp

"like a

mid- West thun-

derstorm."

The fight of

guards gave every indication that they were going to it.

Instead, they left in the middle of the night.

make

From

a

inside

THE LAST ESCAPE

282

his barracks,

German sergeant run up to a and shout something. The sentry left his box and

Frank Stewart heard

sentry outside

a

joined the others, and together they gate.

When

those prisoners

shelling and the excitement

camp was

silent.

marched out of the main

all

who had managed woke on

the

to sleep through the

morning of April 29 the

Lovoi

peered out of the windows of our barracks and could not see

any guards. to do.

Was

The watchtowers were it

killed? Slowly, just a

few

feet.

ified that it

a trick to get us to

we opened

No one knew what

break out so

we could be

the barracks doors and ventured out

One prisoner climbed up a watchtower and ver-

had been abandoned.

In fact a deal had been done

—not

derstanding. Al Clark was privy to

The Germans I

empty.

called in

a

formal surrender, but an un-

it.

our senior

officer,

went with him because he had selected

tions and intelligence

officer.

Col. "Pop" Goode.

me

The Germans

probably be free the next day but that the

to be his opera-

we would German com-

said

mander of the

area wanted to talk to the colonel.

Pop

and took him to the headquarters of whoever

in a jeep

was defending that

sector,

So they put

and there the German general

asked him to take a proposal to the local American com-

mander

to demilitarize this particular sector because of the

POW camp. "Pop" said he couldn't give him any promise but he would be happy to take the message. that the

He

Germans had another reason than

the prisoners of war

—there were two

bridges in this sector and the

suspected anyway just the safety

of

crucially important river

German

general didn't want the

Americans to cross them. Anyway, Pop took the message.

He was away all night. He got to the command post of the leading U.S. division and they gave

and eggs.

The commander, who was

him

breakfast of bacon

an old friend of Pop's,

WAITING FOR PATTON

him he would have

told

through there

at, let's

be a few shots

fired,

to reject the offer "but

see, 8:30

and

He

got back to

we

be

will

tomorrow morning. There will

that's all

rejected answer back to the

into camp.

283

there will be." So he took the

Germans and then came on back us just about daylight, and we all

gathered around him in his room.

He told us about his bacon-

and-egg breakfast, and then said very

casually,

ing through about 30 minutes from now."

"They are com-

And

as

he said

that,

the shooting started.

A

fierce battle raged.

SS troops were dug

and along the railway embankment

a

in

down by

the river

mile away and ready to defend

town of Moosburg. In the camp, prisoners scrambled

for safety,

hugging or diving for any scrap of cover they could find

as bullets

the

The fighting was confused, and Ethridge thought he saw German troops firing at each other and could not make out what was going on. John Parsons saw a German sniper flew through the

air.

30

from the top of

firing

watched

as

he was

Suddenly the their

way out

on the

hit

a

church tower in the distance and then

and went spiraling to the ground.

firing

into the

stopped and, cautiously,

roofs of their barracks, and

showed they were Shermans. The American confirmed

it.

to

from there they could see

umn of tanks on a hill in the distance. As these side

men began

make

compound. Those brave enough climbed up

"The news spread

a col-

got closer, their shape star stenciled

like wildfire,"

on the

according to

Lovoi.

Men screamed and yelled. Then a jeep raced ahead of the tank column carrying an American in the

passenger

straight.

cowboy with just

He

flag.

A tall soldier was standing

was helmeted and stood very

As he got within 50 yards of the open front

recognized him.

jeep

side.

came

knew

It

gate,

was General Patton himself, looking

his pearl six-shooters strapped to his sides.

to a stop just inside the barbed-wire fence this

was

liberation. It

was

like visiting

we

like a 31

His

and we

heaven.

THE LAST ESCAPE

284

He

was immediately surrounded by hundreds of and homesick young men.

grateful,

made

way

his

to the jeep

The

thin,

senior Allied officer

and stood before the General.

He

The General stood tall and returned the salute with the words: "It is we who salute you and all these brave men." Then the two men embraced, and we were snapped

sharp salute.

a

yelling and shouting, lots of crying and a lot of screaming and

hugging your

A

friends.

prisoner of war took the Stars and Stripes from the jeep,

climbed up the camp's flagpole, and replaced the Nazi ing to

some

reports

was Patton himself

it

he was known

—who demanded

and

yelled, "I

want

cuts

it

down,

I

that son-of-a-bitch

want him

Glory" made the

He

this.

men

wipe

to

his ass

flag.

Accord-

— "Old Blood and Guts," as

German flag cut down, and the man that with it!" The sight of "Old pointed to the

32

even wilder. Lovoi remembered that "a thun-

derous cheer erupted that could surely be heard as

far

west

as

New

men looked up at the American flag as tears streamed unashamedly down their grimy youthful faces. I felt completely drained and I sat down and said, 'Well thank God it's

York City Thousands of young 7

.

over.'"

Patton toured the camp, speaking to

as

many

of the prisoners as

he could. Ethridge was thrilled to shake the general's hand and hear his

promise that "we

unfulfilled,

whip the bastards

all

the

way

to Berlin"

of course, because the politicians had already agreed that

the Russians into a

will

would take the German

room and

listened to

would soon be transported

him

33

capital.

"tell

Joe Cittadini squeezed

we were great soldiers and Then some trucks arrived in

us

to France."

—and doughnuts the Americans, served by two blonde from For some an even greater — pleasure was the angel food cake" — of white bread the

camp with food and water

for

a truck.

girls

ter years of living

turkey,

34

"like

taste

on German black bread. There was

ham, beef stew, salmon,

to get a can of spaghetti stuff ourselves because

pasta,

and meat

loaf.

af-

also chicken,

Lovoi managed

and meatballs, but "we were warned not to

we might

get stomach cramps from the sud-

WAITING FOR PATTON

285

den impact of food on our digestive system." John Parsons took no notice,

and was soon throwing up everything he had

just

crammed

inside himself.

Over was

in the British

thrilled to see the

compound, the mood was calmer. Ken Searle

American

flag

waving

proudly and firmly on top of the town hall in Moosburg, be-

We got our own very

tween us and the fast-retreating enemy. precious

Union Jack hoisted without

British prisoners

were mostly

further delay. But

quiet, only slowly

and hesitantly

allowing ourselves to smile in a bewildered sort of manner.

were nearly

old kriegies of

all

many

watched while the Americans and

all

years standing and the younger ones

wild with unrestrained excitement. Later etly

on our own by having

a peaceful

we

we

We we

went

celebrated qui-

brew of

tea out in the

sun.

Lieutenant Geoff Wright of the strained himself too.

He

Durham

Light Infantry re-

celebrated on half a tin of salmon with his

buddies, and swore he would stay calm. But then

I

get up,

I start

trench and break

to walk,

I start

to run,

my bloody neck. And

I

nearly

then

I

fall

am

down

in the

a

mid-

mad throng. My throat tightens and I let out a strangled yell. I am yelling and roaring and waving my arms. So much for my resolve. Free and liberated. It's funny after five years. It's cold but the sun is shining. I am coming and going and I don't know where I am. dle of a

On

the next page of his diary his writing was a mess of squiggles as

he confessed to

darling, I'm tight, with

nificent all

fallen into

bad company: "Joan,

pull of best Scotch

from these two mag-

his wife that

American

one

he had

This diary is God bless the bastards am 1. 1 am wild, happy and mad. AfMay be home next Sunday."

officers.

topsy-turvey, darling, but so

ter five years, free at last.

.

.

.

I

For

all

their

I:

The

those tens of thousands of prisoners of war

way along

the northern line of

east such as Stalag Luft

Stalag

Hell of Fallingbostel

XXB

at

IV at Gross Tychow,

Marienburg

Some had walked

march

who had slogged

—from camps

Stalag

in the

XXA at Thorn, and

—the destination was usually the same.

the whole way, in pitiful condition as they were

rushed along that corridor of land beside the Baltic Sea, then crossed the

first

natural barrier they

ded west

came

to,

the River Oder, and then plod-

until the next one, the River Elbe.

eled at least

The

lucky ones had trav-

some of the way by train. But they all ended up

in the vast

prisoner-of-war complex at Fallingbostel on the windswept, north

German

plain.

Australian Air Force sergeant Cal Younger might have counted

himself one of those lucky ones as he sat in the overcrowded com-

pound and there as as

listened to the

harrowing

stories of those

still

arriving

numbers increased every day during the spring of 1945. But,

he ruefully pointed out, his was akin to the luck of a one-legged

man

in the

company of those with no

legs at

all.

He

had begun

his

odyssey at Stalag Luft VI, that far-flung camp on the Baltic coast,

which had been the

first

to be evacuated

instead of the long march,

by

train to

Thorn

Younger and

in Poland,

way back

his

in July 1944. But,

group had traveled south

where they had stayed

for three

weeks

before another train journey across the middle of Germany. Both train journeys

cars for

many

had been

hellish, the prisoners

days, the conditions insanitary

crammed

in railroad

and inhumane.

If

he

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THE LAST ESCAPE

288

was

then

a lucky one,

God

He

help the others.

Fallingbostel for eight months, and

was

it

had now been

from

far

a picnic.

But Fallingbostel did have one thing going for brought the thoughts of

home

Hamburg and Hanover was

closer.

The

at

it:

Being there

countryside between

northwest European, heath-

distinctly

land rather than flatland, lived-in rather than desolate and empty.

Younger iar in a

felt as if

way

he was in "our theatre of war"

—one that was famil-

that the plains of central Europe, fought over

by Poles

and Russians and Slavs for centuries, could never be. At the same 1

camp

time, the

itself

was "dark and brooding." There were

two separate camps, sprawling across hundreds of housed

acres.

in fact

They had

Poles, French, Russians, and Italians over the years,

and

at

one stage conditions had been so bad that 6,000 Russian prisoners

The

had died of typhus.

to 100,000 prisoners of

been closed for

a

bigger

many

camp

— Stalag XIB —now held close The second camp had

nationalities.

year and a half but had then been reopened for the

8,000 newcomers from Thorn, who brought

its

new

designation of

Stalag 357 with them.

In this

It

was

new home, Younger's a

low and the

miserable place. partially

window

The

on swede

and

ing and

fight

I

grey-brick huts were long and

underground so that when you looked out of

little

weight and four inches off

floor

had quickly sagged.

the ground was only just below you.

was severe and we had so

living

spirits

peel,

my

I

waistline.

I

winter

lost four stone in

We were

practically

and even then we had to scramble on the

one another for

swore

food that

The

it.

It

would never do

was horrible and degrad-

that again. I

would rather

starve to death.

Flight Sergeant Richard Passmore

of scavenging for scraps

house

—where huge

called that everyone

that there

was

a

like

remembered the degradation

an animal outside the

vats of thin

soup were boiled up

German cook-

—though he

re-

was so desperate for anything that could be eaten

properly drawn-up roster for the right to do

so.

THE HELL OF FA LL N G BO ST E L

289

I

We

removed the suppurating potatoes and slimy swede

ings, cleaned

People

who

who

them up

marginally, boiled

ate

them.

have been truly hungry will understand; those

men

haven't won't. Several

rows.

them and

peel-

reported having eaten spar-

Many of us had greedy eyes on a lean,

one-eyed cat which

occasionally appeared, negotiating the wire with supple ease, but, perhaps suspecting us,

fingers

refused to

it

and soothing noises.

Cold and hungry, Passmore admitted the absence of letters

munications in

The

to outstretched

to despair, being laid lower

— from home "our

Germany

succumb

2

spiritual lifeline"

—

as

It

was

by

com-

collapsed.

present was grim and the future was uncertain.

tempting to lose hope and relapse into apathy. There were needless deaths of

men who

back so that comparatively things far worse.

he led

The

could not be bothered to fight trivial

ailments developed into

piper, playing

"Flowers of the Forest" as

was no longer

a funeral cortege,

He knew the temptation to give up. was put

in the sick

I just I

a rarity.

Sick with pleurisy, Passmore

bay and

waited to see what would happen to me.

died, I died. I stored the pills they gave

idea that it.

I

might take them

Somehow

I didn't.

was stronger than the suffering

I

I

return.

over the position.

Or

Was

it

was the knowledge of

which

waiting in love and faith for

was seeing

a

Mosquito

fighter fly

grey January afternoon without any op-

this the

clear signs of life

it

to several other people

who were

perhaps a

submitted. If

Perhaps the flame of self-preservation

would bring

camp on

I

with the vague

once and make an end of

knew. Perhaps

restrained me, people

my

all at

me

not too

hospital for a fortnight

dove returning to the Ark bearing far

away? At any

rate, I stayed in the

and one way or another

I

survived.

THE LAST ESCAPE

290

Which was

the aim of that time

—to survive each

day,

and the

next and the next.

When

a

man

gave

in,

death could

come

frighteningly

fast.

Pri-

the physique to match

comrade — veteran paratrooper, with —who came to him one day and

come

can't stand

vate

out, a

Jim Sims remembered to say goodbye.

I

and you won't see

small operation to

a

a

said, "I've

me

again."

any more of this place. I'm getting

He was going into the sick bay for

3

remove some shrapnel, and Sims

told

him not to

be so dramatic.

Two

days later

could not see

go off and die cile cial

I

was asked to be

how as if

a

seemingly

fit

he had willed

himself to the prison camp.

could

But he could never recon-

appeared to hold some spe-

when someone told him it months before we would be free. But

I

remember from those

Sims himself survived, but the a prisoner for just eight

dropped from

1 1

stone 7

healthy young man, but ically

man

death haunted me, with the result that his surname

of the very few

was

I just

and tough young

it.

It

bearer for his coffin.

horror for him, especially

might be another eight his

a

I

lb.

days.

one

scars never completely healed. "I

months but

to

is

4

under

in that time

7 stone. I

my

had been

was never the same again.

I

a

weight

normal

suffered phys-

and mentally ever since."

Such hardships paled into insignificance

in

comparison with the

treatment meted out to the Russian prisoners in the next compound.

What astonished Younger was

way in which the German guards would whip the Russians, and the routine way in which the Russians seemed to accept it. They expected no mercy and could be guaranteed to show none when their turn came to be the masters. And that time would soon come as the news on which the Allied prisoners increasingly relied to boost their morale made clear. The "canary" on which Dixie Deans had heard the D-Day announcement back at Heydekrug had survived the journey across Germany. It had the routine

—

THE HELL OF FA LL N G B O ST E L

291

I

been hidden to scale

in the

handmade model of a racing

and perfect

in every detail

car

— lovingly

built

—belonging to John Bristow,

a

work so admired that German guards often picked it up and commented on its exquisite design. They never realized the secret inside. Now, with the signal from home closer and stronger, it was more than ever

a lifeline

Ironically,

it

of hope.

became harder

London. Some bright spark the radio broadcasts without

to receive specific instructions

Whitehall changed the cipher for

in

making sure

first

RAF

ceiving end had been told.

from

sergeant

that those

on the

re-

Ron Mogg remembered

spending

worried weeks trying to decipher garbled instructions from

home. The best brains

—and they included Senior

camp

in the

Wranglers [top Cambridge mathematics graduates] and

hopeful deductions, but

still

acres of paper with

the messages

came out gobbledy-

The problem was not

gook.

men

—covered

with high mathematics degrees

new coding information we

solved until, eventually, a

prisoner arrived earning the secret needed.'

The

prisoners also retained the equipment that could turn the re-

ceiver into a transmitter. 6 This

—

only

if

was for the

direst of

emergencies

the prisoners were threatened with massacre and needed

urgent help.

It

could only ever be used once, because

its

operation

would have been immediately detected by the Germans. Fortunately it

was never needed."

Deans had taken over the leadership of the camp. Given the usual interservice the large

army contingent had voted

clearly agreed with

Younger 's

wellbeing until he collapsed. at ease

the its

rivalry, it

Rank

RAF

as a priest

observance by us, and, as far

fight for our

did not awe him; he was as

knows

as

in the

man. But they

Deans "would

with a Nazi general as with a Cockney sergeant.

Geneva Convention

men

was extraordinary that

for an

belief that

British

his Bible.

much

And he knew

He insisted upon

was possible, by the Germans." 8

— THE LAST ESCAPE

292

Now

he was on constant watch to make sure that

men who were

bored and depressed did not cause trouble for themselves and others

by confronting the Germans for snap inspections.

much

gravity,

possible."

ground ior

"One hothead could provoke an

incident of

and Deans wanted to prevent any ugly scenes

He

too,

—particularly the Gestapo, who arrived

liked to

smooth away

difficulties,

if it

were

but he stood his

and would protest vigorously about any German behav-

he found unacceptable.

One Gestapo

officer in his black

uniform

was so exasperated by Deans that he grasped him by the neck. The British sergeant kept his cool, refusing the dangerous

to strike back.

He

waited until the

man

open

invitation

loosened his grip, then

turned smartly on his heels and marched to the commandant's

There he was met with

a helpless shrug.

dant do? That was the knife-edge they

But Deans refused to

let

all

What lived

could the

office.

comman-

on now.

animal behavior make animals of him

—believed to be survivors of the Warsaw uprising against the Germans — had and

his

men. In the next compound,

been brought for

a

fifty

Polish

women

9

shower. Their clothes were being deloused, and

The Germans delighted in the peep show, but not Deans. His men were lined up for the morning roll call when the women appeared. Angrily, he called Attention! About face!" As one man they turned away out, "Parade they were

made

to stand

naked out

in the open.

—

so as not to add to the

women's humiliation. 10

There was one other unforgettable personality among the

POWs at Fallingbostel, who had arrived as a result of the operations at

Arnhem. The daring airborne

tember 1944 had British paratroops

failed,

behind enemy

lines in

Sep-

and the disarmed and weary red-bereted

had been marched into the camp, evidence that

there were going to be their

assault

no easy roads

wounded hobbling with them

to victory.

They were

led in

—by Regimental Sergeant Major

John Lord. His head was held high and his moustache was waxed; he swaggered as if he were parading for the King rather than marching into captivity.

Ron Mogg was one

of those lining the fence of Stalag

357 to watch the paras enter the neighboring Stalag XIB.

THE HELL OF FAL L N G BO ST E L

293

I

We did not cheer. We came instinctively to attention and John Lord, noticing our two medical officers standing with his party "eyes right"

and snapped them

not have been out of place

at Pirbright

camps]. This was the sort of

None

on. [it

a salute

us,

gave

which would

or Caterham [training

show England could

of us would have missed seeing

it.

The

really put

impression

made] on the Germans was incredible.

Lord brought immediate charge

The

of.

soldiers already there

lance, a "shower."

They were

and he asked

official visit to

The

scruffy,

had become, in military parand morale was nonexistent.

The one thing he lacked was an interDeans if he could provide one. "He arranged an

Lord sorted them out in preter,

compound he took

discipline to the

a

week.

remembered Mogg.

us at 357 to consult with Dixie,"

splendidly upright figure of [Lord] appeared at our gate

escorted by two

look smart.

German

We presented

German

who were doing their best to him with a man who was one of the

soldiers

camp but whose sartorial standards and hair were hardly regulation. Three weeks later duty brought him back to our camp, and his long hair was short, his

best

linguists in the

side-cap was glued

and

his

on the

side of his

head

at the correct angle

cap-badge and buttons blazed. Even his trousers were

creased and you could see your face in his boots.

To cap

it all,

and, although not a

And they were all scrubbed camp with a back like a ramrod particularly tall type, managed actually to

down on some

of his old comrades. "You scruffy looking

he was wearing white.

look lot

a belt

and

He marched up

gaiters.

to the

of sods," he shouted,

"it's

about time you smartened your-

selves up."

But, for

all

his force of personality

commanded, Lord had bulk of his

men

his

and the fear and respect he

work cut out when

clean, tidy,

and disciplined.

it

It

came

to keeping the

didn't help that they

— THE LAST ESCAPE

294

were dressed

"We looked like a mob of

in an array of ragged clothes.

starving tramps,

which

is

in effect

what we were," according

to

Sims, one of those captured at Arnhem. But the problem was

Jim

much

more than what they wore. Sims was appalled by the attitudes he encountered. "There was no mucking-in spirit. It was just dog eat dog and the weakest to the wall." He remembered the bitter arguments, and even

whether

fistfights,

a

window

over

how to slice up a loaf of black bread fairly,

in the barracks should be

times the bickering would

last for

opened or

blamed the guards

coming

for not

and honor was served only by

Some-

hours and then end in blows.

There were brawls between men of rival regiments ers

shut.

or

—the paratroop-

to their rescue at

Not

a bruising.

Arnhem

that the fights lasted

weakened by lack of food,

long: After ten minutes the antagonists,

were too exhausted to go on.

Lord did

his best.

He

ordered

all

the

men

out of the barracks

some air into the fetid huts. Some defied him, though if he marched through and caught them, they normally leaped through the windows rather than face every day, to give them exercise and to get

his wrath.

But discipline was

a

problem, because the usual military

punishments for misdemeanors could not be applied. As Sims noted,

"You could not stop

a soldier's

pay or confine him to camp," and, in

the absence of these sanctions, there was always a minority the

NCOs

to their faces that

"We're not

and "You're not in charge, the Germans answer to insubordination. Sims recalled

nicknamed "Sunshine" who was lying

in the

are." a

who

bloody army now,"

The

fist

was the only

young Canadian

in his

told

soldier

bunk and refused

to

company sergeant major (CSM) when requested. "If the wants to see me, I guess he knows where I am," he said cheek-

report to a

CSM ily.

The

CSM

marched from

his office

and slugged "Sunshine" on

the jaw. It did the trick.

Rain sapped the fifty

when

we

soul.

Cal Younger counted forty-one days out of

the heavens opened, and

lived rain-curtained

were never quite

dry, in

and mud-carpeted, in clothes that boots that were always a

little

damp.

THE HELL OF FA LLI N G BOST E L running green slime coursed down the inside

Trails of

and water, condensing on the spattered secretly,

or leaking through,

ceiling,

shamefully wet because bladders could not be con-

trolled. In

we

everything

and

they became

vices,

did

it

we thought more

of our

own

frequently stood aside for anyone

less

Hardship, such as

of us, aggravated our til

walls,

We slept in beds that were sometimes

on our bunks.

welfare, and less else.

295

was, brought out the worst in

faults,

many

or exaggerated our attributes un-

and sharpened our awareness of faults

in

others.

Nor was morale moved

tables

all

some apparent

camp

a British

done to

injustice

North

in

officially inspired act

Africa.

mob.

A young oner"

—took

soldier

a beating

ing food.

They

with their

fists.

The

— "more

their

own

Germans

to be a thing

when he encountered

a boy, really, certainly

from other prisoners

stood around

of retaliation

after

the rule of

not long

a pris-

being caught

him and clubbed him

to the

steal-

ground

youngster was trying not to defend himself, was giving

himself, almost gladly, to the flogging, but involuntarily his

arms the if

tried to fend off the blows.

snow and

lay

still

he knew, and the

Two more

men

flogging

sleigh.

getically

his

punishment was not quite com-

The nonchalant

fell, a

picture of hu-

pitilessness of

it

was

He was hauled away to the sick bay on a makeshift

A man

snow from

coiled slowly into

him knew, and we who were

blows struck him and he

miliation and misery. frightening.

Then he

before trying to get to his feet again, as

watching him knew, that plete.

it,

re-

prisoners of war in

Compassion seemed

of the past, as Younger discovered the

the

and benches, straw mattresses, and half the bed

boards from each barracks in an for

when

helped in mid-January

picked up a parachutist's beret, brushed the

and ran

after the sleigh. Gently,

almost apolo-

he placed the beret on the unconscious but convuls-

THE LAST ESCAPE

296

ing chest of the

was

man

of Arnhem.

I

went round

a

corner and

sick.

There were more such was frog-marched to the

down with

a pole.

acts.

A

thief

from the

RAF

contingent

cesspit and, fully clothed, thrust in

"When

and held

was thought he had been punished

it

enough, he was allowed to clamber out, and was hosed down with

washed away."

ice-cold water until the filth and the stench were

When

he got back to his hut, he found

his

belongings had been

thrown out and he was no longer welcome.

men

Thoughtful

like

Younger wondered about the morality of

these "pitiful, pathetic, pettifogging

little thefts,

considered that here were 10,000 men,

Could any individual

really be

would happen

own

or

one's

friends

"It

all

many when one

desperately hungry."

makes one wonder what

succumbed

to

sudden temptation,

were to succumb oneself." But it was hard to know what was

if one

right or

if

blamed?

not

wrong anymore,

sent from Stalag Luft III

as

one small incident demonstrated.

on the

last train to leave

before the Russians

overran the camp, had arrived addressed to Dixie Deans. In the fountain pens and cigarette lighters the

from the

POWs years before.

11

A box,

Germans had

As Younger was handed

it

were

confiscated

his

own pen

he pondered "the superb honesty" of the Germans, and vowed to write the

first

draft of his

prison-camp memoirs with

it.

Overhead, constant streams of Allied planes headed for burg, Bremen, and Hanover, their

trails in

the sky watched eagerly

from the compound. Passmore remembered the day they storage tanks in

sky until

it

Hanover and

"a

brown

hit the oil

curtain climbed the southern

blotted out the whole of the heavens, leaving us in near-

twilight for almost

two days." Back

in

Heydekrug

in 1944,

had worried that celebrating the news of D-Day might taliation,

Ham-

and

it

was

still

just as necessary to avoid

mans too much. Jumpy guards the air to remind the prisoners

Deans

result in re-

provoking the Ger-

occasionally fired a round or two in

who was

in charge, but in return they

were sharply reminded that things were about to change. Passmore recalled that,

when

a

guard attempted to arrest a prisoner

who was

THE HELL OF FA L L N G BO ST E L

297

I

prisoner began to write

late for parade, the

and number for future reference

down

name

the guard's

—future revenge —and the guard

took the hint and went away.

An

even greater worry for Deans was the rapid deterioration of

the men's health. state

They were

all,

Younger knew,

far

from being

in the

of concentration-camp inmates, yet "we were suffering from

malnutrition; the flesh of thighs and upper arms atrophied a

more with each

day,

hip-bones resembled incipient wings.

dreaded an epidemic and this time eastward."

unreality, as if it

gerous, because

most needed everyone

a

was it

we dreaded being made

There was all

a lethargy

a film in

to

march

about the camp,

little

We

again,

a sense

of

slow motion. This attitude was dan-

made men weak and

vulnerable just

when they

Deans opted

for action that

would give

to be strong.

shot in the arm.

needed. There were

literally

The

cheer of Red Cross parcels was

tons of them, but they were stuck at the

port of Liibeck 80 miles away with no transport to bring

them south,

only the promise of gleaming white trucks at some unspecified time.

Deans persuaded the commandant

to find a van,

and he and an-

German officer, set off for Liibeck. As they lunched in a pub along the way and slept that night in a dormitory at a German services club in Liibeck, surrounded by Wehrmacht soldiers on leave, Deans and his fellow prisoner concealed their identities. The town had been wrecked by Allied bombing, and to be discovered as RAF men could have been disastrous for them. They found parcels and, after great difficulty other prisoner, along with a Russian driver and a

(and a

little

bribery), arranged for

them and attached Fallingbostel.

two railroad

cars to be filled with

to the next passenger train going south to

Deans and the others then threw

as

many

parcels as

they could in the back of the van and returned to camp. There they

handed out 200 parcels

to the sick

Liibeck. It was a long wait.

two wagons

and waited for their delivery from

Not until March

arrive with 6,000 parcels

—

30,

enough

Good Friday,

did the

for half a parcel for

each man.

They were too late to save one life. According room had managed to acquire a pet dog.

to Passmore,

one

THE LAST ESCAPE

298

Nellie was a dachshund and

much

One day

loved.

she van-

ished and the sad traces were found in a dustbin. Nellie's ers it

put up

known

to be

their

a bitter notice

that

— "The men of

[hut]

own-

C2/4 would

on Saturday evening, March

like

24, 1945,

dog Nellie was eaten by some persons unknown. They

would

like to

few weeks.

thank

who

all

helped to feed her during the

last

No doubt those who ate her would like to add their

thanks."

By then that Patton

the prisoners were in a state of high anxiety.

had crossed the Rhine nine days

were eating up the miles But the soldier his 21st

who

in a

mad

earlier

and that his tanks

dash across southwest Germany.

mattered most to them was Montgomery, and

Army Group

Caution was the Field Marshal's

in the north.

watchword, particularly since the Arnhem debacle.

when he was

They knew

He moved

only

absolutely certain. For days there were reports of a

massive military buildup on the Rhine's west bank and of artillery

pounding the eastern bank of the

river to obliterate

any opposition.

Impatient prisoners of war had stuck up a photograph of Monty with the

word Wanted printed above

Germans would nals they

try to

it.

What

worried them was that the

march them out before he got

there.

The

Allied lines had apparently been liberated, but the persistent

was

still

that their release

listed the possibilities that

The Germans would vancing Allies

They would

was not going to be that

just leave us to

bomb

They would march

proaching liberators, to use us

More

be liberated by the ad-

as

us

all

we would

seemed

bargaining counters in some

exciting was the possibility that British

cover and wipe out the guards. At this Either

—which

us away from our ap-

airborne troops would be dropped into the

split.

Passmore

too good to be true, of course.

shoot, shell and

future haggling.

easy.

rumor

were endlessly discussed:

—which was

hardly credible.

air

sig-

were getting were contradictory. Some camps closer to the

fortify the

camp under heavy point, the rumour

perimeter and dig

in,

waiting

THE HELL OF FA L L N G BO ST E L

299

I

for a tank spearhead to reach us, or

across country to

RAF

our way

fight

either case, we Our confidence in the ability own was boundless, almost as

meet the advancing forces. In

should have adequate of the

we would

air cover.

to look after

its

boundless as our collective ego-centricity.

The last was a revealing observation. Passmore was one of the few who realized the truth: that the prisoners might not be at the top of everyone's added,

He

of priorities at this crucial stage in the war.

list

"We said our prayers unworthily,

assuming that the Almighty

must share our dominating concerns." Meanwhile, thousands more prisoners were arriving on foot

from the camps

in the east.

at just getting there.

February

6. It

was

He

12

and

Doug Fry remembered his

now March

column had

Allen,

off the road,"

Another of the new

arrivals

was

But

at least

we had

these British guys.

and been

in prison

happy as you could

shelter.

on the ground. That's where we

They had been

camps be.

My shoes were falling We were marched into an

and ragged.

old circus-type tent with hay

met

13

who was

just unbelievably filthy

apart.

his sheer relief

Gross Tychow on

"Thank God we're

28.

he told himself, "and under cover."

Roger

left

captured at Dunkirk,

They were about

for five years.

They had

a really

as

good sense of humor,

and we got on well with them. 14

Later this friendship would be a

Otto

also got a standard British

grateful: "It

march. not

welcome

American airman Bob

—

cup of

a

tea.

He

was

was comforting to think we had come to the end of that

We weren't worried about going back behind the wire again,

at that stage."

Another new

camp

lifesaver.

is

15

arrival

was Cec Room, who noted in

horribly overcrowded.

herded together in to sleep in." 16

a

Grub

his log,

stakes very poor.

huge marquee, and

I

have

a

We

"The

are

all

space one foot wide

Things got worse: "A mass funeral takes

place.

The

— THE LAST ESCAPE

300

on the

sheets

them this

were

stretchers

—they had

just

because there was nothing

left

of

wasted away. I'm not feeling any too happy

at

flat

The atmosphere here is bloody grim." No sooner had they arrived when one of Room's buddies dismal sight.

died

"he had peritonitis and he died on the straw in that marquee.

poor bloke was

agony but nobody could do anything

in

Pollock just hadn't got the equipment. All

few words of comfort.

so helpless."

I felt

ers of various nationalities,

could do was give

I

He was

who

and those

buried with

kept springing open. ruthers,

who had

"

The

death

arrived in the

their feet

him

six

a

oth-

matchwood

lids

did not surprise Percy Car-

same group

the plight of the Russians in their

Most of them had

toll

The Doc

followed the coffins to the

grave were embarrassed and distressed as the thin 1

for him.

as

Cec Room. He watched

compound: wrapped

in rags

and sacking.

Their food, rough boiled potatoes, was merely tipped on the ground, and they were so hungry that they just

heap and shovelled

it

worse than animals.

I

we a

received in

a

arrivals

They were

inevitable.

who was

how much he owed

to

fit

and

one of

who was

not. Carruthers re-

his buddies,

who had

going for the past months, eking out the food, keeping slices

of chocolate and fudge from

moment when as

treated

bulk food daily than

from Gross Tychow began to take stock of what

they had been through, alized

my dogs more

upon the

week, but more than the Russians received in

month. Death was

The

into their mouths.

feed

fell

the spirit was at

its

Red Cross

lowest.

kept him

treats like

parcels for just that

Now there were reunions

they began meeting up with old friends, but

it

was

also painfully

how much numbers were reduced from all those who had once been together at Stalag Luft IV. The camaraderie of that camp seemed a distant memory compared with the ruthless attitude they found in their new home. Joe O'Donnell hated the atmosphere of obvious

Fallingbostel. "It lacked comradeship, fellowship, friendship, and,

most of all, sharing. The only means

for survival

was every man

for

THE HELL OF FA L L N G BO ST E L

301

I

himself.

and well

I

saw

a

French

fed, strutting

streets of Paris."

18

impeccably dressed, clean shaven,

officer,

about

though he were

as

strolling along the

In contrast he found himself having to forage for

vegetable skins to eat.

The general anxiety in the camp was heightened by an onslaught of German propaganda as blood-red posters appeared on walls in the camp stating that the Russians were the real enemy and that "England will find herself isolated against a Soviet Europe and a Soviet Asia from the Atlantic to the Pacific." issues too distant to contemplate.

interested in

19

For the prisoners, these were

The only map of Europe they were

was one that showed the miles between them and

Monty. Every day they willed the front

line forward.

Every day they

cursed the Field Marshal's caution and prayed for "build-up" to turn into "advance." In this limbo, behavior

was generally odd.

One

of

Younger's companions became obsessively clean, scrubbing and dusting

the time, just to take his

all

adopted an end-of-term

air

mind

off thinking. Others

and went around getting their

diaries

down anecdotes and homilies, prematurely anticipating the end. Then came the thrill of great news. The British crossed the Rhine on March 24, and the days that followed were pure expectation so much so that the arrival of the Red Cross parcels on Good Friday seemed irrelevant in the exsigned by friends, collecting addresses, writing

—

citement to be inside

me

as

free.

Younger

lay

on

his

bunk "with

elation squirming

every few minutes someone tumbled

step with news heard from

'a

reliable source.'

down

the front

We waited, minute by

minute, for liberation."

Those

"reliable sources" placed the

the British to the west.

Americans to the south and

Sounds of explosions could be heard

—though these turned out to be the

nearby

bridges rather than Allied artillery

fire.

Germans blowing up

One

night a Mosquito

buzzed the camp and the prisoners lay low, praying the recognized for what

it

up

he dropped

a sentry

a

box or

would be

was. In the bright moonlight, the pilot took

his time to assess the situation fully,

site

below and, choosing

his target care-

bomb on the German quarters before shooting two. The anxiety on the ground was genuine as

THE LAST ESCAPE

302

the

bomb

fell.

A

former

fear-filled silence. "Ee, if

blud smells

announced, and the hundreds

—though

The not

The

manure, I'm wounded," he burst into laughter.

right away, an unkind

Englishman

had to be explained to the German guards. 20

expectation strained the nerves

fulfilled:

weak." 21

it

like

who heard him

Even the Americans got the joke noted

from Lancashire broke the

Spitfire pilot

—the more so when

"we were emotionally exhausted

was

it

as well as physically

days went by, the liberators had to be closer, but the

guards showed no real signs of panic or confusion. Younger watched a

platoon of elderly

yond the

Home Guard soldiers take part in an exercise beon

wire, crawling

They

to smoke.

their

stomachs and hiding in the bushes

did not look defeated or in despair.

getting orders, but

it

still

was what those orders might contain that wor-

A macabre

ried the prisoners.

They were

joke

went around about "going up the

chimney," and the anxious dwelled on rumors about death camps. Nevertheless, for those

who contemplated

escape, the instructions

over the radio from

London were unchanged. "Stay put" was

order of the day.

was not

It

given this instruction. a

just the British

A month or so earlier,

coded message to "Francois

le

the

who were

Paris Radio had carried

dentiste" in Fallingbostel. Appar-

ently the French prisoners in the

ammunition and were intending lay off."

and Americans

still

camp had acquired arms and They were told "to

to break out.

22

Deans needed

a plan.

He

had managed to keep up

a

reasonably

good relationship with the camp commandant, who assured him no harm would

befall the prisoners.

be meaningless

if

distinct possibility

However, such

a

the SS arrived and took control, which 7 .

The SS needed no

that

promise would

seemed

a

lessons in mass execution.

They could herd the prisoners in groups to ditches outside the camp and mow them down en masse, or surround the camp with heavily armed men and simply dispose of a hut the worst.

A

Deans planned

for

twenty-four-hour watch was kept on the main gate of

the

camp

ers

would rush the

to

at a time.

warn of the

arrival

gate.

of the SS. If it happened, the prison-

As Vic

hope but some might make

it."

Gammon

noted, "It was a forlorn

— THE HELL OF FA L L N G BO ST E L

303

I

Then came news. The wrong news. They were to be marched out again. "We were to leave almost at once for the Northern Redoubt, the area of Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein in which the Germans planned

Younger recorded.

to hold out indefinitely,"

were

Friday, April 6. Others

less certain

was

It

about where they were

headed and why. Passmore heard the name Liibeck mentioned, but he gathered they would tion.

just

be going in a vague northwesterly direc-

There were promises of regular food

with good reason

Mongol

"like a

ravaging

caster

who had been shot down

wish to go.

He

supplies, but

—that they would be reduced horde."

Ken Brown,

he feared

to living off the land, a

navigator on Lan-

over Berlin in January 1944, had no

had no doubt that

the safest place in

Germany was behind wire.

I

had never seen

any point in escaping, in putting myself in farther danger.

seemed

around that we might be shot or used leged that Hitler said, "Shoot

all

as hostages. It

prisoners of war." But

was

we

heard that Goering had countermanded the order. But always possible.

We knew what the Nazis were like.

Cec Room was following orders and preparing it!"

It

thing to do. There were a lot of rumours

a stupid

al-

also

was

it

23

to leave.

"Curse

he wrote.

The and

offensive

now we

on the Western Front has opened up

are being evacuated

Presumably we

Army boys to

from Montgomery's Army.

meet the Russians halfway

are staying behind but the

march away.

of here.

shall

We

full blast

poor old

back.

The

RAF have

got

We are all in. In some ways I am glad to get out

stand a

of food on the road.

many of us would

more chance of picking up odd bits Another month of this and I'm pretty sure little

hit the long,

long

trail!

Percy Carruthers was glad to be moving too, though he recognized that

many

of his fellow marchers from Gross

Tvchow were

not.

THE LAST ESCAPE

304

"They were not

go on the roads

in a suitable physical condition to

again."

The news few days

He

upset Joe O'Donnell.

he had

at Fallingbostel that

had been so starved in

finally sold his watch,

his

which he

had held on to since he was captured, for seven loaves of black bread.

He

and

his

buddy ate one

when they were

the rest

bread was two and

much buddy and we gave

was

loaf right away,

just

told to prepare to leave.

pounds, which meant

a half

too

and were planning to trade

to carry.

So

I

among

a

the rest to the sick.

loaf of black

I like

fears

lb.,

me

and that and

my

to think that, as a result, If so, his

were not

own

realized.

prayers

He

was

group of newcomers ordered by the Germans to take

shower to delouse them. area to a small strip

His worst

in return.

"A

had 21

kept three loaves for

someone's prayers for food were answered."

were answered

I

naked.

wooden

We

"We were

building.

forcibly

showers before another 12 would go

we got our

first

shower

marched out of the camp

There we were given

insisted that 12 prisoners in.

in 55 days." It

just a

a

command

must enter and

to

exit the

Permission was granted, and

had been

a

wise precaution. As

the prisoners were beginning to realize, a special

Bergen-Belsen was

a

camp known

as

few miles down the road from Falling-

bostel.

As best he could, the ever resourceful Deans had drawn up contingency plans.

The

they had no choice shot.

prisoners would follow

weather was mild, each should carry spare socks, in

as slowly as

they could. Even though the

man would wear a

his overcoat,

and they

They would and each group would have its own

container of water, and food.

columns of about 1,000

leader plus a head of security

Mogg

orders, because

—he had been warned that escapees would be

But they would march

march

German

—"in case the

Jerries turned nasty," as

Twenty senior men (including John Bristow with the "canary") would form a sort of headquarters unit which would march in the middle of "this great army of the unarmed but very explained.

bloody-minded" 24 and try to keep control. That was Deans's way.

would

leave as few decisions as he possibly could to the

He

Germans.

THE HELL OF

Thev could would be

settle

F

A

L L

I

N G BO ST

305

E L

on where the column was going and where they

would remain

billeted each night, but he

men. That way he stood

chance of getting them

a

home

However, not everyone was prepared to follow occasion. Younger's friend

in charge of his

his orders

Dick Vernon wanted to

hide.

gested they and two other friends should creep into

army

prisoners, in the

ated.

At

really

a

crowd of

worried

with our

me was

argument with

compound would not be

this

own crowd; we might

premonition that

a

we would be

sug-

evacu-

be singled out

his friends

a

we moved

if

in

WTiat

any but the

beset by tragedy." Younger lost the

and they gathered up their duffels and

a barracks in a different

room. There was

find

He

this

compound of

soldiers for specially unpleasant attention.

appointed direction

headed for

a

on

they might buy some time. Younger was against the

least

idea. "Better to stay

among

hope that

safely.

compound. They were lucky

stream of

RAF

to

prisoners with the same

thought, and most of them were turned back.

Eventually they found refuge with a group of Americans, not

long off the their

difficult

march from the

own compound

led the

treated to U.S. hospitality eat,

and

arettes

a

and they lay hidden while

east,

march

That night they were

out.

—boiled peas, which was

sing-along accompanied by a mournful

glowed

in the dark as the prisoners sang

all

there was to

mouth

organ. Cig-

and took comfort

in

being together.

Most of

the songs were sentimental it

contentedly.

was

It

corny," as the

—but they sang unashamedly,

Americans put

emotion.

— "kinda

A padre

a

warm,

could have

a friendly

come

and had the best congregation of his

were imbued with

in

gathering, yet

God

fall

of

and talked about God,

life,

because our thoughts

a peculiar reverence.

were thinking about

nostalgically,

Maybe some

of us

anyway.

Outside they could hear gunfire and the whine of aircraft engines. "Uneasily,

we

slept."

THE LAST ESCAPE

306

They had gained only a night's respite. Having dispatched the British compound, the Germans came the next morning for the Americans. "Before we realized it the barrack was surrounded." Younger and his friends tried to make a dash for another compound. Other prisoners were trying in the

barbed wire.

It

was

through

to slip

all

no

to

from hiding and relieved to find

They were

all

extracted

their regular guards

who were

avail.

was

it

gap that had appeared

a

chasing them out, not the SS. "Toby, Dick,

Ron and

I

were the

last

move out of the camp, just as it had been all those months ago back at Heydekrug." Out on the road again, history was four prisoners to

repeating

itself in

most awful of ways.

the

But not for George Guderley. Not

He

had had

he had anything to do with

if

tough time slogging

a

way from Gross Tychow,

his

trudging hundreds of miles from east to west.

not about to retrace any one of those going.

It

was

we

decision based, as

a

it.

steps.

He told himself he was

This was

will see,

on

as far as

he was

inside information.

many of the long-distance marchers, Fallingbostel had been a relief when he first arrived. Sick and starving, the pounds had fallen off him, and, at around 1 10 pounds, he was down For him,

as for so

to two-thirds of his

organized prison that's all that

The whole

normal weight.

camp

He

thought that "If there was an

the chances were that

we would be

fed,

mattered. Everything revolved around getting food.

focus of

my

was food." 25

life

Fallingbostel was not going to provide

He

quickly realized that

what he desperately needed

to stay alive.

I

was so frigging hungry there.

stew that was

it.

We received potatoes and a green

made up of boiled

tasted like nothing, trition in

and

and

all it

grass

did was

and boiled sugar

fill

space.

beets. It

There was no nu-

We used to look at the trees in the distance beyond

the wire and

wonder

if

we

bark and eat the inner bit

could get to them and scrape off the

later.

We would have eaten anything.

THE HELL OF FA L L N G BO ST E L

307

I

In his dreams, he feasted. "I had a piece of cardboard, and endless descriptions about

thing with cream on fantasies to

what

I

wanted

For

to eat.

me

it

I

wrote

was any-

—whipped cream or chocolate." These were

it

be shared and compared.

We would talk for endless hours about what we were going to eat

when

— —we got home. There was if

about

talk

a

drive off the gas

down

straw.

But

and put

Some guy

Food was our

thought in

"You

said,

it

it

would with

a

was nothing. first

you've had pizza."

We talked about it constantly.

was worried.

went badly

my

this

about pizza for the

ain't lived until

like these also

fears. "Yes, I

us as things

and then

you would drink

also got to hear

I

obsession.

Conversations deepest

in a dollop of ice

the ginger ale to

had to be Verner's Ginger Ale or

In those discussions time.

how you heated

into the ginger and then it

guy who used to

product called Verner's Ginger Ale, which was

sold in Cleveland, Ohio, and

melt

this

for the

took their minds away from their

We could sense the chaos around Germans. There was always the

head that they might

kill us,

out of retribution or

anger."

Guderley had been fortunate enough to come across one of the few friendly guards back

at

Gross Tychow,

a

middle-aged

man he

called Pop.

He was

a sergeant

southern

and he came from the Sudetenland, part of

Germany

Hitler annexed from Czechoslovakia in

1938. His two sons were conscripted

—he went into the Luft-

waffe and they went into the Army. Both were killed on the

Russian front, and

I

were the same age

as

ing,

and wore

think he took a shine to us because

them:

glasses.

just kids really.

He would

talk to

me

He was

thin, bald-

furtively, afraid

being seen fraternizing. But he became a sort of fatherly ure.

He was

we

torn apart by the loss of his sons.

of

fig-

— THE LAST ESCAPE

308

I

saw him over

He

to him.

signaled

I

looked surprised, and he came over and

him how he

was,

how

He

things were going.

said,

I

asked

"Schwer"

tomorrow morning

all

the air- force prisoners of war are

going to be marched out back to the east again?" In the tance

we could hear

make

sure

the noise of artillery.

young man.

compound over

If you

can get over into that other

—and he pointed to one of the laagers Germans Untermenschen — "then called

you

will

"Ich

kanne nicht Ihren helfen"

be free in ten days."

He

told

me

far as six

this

he couldn't help

—or he would be

have to get into that other compound."

all

to

quietly,

there"

containing what the

walked back to

dis-

He looked round

no one was watching, then he added

"You're a smart

Pop knew

—

We chatted, then all of a sudden he said, "Do you know

"Bad." that

and

at the gate at Fallingbostel

shot.

Then he

"But you

turned and

his post.

because he would be on the march himself, and as

Guderley could

tell

he was

far

from keen

to go:

"He was

years old and had just finished walking 471 miles

fifty-

—he wasn't

looking forward to some more of the same."

The American

decided to take the advice.

urged them to help him contrive

pound, which housed palling conditions

a

Slavs, Indians,

—much

He told his friends and

plan to get into the other

com-

and British Gurkhas in ap-

worse than the British and American

make a break, because they felt relatively safe where they were. Most of them said they wanted to stay with the group. But eventually I got enough to agree." His plan was desperate mad even. There were about twenty of them, and they would carry empty swill buckets hanging at the ends of poles across their shoulders and pretend they were a work detail carrying out an order. They would simply walk up to the comprisoners were

in.

"They were

reluctant to try to

—

pound same

gate, bold as brass,

tactic

sick friend

and demand to be

Guderley had used when he

stole

Buck while on the march. Be

let

through.

cream

positive

at a

It

was the

farm for his

and give the im-

pression of doing something that cannot be questioned and

it

was

THE HELL OF

F

A

L L

I

NG

B

O ST E L

309

amazing what you could get away with or who you could as

Guderley put

it.

was pretty daft

"It

us would be carrying our belongings

I

I

now realize,

"bullshit,"

but since none of

reasoned that we would not be

suspected of trying to escape."

They

assembled, marched up to the gate, and

when

the sentry

asked where they were going Guderley said they had been told by

German

sergeant

and-file guards

pound.

He

—

whom he knew the rank-

take water to the other

com-

didn't argue:

opened up the gate and we marched

down between rows compounds, and right" in

nasty one

—to

were scared of

The guard just

a particularly

a

We

went

of barbed wire between the individual

was

I

out.

at the front calling

out "Left, right,

left,

my best drill-sergeant manner. We followed the same compound we wished to hide in, and WTien we got to the middle of the prearranged signal we scattered and hid our-

routine at the gate of the the sentry there let us

compound, on selves in huts

a

and

in.

tents,

swapping hats and jackets with the

people in them to disguise ourselves.

When

the

Germans saw

what was happening they went absolutely berserk trying to find us, but in the

watched

all

were sorry

of the other Allied airmen being marched out.

to see

ing to stay there.

what

end they gave up. The next morning we

We

my German

Guderley and

his

go, but

guard friend had told me.

companions stayed hidden

they went back to their old they met up with others

derson was too

We

we were damn glad we were gohad made the right decision to stay after

them

and then

for a day,

— and now empty—compound. There

who had

refused to be evacuated.

John An-

sick:

knew I could not march again. I was barely able to walk. The Germans didn't like it. They said if we were sick we should go

I

to the hospital.

and

a

German

Otherwise we should march.

We were paraded

doctor was going to examine us to decide

if

we

THE LAST ESCAPE

310

were

fit

or not. But there was an air raid which lasted the rest

of the day, and he was unable to do

this.

26

who had also hidden to avoid the forced exodus began emerge too, among them Roger Allen. He and his buddy Others

had preferred to stay rather than go out

who went in

those

in

camp and

on the road

the

take our chances there

again.

column were

to

in

We

were scared that

danger of being used

as

hostages and might be killed. So, with the help of the British soldiers

we had become

friendly with,

we

hid.

We

swapped

our American flying jackets for some old blankets, which we put over our heads, and the Brits just stood in a circle around us until the guards had gone.

By

tually given up.

Guard

German guards who hadn't left had virThe camp was now in the hands of German Home

the next day, those

troops, and they, as

we

particularly after

would be

them

But there was

over,

still

German

They wanted

lines arrived.

camp

gates,

and there was

to

raised

They

a fierce

argument

come

in

and shoot

us.

They

carried standard killed a lot

of

weren't yelling or shouting, but voices were

and the discussion went on for about twenty minutes.

We watched them. It was terrifying, because we realized it was our

lives

they were arguing about. But those old boys in the

Home Guard they did.

SS

left.

It

stood their ground, and

was

a

the

A company of SS

guards.

Schmeiser machine guns, and they could have people.

They knew

and they were not going to take any chances."

one more major scare to come.

troops arrived at the

easily intimidated,

that unless they cooperated they

bad shape when the Allied

in

war was almost

with the

Guderley noted, "were

told

we were damned

glad

gutsy thing for them to do. In the end the

THE HELL OF FA L L N G B O ST E L

311

I

Not long

after,

one of the groups that had marched out of

Fallingbostel returned.

Though

the prisoners did not realize

it

at the

German guards were scared and had decided to disobey orders. They thought they were in real danger of stumbling into the Allied front line, which was now just west of the Hanover-Hamburg time, the

autobahn, and getting caught up in the fighting. Cal Younger recalled how,

one morning

after

two days on the road, they were told

they would be staying where they were. Other columns were not so lucky.

"They

and long

straggled past us, bent low as they plodded

it

told Younger's

good news or bad?

their steps,

we could hear road." The next day

and the scrape of their boots on the

Germans

the

Was

hill

they had disappeared over the brow

after

their voices

up the

group to head back to Fallingbostel.

No one knew. As they prepared to retrace

one of Younger's friends noted in

his diary, "It's likely

we're going to be murdered." There were plenty of woods on the route back "where murder could so easily be done."

The

to dismiss his fears as those of a pessimist, "but there

were worried.

We

thought we had become

a

is

others tried

no doubt we

nuisance to the Ger-

mans, that we were getting in the way of the fighting and so they

wanted to get us out of the way permanently. The truth

is

that

we

know what was going to happen to us and we were afraid of the unknown." The Germans were reassuring. They told the prisoners that there were too many columns like theirs clogging up the didn't

roads, and that

was the reason they were going back. VMien they

rived at the camp, there was

behind

—

in the sick bay, for

happened despite the

more

reassurance.

example

—were

still

Those they had there.

arleft

Nothing had

earlier threats.

However, Fallingbostel was even worse than when they had

left.

They had been away just a few days, and yet in that time even more prisoners of many nationalities had been dumped there. There were no spare beds. The compounds had turned into shantytowns of shelters made out of anything available. The first night back was spent on the concrete

floor of the delousing

guards just looked the other

way

shower room. As for food, the

as prisoners cut holes in the

barbed

THE LAST ESCAPE

312

wire to get out into the fields and farms nearby. Younger and his friends lived

on foraged peas and

potatoes.

Everywhere order was collapsing. Germany, the and the prisoners themselves were getting perilously close. Guderley,

over a latrine trench

camp and

in disarray.

all ill

POW camps

And

the war was

with dysentery, was squatting

when an RAF Hawker Typhoon buzzed

the

fired rockets into a barracks, killing thirty-five Russians. "I

think they had

left a light

blazing."

Guderley watched the

trail

of the

rockets and began to run, forgetting that his trousers were around his ankles.

He

fell

in the

mess around the

he was not allowed back into to

latrine,

and smelled so bad

his tent that night. It

was

clearly time

do something to protect the camp. With the agreement of the

guards, the prisoners climbed onto the roofs of the buildings and

pow

painted the letters

by morale-boosting

whitewash.

in

fly-pasts

The

and victory

raids stopped, replaced

rolls.

"Now there was an air

of excitement, not tension."

On

the road outside the camp, retreating

German

passing by in an almost continuous line, on the retreat. trucks,

on horse-drawn wagons, or

soldiers

They were in

just walking, bedraggled,

bowed. Gleefully, Guderley noted that "they didn't give about

us; all

bostel's

own

they wanted to do was save their

own

were

a

heads

damn

asses." Falling-

guards were the next to join the retreat. There was a

loud explosion as they blew up the ammunition dump, and then

who wanted

those

to disappeared.

men who

and take their chances with little

for

A

good number decided at least

knew them.

It

to stay

needed

imagination to grasp the life-threatening chaos that was waiting

them

Choosing

outside.

prisoners, they laid

down

to surrender to those

their

who had been their

arms and were then herded into

a

compound. Senior Allied

NCOs

the plan that Dixie

was not there were enough action.

to

took charge of the camps.

Deans had devised months

implement

it

They

before, and

followed

though he

—he was on the forced march—there

men who had not left or who had returned to put it into

They armed

themselves with guns taken from the guards and

sent out search parties to find whatever food they could in the sur-

THE HELL OF FA L L N G BO ST E L

313

I

rounding countryside.

were beyond control.

The They

nearby towns and

villages.

dry of beer and

spirits,

released Russian prisoners, however,

way through

looted and raped their

Desperate for alcohol, they drank the area

and then polished off

a store

of eau de

~

Cologne through broken

bottle necks.

:

For those who opted for safety in the camp, sounds of heavy fighting joy," flat

were

now coming from beyond

according to Guderley, but also frightening.

He

—"sounds of

threw himself

on the ground on more than one occasion. The end came on the

morning of April last

the perimeter

16, just as John

chapter of the Bible.

He

Anderson was

had come

Genesis in scripture classes back ishing Revelations.

at

"A tank from

a

finishing reading the

long way.

He

had begun

at

now he was fin2nd Army drove up to

Gross Tychow;

the British

the gate and everyone started shouting," he recalled. Guderley re-

membered

a

couple of Churchill tanks coming up the road,

and they drove right through the front gate, followed by

a

couple of Bren-gun carriers. Everyone started hollering, and the soldiers were throwing out rations and cigarettes. well back, just in case.

by the very

I

was damned

British tank that

reality of the situation

if I

was setting

sank in and

I

stood

was going to be

killed

me

was

it

But then the

free.

like

New Year's Eve,

the Fourth of July, your birthday, and the wildest bacchanal

you've ever been to

all

rolled into one.

Anderson shouted and yelled

meant he had

to stop short of

"Had sauerkraut Cooked macaroni. I

too, but his illness

priority.

for lunch.

beans.

shall

thought the occasion unreal.

came crashing through the

and

his injuries

jumping up and down. Food was

Heated up some meat and

never forget

He

gate,

this day."

Cal Younger

was peeling potatoes

and he

just

as the

tank

continued with what he

was doing.

I

was feeling pretty low

part in the excitement.

at that

The

his

time and at

first I

potatoes boiled, and

couldn't take I

watched the

THE LAST ESCAPE

314

Men

water frothing.

me

went running past

—Englishmen,

Frenchmen, Poles, Yugoslavs.

I

the urgent pounding of feet.

stood up and watched the run-

ning

men who seemed

tism. I

I

heard not

realized that I

I

only

caught up in some current of magne-

would not be one of them.

suddenly

a single voice,

I

would

But then quite

not.

saw only the same backs.

I

was run-

ning too.

Younger followed the mob. People were in tears and yelling and screaming. Cheering prisoners surrounded the armored cars, their arms held above their heads. its

Haifa mile away the war went on.

We could hear

sounds coming over the tank's radio. Germans were

ing in a

wood

A

nearby.

resist-

tank was sent, and then there was a

message that 12 prisoners had been taken and would someone

come and

collect them.

to be

headed off

.

Another report

German

ing eastward, with .

said

two

cars

senior officers in flight.

were rac-

They were

.

Roger Allen likened the sensation and the celebration with liberation to his team winning the Super Bowl.

that

went

He and Jason, his

Tychow, hugged each other, "and we were jumpdown and shouting and crying because we knew it was over and we were free." But he was overwhelmed with sadness a little later when he went for a wander outside the barbed wire to see

buddy

since Gross

ing up and

what he could

we

find

and

passed this house and there was a young

with her

little

toward me.

I

boy.

He

picked

ran out and grabbed

it

was playing with

up

to

hand

him away.

If she

a ball

and

it

to him, but his

had had

a

gun,

I

rolled

mother

am sure

made me sad that she thought I was The human race had got to such a state

she would have shot me.

going to hurt her son.

it

German mother

It

THE HELL OF FA L L N G BO ST E L

315

I

that she was so frightened of me.

pretty awful, because

Bob Otto was

I

had

a

However,

I

must have looked

long beard and

reflective too.

He

had been

was

I

in the

marched out of Fallingbostel and then came back.

ment

for

prisoner.

He yelled with all

the strength to

make

it."

His religion had been

rock for him. So had thoughts of his wife waiting fixed his

mind on

both, and he had

could barely wait to get

home

at

come through

meant

a

had

the ordeal.

He

to see her again.

had arrived

lots

only a matter of days before the camp it

happened. So

We were so weak we couldn't get up and move. I

a dreadful state I

RSM

was

It

He was an injured man. The march working clogs had crippled him. He

was lying down on the ground when

of others.

was in such

in his

at Fallingbostel

liberated. "I

were

libera-

quick return home.

from the edge of Poland was

had to have food brought to me." 28

Lord who spotted

Allan's plight,

and dealt with

speedily.

I

was leaning on

long to

I

had been

go over to

there."

So

I

a

a prisoner. I said,

went over and a

me

"Five years," and he told

where there was sat

machine.

a

box and he

They put

a

nozzle up each trouser

levers,

and the next thing you

for a cloud of white dust.

The

dust was

and they were defumigating me. Then they put and

I

bles,

was taken to

a field full

It

me

DDT,

in a lorry,

of marquees. Inside were long ta-

and army cooks came out with dishes

with potatoes and beef.

me

said, "Sit

on the box, and four Americans

up each arm, and turned the

couldn't see

came up and asked me how

fence and he

a point

came over with leg,

a

He

home.

Otto would have to wait awhile. For Les Allan, however, tion

that

the British tanks arrived.

we had had

that

column

Then he took a quiet moprayer, as he had done so many times since he became a "I thanked God that day. I was thankful that we made it,

when

his heart

filthy dirty.

full to

the brim

was almost impossible to believe

But then some doctors came

in

and ordered

all

it.

the food to be

it

THE LAST ESCAPE

316

taken away. us. It fuls

They

said too

much

like that

was heartbreaking. But they gave us

of potato and gravy, and then

had been on bombing

way back

The

food

to pick us

raids over

a

would damage

couple of spoon-

we were put on planes. They Germany, and landed on the

up and take us

to Brussels.

ordeal really was over, and a grateful Les Allan was

way home. He was one of the

on

his

fortunate ones. For thousands of other

prisoners of war out in the bleak countryside of northwest Germany,

home was

as far

away

as ever.

Those who had been forced

at

gun-

point to join the march out of Fallingbostel were wandering through a battlefield.

columns

The

first

of the evacuees had

left at different

Alf Jenner,

a

left

on April

6,

and various

times over the next few days. As Sergeant

veteran prisoner

who was

"celebrating" exactly four

years of captivity at that very time, noted, "For the next

were

in the greatest

that time

danger since being shot down. For the whole of

we were between

the retreating

ing Allies, often in the fighting front line

For some,

all

month we

that

was waiting was

the bitterest and saddest of ends.

a

Germans and itself."

the advanc-

29

corner of a foreign

field

and

12:

The on

last

Death by "Friendly Fire"

place Batch Batchelder ever

the ground. As

a

meant

to fight his

boy, he loved the romance of the

war was air

—

"all

down the Nile in Empire flying pump fuel from 40-gallon drums.

those lovely stories of guys flying boats and stopping overnight to It

was the one thing

I

longed to do.

I

was determined to

1

fly."

He

cheered aloud the day war was declared, because his chance had

He

come.

joined the

RAF

mother and

father

frightened."

And if the

wanted

in the face of parental opposition. a safer

air force

occupation for me, but

I

"My

wasn't

had turned him down he would have

joined the navy and volunteered for submarines. Anything but the

army. "I'd heard and read about the terrible casualties of the First

World War. The one thing that

I

was never going to

I

was absolutely bloody sure about was

fight

on the ground."

Yet here he was in April 1945, his feet firmly on European

They had not touched

soil.

the rudders of a plane for nearly three years,

when his four-engined bomber had been hit by flak. Of the seven planes that took part

not since his thirteenth mission over Germany, Halifax

in that particular attack

one made

it

home.

He

on the

Ruhr valley, not handful of camps Sagan,

industrial targets of the

had been through

Heydekrug, Thorn, Fallingbostel. And

a

now he was

—

footslogging out

of Fallingbostel and into the wild countryside of Liineburg Heath with its

mile

*See

upon mile of deep woods and

map on page

287.

rolling plains.*

— THE LAST ESCAPE

318

Like the thousands of men around him, Batchelder had

idea

little

of what the future held, only the fear that they were probably going to

end up

trepidation.

time.

German

as hostages against a

"There was

surrender.

real

We were very, very short of food, and had been for some

Our morale was

low." This

was not helped when the route of

some of the columns took them past the Bergen-Belsen concentraaway from Fallingbostel. Leslie Frith re-

tion camp, just a few miles

membered

"a chorus of yells

The

the warning wire.

them and,

we soon

from the emaciated inmates who lined

guards in the towers had their guns trained on

moment, the

for a

passed by and things calmed down."

ing that, on that very

first day,

open

2

It

was hardly surpris-

Richard Passmore

through him that was more than the

However,

situation looked very ugly

just the cold

pass

felt a chill

wind blowing across

land:

We were marching towards a long, low ridge of wooded hills. Twilight was falling and there was a sudden breeze. At that

moment

I

my— future

men

us.

He

bed

in a prison

a large

it

last lap

it

was massacre, exposure,

now

was

hurtling towards

of our odyssey

address in the prayer

book he

end of my

I

had dysentery,

at the

by the road.

It

me

tether. I

had been

way home."

a prisoner for so long.

a severe attack this time,

and

I

was squatting

was the most degrading time of my

German guard who shoot

its

Batchelder reached the limit of his endurance.

fell,

was

3

carried with him,

so that "if the worst happened, that at least might find

I

a

parties.

— perhaps liberation —

As darkness

under

many such

future held, whether

home

at least

were few places around here where

This was surely the very

wrote his

precarious our

camp was

could sleep, not to mention

Whatever the starvation

A

was.

roof, but there

party of

how

realized quite intensively

if that's

the

tried to hustle

way he

felt. I

me

life. I

told a

along that he could

think he would have done

DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE"

319

so,

but a couple of my mates grabbed hold of me and dragged

me

along until

I

came

to

my senses.

Ken Brown also found the going difficult. This was no dawdle, however much Deans had encouraged them to go slowly. The Ger-

—

mans pushed them hard:

how few rations

12 to 18 miles a day

a bruising pace,

given

they had to keep up their strength.

We were given a loaf of bread and a piece of sausage when we started out, and then we had to live off the land. We scrounged around for eggs and

God knows what. There was

by the side of the road, and the lads it

and

fried

them on

What

the horse's bowels.

more could be cult.

the

We

a fire.

cut from

often took

it

it

I

Then some a stink!

stupid idiot punctured

Worse than

after that.

that,

nothing

Getting water was

diffi-

out of ditches and streams, picking out

duckweed and the slime before boiling

dysentery and disease. Every day

bugger King down

dead horse

a

was with carved steaks off

at the side

out and couldn't move.

We

it.

And

there was

we would see some poor They just dropped

of the road.

had to leave them, and

I

never

knew what happened to them. But I know some people escaped. A friend of mine ducked out of the column as we were crossing Liineburg Heath. He ran into the gorse and the guards shot at him, but he got away.

Later got

I

found out that he made

home

early.

his

way to

the British lines and

4

Most of the guards were reluctant to fire. made a run for it down an embankment, their

When

two prisoners

intentions loudly an-

nounced by the crashing of the frying pan one of them had dangling from

his pack, a

waited a ting

guard stopped and lined them up in his

full thirty

down

his rifle

He

seconds while they ran into the woods before put-

and turning back to the march. Cec 5

not been quite so lucky. too, got a mile

sights.

down

He

and

his

the road as the

Room

had

mate Jack Paul had slipped away

column marched

in the opposite

THE LAST ESCAPE

320

direction, but then ran into the cart for stragglers bringing rear.

"A German

free."

and we've had

sees us

Ah well,

it

up the

was nice being

6

Hunger bought

but

horse from a farmer.

a

we

Room

led to desperate meals.

was

didn't care. It

the farmer shot

it,

a

It

was

Some

and

pieces.

tail.

Jack and

a piece

I

it.

It

bits

all

to have

nowhere

there. Villagers

—

were

into.

car,

only white.

It

was

to

in

though

—

it

the

was

meat

it.

landscape

go but who

hostile,

like

We cut it up

Even those who had

a scarred

few eggs or some bread

a

of meat and some had a bit of

wrapped up

They walked through seemed

a bit

up.

it

was tough and not very appetizing, but

of hair

after

who knew someThey gave out bits

hunk of lung and the windpipe.

something to get our teeth found

who

TB,

bloody great cart horse, and,

of top hose from a motor

and stewed

group

in a

four or five volunteers

guys had

got a

was

sick with

thing about butchery began to cut

food

it.

full

of people

who

filled

the roads trying to get

this did

not stop them trading

for "luxuries" that

some of

the

prisoners had, such as soap and cigarettes. Alf Jenner recalled the

Americans being

flush with cigarettes

and sharing them out so that

everyone had some "currency" to trade with. "The great trick was to

be the

first

into a village to

do your deal before the market got

Here was the chaos of

spoilt.""

war and

feated in

a collapsing country, its

fearful of the future.

people de-

Brown, who had been nervous

about leaving the camp, found his worries eased once he was out on the road.

was

fire.

"We were

not scared of the Germans.

Usually we slept in a barn at night, and

the top floor,

all

Others began to

pen to

its

I

fear I

end, but

I

don't

feel afraid

we

know how we

didn't have

He

It

was

got away with

it."

of what was ahead. "The war was

any indication of what would hap-

us," according to Batchelder.

Sergeant Bob Morton.

had

remember being on

of us lying on straw and everybody smoking.

pretty stupid, and to this day

nearing

The main

The

unease settled on Flight

had been happy enough

as

they lined up

DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE"

321

what he could or

to leave Fallingbostel, concerned simply about

could not take with him. Stacks of clothing had to be a

whole hut

full

of books.

He was

gan to

home

like theirs.

Some were

for the seven

from Thorn. But once on the outside he be-

since he arrived

The

feel vulnerable.

behind, and

pleased to be leaving the camp, to

be getting out beyond the wire that had been his

months

left

roads were crowded with columns just

prisoners, mainly Russians; others

ians in search of shelter.

Some were

heavily

were

armed German

civil-

soldiers

with tanks and big guns heading for the front. Others had a pathetic air

of fear and foreboding about them. 8 Alf Jenner noticed a detach-

ment of boys from as

German Labor Corps

the

he noted, "poor devils!" As they passed

Allied fighter planes

by,

"lads in their teens,"

he glanced up and saw

—Typhoons—cruising over and "having

at us," their pilots clearly trying to

in the

—

a

work out who was on whose

look side

complex jigsaw below. "The next day Typhoons seemed to be

around

all

day but gave the impression that they recognized the

composition of our column."

Down on

the ground,

those on the march.

Deans was

comforting figure for

a

all

He tried to discourage escapees — though he did

not expressly forbid anyone from trying to escape everyone to stick together. "Anybody

who

—and encouraged

slopes off is

on

his

own,"

he warned. "Together, we survive." 9 There were SS detachments out there shooting escaped prisoners of war in touch with

news of the war via the

carried hidden in a pot

and would

set

on

radio,

up

sight,

he added.

He

kept

which John Bristow now

secretly

wherever they were

billeted at night.

Batchelder recalled

"and Dixie,

He

they marched in squads of about 500,

who had managed

from one squad in.

how

to the other

was amazing." The

to get hold of a bicycle,

and arranging for barns for us to sleep

men were

in a

number of

columns traveling down different roads, though in the

same

direction. In his neat

across the countryside

RAF

all

different

heading roughly

uniform, Deans would cycle

between the columns, astonishing German

troops he passed on the way. to

was riding

Most simply shrugged and marched on

wherever they were wearily heading, but on one occasion he was

THE LAST ESCAPE

322

stopped and faced

a

gun

in the

who wanted to shoot him. talked his

way out of the

hands of an

Wehrmacht

irate

Coolly, in his immaculate

and was allowed to ride

difficulty

officer

German, Deans off.

He

tensed his body in anticipation of a bullet in the back until he was sure he was out of sight, and only then relaxed.

To

who was

mandant, Oberst Ostmann, staff car, to write

any Germans it

him

who

a letter

following the column in his

of free passage that he could show to

stopped him in the future. In those chaotic times

would be no guarantee, but

mann, who came

to admire

might

it

Deans

as

just help to save his life.

much

was not

how

his idea of

men, not

loll in

a leader

behaved.

leather seats.

in the larger

even in

—Deans

Younger thought Deans sion in

life.

a

declined.

share the lot of

man who

officer

for himself each night cellars,

men

slept alongside the

com-

—often

and once

in barns. Cal

had found

in those days

That

his mis-

"Authority was epitomized in his voice and in his pres-

ence," and he used his

He would

farmhouses with well-stocked wine

castle

a

Deans

While the German

mandeered the best accommodations

Ost-

as the prisoners did, of-

fered the Englishman the use of his Opel, but

his

German com-

avoid similar encounters, Deans persuaded the

this to

own men. He would

good

take

effect

on the Germans

as

much

on any guard who was showing

as

on

signs of

bullying; he fought to get the sick taken to hospitals for treatment;

he constantly pressed for more food to be found. And

would

ride

arrival

on

his bicycle

that day."

was usually greeted with cheers and

chorus of "Here comes the galloping major."

Deans "our heroic

leader,"

rode up on his bicycle

10

POWs who

and remembered the day (April 15) he

—an old and battered machine whose —"and us that 3,000

tires

told

had been marched out of Fallingbostel had then

been marched back to the camp and were

now

something to cheer about, proof that the end was

would be

next.

a

Alf Jenner dubbed

were always on the point of puncturing lucky

night he

from barn to barn, "encouraging the weary and passing

on any information he had gleaned His

at

liberated." It near.

There was more evidence the next

passed a landing strip and saw twenty or

was

Perhaps they

day,

when they

more Junkers-88 bombers

DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE"

323

burning on the ground, destroyed where they stood by raid.

As

his

column approached

Carruthers would

or village, Percy

display of bravado. "Jerry

call for a

up, fellows," he would yell out.

your step

German town

a

11

a British air

town coming

"Shoulders back, heads up, spring in

—and remember you're

British!"

From behind him came

a

chorus of grumbles, but they followed his lead, heads held high.

As they trudged along, the word spread down the

line that they

heading for the Elbe, and that once they had crossed

the river their last line of defense, and the prisoners side of

it.

Gammon knew

Vic

Leakey and Jock Hamilton were that point.

They

seized their

the bridge

The Germans were going to make

would be blown up behind them.

wrong

it

would be on the

that if he and his mates

to escape they

A

moment.

line

—into

a small

wood and out

throwing themselves down into them. There were no shouts.

They

a dip.

No

No

John

had to do so before

of Allied planes flew

low over the column, and everyone ran for cover. The three kept on going

were

men just

the other side, then

bullets

thudded around

dogs were sent in their direction.

had, however, been spotted.

Gammon

recalled,

walking cautiously from the road into the wood, his

"A guard was

rifle at

the ready.

We lay quite still but he saw us, and our eyes met. He stared steadily at us for 10 seconds, then, slipping his

shouldered the

was

rifle,

arm through

turned and went back towards the column."

What is

as if

he had thought to himself,

The

three escapees set off westward,

because they had no

where they were.

the sling, he It

the point?

drawn by the

setting sun

map or compass to direct them or even tell them

When

it

got dark they huddled in their overcoats

and slept as best they could. About midnight they were awakened by someone moving around nearby, and they saw two people, one clearly a

though

it

Just feet

move

German was

officer in uniform.

a frosty night,

He had a woman with him, and,

they lay on the ground and

made

love.

away from the entangled couple, the escapees dared not

until the officer

their clothing,

and

his girlfriend

had

finished, straightened

and walked away arm in arm. The next morning

THE LAST ESCAPE

324

Gammon as

and the others

they could in the

two men lurking, ers, also

set off again,

wooded

like

keeping under cover

much

as

countryside. At one point they ran into

them, in the

They were

trees.

on the run, and they had dug

a

Russian prison-

hideaway in the

They

forest.

invited the three Brits to join them.

The

next night the three

moved

on, grateful to the Russians but

not wanting to outstay their welcome. countryside in silence, aware that tances in the

still

April night."

we

"We walked

through the dark

could be heard for long dis-

A voice called out for them to halt as

they waded through some bracken, and they ran, rushing through forest

and undergrowth

until they burst

found themselves beside an autobahn. tary

On

convoy was driving past. They stared

staff cars

and the soldiers

through some cover and

German

mili-

at the officers in their

open

the road, a

in their trucks,

but there were barely

glances for the three scruffy individuals carrying small sacks beside the road. "As the end of the convoy disappeared, the road and into the woods.

of fighting

Wehrmacht had

we rushed

across

We were grinning. A whole contingent passed within yards of us! 'Perhaps

they've got bigger worries than us,' Jock chuckled."

Their luck did not hold, and shortly afterward they were stopped

by of

German soldier as they tried to slip through a village in the dead night. They bluffed that they were French workers, but he ora

dered them

at

gunpoint to the local police

station. It

morning, and the village constable was incensed

from

his bed.

He

didn't

ers.

"He ordered

We

were marched to

workers drinks.

who

want

to

at

was early in the being dragged

know anything about French work-

us to be taken to what he called 'the French camp.' a

barn and inside

we were

greeted by French

thrust bread and cheese into our hands and gave us hot

We took off our boots and went to sleep." But they were ef-

fectively prisoners again

—part of

a

work

detail laboring

on

a local

farm.

With potatoes.

German

the French prisoners, they tilled the fields and planted seed

They guards

kept up the pretense of being French, though the

knew they were not. Gammon recalled

sitting

on the

doorstep of the farmhouse in the late-afternoon sunshine one day

"

DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE"

me

"and one of the guards joined

when it is I

had

all

over.

At the

first

and quietly

chance

I

will

325

said:

'I

will

be glad

go back to Chicago where

used car business.'

a

was over sooner than any of them thought. The next day they

It

when they heard machine-gun fire coming from a nearby wood. The German farmers were worried. "Will the Tommies kill my children, will they?" one of them kept asking tearfully. Gammon was taken aback when she showed him a magazine were out

in the fields

feature with an illustration

showing British

baby spiked on

He

"That

is

a bayonet.

grabbed

it

soldiers roasting a

naked

from her and ripped

it

up.

disgusting Goebbels propaganda," he told her.

Outside, a battle was shaping up around the farm. Youthful Ger-

man

were passing by with anti-tank weapons

soldiers

tied to the

crossbars of their bicycles.

of the front line came

streams of

From the direction wounded men. The three British

escapees were in the

barn when,

as

Gammon recalled,

"the door crashed open and stand-

ing there was a young, grime-smeared British Army lieutenant, flanked

by two

privates wielding sub-machine-guns.

the lieutenant rapped, and

we

'Any Englishmen here?'

leapt to our feet. 'You've got

two min-

utes to get ready,' he called out, 'we are 20 miles ahead of the troops.'

We were ready, all right, ready and eager to go." As they were driven away,

a British soldier offered

some white bread and corned sauce.

was found

some

a soft

sleep. Later

bed in

a

house in

a bottle

of brown

irresistible."

Then he

and

beef, butter,

"Such luxury was overwhelming and

Gammon

and managed to grab

a village

he feasted on bacon and eggs. But

it

was

a

while

before the three escapees could count themselves totally out of danger.

There was no opportunity

to return

them

away, and they had to stay with the soldiers as

to the front line right

who had

released

them

they advanced against the Germans.

I

rode in a jeep with

minutes,

we were

a

tough, hard-bitten sergeant. After 20

halted by machine-gun

fire

from woods

at

men dropped off the convoy with machine-guns and flame-throwers. The skirmish was brief. the side of the road. Quickly

THE LAST ESCAPE

326

German soldiers ran out from They were disarmed and told where the bulk of the

the trees, their arms held high. to

walk back along the road to

British troops

voy moved again, more German

were coming. As the con-

soldiers

were desperate

to be

taken prisoner.

At midday we drew into the square of a small town. Ger-

man

prisoners were herded into a tight group under the guns

Among them I saw the guard from the farm who had told me about how he wanted to go back to his home in Chicago. He was clutching a small suitcase with new boots of British soldiers.

tied to its

handle but,

as

he was pushed with the others into

lorry, a British soldier tore a ditch. I

was sad that

me

been so friendly to

was peace and

I

it

from

his grasp

could not help this

just a

and threw

it

a

into

enemy who had

few days ago. All he had wanted

Chicago.

a return to

By now Cec Room and Jack Paul were free too. A few days after their failed attempt to escape they had made another dash for freedom, hiding in a farmyard as the column went through.

We hid under some straw until we were discovered by two old ladies from the farm. We natter to them, though they are scared

when they ganda. a

The

and keep

stiff

arrive.

One

telling us that the Allies will kill

We

smooth them over with some propa-

of them shows

POW in Canada.

I'll

them

me

a

bet he's

postcard from her son

who

more comfortable than

I

is

am.

farmer, afraid of being caught harboring escapees, decided to

call in

the authorities, and a

German guard

But the guard turned out to have

a

arrived to collect them.

problem with

his feet,

and de-

cided to stay on the farm with them.

We got chatting to him, down badly by the his brothers

and he

Fiihrer.

is

a disillusioned

German,

let

He lost his family in an air raid, and

on the Eastern Front and

is

horribly brassed off

— DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE" with the war, most of

all

327

with the march. So are we. With

some diplomacy we persuade him to hide us until the Allies come.

He

will

be a prisoner in a week or so anyway, so what

has he to lose?

What

this

meant was

that he

column but miles behind.

direction as the

the night, calming hausfraus Terrorflieger,

for

two

marched them very slowly

who were

He

found them

same

billets for

alarmed by the sight of

still

and made sure there was plenty to eat onions and lashings of milk,

years),

in the

all

—

"fried eggs (first

beyond our wildest

dreams."

Meanwhile German troops were overtaking them in full retreat,

we

sensed our

own

troops were close.

cited, it just wasn't true.

Russian

at great speed,

and

The

We were

next morning

girl [a slave laborer] in

we

so bloody ex-

help the

little

the kitchen. She's about eigh-

teen and the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. In decent clothes and with

make-up

I'd take

her anywhere and love be-

ing seen with her. You'll soon be free, Olga.

Huge

breakfast

three platefuls of soup, bread, whey, cheese, jam, syrup, bacon

My poor old stomach can hardly cope. That day I

and apples. ate

more food than

has worked

it

in the

whole of the

last

month. The guard

out that our troops should be in the town to-

morrow.

The

next morning "the great

came

to the

with

this the

farm from the

moment"

really did arrive.

village saying the British

German guard

surrendered.

had

A man

arrived,

"He whipped

and

off his

my souvenirs. I also have his Do I feel good!" With their prisoner

badges of rank and insignia, and they're rifle,

bayonet and ammunition.

between them, the pair a

set off for the village

Cockney voice and saw the smiling

"We hug them met."

It

in delight.

was April

18.

We're the

and immediately heard

faces of first

two English

liberated

soldiers.

POWs

they've

THE LAST ESCAPE

328

While the escapees celebrated

their freedom, a tragedy

overtake one of the groups that had

left Fallingbostel. It

happened

men were recovering from a dip in morale. They had been

just as the

on the march straight tracks

for a fortnight,

through

forests

heading roughly northeast along

and

fields until

plain of the River Elbe, crisscrossed dikes.

was about to

Then

they crossed the river

they had hit the flood

by myriad small streams and

itself.

The

front of the

column

waited until the early hours of the morning to sneak across the road bridge at the town of Lauenburg, hoping the darkness would provide

cover from marauding Allied fighter planes.

The danger was

obvious

enough: As they lay on the bank waiting, Spitfires buzzed over and

blew apart tial

target,

a

tug and two barges. Anything that

and nighttime proved to be

out of a cloudless

sky, lighting

they raced over

it

mining the

poten-

The moon shone

as if it

were daytime, and

nervously, the wide Elbe flowing fast beneath

them. Their luck held. As they crossed, they could see diers

a

help.

little

up the bridge

moved was

pillars

German

sol-

of the bridge, while nearby Allied fighter

planes were strafing formations of troops heading for the front. For a

while the prisoners lay in a ditch as

German

tanks passed by with

many just teenagers, clinging to the battle. The tail of the column came over

ashen-faced soldiers,

sides for

the last ride into

the river

later that

morning by

a different route,

and

as

they trudged through

Lauenburg they heard explosions behind them railroad bridge they

had

just crossed

as the

was detonated.

metal-framed

12

For some of the prisoners, crossing the Elbe was

a

low point.

They were going backward. Those who had come from the east only weeks

earlier

westward

had rejoiced when the Elbe was behind them on their

trek. It

had stuck

in the

mind

as a

landmark, a sign point-

—

To be marched back over it in the wrong direction the one they had come from was painful to contemplate. Moreover, they were now on the wrong side of the river if the Germans decided

ing home.

—

to use

it

as a last-ditch line

of defense.

To make matters worse, seemed

as if the

as

they headed east into the rising sun

it

road they were on would never end. Deans thought

DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE" that at this stage the didn't

seem

to have

the object of

walking

like

it all

329

Germans had run out of ideas and

any instructions and they couldn't

in a

rough direction [toward the

and nobody seemed to know where we were going." ever, as always,

had

tell

We

was. I'm sure they were helpless.

dummies

"They us what

orders.

13

were

just

Baltic Sea]

Deans, how-

a plan.

The next day, a sign on the road pointed ahead to a village by the name of Gresse, and its church, high on a hill, and the rooftops of houses could be seen a little way off. The prisoners stayed the night in

and around the

One

and the following morning discovered that

had come up trumps.

their leader

Red Cross

village,

parcels to be left for

He

them

had arranged for

—the

first

a

supply of

since Fallingbostel.

night he had taken advantage of the commandant's car and to-

The Red Cross had agreed to send a convoy to meet up with the prisoners at Gresse. The gether they had driven 35 miles to Liibeck.

gloom lifted. Food always had

that effect. "Euphoria," said Batchelder.

"We had had virtually nothing to parcels."

Morton

recalled that

eat for days

"we were

and then we got some

feeling pretty good, ex-

all

ploring our parcels, chattering with our mates.

I

was delighted

went through mine, because

I

had had an Amer-

it

was the

first

time

ican parcel and their content was different

when he saw

from the

as I

British ones."

14

Red Cross trucks lined up in Gresse and couldn't believe that Deans had pulled it off. "To me he was like Jesus Christ with manna from heaven! There we were sitting

Jenner was

thrilled

in a green lane eating

Many

good food

a

for the first time in weeks."

of the columns converged on Gresse

according to Younger.

and

the

It

was

a tiny place

—

— 12,000 men

in

all,

just a church, a school,

—and so the men were encouraged to pick up —two each— and march out of the to enjoy them

handful of houses

their parcels

in the countryside,

village

where there was more room.

Refreshing themselves

as

they marched along, tearing at the

boxes and stuffing themselves with goodies, the prisoners set out in a

long line on the morning of April 19,

a

Thursday, and headed north

again, swinging along a country lane, forest

out from the trees and into

a

on

either side, and then

patch of open grassland.

Ken Brown

THE LAST ESCAPE

330

was

at the

head of the column with

his flight engineer,

Gordon Reed,

munching on their Red Cross rations at the same The column stretched a long way behind, and those at the

chatting away and time.

front were just about to pass back into the trees again ticed

RAF planes in the sky above.

some

Batchelder was

out in the open

still

were and were to the

and

just

German

they no-

when he saw the Typhoons in the

sky and counted nine of them, circling like hawks. "As started to peel off,

when

Farther back in the column,

I

watched they

had the impression that they knew

I

who we

going to demonstrate their presence to us

guards, of course."

George

Calvert,

popping

—and

a piece

of chocolate in his mouth, could see that the planes had black-andwhite stripes on the undersides of their wings and he thought they

were probably German.

made trees.

a

He

15

low banking turn into

took

little

line astern

notice

as, a

Other prisoners, however, recognized them

started to

wave and

mile away, they

and disappeared behind the

and

as British

The Typhoons had clearly just come from of retreating German troops, and it was mar-

cheer.

attacking formations

them battering the enemy into submission. Morton was at the rear of the column and had stopped to Bob stuff some tins of food from his Red Cross parcels into his backpack. He was standing up and getting ready to set off again when he spot-

velous to see

ted the planes,

though

I

didn't take

much

notice, because

we had seen a lot of Some people

British aircraft over the previous day or two.

waved

my

to them.

backpack

—

and boxes. As thought was as I

I

The a

move off, so complicated web of straps, call

got to

just a bit

would have done

The

came

to

my feet they were

of fun

—

like a

I

struggled into

string,

bundles

diving on us, which

mock attack,

in the circumstances a

I

a beat-up, just

few years

earlier.

planes screamed in at 30 feet above the ground, and as they

roared over him

Ken Brown

noticed puffs of smoke from under-

neath the wings and, to his horror, saw clearly that their rockets had

DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE" been

fired,

were

He

for the column.

him

it

was too

in flight,

and were heading

threw himself under

elder suddenly realized that the planes

We

firing at us!

at great

coming

speed straight

but for those behind

a tree,

Caught out

late to find shelter.

331

in the open, Batch-

in

low and

Men

flung ourselves to the ground.

fast

"were

were trying to

We

bury themselves in the earth, hiding behind anything they could. tried to get off the lane

and into the

use any

fields, to

hump

that

could give cover." For some there was nowhere to hide. As the rockets hit,

bodies were flung into the air like rag dolls.

Morton,

still

putting on his backpack, was

horrendous noise, then

I

all

and dived for the deck, scattering

directions as

gone I

terrified as

saw sparks coming out of the machine-guns.

my God!" I

I

tore

my harness

got up and ran, and then

dived to the ground again.

from the road

machine-gun

moment

as possible. I

I

off.

though

I

my belongings in

After the

first

was trying to get

I

one had

to

come from

saw the earth being kicked up by

my head

inside

my

nose, and the next

had blown

and when

it,

there was nothing but grey and

—

Pity

it's

been

found that I

realized

I

it

front of me.

a

good

off.

There was

life." I

I

I

opened

thought, "Well

thought

was running again, and

I'd died.

as I burst

bullets

came

after

me.

I

which

my

eyes

But suddenly

I

out of the smoke

was

just in

in the front of

the pack, and can only imagine that the pilots thought the leader and were deliberately picking

a

that's that.

was the smoke of a rocket that had landed

More

away

as far

shattering explosion and a tremendous concussion

seemed

"Oh

shouted,

saw a second one coming and

bullets just in front of

I felt as

stunned by the

first

I

was

on me. Time and

again the earth kicked up just in front of me.

To Alf Jenner, who had been Red Cross box, happier with food march, what was happening was

sitting in the

inside

sun eating from his

him than

at

any time on the

THE LAST ESCAPE

332

the greatest tragedy of the whole war. the blue and opened

They

the survivors fanned out into the fields lane, the planes a

came

furrow in

and show them

on

a

ploughed

field,

who we

were.

As

pieces.

either side of the

once, twice, three times more.

in,

saw one brave guy stand up and wave to try

rockets, and,

many of my comrades were blown to

with no cover,

crouched in

came out of

just

up on us with cannons and

w as r

I

and 50 yards away

his blue

They just

RAF cut

I

greatcoat

him down.

many again seSome had been in captivity for four or five men we knew better than our own brothers.

In just a few seconds dozens were dead and as verely wounded. years

Human of a

remains lay everywhere.

tree.

The last

—

A head lay on the attack

went on

A torso was lodged in the

branches

ground.

for about ten minutes before

Morton saw the

of the aircraft throttle back.

He

was

arms flew

just cruising

in the air off. I

above

— the sign

us. I

loud screaming. back.

It

a lot

of

wounded bodies on

Some people were wandering

I

With

broken only by

aimlessly, others

friends. I saw a pair of legs with

—

r

just lying in the field,

complete

remember one chap whose stomach had been

was

—

by far the worst whole war. The medical officer was seen through the

ripped out.

It

a

scene of total carnage

doing what he could, of course, but

body was

own

silence,

passed several dead and

I

nothing attached to them with trousers.

uncanny

my

Then he

was strange, but there wasn't

were bending over injured

sight I'd

crossed

stood up and began to walk back to the lane.

crying and moaning.

way

I

for break off or stop firing.

the planes gone, there was an

the

looked up, and

talking

much.

We were

it

all

was

a hopeless task.

No-

very silent and with our

thoughts. People were angry.

Jenner thought the end of the column had taken the worst of the battering.

As usual on the marches,

a

horse-drawn cart had been tag-

DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE" ging along

at the

end with the sick

phoons had deliberately targeted

He

had been

sick

in

this.

it,

and

He

it

333

seemed

shuddered

as if the

Ty-

at the thought.

and lame for much of the march, and

until only a

few days before he had either been on that cart or clinging on to the he hauled himself along.

tailgate as

Now the cart was The

around

all

were dead.

it

scene that day was like the famous pictures of Napoleon's

retreat

from Moscow. There were bodies lying about, and

even those

who

hadn't been hit looked in a pretty desperate

was two weeks before the end of the war,

state. It

years ful

smashed up and

all

—almost unbelievable. So near yet so

—and

it

far. It

was your own side that had done

that the Royal Air Force

must have known

after four

was dread-

We

it.

thought

that those roads

were mil of marching prisoners of war and other evacuees,

women pilots

gry

and children. They must have known

were gung-ho.

I

that. I

wasn't angry at the time, but

think the I

was an-

later.

Batchelder could not get out of his mind the incomprehensible stupidity of it

all.

The RAF had done

it.

If

it

would have been

feelings

RAF— this was just the But that

had been Germans I'm sure our different.

I'm not blaming the

sort of thing that

men who had been

happens in wartime.

prisoners for four or sometimes

nearly five years should be killed by their

made Vic

it

much worse. To me

Gammon

faces of

gether.

side I think

was devastating.

noted "tears of deep sorrow and frustration on the

men hardened

friends, they

it

own

to death and war.

had endured years of

Now, with freedom and

a

These were

captivity

its

hardships to-

reunion with their loved ones per-

men of their service." own account of the inci-

haps only days away, they were dead, killed by

Deans put the death

and

their close

toll at sixty in his

THE LAST ESCAPE

334

dent.

16

side. I

"There was think the

a hell of a

one in the

last

that they

had made

way. But

it

was too

mess splattered flight that

over the country-

dive-bombed us realized

he peeled off and went on

a mistake, because late

all

by then. The damage had been done."

his

He

walked among the dead and the wounded, arranged for the injured to be put in carts

and taken to

a hospital in a

nearby town, and orga-

nized the digging of a grave and for a mass funeral to be held by the pastor from the church

on the

hill.

The

casualties included

Canadi-

New Zealanders, South Africans, Englishmen, IrishWelshmen, Scots, and an American. Many were RAF aircrew;

ans, Australians,

men,

others were soldiers taken prisoner as long ago as Dunkirk.

There

was grief too for the German guards who had been slaughtered,

many of them older,

oners in their charge.

had to make sure

The

men who had shown kindness to the prisAmid the horror and the grief, Deans knew he

family

this did

not happen again.

disaster could only have occurred because the

not be distinguished from the

column could

being prisoners of war. Deans

air as

found that surprising, because "we must have looked scruffs.

a

shower of

We did try to display some indication marks to show we were

prisoners of war and not troops, but cessful." Trailing the letters

clearly not

enough.

If

message to the Allied

it

couldn't have been very suc-

POW on sheets behind the column was

more lives were not command.

to be lost, he

had to get

a

The urgency of the situation was demonstrated within a few hours when another section of the column was hit by so-called friendly fire. Prisoners had settled down for the night in a barn by Cammin, and, as usual, had been locked in by their guards. Most of them were asleep in the hayloft when the sound of aircraft engines woke them. Doug Fry remembered looking through an opening and the side of a river at a small hamlet called

I

could see tracer bullets coming almost directly at

thought, "Christ!" crete floor. All

I

I

couldn't dig a hole, because

could do was turn

my back to

it

my face. was

a

I

con-

the bullets and

DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE" hope. But as trickling

turned

I

down.

been

I'd

whack

I felt a

hit. I

across

335

my back and

don't understand

blood

how more

of

"

us didn't die.

1

He was

Fry had been lucky.

hit

by

a ricochet,

ping through the roof killed others as they 5

me had

yards away from

on one

side of him

Brown, and he'd been probably while

The

roof,

still

a bullet

The man on

"An American about

lay.

the top of his head

slumped with

ing his jugular vein.

but cannon shells rip-

blown

through

a kriegie for

name was Reg

"his

killed outright,

asleep.

which was made of thatch, caught

whole barn was

The man

his neck, just miss-

— four years" —was

his other side

off."

ablaze.

The

ran out into the cold night

prisoners battered air,

met

to be

and soon the

fire,

down

initially

the doors and

by

bullets

from

who had not grasped what was happening and thought a mass escape was in progress. The German bullets harmed no one. Once again it was British arms that had killed their own men. Four were guards

dead and seven badly wounded, and Fry was amazed the numbers weren't higher.

A

mobile

German army headquarters was camoumay have been the real target. But 18

flaged in trees nearby, and this

something had to be done to get the fly-boys in the careful.

The

lives

So began

a

battlefield,

lines

of

Someone would German troops, then at its fiercest,

nally through the advancing ranks of British troops their field headquarters. sides

The

19

it.

selfless bravery.

through

through no-man's-land, where the fighting was

emy by both

be more

of other fly-boys, on the ground, depended on

remarkable act of

have to cross the

air to

and

fi-

and tanks to find

chances of being mistaken for the en-

was high. Deans could have asked for volunteers,

arguing that he needed to stay at the head of his men, but he didn't.

I

asked the

German commandant

for permission to

go to

Lauenburg on the River Elbe, which we knew was where the British

tion

had

now

reached.

[It

was 10 miles away, in the direc-

from which they had come.]

He

liked this idea.

He

even

THE LAST ESCAPE

336

provided

me

the one

had. It was bursting out at the side like a balloon, and

I

with a better bike, because a tyre was going on

was going to blow out

at

any moment.

Oberst Ostmann had had to make he wanted

his counterpart at Colditz,

charge of Allied prisoners, but he was

a difficult decision. Just like a peaceful

still

end to

his

time in

under orders to keep them

marching north and not to surrender them to the enemy. Deans played on his

German yond

it

fears.

officer,

The

British

at the Elbe,

—the area they were —had been designated in

sian zone.

Did Ostmann

really

Army? The German began

to

what the Russians would do ahead

had stopped

—and

a

he told the

and would not advance farther because the area be-

want

Red

thoughts of

his orders against

Then he gave Deans the gohim through German lines.

to him.

Deans, whose experience of fighting was in the

German guard by

Rus-

to have to surrender to the

weigh

written pass to get

who knew

British infantry officer

as in the

air,

took along

a

about warfare on the ground, plus

name of Charlie Baumbach, whose presence would, he hoped, confer some sort of protection if they ran into German troops. They pedaled off back toward the sound of the guns. a

the

my parole — my word that I would not escape — but on the German accompanying me to get us out of

I

had given

I

insisted

difficulty if we ran into

going on,

want

still

any problems. There was

some Germans

to be shot

by accident.

firing I

still

guns around, and

It

us

—

was

light

a

didn't

for the sake of

it,

who was

just for fun.

hazardous journey. "All the way, there was firing around

arms

usually,

into groups of

seemed

me

I

wanted somebody there who

had some authority to stop any damn fool German going to shoot

fighting

not heavy guns

Germans," Deans

to be the next village,

down, ready to dive for cover

—and we were always running

recalled.

The

and then the one at

any second

if

front line always after that.

Heads

necessary, they rode

on, passed from one unit of soldiers to the next.

Heavy mortar

fire

DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE"

337

crashed around them, and they ran for shelter in a house. British,

The

they were told, were in the next village. That night, ex-

hausted, they rested

—and

end

in the

was the front

it

line that

found

them.

When he woke British soldier. It

guns and recorded

the next morning,

was

later. It

moment. "The

a tricky

tendency to

a

away

fire

Deans was being shaken by British

had

dressed in

by

German

a

was no wonder these battle-hardened front-line

RAF blue

soldier,

in the

Here was

and asking for any bombing of the road ahead

They thought he was a "Nobody would touch me," he

spy, or

least.

said.

an impostor

He was passed from private to sergeant to lieutenant, major and

who promised he

a colonel,

that morning.

Deans waited

time then, and

I

less.

wanted

All I

shouldn't be bombed."

When

out and then grabbed the

field

and then to

to

do was

to impress

there and

the general arrived, he heard

telephone.

very

had no idea about

we were out

officer I could that

at the

could see the general later

for the general. "I

couldn't care

on the most senior

a

middle of a war zone, accompanied

to be halted.

a

tommy

nothing in particular," he

at

troops were suspicious and uncooperative to begin with.

man

a

we

Deans

"He knew which unit must

have attacked us and he knew there was another raid just about to be carried out.

He managed

to stop

it

just in time."

Deans had pre-

vented another slaughter.

But mediate

his

war was

flight

still

not over.

back to England, "but

contact the British and warn ers of war,

the

He

also felt

suited

me

just couldn't

Deans

do

had come

solely to

had to go back to the

men

honor bound by the word he had given

as a courtesy to

well personally

said no. I

I felt I

German commandant. "He had

ought to go back

I

general offered Deans an im-

them about the presence of the prison-

and having done that

was leading."

The

if I

allowed

him,

if

me

nothing

to

do

else. It

I

to

this. I felt I

would have

could have gone straight home, but

I

it."

also kept his

had come through the

German guard, Baumbach, who with him. The British had disarmed him

word

lines

to the

and were about to march him off to

a

prisoner-of-war cage, but

— THE LAST ESCAPE

338

Deans demanded

his release to return

with him back across to the

"He is my escort, not a prisoner," he insisted. 20 "He volunteered to come with me, and I have given my word of honor to

German

side.

return."

They went back through the front lines and again though now they traveled in style in a

into the battle zone

—

with

a

Red Cross

flag

Gresse, where the waiting. that

I

captured Mercedes

draped across the bonnet.

The

German commandant and some

"They were

absolutely

amazed

to see

party got to

of his staff were

me and

tickled pink

had been through to the British front-line troops and come

back again." As for the column,

it

had moved on immediately

after

Typhoon attack and was still heading north toward Liibeck. Xow, each night they stopped, the first priority was to lay out a big h\f-we are not soldiers. When Deans caught sign on the ground the

up with the column he was greeted with incredulity by

"God

his

men.

stone the crows," said an Australian. "Talk about miracles.

Now he's turned

a

bike into a flaming Mercedes-Benz!" 21

Over the next few

Deans acted

crucial days

as

an emissary be-

tween the German and British troops. Sick prisoners were being held in a village where if a fierce fight

Germans

German

forces

were dug

in,

and

it

looked

as

would break out around them. Deans persuaded the

to withdraw.

Then,

as the British front line

advanced, he

drove in his Mercedes to the next point of attack, a farmhouse. British tanks

German

were hidden

in the trees

sergeant was determined to

Encouraged by Deans, the men and the farmer and

dug

in

behind him ready to

resist, to fight to

in his platoon

his family in

were

And

so

it

A

the bitter end.

less

eager to die,

whose house and barns they were

were eager for their home not to be blasted

der was arranged.

fire.

apart.

A surren-

went on. Deans went from one pocket of

down their column, where Oberst Ostmann

resistance to another, persuading the defenders to lay

arms. Eventually he returned to the

was

still

nominally in charge, though constantly looking over his

shoulder to the east and worrying about the Russians.

WTiat orders the Germans in those final days

in charge of the

and weeks remains

columns were getting

a mystery.

One of the few com-

DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE" mandants ers

339

to give an account recalled supervising his British prison-

—mainly army privates —on various work

details in the

Hanover

them around and across Liineburg Heath, tryThe number of guards was now severely depleted after many had been ordered to join the fighting on the front line, and in the end they all seem to have melted away. The area before traipsing

ing to escape the Americans.

commandant

himself, however, tried to retain a semblance of

military order right to the end, and he described

mandant of Prisoners-of-War ordered the

how

final dispersal

shortly before he himself "fell into English captivity."

22

"the

some

Com-

of the staff"

But

his re-

port gave no explanation of what was achieved in those final weeks, or

why they marched on and where they thought they were going. It was all becoming academic. One hundred and fifty miles away,

also fearful of the Russians

took him

alive,

self in his

emerged fufirer

it

and what they might do to him

Adolf Hitler put

bunker

in Berlin. It

a pistol in his

was April

if

they

mouth and shot him-

30, 1945.

When

the news

had an immediate consequence. His oath of loyalty to the

now

defunct,

Ostmann

felt

he could surrender to his one-

time captive, Dixie Deans. As he took the German's Luger, Deans

must have

felt a

sense of satisfaction.

He

once said that

his job

had

simply been "to get everything to run smoothly in the camp and to

keep peace and quiet."

The men who had now strung out all had surrendered

it

left

Now at last he had both.

Fallingbostel nearly four weeks earlier were

over Liineburg Heath, and even after

Ostmann

would be days before command was completely

passed over to the Allies. Percy Carruthers was anxious that the

men

He told some of them who wanted to hurry events along that their guards "are still top dog until we get their guns; until then remember they're swinging on your balls." They were comfortably billeted on a farm, and

in his charge should not anticipate their release.

Carruthers's plan was to stay there. Allied planes passed over regularly,

swooping low to destroy the occasional truck on

but otherwise content with victory

rolls

a

nearby road

and waggling their wings.

THE LAST ESCAPE

340

"We

cheered them and waved encouragement." There was more

than enough food, and some prisoners were beginning to put back the weight they had

sang songs for the

first

The Germans

Men

lost.

sat

out in the sun, had their hair cut,

time in an age.

move them westward, back

tried to

the

way they

had come, to get away from the Russians, but Deans arrived

Mercedes and

told

them

to stay

where they were. Carruthers

went round the barns and announced to resist

any attempt to move

rive within the next

cheers went up.

us.

to the boys that

we were

Stay put until our troops ar-

24 hours. Liberation and freedom. Great

Some

leaped around like crazed natives in a

war-dance. Others wept.

were

in his

also well-behaved.

They were extremely happy but they I was proud of them. One could have

excused an outbreak of mayhem. There were deep emotions

from

all

these

young men. They had looked death

in the face

on many occasions but had stuck together, supporting each other

when everything appeared to be

against them. Behind us

were the years of barbed-wire incarceration and the

last

months of marching,

in

and barns

fields

in

in rain, hail

wet and

filthy clothing.

footsore 600 miles had claimed

many

others, forcing us

all

and snow, sleeping

many

The

friends

three

woods,

torturous,

and crippled

beyond the point of

human

en-

durance.

The

next day,

May

2

,

of trucks arrived along with scout

a fleet

cars of the 6th Airborne Division.

We went mad. Fellows were crying and laughing and hugging and congratulating each other on having survived. We got cigarettes, biscuits, choc, tiful

was

compo

[tinned rations], matches, beau-

white bread which was so white true,

we could

and many other impossible

most momentous moment of my life. It

was

as

though

a

hardly believe

little treats. I felt a

it

This was the

great satisfaction.

whole new world was opening up before

my

— DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE" very eyes.

It

was an event to dwarf the feeling I had on that day

joined the RAF.

I

341

It

even exceeded the satisfaction of my

first

solo flight.

Carruthers took charge. told

him

men

to get his

hier aus, gebe ich alle

He

BefehF

arms in

—From here on,

he added. The Germans did

German

called over the

to drop their

as

and

a pile

give

I'll

all

officer

and

fall in. "

Von

the orders

they were told, and a few even

saluted.

Beyond the

piled

arms there were knots of British airmen,

now

worn and

they

ex-prisoners-of-war, clad in the

filthy clothing

had been wearing continuously for the past three months.

They were and

laughing and joking and looking for acquaintances

friends.

torture,

This was the day they had lived for through their

degradation and hunger, but sometimes doubted

whether they would ever

live to see. It

was

all

over at long

last.

Alf Jenner was freed on the same day. After Gresse, the column

he was in had kept marching, but the roads

and more congested with German

civilians

the fighting but unsure where to go. to stay alive

predictable

SS, so

we

Each day was spent

just trying

and out of trouble, trying to avoid concentrations of un-

full

"We were

of retreating

a

Union

flag flying

in a village called

German troops

a

campfire

are British tanks over there.'

on heating

of all units, including the

when someone

"Jenner shook

his breakfast

from

Harmsdorf,

expected a major attack with armor and infantry.

cooking some oats over

carried

was on became more

and soldiers fleeing from

Waffen SS troops, hoping to see

a tank or a troop carrier.

which was

it

his

I

head in disbelief and

without even bothering to look up.

The moment of liberation had come! It was fantastic. The Army came through, and I remember being impressed by how fit the men looked. What followed was sheer delirium. My buddy and I found an abandoned car and we But

it

was

true.

was

shouted, 'There

THE LAST ESCAPE

342

roared around the village in

it

in our excitement, until

it

was

commandeered by the Army for a better purpose. Then we strolled down to some temporary prisoners' cage which had been

set

up

had treated

young

for surrendering

me

soldier

handing

me

Germans.

I

recognized one

roughly on the march and mentioned

who was on

guard. "Here

you

are,"

it

who

to the

he

said,

Sten gun. "Take the bugger over there and

his

shoot him while escaping." This guard had been rough with me when I was weak and couldn't walk fast. He had prodded

me

with his bayonet or hit

me

with the butt of his

rifle.

But

I

down the offer. Later on I came across another former who guard had given me a hard time. He still had his bayonet turned

in

its

sheath and

snatched

I

His eyes turned upwards

as

it

he waited for the end, but the only

thing that happened was that his trousers fell

was enough

for

He

down.

from him and threatened him.

I

had grabbed

his belt too

and

was completely humiliated. That

me.

Richard Passmore

felt

sorry for one aging guard left behind at

the end.

He was in tears. He had just heard of Hitler's death and he told me he could vividly remember the last defeat in 1918 and its aftermath. He knew it would be even worse this time. Many more

countries had been occupied and

want revenge.

He

and gave them to stuck

them

many more would

took out some stamps bearing Hitler's head

me

as a

symbol of the ending of an

inside the cover of

era. I

my prayer book.

Later that day Passmore saw a column of tanks with the large

white star of the American forces on the side and ran to greet them.

We

stood beside the road, mute, incredulous in our

of glory.

The

first

tank

commander

moment

to pass clearly recognized

our dirty and bedraggled uniforms and he bent

down and

re-

DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE" emerged from

tank with an armful of packets and tins

his

which he dropped down of us wept.

One

343

to us.

We

cheered and waved.

Some

tank stopped and the major in charge told us

we were authorized to confiscate any vehicles we might need to make our journey back. We did not hesitate. We set up a road block for all German traffic and by nightfall we had a couple of hundred assorted vehicles, from lorries to Mercedes staff cars

also

had

and

couple of

a

a small

We

stick-grenades.

BMW motor-bikes with sidecars. We

armoury of machine-guns,

a barn,

cept us as the ones

now issuing the

house in the

orders.

a

proper bed in

looked out over the countryside.

glowing from a deep

village.

But before

The

around

me

the end of my journey.

turned in brilliant,

my mother used

the night air was

I

relief. I

was no longer

was approaching

a prisoner.

That night

slept deeply.

Liberation was not always so simple or

group of 300

men from

a

work

the edge of Liineburg Heath.

were

I

were

stars

with the sound of my comrades, singing, laughing, talk-

ing in the over-loud voices of utter

I

slept that night in

I

electric blue, the colour

to call "midnight madness." All alive

We had locked up

status.

and they were more than willing to ac-

I

a

and

had no intention of using them. Simply

having them underlined our changed

our guards in

rifles, pistols

in a bubble.

dying army,"

German

as

They saw

safe.

Jim Sims was

its

effects

caught in an

it

in a

who were wandering around

The war went around them,

Sims described

soldiers,

detail

as if

they

— everywhere "the debris of

after seeing a

air attack,

bus

full

a

of charred

slewed across an auto-

bahn. 23 Shells were falling and black columns of smoke rising, never far away.

They walked along

roads where troops were dug in

tough-looking crowd of truculent

bullies,

— "a

and we hurried past with

heads down, wishing to avoid confrontation at

all

costs."

Their body

of guards was swelled by army deserters looking for somewhere to hide from the SS. their

The woods were

full

of men

who had thrown away

weapons and were sneaking from the front

line to save their

THE LAST ESCAPE

344

skins.

One

"It's a

long way to Tipperary, Tommy."

of them grinned at Sims from the trees and called out,

A sergeant in the

charge decided

German officer and

it

was time to

suggested that

they would get safe passage.

if he

The German

and

act.

his

He

approached

men surrendered

quickly agreed, handing

over his revolver and telling the guards to ground their prisoners were free.

They were

British tank-destroyer passed

also in the

them

at

middle of a

The

rifles.

battlefield.

A

high speed in pursuit of a Ger-

man Tiger, which was then hit by a rocket from a Typhoon overhead. Shells, mainly British, were raining down. The group took shelter in a nearby village, and Sims was keeping watch on the road when he saw

a

cloud of dust in the distance.

He

was expecting British troops.

half-track

an SS

manned by

officer.

released and

What

arrived

German command of

was

Hitler Youth fanatics under the

a

Suddenly the situation had reversed. The guards were

handed back

their rifles.

The

British prisoners

were

locked up again. Things looked bad as the Hitler Youth started to dig in

on the

outskirts of the village for a last-ditch stand.

geant seized the

initiative again.

He persuaded the

position was hopeless, that British

membered

his

men

—

this as the

officer that his

The German took

his boys, given their age

— to

leave.

the hint

Sims

most dangerous moment of all,

because there was no knowing what they would do before they left.

I

fully

blokes in

it.

expected them to set

fire to

the barn with our

In the end they settled for threats.

The SS

officer

ordered our guards to march us towards Berlin without delay,

and threatened to return to check up carried out.

To our

relief the

wards, and everyone was

let

if this

order had been

whole gang trundled off

out of the barn.

Once

east-

again our

sergeant took over control, but he agreed that the guards

should keep their weapons, in case that SS bastard kept his promise.

ser-

armor had already been through

here and he would soon be surrounded.

and ordered

SS

But the

re-

DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE" Sims had no

about what the SS and fanatics were capa-

illusions

A dozen men from

ble of.

own way

his

group had slipped away to make their

They had urged Sims

to Allied lines.

345

he had refused. Later their bodies were found in tied

behind their backs and their throats

For those who were British

Bren-gun

on

caught sight of two Polish

girls

They

like

engulfed

it,

soon there were

German

who had been

as a

village.

Sims

forced laborers and

everyone

else.

sauntered over, wearing tight-fitting polo-neck jumpers,

black skirts and jackboots. there smiling at

me

They were

my

and

after cigarettes

buddy, John.

attractive rears at

looked

them?" at

me

and asked me: I

We

gave them fags

"How would you

replied: "I'd rather

have

and stood

nodded towards

and, as they turned and walked away, John

bash

The men

cigarettes. Pretty

offer in the

were now celebrating their freedom

hands

came the next day

carrier drove out of the trees.

other unexpected delights

a ditch, their

cut.

patient, liberation

and there was tea and sweets and

go with them, but

to

a

like to

boiled egg"

their

have

a

—and he

pityingly "Blimey, you're in a bad way," he said.

Many moments of liberation were amazingly low-key. Men would be

sitting

"making

a

brew" when they looked up and saw British

sol-

down the road toward them and heard someone say, are now free." One group watched their twenty- five guards disappear into a barn and come out a few minutes later wearing Red Cross armbands. Joe O'Donnell was still marching, heading down a road from a farm where the column had spent the night, when diers

walking

"Fellows,

you

he simply walked into an advance detachment of the Eighth Army.

It

was

a bit strange. If we

come barging

in,

there

had been

in a

camp and

would have been

passed the point of liberation.

We

were

the Allies had

elation.

But we

glad, of course,

just

but

it

moment of jubilation. The British soldiers pointed us in 24 a westerly direction to a town where we would be looked after.

wasn't a

THE LAST ESCAPE

346

Few moments were

as matter-of-fact as

buddies had been bedded

Ken

Brown's.

He and his

down in a pigsty on a farm for several

We had turned the pigs out,

cleaned up the

sty,

Wednesday May

straw down. About 10 a.m on

and

days.

laid fresh

2 a British col-

umn drove into the farmyard and liberated us. The crew of the leading Bren-gun carrier gave me a packet of Player's Weights, a short

tubby captain with

a

cocky attitude assured us we were

and then they were off again

free,

Germans.

in pursuit of

Overnight the battlefront had passed through us and we knew nothing and heard nothing. 25

For Batch Batchelder there were more days of captivity to go.

It

was

We

May

8

and we were

still

had come to the end of

down, and gone to guards.

It

sleep,

and

was almost euphoria

heading north toward Liibeck. a

normal

in the

march, bedded

day's

morning there were no

—but not

quite, because

no idea where we were or what would happen still

next.

we had

We were

straggling along and then a couple of scout cars of the

Own

King's

Yorkshire Light Infantry

us to stop and they

would arrange

came

along.

They

told

transport. Shortly after the

Americans came along and gave us chewing gum, which probably wasn't very helpful for our stomachs. But then

some

troop-transporters arrived and picked us up, and after about 5 miles

we stopped and we were given some white bread and

butter and jam.

ever had

—

I

a real

reckon that was about the

finest

meal

banquet.

Hitler was dead; most of the prisoners of war were free the formal

German

surrender to Field Marshal

men

group of casualties from the Gresse incident were lying air

ambulance to

fly

them

out.

again;

Montgomery on

Liineburg Heath was only hours away. By the side of an

waiting for an

I've

airfield, a

in the grass

A pilot wearing wing

DEATH BY "FRIENDLY FIRE" commander's insignia on

his sleeves spotted

347

them and came over

to

26

"What have you chaps been up to?" he asked. "Are you ex-POWs?" He got his answer from a soldier on a stretcher: "Yes, we are, but a couple of weeks ago we were shot up by some baswish them well.

tard

crowd of half a dozen Typhoons.

It

was

at a place called

Gresse."

According to accounts from the time, the face of the wing commander, flight,"

a

he

Canadian, went ashen.

There was

said.

mission, then another

the lucky ones

done

the

a stretcher

survived.

and were on the

home and this had

to happen."

wounded former

down

his face.

was leading that

prisoners

explained that they were

Many had last

not.

"Some of them had

knockings of getting towards

As the wing commander walked away.

—the victims of

lack of restraint, his awful error of

slowly

I

silence as everyone tried to take in the ad-

man on

who had

five years

"My God,

his overeagerness, his

judgment

— saw

the tears roll

A German

3:

Fear was

Savior?

the backdrop of every prisoner's

ways disappear the instant he was

free.

and

life,

camp and

did not al-

Moosburg was

After

erated by Patton's Third Army, there were prisoners

wait to get out of the

it

who

lib-

could not

into the nearest town, but Joe Lovoi

stayed where he was, behind the barbed

wire. "I didn't

want

do

to

anything foolish. There might have been some Luftwaffe or Gestapo people out there after revenge, so

we were

liberated there

was

I

hung around

a sense that

another part of Germany, Cec

Room

in

camp. Even

after

wasn't quite over yet." In 1

it

was freed by British soldiers

in

the front line of the Allied advance, and while he sat drinking tea

there was a battle in

was uncertain

for a while.

and Focke-Wulfs, and it

swing around him, the outcome of which

full

all

"The

tanks opened

of a sudden

be awful to be captured again!"

Such moments did not and,

when

settled instead

German

was scared

on

last long.

The

former captors.

know

God, wouldn't

had shadowed them

Now

it

North

was the turn of the

the stomach-turning sensation of being in

Africa,

rounded up and taken away ter his forced

stiff.

prisoners really were free,

power of the enemy. Private Maurice Newey,

desert fighting in

Messerschmitts

passed from over the heads of the prisoners and

their

guards to

at

2

that realization sank in, the fear that

lifted like a cloud. It

the

I

up

watched

in trucks.

as his

a prisoner since the

former guards were

He had cause to loathe them af-

400-mile march, but he could not bring himself to do

so:

GERMAN SAVIOR?

A

349

They looked so miserable and dejected that I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for them. I knew exactly how they felt. But there was one guard who had killed one of my friends in cold blood

—put

his rifle against his

body because he wouldn't

move and just shot him through the heart. Now he was singled out to the Yanks, and they took him into the woods and shot him. Then we found out that, at the time he did what he did, his family had just been killed in the bombing at Dresden. 3

Room

was another who had thought

his heart totally

hardened

Germans, but then he saw an elderly guard who had

against the

showed him some kindness.

He

had

had

a

lost

everything

hundred

—

cigarettes

his family, the

whole bloody

and some chocolate, and

I

lot. I

gave them

Maybe

to him.

There was

was

mood and in the right position to be sorry for him be-

in a

cause

this

look of gratitude on his

we were going home. But

it

just

face.

brought out the

I

futility

of war.

Could these pathetic the same

figures

men who only hours

heading off into captivity really be

before had held what amounted to the

power of life and death? The same men who had

instilled fear

over

many years, both as individuals and as agents of a ruthless dictatorship? Too many had indeed been the embodiment of the regime they served little Hitlers who reveled in their power and were indiffer-

—

ent to the suffering they inflicted. But now, with the abject defeat of their nation, that past fear of them ing,

for

it

seemed unreal. After a happy end-

was perhaps easier to believe that you had never

your

life,

that

really feared

you had never thought the worst would happen.

And, of course, in the end the optimists proved to have been correct about the prisoners' acts

fate.

Though there were undoubtedly individual

of murder and brutality, there was no mass massacre, no gas

chambers or

killing fields; the bodies

of prisoners of war did not line

— THE LAST ESCAPE

350

the roads or

Had

groundless?

At one

enough

hang from every lamppost. So had the

fears all

been

the prisoners never really been in danger after

answer

level the

at the time.

And

The

immaterial:

is

terror

all?

was

real

there had been plenty of circumstantial ev-

idence to justify the nightmares. George Guderley believes that the fact that his

march from Gross Tychow ended

throw from Belsen was no coincidence. In tion

camp

stone's

his view, the extermina-

carried out.

It is

camp guards have balked

not

war before

a totally far-fetched theory.

this

plan could be

While many of the

—Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht men—would undoubtedly

at

an order to murder the

alternative but to

And

them was the rapid

that saved

all

Allied advance and the ending of the

the SS.

camp just a

next to Fallingbostel was where he and his fellow marchers

were intended to end up and that

tle

at a

do

so.

Always

POWs,

they

may have had

mind was

in their

lit-

the specter of

was what had haunted Allied prisoners of war too

this

the revenge of the SS. It

was an SS battalion that had captured 100

men

of the Royal

Warwickshire Regiment manning the rear guard outside Dunkirk, herded them into

been on

May 28,

ion, leading the

the Bulge, at

a barn,

1940. Four and a half years

advance into the Ardennes

mowed down

Malmedy,

and then thrown grenades

their

SS had nothing to

air,

by more

out around light

us.

Two

mounted on

huts turning us

ranks.

The

surrendered

a

bad

all

scare.

out of bed and

We were

not allowed

We lined up outside and they fanned

half-tracks

it

who had

atrocities.

driving us out onto the parade ground. to take anything with us.

of the Battle of

their rifles grounded. Clearly the

Jim Sims wrote of one night when he had

The SS swept through our

One had a searchsweep up and down our

rumbled

which began to

in.

other had a machine gun, cocked with the

belt inserted

That had

another SS battal-

at the start

170 American soldiers

hands in the lose

later,

inside.

and ready to

fire, its

and forwards over our ranks.

ammo

muzzle swinging backwards

The

searchlights in the watch-

towers were switched on and the whole area was illuminated,

A

and

351

the machine guns in the watchtowers were

all

What was

well.

GERMAN SAVIOR?

it all

Was

about?

it

manned

as

going to be a massacre?

Had Hitler given orders for all prisoners of war to be killed? Many thought so and acted accordingly. Some cried, some shouted defiance, some started to sing

"God

Save the King."

Many of us just stood there mute, unable to react in any way at all. I

remember feeling completely resigned.

After an hour, the

SS suddenly packed up everything and rumbled away.

went back

to our huts.

We

later

We

heard that they had been

searching for a secret radio.

You were never Sims ing

quite sure

also recorded that,

compound

mans had

when

a prisoner

when typhus swept though

the neighbor-

for Polish prisoners, threatening an epidemic, the

their

own unique

solution.

They

bottled

the disease in one hut and then sent for the SS, side

of the Nazis. 4

who

up

all

Ger-

those with

shot everyone in-

through the windows and then brought in flamethrowers to burn

the hut, and

Many

its

dead occupants, to the ground.

prisoners thought that they were

abounded that Hitler had ordered was

said to

their execution.

be Himmler or Goebbels

Threats were invariably reported

marked men. Rumors

as

hard

At other times

it

who wanted them dead. fact, but for men behind

barbed wire the only source for such information was their guards,

and most of the guards had

as little idea as the prisoners

of what was

going on in the minds of their military masters in Berlin. That did not stop them speculating, however. For instance, a prisoner on the

march out of Fallingbostel overheard the guards their destination

talking.

Apparently

was Denmark, where the prisoners were to be ex-

terminated "on Hitler's orders." Fifteen years after the war, this same

how he was visiting Tokyo and by chance ran into a German, a former Gestapo officer, who had interrogated him when

prisoner recorded

he was

a prisoner

of war. "I immediately recognized

not recognize me.

I

fused to believe

was

been

killed

on

I

him but he

did

spoke to him, offered to shake hands, but he rea

POW because he said they had

former

Hitler's orders."

5

all

Jim Sims heard another common

THE LAST ESCAPE

352

enough

had ordered the murder of all prisoners of

story: that Hitler

German commanders

war, "and that only the disobedience of local

had saved our

in the field

But

it is

Threats

lives."

questionable whether any such orders were ever given.

may have been

uttered, but not orders

—and orders were

what mattered. For example, on more than one occasion

"The

Hitler shouted out that

hanged!" 6 But

The German to

it

was never taken

records

show

a furious

entire Luftwaffe staff should be as

an instruction and acted upon.

that the fiihrer issued a

number of orders

do with Allied prisoners of war that could be confused with

them

structions for

Commando Order

all

There was,

to be murdered.

in-

for example, the

of October 1942. British raiding parties on the

European mainland were causing the Germans so many problems

commandos caught were

that Hitler instructed that any

slaughtered to the

surrendered."

7

last

"to be

man; they were not to be spared, even

The argument was made

that, since

if

they

they were operat-

Convention. In June 1944 this order was extended to include enemy parachutists caught behind the lines. They were deemed spies, and ing undercover, their welfare was not protected by the Geneva

were

to be treated accordingly.

cities

were pounded by

his

British

The

following month, as

German

and American bombers, Hitler turned

wrath on Allied airmen with an instruction that "every enemy

aviator

who

targets

is

is

shot

down

while participating in an attack on civilian

not entitled to treatment

treated as a

murderer

as

soon

Interestingly, this order

and never became

as

he

as a prisoner falls

into

of war but will be

German

hands."

was made but was never actually issued

officially operational.

Presumably someone

in the

German high command put forward the argument that dominated reciprocity. If British and American so many prisoner-of-war issues

—

pilots

were held to account for deaths

captured Luftwaffe

Coventry.

The

men

in

Cologne and

Berlin, then

could expect to answer for London and

order was downgraded and became an unofficial

threat. In practice

it

led to the deaths of RAF

and U.S.A.A.F.

men

as

German police and army units were ordered not to stop civilians taking revenge on so-called Terrorflieger

if

they

fell

into their hands.

GERMAN SAVIOR?

A

353

This was an incitement to lynching, but not an instruction

though there were horrific examples of civilians murdering airmen, in practice most

German military personnel

— and,

downed

did their best to

protect Allied flyers from this treatment.

From

the beginning of January 1945, Hitler's orders were in-

creasingly frantic.

Many were

that salient to be defended at

ing those officers

who

came

—

the order that

an instruction that

Nero Order put

all

the

the Allies. If

stroyed

first.

all

—ordering

costs,

retreated.

as we have

match

stronghold or

and then sacking and replac-

Then,

seen

this

middle of March,

in the

—has often been confused with The

prisoners were to be executed.

was to be destroyed in the left for

military

so-called

to a scorched-earth policy. Everything

fight for the fatherland.

Germany was

Nothing was

to be overrun,

it

to be

would be de-

There was no mention of prisoners of war

—or

at least

not Allied ones. But that same month a warning was issued to Ger-

man soldiers not to surrender:

If they laid

wounded, they would be regarded would

suffer the consequences.

down

as traitors

their

arms while un-

and their

relatives

8

Hitler certainly instigated severe measures against Allied prisoners of

war who escaped. The

breakout from Stalag Luft

shot after the

fifty air-force officers

III at

Sagan

in

1944 were executed on

his

express instructions. Earlier that year an order had gone out that re-

captured escapees were to be handed over to the SS and then sent to the to

Mauthausen concentration camp. There they would be subjected

what was termed Aktion Kugel. Kugel is German But, apart

for bullet.

9

from the documents mentioned, the authors have

been unable to trace anything other than anecdotal evidence of orders from Hitler for the extermination of Allied prisoners. Yet the

rumors persisted that he had given such was

over, the

instructions.

American Red Cross claimed that

When the war

in

March 1945

Hitler had ordered the execution of all American and British airmen

held captive in

man ers

cities,

Germany

bombing of GerGerman army command-

in reprisal for the Allied

particularly Dresden, but that

had refused to carry out

this order.

A press release attributed this

information to the president of the International Committee of the

THE LAST ESCAPE

354

Red

Cross, Carl Burckhardt, speaking in Switzerland. It added,

"This statement has been substantiated by American prisoners-ofwar, recently liberated and returned by air

know

in a position to

the facts."

scrutiny. First, prisoners of

tion to

know the

World

\\

ar,

and

claim does not stand up to

war were the very

last

people in a posi-

no mention of Burckhardt's claim

Red Cross and

of the

finitive history 11

is

The

from Germany, who were

they could report on was rumors they had

facts. All

heard. Second, there

10

yet, if

it

were

its activities

true,

it

in the de-

during the Second

would seem odd

to

omit

a

matter of such significance. Third, Dresden was pulverized in the

middle of February

—why would an angry

lowing month to order

The bombing threat

fiihrer wait until the fol-

a reprisal?

of Dresden has been linked with Hitler's alleged

on more than one occasion, and was the subject of an imporbetween United States diplomats and representatives

tant discussion

March German ele-

of the Swiss Protecting Power at Berne, the Swiss capital, on 7,

The

1945.

Swiss had heard rumors that "certain

ments" wanted revenge for the attack and that of war had been mooted.

12

The

reprisals

Swiss had discussed this with the

Germans, "and received assurances from the Germans not contemplate such action."

A

"No

fear

by Xaville

is felt

SHAEF headquarters was ex-

[the Swiss representative] personally

that Allied prisoners of war will be massacred

any other rigorous action

will

that they did

telegram from the U.S. embassy in

Switzerland to General Eisenhower at plicit:

on prisoners

by the Germans or that

be taken against them."

It

went on

try to allay other fears:

Xaville expressed that

it is

the

little

German

credence with respect to the rumors

intention to take British and American

prisoners of war to a possible location as a last stand of die-

hard Nazis

as hostages.

Should the Nazis make such

a last

stand, he pointed out, they did not wish to be hindered

large

and

by

numbers of prisoners of war who might cause trouble

who would

have to be guarded and fed (though they

might take important/high-ranking

prisoners).

to

GERMAN SAVIOR?

A

What

355

—and what the U.S. ambassador the truth —was, of course, no guarantee.

the Swiss reported

Berne clearly accepted

as

in

The German diplomats they spoke to may have been lying, or may not have known what was in Hitler's mind. But, since Gilbert Navas we will see to be absolutely correct ille's judgment turned out

—

—

about the implausibility of suggestions that the Nazis were planning a last redoubt,

he

may

well also have been right that there was

no

threat to massacre the prisoners.

rumor surfaced again as recently as 1997, when previously classified documents on the questioning of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg were released. Now the source was the Nevertheless, the

13

dead Luftwaffe

chief,

Hermann

Goering. In 1946 he had told his

American interrogators that Hitler had wanted

to "exterminate"

the prisoners and would have carried out his threat

gone on any longer. All the other top Nazi

if

the war had

officials

—

all

— Goering

among them, of course had opposed the idea, as they had opposed another suggestion, made at the same time. This was that Germany should abandon the Geneva Convention because German troops were

far

too ready to surrender to the enemy, knowing they would be

Goering was an unreliable witness.

treated well in captivity.

out of favor with Hitler

nounced was in

at the

was

end of the war, and would be de-

as a traitor for trying to treat

his

He

with the enemy while Hitler

bunker in Berlin. Moreover, when he spoke to U.S. inter-

rogators he was fighting to save his neck, 14 and nothing served his

purposes better than to portray himself as a reasonable and honor-

man whereas

able

his fiihrer

had been out of control.

—but

In essence, Goering's account was true fall

in

not telling the

story he was less than generous to his former friend, Hitler. Ac-

cording to Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler, the bombing of Dres-

den did indeed anger the

fiihrer,

who

heard the news of the devastation stony-faced, Goebbels, said to have been shaking with

manded of-war,

fury,

fists

clenched.

immediately de-

the execution of tens of thousands of Allied prisoners-

one for each

citizen killed in the air raids. Hitler

was

THE LAST ESCAPE

356

taken with the idea. Brutal

war would, he was

German

certain,

That would deter German deserting.

15

It

treatment of prisoners-of-

prompt

soldiers

took the efforts of Jodl, Keitel, Donitz, and

him from such

There the matter

Allies.

on the western front from

Ribbentrop, viewing such a reaction dissuade

by the

retaliation

rested,

as counter-productive, to

a drastic step.

and

it

16

was apparently never referred to

again.

In summary, the suggestion of massacring prisoners

came from

Goebbels, and Hitler was enthusiastic because the immediate effect

make his own troops fight harder. The idea was dropped army (Field Marshals Jodl and Keitel), the navy (Admiral

would be

when

to

the

Donitz) and his Minister of Foreign Affairs (Ribbentrop) opposed It

had been

a

momentary thought, and one

that

even think worth noting in his extensive personal ever,

it.

Goebbels did not

diary.

He did, how-

expand on the idea that the Geneva Convention should be

abandoned, but without mentioning anything about massacres. Prisoners of war did surface in his diary

March

few weeks

later.

In his entry for

1945, Goebbels wrote:

4,

The

a

Fiihrer

is

violently

opposed to any steps being taken to

Anglo-American prisoners-of-war now

assist

transfer

in the process of

from the East to the neighbourhood of Berlin. There

some 78,000 of them and they can no longer be properly fed; they are riddled with lice and many of them are suffering

are

from dysentery. Under present circumstances, there one can do for them. Perhaps

Red Cross

it

would be possible

to help in producing a

semi-human

is little

to call in the

existence for

them.

Not

helping was what Hitler was suggesting, and that was a far

cry from the sentence of death that prisoners

them

rumor

said

he had passed on the

—and even then the hard-line Goebbels wanted to throw

a lifeline.

— GERMAN SAVIOR?

A

357

In truth. Hitler gave scant thought to the Allied prisoners within

He

his borders.

did not care about

them one way or

the other. His

whole vision of the world was collapsing, and he would not bargain with their ers

lives

because he had no intention of bargaining

m the Nazi hierarchy,

their

own

at all.

Oth-

however, would do anything to try to save

skins.

Generalleutnant (Lieutenant General) Gottlob Berger had never

wanted the

job.

he claimed

much

over.

The SS

and he told Hitler so to

when

later,

general had been put

was

would need

a

time

when

a

to be very careful

charge of Allied

found

a

POWs

way of using

The SS had

first

oners of war through sassination attempt

it

was

faithful

a

dangerous position

An

its

on

leader.

to be in unless

Himmler. In the aftermath of the

his life in

—

as the

June 1944.

a

he

POW

:;/:"

only person he could

a

a

trust,

in

and had

who had among many

general

position that,

him nominally

as-

shocked and shaken

"??u

the Reserve .Army, replacing

charge ot the bureau-

camps. Three months later

this position

order from Hitler on September 25. 1944 trans-

ferred "the supervision of as

Having

alive.

to his advantage.

other responsibilities, put

was formalized.

track record like his

he wanted to stay

been one of the conspirators. This was cracy running the

well that

The war was almost

his hands.

man with a Nazi if

full

taken over responsibility for the nation's pris-

Heinrich)

made him head of

what

would without doubt be recrimi-

Hitler had turned to the SS Reichsfuhrer

miy

is

m charge of Germany's vast army

poisoned chalice had been placed in

certainly lost, and afterward there nations. This

least that

autumn of 1944. and he knew

of prisoners of war in the a

At

his face.

the fuhrer was dead and the war was

all

pnsoners-of-war and internees,

as

well

prisoner-of-war camps and establishments with snard sections" to

theSST This was

a

move

that

Himmler had long

sought, arguing that

only his SS and Gestapo could make the prisoner-of-war camps properly secure. Escapees had caused havoc, and had to be cracked

THE LAST ESCAPE

358

down on. The breakout from cited ler. 1

by Hitler

as a

Stalag Luft III at Sagan was specifically

reason for transferring responsibility to

—following the uprising in Warsaw

Another

944, which took two

concern about

months of

a similar revolt

in the

summer of

bitter fighting to crush

among the

millions of

Himm-

—was

his

POWs in Ger-

many. Hitler was also convinced that the British and Americans were planning airborne raids behind the lines to free the prisoners. 18 For these reasons, Hitler wanted a tougher regime introduced, and

all

—

—

Himmler his fixer on so many matters to get it. With Himmler nominally the man in control, the German army

turned to

and air-force

officers

and guards actually running the camps were

deeply worried. For years they had resisted those fere in their business, desperate to

inter-

keep prisoners of war under the

military umbrella because the well-being of their

emy hands depended on

who would own

troops in en-

reasonable treatment on both sides.

They

had endured the snap inspections by the SS and the Gestapo, but felt

able to assert their independent authority.

head of the

at the 7

tality

command

Now, with Himmler

structure, they feared a

and inhumanity would be forced on them.

mandant of

still

regime of bru-

The deputy com-

Stalag Luft III recalled this as "a very unpleasant time

and we always lived in fear and expectation of some dangerous regulations

and measures." 19

They never came. There was no

increase in SS supervision.

The

SS did not attempt to take over the day-to-day running of the camps or to impose tougher regimes. 20

The

guards waited for this to happen, but exercise his

it

prisoners and their military

never did.

Himmler

newly acquired authority. Churchill had noticed

did not this dis-

crepancy. In his discussions with Stalin and Roosevelt about issuing

an

official

ers of war,

warning to the Germans about their treatment of prisonhe noted that

it

was unclear whether the SS had actually

taken over from the regular army officers.

"We should surely miss no

21 opportunity of exploiting any duality of control," he added. That

was toward the end of March 1945, and Himmler had been for six

months. In the camps themselves,

little

in charge

had changed.

and air-force guards continued to run the prisoners'

lives as

Army

they

al-

— A

GERMAN SAVIOR?

359

ways had done, under the supervision of the same commandants and officers as before.

One

reason for Himmler's inactivity was that he was fully occu-

pied in other areas, and his vast responsibilities increased even after Hitler

—

1945

gave him

command

of an army in the

field.

at the

Army Group

head of the Vistula

In January

Wehrmacht mount the de-

to the horror of the professional soldiers of the

he was put

more

to

Germany against the Russian invasion from the east. But, hard-pressed as Himmler was in pursuing the war for Hitler, he was also playing a long game. He planned to survive Hitler, make peace fense of

with the Americans and the British, and emerge at the end as his country's leader.

nationals ate

There were dangers

for himself in having charge of

from the very countries he knew he would want to negoti-

with one day soon.

sponsibility for

them

On the surface,

Was

this

why he had chosen

to delegate re-

to his old and trusted right-hand

man, Berger?

Berger was just another SS apparatchik

done well by doing what he was

told.

He

was known

in

who had

SS ranks

as

one of Himmler's "Twelve Apostles" and was nicknamed der Allmaechtige Gottlob (the Almighty Gottlob). 22

It

helped his career that

he enthusiastically endorsed Nazi doctrines of racial supremacy and hatred of the Jews.

From 1940 he

and was particularly involved in Territories

been

mance

in

Slovakia.

with the so-called Eastern

—those where extermination camps He

built.

as ruthless

ran the SS main office in Berlin

liaising

like

carried out his duties with an efficiency that

—and the same word was applied to

His appointment after,

as

head of the prisoner-of-war camps

it

fol-

with the same brutal efficiency.

But he did not. Apparently, from the very

start

he displayed reluc-

tance, telling Hitler that he did not fancy being a a stern

in

and there would have been no reason to

suppose that he would not tackle

jailer.

23

It

earned

rebuke and a reminder that generals should do what their

fuhrer asked and not question If

was seen

his military perfor-

August 1944, when he was sent to deal with an uprising

lowed immediately

him

Auschwitz had

24

it.

Berger wanted to survive, he would have to steer

a

course that

avoided provoking the wrath of Hitler and the wrath of the

Allies.

THE LAST ESCAPE

360

He

began by deliberately doing nothing. Instead of integrating the

existing Office of Prisoner of cratic

length from each other.

He

Affairs into the massive bureau-

machine of the SS, which would have been the natural thing to

do when the SS took over

apart.

War

Nor did he

new department, he kept them at arm's They were in different buildings, two miles a

flood the prisoner administration with SS officers.

preferred to keep the same bureaucratic structure and the same

personnel

as before.

His decision not to crack down on the camps was markable given

that,

all

by Berger's own account, Hitler

more regave him a

the

dressing-down when he went to see him in the Wolf's Lair

tenburg on September 29, 1944.

The

fiihrer

at

Ras-

warned Berger not to be

more unpleasant side of my task." 25 Berger said he was told by Hitler to destroy Red Cross supplies piling up in the camps, to stop more coming in, and to put an end to visits by Red Cross inspectors. Hitler also wanted more shootings of prisoners and more punishments. All this Berger quietly decided not too lenient and "to accept the

to do, he later claimed.

He

also said that

he thwarted

a plan,

pro-

posed by the Luftwaffe and approved by the military high command,

up

to set

men lied

special prisoner-of-war

of large

in the centers

bombing

raids.

camps

for British

cities, to act as

human

and American

air-

shields against Al-

Realizing that this would contravene the Geneva

Convention, which he was determined to maintain, Berger successfully

argued that there was not enough spare barbed wire to make

this possible.

And

that

As

a result,

nothing happened.

was the way of it. Berger's great contribution to saving

the lives of Allied prisoners of war was to

After the war he claimed

many

much more

and to procrastinate.

stall

for himself

—that he had done

positive things to protect Allied prisoners of

their interests.

He

said that he allowed

war and defend

more Red Cross

inspections,

not fewer, and that he fought off attempts to reduce to the bare min-

imum plies

the

amount of food going

were always

at least

to the

camps and ensured

20 percent above basic survival

that suplevel.

—and scary—

claimed that he stood his ground against senior

He

figures

A

such

as

GERMAN SAVIOR?

361

Martin Bormann, and was even warned by Goebbels that he

was putting

There

his life in

is

danger by defying Hitler.

no independent

verification of

any of these claims. In-

deed, on food supplies, the experience of the

men

camps sug-

in the

gested the opposite. Rations were cut drastically toward the end of

1944

Berger had taken charge, and Red Cross parcels were

after

rare luxury. Berger 's claims

came

were even more unbelievable when

to the evacuation of the

for the erection of

camps

in the east.

He

said

a it

he arranged

temporary quarters along the route marches,

He

which did not happen.

marching prisoners were hugely

said

helped by an idea of his to give them printed handbills appealing to locals in the areas they

marched through

which we have seen no evidence

at

26

all.

to be compassionate

On

—

for

the other hand, he said

he arranged for Red Cross supplies to cross the borders into Ger-

many, through Liibeck and Geneva

— and

to be fair to him, there

is

"

no reason But

to think he did not play a part in this.

his

ganization

most important

—off the

role

was in keeping the SS

backs of the

POWs

— the

British

—

his

own

or-

and their guards. At the

same time, he made sure he was seen by the prisoners

2

Allies as a friend of the

and American ones, that

is.

Berger showed

scant concern for the Russians, the Poles, and the Slavs in his charge,

and there

is

no evidence

ble conditions. It

ture to be, and

it

that he set out to

From head

at

Sagan

that he did anything to alleviate their terri-

was in the West that he perceived

make

his

postwar fu-

mark.

the ranks of the American airmen

Spremberg

at the

his

was on individuals who might have influence there

after the forced

who

arrived at the rail-

march from Stalag Luft

III at

very beginning of February 1945, he had the two most

senior officers picked out.

Major General Arthur Vanaman and

men went off in cattle cars camps all over Germany, but to no avail. They themwere put on a train to Berlin. In the German capital, wrecked

Colonel Delmar Spivey protested

as their

to different selves

bombardment and awaiting the Russian onslaught, they were taken to see a voung officer from Berber's staff. Vanaman seized the

by

air

— THE LAST ESCAPE

362

initiative

and proposed

a

He

humanitarian mission:

should be

al-

lowed to go to Switzerland and make arrangements for food supplies stored there to be delivered to the

camps

in

back that Berger liked the idea, but he had

He

wanted

them

a better

He wanted Allied medical staff from the

and he needed Vanaman's authority to persuade

to attend,

that this

was

a valid project.

was an extraordinary suggestion, given the

It

aid in the

Word came

one of his own.

to hold a medical conference in Berlin about the prob-

lems of the prisoners of war.

camps

Germany.

reality of

medical

camps and out on the marches. There, men were swallow-

ing charcoal as their only remedy for dysentery, and operations were

being carried out with scalpels made from

Men

like Dr.

was

cisely there

to discuss.

went ahead, on March though

like

see

What

of razor blades.

for asking

what pre-

they needed was medicines, band-

and surgical instruments. Nevertheless, the medical conference

ages,

tors

slivers

Caplan could have been forgiven

it

was pretty

28,

1945.

late in the

And

it

made some

day to have any real

progress

effect. Allied

doc-

—those Moosburg and Fallingbostel now overflowing with inmates —to and German doctors agreed to team up to

what could be done

to stop epidemics.

The

camps

visit

record does not show

whether they ever got there or whether anything was achieved. Berger's

him on to his He wanted them to make

presumed success with the conference

next plan for the two American officers. contact with Eisenhower on his behalf. via Switzerland

They were

led

to leave

Germany

and take secret radio codes to the Allied commander-

in-chief to enable negotiations to take place for a separate peace with

the British and the Americans. the

many

all its

clear

The

and

Soviet

let

Ger-

attention to halting the Bolshevik tide. It was un-

whether Berger was acting on

others. All he declared Hitler,

a familiar story:

common enemy. Make peace in the West,

Union was turn

Here was

his

own

initiative

or on behalf of

was that he was prepared to bypass everyone

Himmler, anyone

—

"in order to save the Fatherland."

Vanaman agreed, but in return Berger would have to do his best to make sure there were no more forced marches and to get Red Cross supplies through to those who desperately needed them. The

GERMAN SAVIOR?

A

date was April

3,

1945.

363

was the very day that Stalag XIIID

It

Nuremberg was being emptied, its Moosburg and more weeks of misery.

prisoners heading south to

A few

days later prisoners of

As

Fallingbostel were being pushed out onto the road again.

part of the bargain, Berger was promising

American

But, in fairness, the

their part of the deal either

officers

what he could not

found

—through no

it

fault

border to Switzerland, and by then there was

ure.

As long

as

would be wrong

Berger

still

deliver.

impossible to meet

little

It

was

them

across the

interest

by the Al-

lied authorities in one low-grade SS general offering to it

for his

of their own.

nearly three weeks before Berger could smuggle

Nevertheless,

at

make

peace.

to call the mission a total fail-

had reason to think he could make

a deal,

he would do nothing to jeopardize the safety of the prisoners of war.

On

his order, death

down on thousands

and destruction could

still

have been brought

of Allied prisoners waiting to be liberated. Even

this late in the war, orders to kill

were getting through and being

acted on. Between April 9 and April 20 the last of the alleged conspirators in the July

20

bomb plot were

Berlin to the concentration

camps

executed on orders sent from

at Flossenbiirg

and Sachsen-

hausen. If Berger had wanted to issue orders to take a bloody revenge

on prisoners of war, everything indicated carried out.

He

that they

would have been

did not. Moreover, his procrastination, his medical

conference and then his attempt to set up a peace channel with the

West

via the

prisoners

two American generals bought valuable time

—and,

at that stage

for the

of the war, time was of the essence.

Berger was not the only SS officer trying to save his own life. His own commander, Himmler, was still pursuing the same course. And the time was very close when it might be right to play that trump card he

still

held as head of the SS

—the

British

and American

oners of war. Although he had put Berger in charge of them, ler

had

specifically kept for himself the international part

pris-

Himm-

of the job,

retaining personal responsibility for the department in the Office of

Prisoner of

War

Affairs in Berlin that liaised with the Protecting

THE LAST ESCAPE

364

Power and

the International

Red

He

Cross.

courage Berger's lenient attitude to the

nothing to

also did

POWs — something

dis-

that

Berger himself was convinced was a deliberate ploy on the part of his

As Berger

boss.

agreeable to

told a war-crimes court years later, "It

Himmler

because then he could

Power done

it."

the representatives of the Protecting

tell

in Switzerland that 28

it

was he, the Reich Leader SS, who had

At the same time, Himmler could point an accusing finger

demand

in Berger's direction should Hitler ever

prisoners were not being

more harshly

Thinking he had covered

his

back

—incredibly—of securing some

had now

set himself

Baltic coast,

up with

a

commandeering

to

know why

the

—Himmler

in-

treated.

—and

tensified his personal negotiations with

hope

was quite

did something special for prisoners of war

if I

his front

Western contacts

in the

sort of amnesty for himself.

He

Germany on

the

base in the north of

on the Bay of Liibeck

a castle

for his

headquarters, and was close to a deal with the Swedes for the repatriation of Scandinavian prisoners of war. If off,

why not

large

a similar

arrangement with the Allied authorities?

group of men whose

ations

he could pull that one

safe return

were conveniently gathered

home

A

could be used in negoti-

than 100 miles away at the

less

POW camp at Fallingbostel, and at the end of the

week of April 1945, as we have seen, they were told to prepare themselves to march there is no documentary again. On whose orders we do not know first

—

evidence. But, as they headed north,

were being taken

as hostages to

some

many

of them believed they

last-ditch

redoubt on the Baltic

coast.

Events did not go the way Himmler wanted. sides:

The

Allies refused to negotiate

found out that he had tried to make Reichsfiihrer's

foul of both

when Hitler he disowned him. The SS

a deal

power slipped out of his grasp and he committed

acolyte, survived.

sui-

However, Berger,

his

He proved much better than his boss at playing out

endgame.

Moreover, risks

fell

with him, and

cide after falling into the hands of the British.

that tricky

He

if

Berger

by disobeying

is

to be believed, he took the greatest of

a direct instruction

all

by Hitler to murder thou-

GERMAN SAVIOR?

A

And he

sands of prisoners of war.

365

did so, apparently, with the con-

nivance of none other than Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress (and wife for the brief

moments between

their marriage in the Berlin

bunker and

their self-inflicted deaths).

an odd but fascinating

It is

Berger himself.

He

told

it

to an

tale,

the sole source for which was

American judge who carried out an

investigation into the last days of Hitler's

Navy and

interviewed Berger at

Nuremberg in

peated by a biographer of Braun, tress

on behalf of the U.S.

life

29

who

1948.

described

and Berger together saved 35,000 hostages

It

how

was then

re-

Hitler's mis-

whom

Hitler had

ordered to be taken to the mountains in Bavaria and held there until

he could make

a satisfactory deal

with the

Allies. If

no such deal was

forthcoming, they were to be executed.

Eva learned that Berger opposed the plan and that even dered he would not

kill

or-

the prisoners. She decided that

would be best if Hitler gave the signed orders than to some other officer

command. She arranged

if

who would

it

to Berger rather

carry out the Fiihrer's

for Berger to have an

appointment

with Hitler, and while Hider was discussing the matter with the general, Eva brought the typed orders pertaining to the to the Fiihrer.

He

immediately and automatically signed them and Berger

left

executions into the

the

room with

room and handed them

the documents in his possession. Both he and

Eva knew that he could without carrying out

stall

off Hitler until the

a single execution,

war ended

and that

is

exacdy

what happened.

Did any of this this in his

really

happen? Surprisingly, Berger did not

cite

defense at Nuremberg; nor did he mention this supposed

incident in the account of his

Eva Braun

twice,

life,

where he

said

he only ever met

both times while waiting in the anteroom to see

Hitler.

30

mood

the fiihrer was

She had been friendly enough, warning him what sort of in,

but this hardly seems the basis of

a secret

—an

activity

arrangement between them

to, in effect,

dupe Hitler

THE LAST ESCAPE

366

would put both

that

their lives in jeopardy if it

had been discovered.

Moreover, on the day when she allegedly made her pact with Berger to save the lives of thousands of prisoners of war, she

down her

last

had

also turned

opportunity to leave the bunker in Berlin for

choosing to die with Hitler. this ultimate act

It

would surely be strange

safety,

to decide

on

of loyalty to him and at the very same time agree se-

cretly to betray him.

All this

was

said to

have happened on the night of April 22.

These were some of the most Hitler. It

was on that day that the

would not die.

had announced that he

fiihrer

Germany but would

southern

flee to

His generals and aides

they would die at his side six

significant hours in the last days of

split

—

like

Goebbels,

it.

Amid its

hard to see the

it is

ing of any importance.

And

this

kill

them

—and those

high drama, in which Ger-

facing the destruction of everything, in-

cluding the charismatic leader to for so long,

and

who declared who brought his wife and

children to the bunker with the cyanide to

who would make a run for many's high command was

stay in Berlin

dramatically into those

members had pledged themselves fate

of Allied prisoners of war be-

yet there was perhaps a grain of truth in

Berger's story.

The

historian

officer with

Hugh Trevor- Roper, who,

as a British intelligence

impeccable academic credentials, carried out

investigation into the last days of Hitler in the after the

all

a

months immediately

end of the war, interviewed Berger and found him

unreliable witness.

with

a forensic

good

story,

He

a pretty

thought him good-natured and always ready

but "his accounts of his

activities in these

days are

31 characterized by indistinct and sometimes inconsistent loquacity."

Unless there was corroborating evidence, Trevor-Roper treated with suspicion any conversation the SS general said he had had with Hitler.

Berger told Trevor-Roper he had arrived in Berlin from Himmler's headquarters and was heading south to Bavaria

moned ill

when he was sum-

to see Hitler in the bunker. Berger painted a picture of a

and demented, purple with rage and blaming everyone

man

else for los-

ing the war, ranting and raving about this betrayal and that act of disloyalty.

Berger claimed that he urged Hitler not to head for safety in

GERMAN SAVIOR?

A

367

the south and a last stand at the Alpine redoubt, but to stay in Berlin

and

This, he said he told the fuhrer, was his duty to the

die.

people.

Here was brave Berger apparently daring to

himself, taking the opposite line to

included

all

tell

German

Hitler to

the other generals

—who had been pressing Hider to leave the shattered

After hearing Berger's advice, Hitler gave

him

kill

—Himmler capital.

his mission.

He

was to track down the Prominente, those VIP prisoners of war who had been housed

at

now

Colditz and were

being transported into

Bavaria as hostages. According to Berger, Hitler rose to his feet, "his

hand was shaking, all

his leg

that he kept saying

was shaking and

was 'Shoot them

all!

his

head was shaking; and

Shoot them

thing like that." Trevor- Roper added pointedly that

all!'

or some-

who

precisely

was to be shot was unclear from Berger's "incoherent narrative." Nevertheless, that this was a

much more

plausible account than

Eva Braun, death warrants, and 35,000 prisoner-

the one involving

of-war hostages was demonstrated by what Berger actually did next.

He commandeered

Himmler's private plane and flew out of Berlin,

running the gauntlet of the guns of the Red Army, which was even

now nearing the

center of the

city.

Berger headed for Bavaria.

was there that he would next be seen been sent to slaughter.

As we saw

them

it

—by those Prominente he had

32

Chapter

in

relations of

And

10, the

twenty-one Prominente

—among —had

King George VI and Winston Churchill

been taken away from Colditz on Friday April

1

3

,

just days before

the rest of the high-risk-category prisoners of war were released by

the advancing Americans.

They were in two buses that headed

making, they believed, for that fabled tains.

33

The

frightened passengers

their escort, but

what

lay ahead

still

last

south,

redoubt in the moun-

had Wehrmacht guards

as

and into whose hands they were be-

ing delivered was unknown. For a fortnight they were driven from

camp

to camp, always afraid that at the next stop the

waiting for them.

It finally

with the SS death's-head

happened.

SS would be

A colonel in a long leather coat

emblem on his cap took charge of them one his holster. Out on the road, a sign

morning, menacingly tapping

pointed to Berchtesgaden as they drove higher and higher into the

THE LAST ESCAPE

368

mountains. But Hitler's Eagle's Xest was not their destination, and they drove on farther into Austria until they reached a town called

Markt Pongau.

It

was here that Berger appeared

an enormous

in

Mercedes, lolling on cushions in the backseat of his car

bodiment of all the Prominente\ However, Berger was arettes.

all

—the em-

fears.

He handed

smiles.

out whiskey and cig-

He told them he had been ordered to shoot them, but that he

was refusing

to

do

As

so.

SS extremists were being sent to

a result,

tercept the group and earn out the instructions, 7

—

name on

the death warrant

own.

his

He named

the Gestapo, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, as the

man

now

with an extra

the feared head of

leading the hunt for

them. Berger told the Promimnte he could not guarantee their but he would do his best to see them across to the American

The

in-

safety,

lines.

next day the prisoners set off in trucks on what they hoped

was the

last leg in their perilous

journey.

They were on

alert,

the

threat of Kaltenbrunner around every corner, and that night

seemed he had found them. road and

down

a

friend and protector.

shortly,

The

motorcyclist ushered

country track to

greet them, dressed in a

speeches.

A

jovial

a

now

their old

That night they had food and drink and Berger toasted the British and Americans,

— the "red virus"

the Promimnte left at

off the

deserted farmhouse. But there to

white uniform, was Berger,

he had no doubt, to join with

the Russians

them

it

as

Germany

in the battle against

he called them.

dawn and were soon

The

next morning

American hands. Berger

in

had saved them.

He

had also saved himself.

He

had too much history in the SS

not to face war-crimes charges after the war, and in April 1949 he

was found guilty of crimes against humanity for 7

his role in

planning

the "final solution," the SS operation to exterminate the Jews.

Nuremberg

tribunals decided "he

was an

The

last

of the

the

program of persecution, enslavement and murder." 34 His protes-

tations that he

knew nothing about

believe him." His sentence was

served just

a

fraction of that time.

this

active party in

were dismissed:

"We do

not

twenty-five years, but actually he

At

his trial

he had claimed that the

prisoners of war had been intended to suffer the same fate as the

A

GERMAN SAVIOR? months of the war and

that "I

plan from becoming effective. ... If today, in

Amer-

concentration-camp inmates in the prevented ica, in

last

and in Russia, there are tens of thousands of mothers

Britain

and wives and

this

369

who

are

welcoming home

my merit." The

safe, it is to

their sons

and husbands healthy

court had believed him, noting in

the record that "the defendant Berger was the lives

means of saving the

of American, British and Allied officers and

men whose

safety

was gravely imperilled by orders of Hitler that they be liquidated or held as hostages. 35 Berger disobeyed orders and intervened on their behalf and in so doing placed himself in a position of hazard."

two years

peal

been given to years. It

was

a

later, a

On ap-

judge ruled that greater weight should have

this consideration,

and he reduced the sentence to ten

time of clemency, for seven other convicted Nazis had

their sentences cut too; but the

mercy must have stretched

further,

because Berger was released before the end of 1951. Including the period before his 1975, he spent

trial,

much

he had served

just six years. Until his

of the rest of his

life

death in

building bridges with

prisoner-of-war organizations in the United States and building up his reputation as the

in those last

He

good German who had saved thousands of lives

few months of the war.

persuaded

many

different people of his

good deeds. His SS

comrade Walter Schellenberg, who was acquitted of war crimes, interrogators in a sworn statement at that Berger "delayed sending

many

Nuremberg

in

January

told 1

946

of Hitler's orders and thereby

saved the lives of thousands of people

who would

otherwise have

been evacuated from prisoner-of-war camps or executed where evacuation was impossible." 36

Delmar Spivey became for a

motion passed

at a

a

defender of Berger, and was responsible

reunion of former prisoners of war in Day-

honor him.

ton, Ohio, in April 1965 to

3 "

General Arthur Vanaman

signed this motion too, though he comes over as a tical

little

more skep-

about Berger than Spivey was. In an interview with historical

researchers of the U.S.A.F. in 1976 he said he thought Berger had

acted to save his

own

had been brave —

skin,

"his office

but at the same time he thought Berger

had done things that he could have been

THE LAST ESCAPE

370

shot for." 38 Air- force historian Arthur

were proved to be true in the years

We

was

a true friend

more

are

of prisoners

Berger the

also gave

He considered that many of the SS man's claims

benefit of the doubt.

that "Berger

Durand

and he concluded

Berger claimed achievements on behalf

skeptical.

—better

after the war,

of the prisoners." 39

spiritual

and cultural provisions, better sport

—that reek of vain-

and entertainment, more professional training

He

glory rather than truth.

was

in charge of the prison

camps

last

was

marched across Germany,

falling apart as prisoners

starving, or

men

slept

tion,

and

eked out their

lives in

four of those

through

and

on the ground. While hundreds died of dysentery, exhausfrostbite,

my

he held

a futile

medical conference in Berlin. At "I

prevented forced marches

agreement with General Eisenhower," when the truth

was that he had

mander

sick

conditions so overcrowded that

he had the temerity to claim that

his trial

for

months the system

only seven months, and for the

and

tried

in chief

failed to

make contact with

the Allied

and "forced marches" had continued

com-

until the very

end of hostilities. 40

Having said

we must give Berger his

that,

did that was crucial in those last

He

did not do.

camps.

He

months of the war:

did not issue orders to cut

did not halt

on prisoners and make

due. It was not what he

Red Cross

down food

supplies.

their lives even

He

It

was what he

supplies to the

did not crack

more of a

misery.

He

down

did not

send hard-line SS officers into the camps to replace the military guards.

He

did not issue orders for prisoners of war to be disposed of

rather than released.

them

to safety. All

—and

be what his job

The measure done

in his place.

natical

He

did not shoot the Prominente but ushered

of which he could have done his fiihrer

had been put

is

what others might well have

have happened

if

someone more

in charge of the prisoner-of-war

one more willing to follow the instructions and

he had seen that to

—required.

of what Berger did

What would

if

rumored

threats

evil spirit

camps

fa-

—some-

behind those nebulous

coming out of Berlin? There were

plenty of candidates in the SS with the necessary mixture of cruelty, efficiency,

and unquestioning obedience. There were

men like Adolf

A

GERMAN SAVIOR?

371

Eichmann, designer of death camps and gas chambers and unashamed exterminator of millions of Jews (who disappeared at the end of the

war and was kidnapped from hanged

after

his hiding place in

being tried for war crimes by the

South America and

Israelis in 1962); like

Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, brutal beyond imagination; like Ernst Kaltenbrunner,

Gestapo

chief,

who

organized the

hounding and hunting down of Jews and claimed innocence on the gallows at

Nuremberg because

Any one style

— and then

he had ever done was his duty.

men would have run the camps in true SS how many British and American prisoners of war seen home again?

of these

would ever have

all

The

final leg felt like the

all

Home

Heading for

14:

longest of all. Suddenly, with liberation,

the prisoners' patience was gone, rushing

away

like the last

of the sand in an hourglass. For years they had waited, because waiting was

—feeding on memories, checking

they could do

all

off the

They had lived for today and dammed up thoughts of tomorrow. Free men at last, the floodgates burst. Everyone wanted to be home NOW! days, the weeks, the months.

—

Private Swift and his group had been on the road since just after

They had

Christmas.

slogged from Poland over the mountains of

Czechoslovakia into Germany, had been sent north toward Dresden, then had retraced their steps, and were

marched

"all in all

wherever

it

said,

and marched ing after

shouted

off.

five

at,

didn't

when one day

Nach

direction of England.

the

They had

nearly halfway across Europe," as he put

out on the road

go home. They

They were

in Bavaria.

it,

was they were supposed to be going they never made

We were

most

now

hause,

Then

1

it.

the guards told us to

and waved their arms

they formed up into

a

in the

company

We were on our own, which was an odd feel-

years of being guarded,

starved,

confined,

worked, pushed around and forced to march.

seem

but

right

somehow.

in a village high

snowy tops of the

It al-

Alps.

above

a valley

Home was

a

with a clear view across to

thousand miles away in En-

HEADING FOR HOME gland.

denly

"We were left:

like flotsam,

high and

dry.

373

thrown up by the

tide of war

and sud-

We just wanted to get home and be safe and

sound."

For some, particularly those who were

home would

be

quick process. For the majority, however, what lay

a

Some took

ahead was dither and delay. to rush

Room

home

in a couple of

wrote in his

diary.

ciating as anything that

There were going

home

venge was

2

it

philosophically.

it

was unendurable

in the

many would wish

they had never witnessed. Re-

Jim Sims was appalled

air.

—and not

liberated prisoners,

badly things had

Men

had gone on the

who were blamed

just the Russians,

To

how

at

his horror, British prisoners

soldiers,

who had gone

into the nearby

came back dragging

man was

you

a spy.

"No, I'm not

many

town

gang of

in search of

man with them. He

a terrified

shouting. "I was one of your guards.

3

me." Sims

The

him of being

for

were involved

helpless as a

was one of their former guards and had put on they accused

as excru-

had gone before.

some of them men he knew well. Sims was

German

—

incidents in those days between being released and

that

outrages at this time. too,

"We want

hours but we'll try and be patient," Cec

For others

got out of hand immediately after liberation.

rampage

sick or lame, getting

civilian clothes, so

a spy," the terrified

You must remember

recalled:

we remember Someone got hold

leader of the kangaroo court shouted, "Yes all

right,

of a rope and

you

bastard. String

made

bering guard's head.

a

The

other end was slung over a

barn, and they started to heave that British soldiers

watched

his feet

soldiers

him

up. It

were going to lynch

The

as his feet left the

from the

this

German.

as willing

a

I

hands

old guard gave a choking

ground. This alerted some

British battalion that

had liberated us and

they came at the double to rescue him, while the

with frustration.

beam in

seemed incredible

dragging along the ground

took up the slack of the rope.

scream of terror

him up."

noose which was slipped over the gib-

mob howled

THE LAST ESCAPE

374

But then Sims discovered the depth of

own

his

anger and disgust.

Newspapers arrived from England with the news and photographs of Belsen. "These were the

and

obscene death

its

terrible panic seized

pictures ever seen of this dreadful place

first

pits. It

me.

was

like

wanted

I

hell.

A

soon

as

having a glimpse into

to get out of

Germany

as

possible."

Even the mildest of venirs

—an

activity that

Leslie Frith

seemed

open and men running away with

was the very

thing

last

that Sims's wallet, "which

was stolen from

his jacket

and addresses that

The

up over

wanted."

4

It

rifles, tin hats,

"Why on earth

I

cannot under-

was during

period

this

had survived several German searches,"

in

it,

just

to have a wash.

photographs and

"There

the

all

names

had collected, which were irreplaceable.

I

was

this."

near anarchy turned to total defiance

to reassert

We

I

I

Germany

when he hung it up

was nothing of any value

really cut

Luftwaffe bar-

at a

sorts of Nazi insignia. It baffled him.

all

to grab sou-

was often indistinguishable from looting.

they wanted reminders of their stay in stand. It

want

to

remembered the German armory

racks being forced

daggers, and

individuals

itself, as

when

authority tried

Frith recalled:

were told to parade

in three ranks

and

of

a padre,

all

people, climbed on to the roof of a truck and started shouting at us,

"Your behaviour has been disgraceful. You are back in

the British

Army now

.

.

.

ATTENSHUN!" There was

believing gasp from the ex-prisoners,

who broke

surged towards the truck, shouting, "Fuck the British

and "Let's bash the bastard."

mob It

advancing on him and

He

took one look

Army"

at the

would

see that

we

be made to get us

"He

angry

fled.

took an officer from the liberating battalion to calm the

smiles and promises.

a dis-

ranks and

told us that, if we

would

just

mob with

be patient, he

got hot food, a bath, and then every effort would

home

as quickly as possible." It

was

a

bad lesson,

— HEADING FOR HOME but their indiscipline had paid

planned to keep us there for

off.

six

"Apparently

375

it

had originally been

weeks, but the looting and attempted

lynching had changed the minds of the authorities. arrived and

we

A fleet of trucks

set off for the west."

American airman John Parsons found the behavior of the Russians at after

Moosburg

He remembered

insane.

being liberated

—

then stepping through

like cutting a

it

his

own

little

madnesses

hole in the barbed-wire fence,

to the outside

pound and then out again and so on,

and back again into the combecause he could, just to

just

prove to himself that he could. But the Russians were in a league

and

a

world

—of

their

own.

They found a small winery in town and

they just drank its con-

by the bucket and got very sick. Then someone burned down the winery and so they drank benzene instead. They came back to the camp and they were very, very sick. Fifteen or twenty tents

of them died right there. Their bodies were thrown outside and left to swell

and

rot. I

was aghast that the Russians seemed to

have no more feeling than that for their former comrades.

5

Parsons was equally uneasy about the behavior of some of the liberators.

He remembered

over the fence around a

a

U.S. tank being deliberately driven

German house and up

to the

window.

An American GI kicked the window out and jumped in and asked for beer. The people inside said no and he took his machine gun out and just shot up the room.

demanded "Schnapps,"

When he stopped, he

and, boy, I'm telling you, he got

what

Then he rampaged through the house, looking for jewelry, which he found. The people in the house didn't want him to take it, but they did not have much choice

he wanted

this time.

in the matter with this maniac.

Any hint

of defiance could be

fatal:

THE LAST ESCAPE

376

remember seeing this beautiful young German girl in a small town near the camp. She was walking down the main street in

I

a strident

Nazi goose

as if to the beat

Some GI just pulled out his madown in cold blood. This sickened me.

of a drum.

chine gun and shot her I left

She held her head high and marched

step.

that place immediately and

was

also a

the

march from Nuremberg.

I

saw

who had walked

guard called Frederik,

address and

But

went back to the camp. There

we had promised

He

was shot by

a GI. I

had

his

to write to each other someday.

body lying near the camp

his

me on

with

gate.

For one dead German, however, there would be no pity or morse. Big Stoop, the giant from Stalag Luft

IV

at

who had

burst men's eardrums with one slap, had

prisoners

all

the

way

hated he was and

to

Moosburg.

He

Gross Tychow

come with

could not have realized

how many men had sworn

re-

to get even with

the

how

him or

he would have made his escape in time. There are various accounts of his death.

None

is

pleasant. Parsons said he

war whooping with excitement

saw two prisoners of

as they carried the guard's head in a

bushel basket. Another former prisoner recalled seeing Big Stoop's

body spread-eagled across

road with a pickaxe in his head. 6 Big

a

when Parsons was being debriefed by an intelligence officer, the German's name was mentioned to him, as if many men before had singled him out in their accounts Stoop's reputation was such that later,

of their time in captivity.

He

death, and the officer replied,

gave the officer details of Big Stoop's

"There

will

be no

trial for

that bastard,

then?" Parsons reflected and found some compassion in his heart. "I felt

in

sorry that he had

such

his fashion. In a

wife,

come

a brutal manner.

I

to the

lost his life

time of peace, he would probably have had a farm, a

and children, and lived

Others were

end of the war and then

suppose he was only following orders in

less

a peaceful life."

generous in their thoughts. Parsons met an old

and close comrade, the ball-turret gunner from trained together and flown

They had and knew each

his plane.

on missions together,

HEADING FOR HOME other's families.

The man had

Germany, and he asked

if

377

suffered badly

told Parsons that

when

on the march across

they were liberated he was

he had been mistreated and he pointed out

who had been eral others

a

German guard

—

mean and abusive. The guard plus sevwas shot where he stood. line near him

particularly

—

standing in a

Parsons was appalled. "I told

my old

been that revengeful, and he

said,

'J

friend that he should not have

onn those guys were >

bitches and treated us like dogs. I'm glad they are dead.' late into the

night and promised to get together

But that was the

last that I

sons-of-

We

when we

talked

got home.

ever saw him."

Now was the time for all those carefully worked-out plans by the administrators back in action.

London and Washington

The men would

to

go smoothly into

be brought back under military discipline,

home moment when the

deloused and debriefed, given their back pay, and transported

and

in an orderly

manner. Here was the

a fair

"stand fast" order would

word. "Be patient."

The

It

come

was

like

its

Army Group

ordering the tide not to

at the

A communication

end of March noted

numbers of Allied

clear that getting

home was

more than 250,000 just part

of a

from the

in.

British 21st

that, "as a result

Over the next month British

much more

was awash with homeless people,

memo

come

of the in-

POW likely to be uncovered," previous

instructions "will prove inadequate.""

of war

own. "Wait" was the watch-

planners realized almost immediately that their neat schemes

were about to be swamped.

creasing

into

as

is

it

became

and American prisoners

massive problem. Europe

shown

all

too graphically in a

written by the Allied authorities just ten days before the war

officially

came

8

to an end. Five million

was

a conservative estimate for

number of displaced persons in the SHAEF-controlled zones. There were more than 2 million Russians, Poles, and Czechoslovaks heading east, and the same number again French, Belgian, Dutch, plus German civilians heading west from the Soviet side. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of them could die. the

—

—

THE LAST ESCAPE

378

The speedy return

of these people to their

homes

is

of the ut-

most importance not only from the standpoint of expediting the adjustment of affairs in

Europe but

to relieve our armies

of the tremendous burden of providing food and shelter. less

the major portion of this

fore the

Un-

movement can be completed

be-

end of October, widespread conditions of famine and

disease are almost certain to occur.

End

of October! If such a note had ever fallen into the hands of ex-

would have been appalled. Were they to sit out the summer and half the autumn in squalid camps? The answer was no. They did get priority. As soon as planes were freed from the fighting, they would bring the boys home. The RAF began Operation Exodus at the end of April, when Lancaster bombers were stood down from their daily sorties pounding Gerprisoners they

many. However, flying out the could get

in,

and many

willing,

difficult until the planes

had been wrecked by the Allied

airfields

bombing or destroyed by was undoubtedly

POWs was

retreating

German

forces.

But the

and there was no shortage of enthusiastic

aircrew prepared to give up rest days to get the prisoners

soon

as possible. It

was

spirit

just that for

many

home

of those ex-prisoners

as it

couldn't be soon enough.

Some

ex-prisoners looked around for transport of their own.

Richard Passmore and his companions had been told by an American

major that they could seize any vehicle they wanted, and from the ones they had stopped lected a large

at a

makeshift roadblock near Liibeck they se-

Mercedes with

mood as they set off people. They were keen to day

a full

west,

tank of gas.

They were

in a holi-

moving along roads choked with

get back across the Elbe, a river they had

been over twice: once on their way from their camps in Poland, and then again their

when they were marched out of Fallingbostel.

Now it was

gateway to home.

The

bridge proper had been blown by the retreating Ger-

mans, and the Royal Engineers had put up

a

pontoon bridge

HEADING FOR HOME in

its

place. It

across. It 7

itary

was one lane only and we had to queue to get

was dark when our turn came, and

on

policeman] urged us to step

on the bridge and no the other side and

only

a

379

few

feet

it.

side rails either.

we made

it,

a

smart

MP

There was no

We

aimed

[mil-

lighting

at a light

on

though the sight of the water

away did not inspire confidence. Early the next

morning, we decided to get out of the British

sector.

We

did

not want to be washed, kitted-out, medically inspected and

We wanted to get to England just as we were. We 9

registered.

had heard that our people were collecting

ex-prisoners into

all

We thought we would be better off with the whose sector was only a few miles away. We were

reception camps.

Americans, very

much

thought

To

It

us,

it

adherents of the free-enterprise system and

more

even

a

likely they

would

leave us to our

devices.

few days' delay was intolerable.

was never going to be that

easy.

In the American zone, they

found themselves driving against the endless trucks,

own

we

and troop-carriers

still

going

traffic

They were

east.

of U.S. tanks, forced off the

road and then stopped by two military policemen in white helmets,

who

suspected they might be

through

xAllied lines.

They carried no

prisoners of war don't have

overcoats over

RAF

The

them"

saboteurs trying to sneak

identity cards

— and,

in

— "don't be

daft,

mud-encrusted army

looked suspicious.

battle dress,

satisfy their interrogators,

for checking.

German

They

could not

and were about to be taken into custody

Passmore and

his friends

were having none of

driver suddenly revved the engine of the

Mercedes and

that.

let

the clutch.

We

screamed away in

a spurt

hand on the door was sent

window and were quickly

of dust, and the

flying. I

MP

with his

looked through the rear

the Americans were running for their jeep. after us.

They

We had the better and faster car but,

ter several years of captivity7

,

our man's driving

rather rusty and the jeep began to close

on

us.

skills

af-

were

Then suddenly

out

—

— THE LAST ESCAPE

380

there was a

bang from behind and we looked back and the jeep

was upside down on the ground,

We stopped them were

its

wheels spinning in the

and went back. They had

hit a

mine and both of

dead.

The

accident was a dampener, a sad outcome after the

free

and heading home.

The men resumed

thrill

plane to Brussels. In the Belgian capital they

and

of staff, that

in Brussels.

move me

A

watching the

five years,

I

was

RAF

take anything they wanted.

And

was

a

showed

ema

chap

I

Soon

Then came

a

foreign to me.

Looking back,

I

Passmore 's return to ity to sink in.

took several

the euphoria of

It just

wasn't me.

now

a film at a cin-

latest release

—

all

from Holly-

except Passmore. "I

why people were

laughing so much.

could not enter into the world of make-

can

now see

civilization

that I

was

like a

zombie."

had been too abrupt for

its

real-

Cal Younger had more time to adjust, though not

through choice.

They had

I

my

comedy-murder mystery with Cary

understood neither the film nor all

in

shave and a haircut at a barber's

wood. The audience roared with laughter was

not

depot, where they were allowed to

and shock." Later there was

Arsenic and Old Lace, a

believe.

was deep

I

dirt peeling off. It

Grant and Raymond Massey, the very

It

ho-

when

always stayed in

had once known many years ago but whose face

privation, strain

a

they were told by a

shop. Afterward "I looked at myself in the mirror. It

a

like the suite itself, did

sleep.

satisfied."

clothes from an

new

way to

their

on

a flight

barn, a ditch, the Hotel Metropole

down and

lie

changes of water before clean,

—the one,

"This information,

in the slightest.

bath for

made

Hermann Goering had

they were just places to first

rooms

settled in a suite of

member he was

of being

their journey, reached the airfield at Celle be-

tween Fallingbostel and Hanover, and traded the car for

tel

air.

He

and

his friends

the vet in the town. Eagerly

—

remained stuck

at Fallingbostel.

Hanomag which had belonged to they set to work on it. "We replaced

also "liberated" a car

a

missing engine parts, found tyres and tubes, and reconverted

it

from

HEADING FOR HOME a

381

charcoal-burning to a petrol-burning engine. But the battery was

They

10

flat."

though,

got a tow from a tank to jump-start

as

tank, there tell

we

it,

down the cobblestone road behind the much noise and vibration that we could not

raced

was so

whether the engine was going or not. Ours was one of

hundreds of cars in the camp. Every car in every village within miles had been taken.

German cars but

Some men even

German

still

in

uniforms, which they wanted for souvenirs,

and were taken prisoner by our own for

raided villages

hands, and were recaptured. Others took not only

forces, mistaking

them

Germans.

The

Allied authorities recognized the danger of ex-prisoners

running wild, and ordered

a

curfew confining everyone to camp. En-

tertainments were hurriedly rushed in to help pass the time

— that

—

much the planners had promised and delivered and Younger remembered sitting with hundreds of others watching Ralph Reader's Gang Show on a stage in one of the huts, and the gags and the vaudeville

unlocked something that had been missing for

the men's

lives. "I

began to laugh, and

not laughed for years, and

my

far

too long in

as I did I realized that I

cheeks hurt as

if a

had

thick plaster of

make-up was cracking."

Then the chance to head for home offered itself. Younger and his friends

some

were taken aside and told where they could lay their hands on

gasoline

— "enough

juice to get to Paris or Brussels," according

They decided not to attempt the journey. They roads were clogged with men trying to beat the system

to a British corporal.

knew that the

home, even though they risked getting caught up still

going on in the area.

port,"

Younger

said,

"We

and they

felt

we should

set out instead

in battles that

wait for

on

were

official trans-

a local expedition to

forage for food.

They were saw two youths

driving a few miles in

German army

away from the camp when they

caps and with small packs on their

THE LAST ESCAPE

382

come

backs

They were

furtively out of the forest.

and had gone into hiding with sniper

fourteen years old,

be guerrilla

rifles to

fighters.

Here, then, were Hitler's much-feared "werewolves," sworn and ready to carry on the war at

everyone

else,

boys," Younger noted, "and doubtless they had

fanatically eager to kill the

soldiers that they

They handed

was lucky for some British just like

a

at

them were

point-blank

pocket for chocolates or chewing gum."

the boys over to the army.

Later they drove

German

It

ambushes or shooting them

they reached into

as

enemy.

had wearied of this. Other boys

killing British soldiers in

range

Except that they weren't. Like

they just wanted to go home, back to their families.

"They were only been

all costs.

down

a lane

soldiers sprawling asleep

looking for

farm and found

a

on the ground. Younger was

all

six

for

turning around and getting out of there quickly, but his companions

were not going

to miss the chance to assert the authority of the vic-

They roused

torious.

Germans and

the

most of the guns were empty tives.

Younger relished the change of

along the same road which

gunpoint

at

—escorted them back role as

we had tramped

—even though

to

camp

as cap-

"we marched them

as prisoners a

few days

before."

Back

at the Fallingbostel

camp,

were being shipped out each longest-serving ones went

We

a

few hundred British prisoners

day, the general rule being that the

first.

Younger's turn came on April 26.

climbed into an army truck and, uncomfortably packed,

drove out of the camp in

We

were waved on

at

a

convoy escorted by motorcyclists.

road junctions. All about us were

wrecked homes, burnt-out shops,

women, roadsides. That

pale, sad-looking

German prisoners going single file along the night, we stayed in a town where the Army had

NAAFI

canteen and

the film but utes. It film.

we were

a

makeshift cinema.

too restless to stay

was some months before

We

next day

I

We

more than

could

sit

were impatient to go. This was

we

went

a

up

set

in to

a

watch

few min-

through an entire

still

Germany. The

waited and waited, and eventually trucks

came

to

HEADING FOR HOME

383

take us to an airfield. But the one for us was late, and the driver

We

knew we urged him

apologized profusely and admitted he was drunk. that

no more planes would

to hurry.

The man

drove

leave after 6 p.m. so

like fury for

1

7 miles, the truck

ing and swaying, before he stopped and told us he was

whin-

lost.

He

was very upset, so much so that we contained our disappoint-

ment and assured him night in Germany.

on time, but

The

his wheel,

was

airfield

we

did not

after six

and cried for

arrived

us.

Broken twisted

aircraft littered the

into shell craters, and their

the end of the field a Dakota was least get us little

broken

aircraft

ground.

jutted for-

tails

But

at

warming up which could

at

The

out of there and over the Rhine.

man, came over

down

glass all

ing and pick

up."

it

the

the

metal.

On my left was

field,

field.

You men had

and painstakingly plodded

stooping for every piece of glass or sharp

an

Arnhem

parachutist,

crash-landed a burning

glass at the feet of the

nervous

for

Younger

"but at least

I

so. "I

was

little

right a

we

trod

armfuls of

pilot.

— an Australian—was

had reason to celebrate even

my

on

Slowly

aircraft.

Eventually he was satisfied that the runway was

Home

ner-

better get crack-

the grass back to the Dakota, and heaped our

broken

pilot, a

to us. "I can't take off, yet. There's

We spread out,

down

man who had

off.

— and he

No more aircraft were to fly to England that day.

lornly.

vous

when we

a desolate place.

and the burnt-out skeletons of

Some had nosed

mind spending another

He swore he could still get us to the airfield

was long

it

hunched over

that

still

clear,

still

and they took

far away,

but he

not home," he noted,

was out of Germany."

Jim Sims, meanwhile, was traveling in a truck and keeping his head down. As the convoy he was in bounced

POWs

were warned to

werewolves in the

army

barracks,

lie

trees.

whose

on the

Then

luxury,

its

way

west, the ex-

floor for fear of sniper fire

they stayed overnight in

compared with the way

were housed, made him envious.

a

from

German

British soldiers

THE LAST ESCAPE

384

The and

rooms were

corridors and

I

long before World

many years

War Two,

and

I

appeared to be outside

had been stationed

like

which had been condemned

but was

in use

still

Nothing but the best

after.

it

swimming pool

a

couldn't help thinking of places

Larkhill [on Salisbury Plain],

for

spotless

There was even

centrally heated.

and would be

for our brave lads!

Cynicism, so typical of the postwar period ahead, had set in alarmingly quickly. But the

army had thought up

a

Two

reward for them.

unusual shoe-shine boys were produced to polish the ex-prisoners' boots. They were high-ranking German officers. The British officer who had arranged this thought it was a fine joke, and he told the men to "kick their arses

if

they don't do

properly." Sims said he and his

it

friends "were terribly embarrassed.

would have humiliated all

I

do not believe the Germans

a British officer in this

fashion and

we were

glad to leave this barracks and get back in the trucks for the short

trip to the airfield at Celle."

There,

as

they climbed into Dakotas,

many

were nervous because they had never flown before. The planes, normally used for dropping paratroopers, risk too

wrong airstrip

many for men who had come

at this stage.

But

fears

were

so

far.

the Belgian frontier

cities

below,

the damage. But, as

to be

down

Some

we

to the

could get a better look

Ger-

at

most of us had been on the receiving end

of the towns seemed to be leveled off at

ground height and the people appeared out of

cellars.

beyond

The damage

the

down through Gerand Brussels. The pilots were

bombings] when we were prisoners, we were not very ap-

preciative.

one

a line

Bomber Command had done and Sims remembered how

they even circled some towns so

[of

seemed

they hurtled

proudly showing off what

man

flimsy, noisy

Surely nothing could go

stifled as

and up into the sky and followed

many toward

men

of the army

to these

to be crawling in

German towns was

belief, especially close to the

Rhine.

and

really

HEADING FOR HOME

We

385

approached Brussels airport under cover of a violent

The Dakota

thunderstorm, which was quite frightening.

we were taken to a large hangar where ladies Women's Voluntary Service dished out tea and cakes

landed safely and

from the to us.

How

nice

it

again, even if they

were

a bit old.

As

was 19 and most of them

I

were between 35 and 45, they seemed also

handed out soap and

no one

four times, but

home

take a gift fags

to

asked

had been

if I

produced

a

was the at the

It

War

official

All this

was

WVS

Arnhem.

I

none of

free of course, as

ladies

When

came up

I said

me

to

and

that I had, she if I

had seen

was her husband. All she had received

Office note that he was missing.

photo but did not know the

and

My only thought was to

mother, and as she was a smoker the

of the

at

They

joined the queue

photo of an airborne soldier and asked

him, or knew him.

her,

my

One

cigarettes

really ancient.

and we

said anything.

seemed appropriate.

us had any cash.

women

was to see and speak to English

man and handed

wondered how many times

that sad

little

looked

I

it

back to

scene had

been enacted.

Then an RAF pilot sauntered over and said, "I want 30 men for my plane." I was in no particular hurry, but when I turned to speak to John, who had been my constant buddy for the past eight months, he had gone.

him scrambling over away towards

was

Dakota.

never even looked back.

I felt

I

this

stunned after

there feeling

I sat

German

prison camps.

had altered

Although ferent

I

it

drove

numb

all

we had gone

until I

trip

was shep-

home.

I

found

plane with 20 complete strangers from other

POW.

It

time to see

shouted after him, but he

herded over to yet another Dakota for the myself in

just in

the tailboard of this truck as

a distant

through together.

I

was

still

me

I

thought back over

my

time as a

both physically and mentally for

only 19,

1 felt

life.

years older, completely dif-

from the brash youngster who had parachuted down on

the outskirts of Arnhem the previous year.

experiences and seen so

much

I

had had so many

in such a short space of time

THE LAST ESCAPE

386

that

I felt I

never wanted another experience of any sort ever

again.

The Dakota took

off and droned out over the Belgian

Someone suddenly

coast towards England.

England!" and we

all

pressed our noses to the windows like

The White

street urchins outside a sweet shop.

Dover seemed cried,

Cliffs

of

they were suspended in space. Several of

as if

men wept and we

the older

shouted. "There's

"Never mind, old

lad.

them on the shoulder and

patted

We

The Dakota thundered on

made

over

a

it."

patchwork of neat

fields

and unspoiled countryside. Looking down, you would never have thought we had fought

a terrible

war.

We flew inland and

circled over a large castle before the plane started to descend,

and we landed

The

my

at

an aerodrome somewhere in Hertfordshire.

doors were opened and we were helped out. As soon as

touched native

feet

soil, I

to a nearby reception area

spend the next eight weeks ,

was

I

That

and

was put to bed.

in the hospital suffering

was able to go on

sight of the

first

I

White

was to

I

from mal-

and various other ailments before

nutrition, dysentery

7

really over

collapsed, and had to be carried

where

my war

leave.

Cliffs featured in

many memories.

Leslie Frith 's heart was close to bursting:

A glorious

and one which

sight

never see again.

It

at

times

I

had thought

I

would

A week ago we were

was overwhelming.

all

now suddenly we were home again. I

starving to death, just waiting for the end, and

we were

crossing the English coast and

cried with sheer joy.

now.

No

around

more

like cattle

Doug Fry had home.

He was

he could

rifle

sit

The Gestapo and butts in the back,

and being treated

a special

loaded into

in the

the SS couldn't touch us

a

no more being herded

like the

lowest form of life.

view of the English coast on his

flight

Lancaster bomber and asked the pilot

mid-upper gun

if

turret, his position for all his

HEADING FOR HOME

bombing

387

Germany and in which he had very nearly been when he was shot down two years earlier. The experi-

raids over

incinerated

ence had not deterred him.

I

wasn't afraid of going flying again.

I

was

time.

the event

had gone before,

it

was absolutely splendid. After

was hard to take in that

most home. From the

up

it

—not the White

turret

Cliffs

over the east coast, but

it

I

Percy Carruthers went one

really

all

this

that

were

al-

could see the coastline coming

we came

because

was

we

lovely.

me

wouldn't be anybody firing at

just glad there

And in

was going to be

It

a

still

better.

a different route,

stupendous feeling.

11

The pilot on his Dakota home

allowed him to take the controls over the Channel, and as England

loomed out of the

my eyes felt I

my

filled

coastal cloud

bank

up and there was

would choke.

I

a

lump

in

my throat so

large

I

gripped the stick and breathed through

open mouth. Beside me, the

pilot

knew my difficulty. The engines of the

was old

I'm sure he

silent.

Dak sang sweetly in

my ears as I checked temps, pressures, fuels, revs and so on before

commencing

a

very shallow descent to the

soil

we had

longed to tread for so long. 12

In his plane, Fry peered out of the gun turret and thought about

what

lay ahead.

There were

butterflies in

what home was going like

from now on.

my

stomach

to be like,

what

we went

little kit

we

had.

WAAFs

going to be

were waiting to

We had one on each arm as

into this hangar with bunting

band playing, and It

my life was

wondering

We landed at an airfield in the Midlands, and

the aircraft taxied round to a hangar.

help us with what

as I started

all

over

tables laid out full of cakes

it

and

a brass

and sandwiches.

was an absolutely astounding reception by the RAF.

The

THE LAST ESCAPE

388

feeling

We

was indescribable.

Cosford,

where we had

13

clean sheets.

were then taken to the base

They wouldn't

let

room and walk anywhere. They drove

with

billets

us

at

a radio in

each

us round to the mess and they gave us fish and chips, but couldn't eat

it.

I

was too emotional. After

ing about food and looking forward to food

manage five

it.

Then we

all

bowled round to the

of us in a group, but

we were

body had

lost a lot

I just

bar.

couldn't

There were

strangely subdued.

There

we

all felt

wasn't any triumphant yelling and shouting. that we had survived and

I

that time of think-

all

I

think

we were lucky to have done so. Every-

of friends and colleagues.

We were back in

our homeland, but we knew there was going to be sadness for

some

people. So

we

lined

up

five pints at the

bar

—and then we

couldn't drink the blinking beer either.

The emotion was

finally

catching up with Richard Passmore too.

After a night in a luxury Brussels hotel, he deserted his companions,

overwhelmed with

a

need to be on

to the airport and wangled his

his

own. Alone, he made

way onto

virtually a shuttle service in operation to

of Dover

left

him

cold.

The

a plane

—

England.

his

way

by now there was The White Cliffs

reception with tea and cake and friendly

chat at an airfield near Guildford was a blur of pleasantries. "But then

we were loaded

mob

into

RAF trucks

and

out for the railway station.

set

A

of children, eight- and nine-year-olds, ran behind, waving and

They were the first children I had seen in all the long years. That was the moment when it first hit me that I was truly free." cheering.

The

worst journeys

home and

the longest delays seemed to have

—the

been reserved for those farthest away

Germany, primarily

at

prisoners in southern

Moosburg. Lieutenant Geoff Wright had

gotten splendidly drunk with his American liberators and recorded in his diary that

he hoped to be

home

"next Sunday."

14

Sunday was

a

long time coming. After three days of kicking his heels, he was raging about

how much worse it was

"being a prisoner of blasted British

— HEADING FOR HOME

389

bureaucrats than a prisoner of the Germans."

over the running of the

morning and banned

camp

Those who had taken

on lengthy parades every

insisted

news had not been

radios because the broadcast

censored and was therefore deemed unsuitable for the

Meanwhile the pound.

It

fined to

latrines

men

angered Wright that the British contingent had been con-

camp "while

a

horde of drunken swine of Russians pillage

and rape the neighbourhood. lent looters out of hand."

If I

He

had

my way I would

shoot

you look

after

surprise during this period of waiting.

The German

camp was found to have all the belongings from the prisoners when they arrived, the

neatly placed in pigeon holes with our

attached. lighter,

I

got back

which

ing captured.

I

my key ring

had bought

The

Germans took

Though

home and

it

it

and

five years

a

from

me

either.

that

a pleasant

headquarters at

had been taken

names and numbers

heart-shaped cigarette

ago in France before be-

lighter doesn't work, but

They

it

didn't

when

the

are a strange race.

they can commit the most ghastly crimes against hu-

manity without turning

when

vio-

me."

For Lieutenant Frank Stewart, however, there was

all

all

was "bitched, buggered and bewil-

dered," he informed "darling Joan," and "I just want to get let

to hear.

clogged up and rubbish was piled in the com-

comes

have followed

a hair, they are meticulously

to small things like this.

These two

honest trinkets

me round through seven camps from Bavaria to

Poland and back. Amazing. 15

The eration,

Moosburg on May 3 five days after libbut Wright was not among them and he felt let down.

first

contingent

left

,

"These days of waiting are very hard on the nervous system." The

ex-POWs were "the optimists

home by

given no information, so

still

hope

all

they had was rumor

to leave tonight, the pessimists

Christmas." His despair deepened each day.

left today.

Last night

we heard

that of the 3,000

two days ago only about 550 were flown

out,

who

and the

hope to be

"No one left

the

rest are

has

camp

still sit-

THE LAST ESCAPE

390

ting

on

around the aerodrome.

their fannies

joint this

a stinking cesspit

is,

Stewart, a prisoner of

Dunkirk

people so depressed in

all

We

of mud,

What a

shit, lice

poxy, miserable

and

vintage, thought he

fleas."

Frank

had never seen

his years of captivity.

were led to expect that we'd be home any moment, but

The

nothing has happened and no reason has been given.

weather

terrible,

is

and we are

cold, miserable,

However, things are looking up. The weather stomach

is

and is

frustrated.

clearing,

my

on the mend, and the Americans have opened up

cinema for our

benefit.

mor has chosen

for

Someone with

our delectation

a fiendish sense

a film called

a

of hu-

The Thin

Man

Returns Home.

Protests about conditions were cabled to Eisenhower at

headquarters, and promises of action

came back

—but only

SHAEF

a

handful

of planes. Wright joined the thousands camping out at the

airfield,

waiting, counting in the planes, counting out the in the line,

men in front of him

not daring to sleep in case he missed his turn. Accidents

did not help.

Two Dakotas

collided with each other

on the ground

and then crashed into another three. Stewart was also waiting at the

which was not

a

proper

grassy plain with

airfield at all, just

no hangars and no

tarmac runway, only long the ground.

The

then three more.

airfield,

first I

strips

an open stretch of

buildings.

There was no

of wire mesh stretched along

plane arrived amid a great cheer, and

worked out

that with 28 passengers to a

we should be going in the 101st plane, and as we were told that 200 more were expected the prospects were looking good. Then things really started to happen. Someone sighted

plane

a

plane in the distance, then another, and another, and in they

came from every

direction, great big

circled the airfield slowly

moths

flying low.

They

and then came down along the "run-

way," swinging round into line at the end. As each one landed,

HEADING FOR HOME

391

28 prisoners immediately clambered in and off they went. In the

first

hour 40 planes came

in

and during the next hour an-

other 40. That was 80 and we were nearing the magic 101 for

me.

I lay in

the boiling sun, just looking and waiting. It was

very, very exciting.

But then they stopped coming. To make matters worse, that evening

we were

had been

told that the order of leaving

changed and 1,750 Americans were to embark ahead of us.

were back to where we had

We

planes to arrive.

town

the

over the

started. I

still

We

needed 101 more

picked up our baggage and walked into

to look for a billet.

Someone

said

it

BBC that the war had officially ended.

had

just

come

was May

[It

8.]

I'm afraid we laughed.

They

got away the next day, and arrived in Reims to wait for a

flight across the

Channel. Wright was unlucky again. "Missed En-

gland by nine planes," he wrote wearily in his diary.

and he had been

a free

man

It

But Stewart was way ahead of him and was relaxing

him were held

at a

for a day

— "endless forms to be

questions to be answered, medical tests and mental checks. fitted

out with

new

battle dress, boots, shirts,

best of all, dark gray civilian suits."

with

rail passes,

home

away

long time, and

a

We

were

all

just

also noticed

moved on

St.

and

his friends

James's Park.

little

headed for

They had been

clear.

shocked by the blatancy of the couples on the

when holding hands

We

We were

and underclothes and,

how long now became

We thought back to pre-war days

benches and on the ground.

in public

was considered rather daring.

how many women now wore

to Piccadilly Circus

great bustle of people.

We

ar-

Then they were let loose, "armed

to Scotland, he

London and sauntered through

in

filled out,

ration books and clothing coupons, and even a

cash." Before going

10,

camp

There he and those who had

Lincolnshire, asleep in a real bed. rived with

May

was

for nearly a fortnight.

trousers.

We

and stood there taking in the

thought they looked tired and

THE LAST ESCAPE

392

drawn,

they had every reason to be after what they'd en-

as

dured from the flying bombs and rockets. King's Cross and sat

up

all

We made our way to

night in the train, arriving at Edin-

burgh early in the morning of Friday,

May

1 1

.

1

took

a taxi to

my parents' house and there they were to greet me. It was also my birthday. I was 28 years old and had not been home for five and

a half years.

For some, the journey back so

drawn out

that

it left

to

only bitterness. For Len Jepps, the time be-

tween liberation by the Americans

was traumatic.

who had

freed

First there

them

left.

dwindling, and no one

England would be so arduous and

was the

No

Nuremberg and arriving home chaos in the camp after the troops at

one was

knew what,

if

in charge, food stocks

were

anything, was planned for them.

The behavior of the liberated Russians astounded him. Jepps remembered a group of them returning to the camp from a foraging trip

with

a

donkey, which they then beat to death with stones and ate

uncleaned and uncooked, right down to the hide.

They were

starved that the shock to their digestive systems killed them. ally

so

Gradu-

order of a sort was restored, and work began to dispose of the

piles

of Russian corpses, the results of malnutrition and shelling. As

the bodies were tipped into a

communal

there was not a stitch of clothing

left

grave, Jepps noted that

on any of them, and

had teeth marks around the thighs and upper arms tried to eat

them.

He

also recalled the almost

the usual stench of death, "for there was

corpses to putrefy."

that

some

as if someone

had

complete absence of

no

flesh left

upon

the

16

After ten days of survival in these desperate circumstances, Jepps

and

his compatriots

began

their journey

home. They boarded planes

taking them, so they thought, to England, but, to their dismay, they

got only as far as Brussels,, where there were to be

ments and uniform as real

delays. After

at the airport,

people in

a real

mugs of real

tea, kisses

more

disappoint-

from pretty

girls in

and "the privilege of being treated once more world," they hit what Jepps called "a

mental web of frustration, the magnitude of which

is still

monu-

difficult to

HEADING FOR HOME

They were bussed around the accommodations. Then they were made believe."

of an army barracks to be interrogated

he could

city for hours, searching for

on the parade ground

to wait

—

a pointless exercise, as far as

we

"because none of our answers was recorded and

tell,

were not even asked who we were." After food, though

393

it

and were then

was

late into the

left to sleep

he was back in Stalag 344

They had been

on

at

this

night before

they stood in line for

some of them were

a flagstone floor.

Jepps

felt as

fed,

though

Lamsdorf.

told they

were to be flown home. Instead, the

next day they were taken in trucks to a railroad station and, after a

long wait, were put on

a

goods train to Bruges. There they were bun-

dled out onto the platform and, in a near-mutinous

made

to wait again before being taken

by truck

mood, were

to another

camp.

Starved of food and information, the prisoners were at the breaking point.

As Jepps told an army colonel who asked him what the prob-

lem was, "we had been prisoners ing in patience for

we had learned

needed to be treated

There was an

for five years,

as

and we were not lack-

that virtue in a hard school; but

we

people instead of animals or small children."

They were properly fed and They were told they would be

instant change in attitude.

properly bedded

down

that night.

staying at Bruges for three days, and to be shipped

home

would then be taken

to Tilbury in the

Thames

estuary.

to

Ostend

And

so

it

turned out, with the added pleasure of a band to play them on to the train at

Bruges and then on to the waiting ship

But their ordeal was not for food

over.

at

Ostend.

At Tilbury there were long

and no shelter from the pouring rain

as

lines

they waited for

them to an unknown destination. They ended up at a reception camp in Sussex, staffed, as Jepps complained, "by a body of trains to take

officers

and troops

who were

so offhand and unhelpful that, had

been the intention of the authorities to subject us to deliberate dignities,

it

in-

they could not have selected a more competent staff to

An "uncouth corporal" told them they had missed and that they had to be on parade in ten minutes. The

carry out the job." breakfast

growls of anger alerted

him

to the mistake in his manner,

before he was physically thrown out.

and he

fled

THE LAST ESCAPE

394

Days of inspections and parades followed, culminating ical

examination which Jepps thought

POWs who had

a disgrace.

been incarcerated for

the

men were

issued with

and the pipsqueak half.

He was

and should have been cashiered."

Finally,

Their boots shining,

gaiters

rail passes.

scrubbed, and collars and buttons fastened, they could go

But the experience

last.

—the delays and, more than

—had soured coming— and an unjust one, ference

med-

"We were returning

five years,

of a doctor gave each of us an average of a minute and a a disgrace to his profession,

in a

had been

their repatriation. It

home

at

that, the indifa bitter

home-

given their years of deprivation and

suffering.

For some, however, there would be no homecoming

would

fall at

the very last hurdle.

RAF

from 514 Squadron, which took off from Juvincourt France with twenty-five passengers and

and crashed. They

Such

disasters

died. It

all

was

May

a

waiting,

a

read his a

Room

German

had

pilot lost

a

like

He

— pudding "a

light

He

Mickey xMouse cartoons almost

Then came

as

bad

it

—

a pair

of jackboots taken

—he had

had eaten well but sensibly on

meal but even so several of the boys

and chewing gum.

leave and he and his

Cec Room, made

was better informed

are in pain; their stomachs just can't take it"

able,

VE Day.

three-week-old copy of the News of the World,

present from a British soldier.

cigarettes, cigars,

not evenly distributed,

seven days and had no complaints.

his souvenirs

flight sergeant.

way through

stew and rice

crew of six. The

were the exception. And, though Jepps's return

home from northern Germany in from

They

northern

9, the day after

had taken painfully long weeks, others,

While

all.

in

men were

control, apparently because the

at

records report a Lancaster

—and had had

his

fill

He was watching newsreels

in a makeshift

cinema when the

call

of

and

came

to

— comrades piled into trucks "very uncomfort-

as the cattle trucks,

the flight that dreams were

but we're

made

all

very cheerful."

of:

We left Germany behind, went over Belgium and France, the Channel and then the White

Cliffs

of Dover. Everybody

rushed to the starboard side and the bloody wing dropped and

HEADING FOR HOME

395

there was a yell from the pilot, "For Christ sake, keep the

thing in balance."

I

had

down my

a tear

cheek, the only tear

I

ever shed throughout that whole time.

When

they landed "a

WAAF rushes up to kiss me.

That was worth and a huge 'Welcome

A hangar is hung with flags home' sign fluttering from the roof. A wizard tea, £2 advance pay, a rest and off we go. All the WAAFs follow the truck on their bicycles, all

the two years.

what

a

glamorous guard of honour!" They were taken to the recep-

tion center at Cosford to be re-outfitted with

new uniforms and

in-

terrogated by intelligence officers.

Doug Fry remembered

Debriefings varied enormously.

a

few

questions from Military Intelligence. Seated at a table in a hangar

along with hundreds of others, he was asked

who had

any particular German

main concern seemed said

he was.

—

to Fallingbostel, shot

about to go to lunch. it

didn't

down and

want the

what happened get

it

"He

his

up

at Gresse. It

documents

said, 'If there's

felt fine. "I

wanted

don't think

one for

men who had been

it

was

Morton

it

away.

They

to find out about

we could He was home

just so that didn't.

we needed looking after," he said. fact made elaborate plans

its

all

had compiled three different ques-

to

fill

in; a specific

contacts in the

questionnaire for

camps or escape

third for those wishing to report atrocities. It all

just

—MI9—had in

for debriefing the ex-prisoners. It tionnaires: a general

to."

17

him was

anything terribly important

There was nobody trying

to us, not really. I think

send officers into

would have been

leave a note.' This really rather gave

stories.

Military Intelligence

the

who

officer delegated to listen to

off our chests if we

and he

check that he was

The

Bob Morton found that no one wanted to shot down in 1941, a trail of notorious camps

worth hearing, but the write

he wanted to name

Spitfire pilot

hear his epic story

from Sagan

to be to

if

mistreated him. (He did not.)

leaders; a

had then intended to

the camps immediately after liberation to hand

out these questionnaires and conduct further investigations. These officers

were to be

specifically asked to root

out alleged collaborators

and hand them over to the British or to the U.S. Army. There were

THE LAST ESCAPE

396

also deserters to

England

into

1944, and

be identified and caught, and Germans trying to

in disguise.

But

MI9 had drawn up

proved redundant

it

—except

interrogation shall be allowed to hold

The intelligence Germany in time, and the

its

slip

plan in August

"no

for the clause that said

up the return

to the

not make

U.K. of

prisoners of war."

officers did

camps

questionnaires and the interro-

in

gations had to wait until the

on home

men were either in transit camps or back

Norman

Crockatt,

gence operation, had wanted to dition of returning to England.

a

individual

form.

to the

soil.

Brigadier

no

it

in captivity

were unlikely to

in charge of the intelli-

make completing these forms

He

a

con-

instructed his subordinates that

home until he had filled out that men coming home after five years

would be allowed on

He was gently advised

who was

a plane

sit like

schoolboys at an examination an-

swering questions that seemed irrelevant. "I think

we

will

have

a lot

of trouble on our hands," he was told. Crockatt replied that he fully expected the men's reactions to be "vociferous and occasionally vio-

but "gentlemen, those are your orders and you will carry them

lent,"

out."

18

According to MI9's historians, "most liberated prisoners accepted, though often sullenly, the re-imposition of service discipline,

and

filled in

their

own

the forms," though this claim of "most"

figures.

Around 166,000

British

is

not backed by

and Commonwealth

oners came back from Germany, but only 54,000 forms were in

—

a hit rate of less

prisfilled

than one in three. As Crockatt's staff had ex-

many refused scenities. Some could

pected,

to cooperate at

and others scrawled ob-

all,

only be bothered with an unhelpful "yes" or

"no"; others poured out their

life

stories

and their grievances

scribbled page after angry page.

These people gave

intelligence officers

most

trouble.

Their

outpourings were usually vicious accusations of collaboration with the Germans by fellow-prisoners, or self-justifications of their

own

activities, in

the form of long rambling accounts of

their unsuccessful attempts to escape.

The

staff

could do no

in

HEADING FOR HOME

397

more than keep them supplied with paper and

pencils.

These

notably pencils, often ran short, for the staff failed

essentials,

camps of

to take into account the habit acquired in prison

pocketing any small object that might serve some useful pur-

pose in the future. There was

MI9 whose

in

There seems friends

task

it

to have

much

would be

been

little

silent

sympathy

to evaluate these statements.

attempt to find out about missing

—fellow prisoners of war who had died or been

chaotic marches across

Germany.

19

It

SHAEF's

home proved

next to impossible.

list

of names

"The hope

administrative staff would be able to supply accurate

nal rolls in the three sels

lost in those

was probably impossible anyway,

given the flood of men returning. Even getting a basic

of those coming

for those

main

ex-POW transit camps,

at

liberated prisoners

out warning, at

all

would

nomi-

Antwerp, Brus-

and Rheims, proved unfounded," according to MI9's

Groups of

that

historians.

arrive, frequently

hours of the day or night, hungry,

with-

dirty, of-

ten in rags. Dealing with their immediate requirements was

many occasions men had left on the next stage of their journey home before the interrogators saw [their names]. Then there were those who went absent without leave given priority, and on

and then hitchhiked back to England, there rejoining the stream destined for home.

The chaos was not really surprising. Bloody-minded soldiers and airmen were always more than a match for bureaucrats with clipboards. But the

them a

failure to collect accurate data

in, as

would famously be

—

said in a later

bearing on the very end of this story, as

For the American prisoners, there was

home

that

Lucky

Strike.

became legendary

—the

John Parsons was there

them out and count 20 conflict would have

to count

we

—

will see.

a staging

way named Camp

post on the

appropriately

just five days after

being liber-

THE LAST ESCAPE

398

ated at

Moosburg. Dakotas flew him and

his

comrades to Reims, and

then they went by train to what they were told was a

Here was lied

new

strange

a

Military Personnel

piece of jargon

—and,

as

it

camp.

stood for Recovered Al-

Parsons noted, the camp "had to be

we had seen

better than anything

—

RAMP

since being shot

down." 21

It

was.

The American authorities seemed to have a better grasp of what the men needed than their British counterparts. Information and respect. The ex-POWs were told where they were going and when. They were put in first-class rail coaches to take them to Lucky Strike,

which was on the Channel coast of northern France. Here,

in

an area that had once been part of Hitler's supposedly impregnable Atlantic Wall, was a vast arena of pitched tents. Parsons got priority

The

treatment.

shocking 70 ditions.

doctors took one look at him, weighed

and categorized him

lbs.

There was

in at a

officer

from Army

asked especially about the "Baltic

up the road"

cruise" and the "run a \\ ar

who

him

being in the poorest of con-

thorough debriefing by an

a

Air Corps Intelligence,

would be

as

Gross Tychow. "He said there

at

Crimes Commission investigating the bad treatment

we had received. He wanted names of guards and I tried to give him as much information as possible." Parsons told him what he knew about Big Stoop

He

s

Home

was

could

at last

violent ending.

3,000 miles away, but

still

send

a

message to

it

was now feeling

his wife

closer.

with certainty that

it

would get through. Every man was allowed one cable home. "Dearest

Mai," he wrote,

"I will see

waiting for a boat home. All in his pocket,

vorite

you soon.

I

am

in

my love." With a portion of his back pay

he went to the camp store and found

perfume

good health and

— — and stowed Joy

it

in his pack.

a bottle

Then

of her

it

short trip by truck to the port of Le Havre.

The weather was perfect. We were quickly loaded on board. The sailors knew that we were all former prisoners of war and they handled us as

warned

at

Lucky

we might have

if

we were

precious china.

Strike that there

to share

bunks

We

had been

would be so many of us

at different

fa-

was the

that

hours and sleep in

HEADING FOR HOME rotation but that didn't

bunks

in a large cabin.

happen

The

we

sat

down

me.

had

I

my

choice of

dining area of the ship was im-

maculate with tables of stainless ever and

to

399

The

steel.

food was the best

mashed potatoes

to a dinner of steak,

with gravy, fresh vegetables, beautiful white bread, pies and cakes and four flavors of ice cream.

over the loudspeaker that

The

we would be

captain announced

at sea

would have good weather throughout.

I

about

a

week and

relaxed and settled

into the ship's routine.

Soon they were steaming toward the American

coastline, with

New York on the horizon. The captain warned them that they should not

all

might

crowd on list,

to the port side for the best view, otherwise the ship

and there were marines stationed to stop

But nothing could dampen the excitement. the Statue of Liberty, us.

it

was the greatest

this

happening.

"When we caught sight of

thrill in

the world for

The Port Authority fire boats shot water into the sky as

alongside, and ahead

was Hawaiian music captain's order

on the dock

too,

and

was forgotten

girls

as

a

all

of

they came

band was playing Sousa." There

dancing and rolling their hips.

everyone rushed to the

rails,

The

and the

ship heaved and rolled into the timbers of the dock. Strangely, in the excitement of reaching the shores of America,

friendships that had lasted long years of hardship, and

pulled

men through when

which had

they might otherwise have collapsed,

ended. Buddies parted company. Trains went in different directions.

So did individual his friend

lives that

had once been entwined. Roger Allen and

Jason Bugs had managed to stay together and were on the

same boat home, though the men from Kentucky were up on the third deck

and those from Oklahoma down in the hold. They had

—

seen the Statue of Liberty together

been outside never to

home

state before leaving for

New York City.

hugged and their

his

said 'See

a first for Allen,

"I said

you

Europe, and certainly

good-bye to him on the boat and we

later.'"

22

Back

at their respective

new lives had an urgency of their own.

they met again.

who had never

It

was

homes,

thirty years before

THE LAST ESCAPE

400

Joe Lovoi was not on the sick

list

Camp Lucky Strike was longer than John Parsons

stay at

and

for a priority voyage, 's.

his

Now that

he was out of Germany and out of danger, Lovoi was excited and ready for action.

The

ex-prisoners were expected to rest and recover

their strength, but that

was the

last

ing around the tents, the mess

thing he wanted as he went hunt-

halls,

the hospital rooms, and the

recreation areas for old friends. Lovoi wanted to see a

little

more of

France before he went home, though his buddy from Stalag Luft

III,

He just wanted to be ahead. He and another

the guitar-playing Onafrio Brancato, disagreed.

home

in

friend,

Ohio. Lovoi decided to

let

him go

The

Vinnie Niemann, would wait until they had seen Paris.

trouble was that the authorities, having got everyone in one place to ship

them home, were not keen on

to be had. If

strays.

There were no

Lovoi and Niemann wanted to see

passes out

Paris, they

would

have to escape.

The day came when ing.

Brancato

left

all

three were listed for the next ship leav-

on time, but Lovoi and Niemann made sure they

Le Havre. The next day they were

overslept and missed the truck to

out of Lucky Strike, climbing over a remote part of the perimeter fence and racing for the woods, just as they would have done

had ever had the chance back

at

they

if

Sagan or Moosburg. They had not

been spotted, and they headed for the main road to

100 miles

Paris,

away. In smart

new uniforms,

soon thumbed

a

lift.

Lovoi

fresh

from the store

recalled,

at

Lucky

"The sun was

Strike, they

shining, the sky

was blue, and the morning rain had washed the countryside

were happy, joking, and laughing. they got took them a long

It

was great to be

way around

they marveled at the cathedrals

—

via

alive."

clean.

We

The

lifts

23

Rouen and Reims, where

—and then,

as

afternoon turned to

evening, they stood by the side of the road, their thumbs out, and

contemplated the prospect, of a night in the French

The

jeep that stopped for

them was not

a

military policemen asked to see their passes.

course.

They were

capital.

welcome

sight.

They had

taken into custody and sat in a

room, waiting to be returned to the camp. They

Two

none, of

cell in a

guard-

were back behind

— HEADING FOR HOME bars.

401

There was even barbed wire stretched across the window it turned out, that was not securely fastened and could

barbed wire,

be pulled out with

a nail file.

Lovoi and Niemann made their escape,

once again running for the woods.

A

French farmer on

them

market in Paris in a dilapidated truck picked

his

way

to

There were

on them

baskets of apples in the back, and they feasted into the

up.

all

way

the

city.

"Paris in the spring!" Lovoi recalled, and he

there as a reward for his twenty-nine

nightmare of being close to the

a prisoner

of war.

saw the chance to be

bombing missions and the The farmer dropped them

Arc de Triomphe, and soon they were

people on the Champs-Elysees. There were

girls

in the throngs of

everywhere, and

they sat at an outdoor cafe, ordered two beers, and took in the buzz of life around them. girls

It

did not take long to find companionship.

One was

passing by stopped and smiled.

Two

a tall, slim brunette;

more shapely redhead. Both were extremely well dressed. The young men rose to their feet and invited them for a drink. They talked in a mixture of English, Italian, and German; they walked arm in arm along the boulevards; they shared a dinner in

the other a shorter,

a restaurant

.

.

.

and there, eating and drinking in

two beautiful French

war

in Europe.

He

girls,

a Paris bistro

with

Joe Lovoi chose to end his account of his

reached

home

a little later

than other prisoners,

sailing into Atlantic City before taking the train to Massachusetts.

John Anderson did not get

to see Paris. Instead

he had

a

number

of days in Brussels, which suited him well because, as a musician, he

was able to

home.

visit

the Conservatory.

It

He had been liberated on April

more than

a

month

an earlier transit refreshing

the group

I

I

made

for a lengthy journey

16 at Fallingbostel, and

before he landed back in the U.S.A.

home by

was in there

would have

it

was

missed

staying too long in the shower. "It was so

at least half

an hour, and when

was with had gone." 24 They had taken

gland, and he

He I

a flight

came out on

to

En-

to wait.

In the Belgian capital he looked at the cathedral and then gorged

himself on ice cream, extravagantly ordering chocolate and vanilla.

There was

still

no news of transport the next

day, so

he did the same

THE LAST ESCAPE

402

again. cert."

"Went downtown. Ate

He wrote

It is

cream.

ice

Went

symphony con-

to

to his mother:

Sunday morning and I'm

in Brussels. I have the op-

still

portunity to stay here as long as

I

want or

leave

by plane

for ei-

ther England or France any day. This seems like a wonderful

chance to see things so while.

Today

want

I

to

may

I

delay

my

coming home

go to the Conservatory. Perhaps

for a I'll

go

to an opera tonight.

Camp Lucky Strike, but even then his He got on a ship at Le Havre, which

Eventually he ended up in route

home was

tortuous.

headed over the Channel rather than into the Atlantic. That meant he was in Southampton on

VE

Day, and heard Winston Churchill's

voice on the radio. Anderson, always a bled.

The war was

man

of conscience, was trou-

over in Europe, but he wondered

action in the South Pacific."

There was

a

more

still

another enemy to defeat. That thought hung

like a

"if I will see

fighting to do,

cloud over

many

homecoming. Finally the ship left

rain.

many

On May

England and headed west through wind and

19 he saw his

homeland

others, felt a surge of pride

Statue of Liberty. "That's what

cheered and shouted.

had

all

like

throughout the world.

stations, at front

It

liberty.

We all

thousands of other in America, Britain,

many

other countries

was time to be back with those loved ones

They would be

waiting at bus stops and railroad

doors and garden gates.

Wouldn't they?

he passed the

—

him were doing

Zealand, and Canada, and in

not seen for years.

as

been about

his native soil again, as

former prisoners of war

New

and emotion

A tear ran down my cheek."

Soon he stood on Australia,

it

in the distance and, like so

5:

Home

Welcome Back

was the prisoner's Holy

Grail.

Thoughts of

spurred him on, but they could also bring

One

him down in

it

often

despair.

when he wrote in his diary, "Homesick. Our wedding anniversary. Tough all day long. Home of

Bill

Ethridge's worst days was

seems pretty

normal

Even

life

away right now." But thoughts of his wife and the 1

they would one day lead were also what kept him going.

so, there

that there in a

far

were times when prisoners had to remind themselves

had been

poem by

a previous existence

a British prisoner

—

a feeling that

was captured

by the name of Ted Beckwith, who

found the right voice of nostalgia and unease when he wrote Betjeman-like lament in 1942:

Is

there really a house and a garden

Where the northbound lorries pass, Where the summer breeze stirs the apple And buttercups grow in the grass; Where roses blow in the autumn And the blackbird builds in the spring, And a steady creak and a happy shriek Was a little girl on a swing?

Was

it

really us in the kitchen

With a Sunday supper spread, Making cheer with a glass of beer With pickles and beef and bread;

trees

this

—— THE LAST ESCAPE

404

You and

I,

and

a spaniel

On the kitchen hearthrug curled, And a sleepy head upstairs in bed And never a care in the world?

my feet once walk on a carpet? Did I doze in my own armchair? Did

Was it us made merry with

friends

and sherry

In a house with a twisty stair?

Did we dine

With Is

silver

at a polished table

bowls agleam?

there really a house and a garden

Or was

it all

dream?

a

men and women

In the spring of 1945,

up

2

everywhere were waking

to discover the answer.

The

last

time Betty Batchelder had heard news from her husband,

Batch, was in January. In the three years since he had been shot

and captured she had received

down

handful of cards and letters from

just a

him as he worked his way through four different camps before ending up at Fallingbostel. She had done her bit, sending out letters and parcels regularly

—even

cigarettes,

though he was not

a

smoker.

He

could use them for bartering and get extra food for himself, or so she thought. Later she discovered that not a single one had got through. (Sadly, the

rumor was

that they

by people handling them

at the British end.)

trained as a telephonist, had

work in tion.

Signals,

Even

were stolen not by the Germans but

moved

to the

By now

War

and that allowed her access to

so, as the

war entered

its final

days,

who was London to

Betty,

Office in

more informashe had no idea where a little

he was.

We knew then that the war was fizzling out and with luck our boys would be home. But those

last

four or five months were

WELCOME BACK tense.

We

weren't getting any information, and of course

thought the worst. I

It

was working. Just

dreadful.

was

a really

sitting at

worrying time, and

home

I

we

am glad

waiting would have been

There were rumors about them being marched from

their camps, but

nothing about the possibility of them being

tortured or killed. I'm glad about that. sent

405

me mad.

I

had an inner

come home. But there were

I

think that would have

feeling, as if I

could will them to

conflicting messages.

I

would hear

things from other wives, and Batch's father was also picking pieces of information.

up

3

Then newspaper war correspondents on the Allied front line in Germany reached some of the liberated camps and began filing accounts of the horrors they found. Their stories about prisoners of

war were often

side

by

side with descriptions of

what had been

dis-

covered in the concentration camps. Under the headline "prison

CAMP HORRORS WILL BE SHOWN TO GERMANS," the NeWS of the World's Harry Ditton described the unearthing of Belsen's secrets and also what he had seen

at

nearby Fallingbostel. In the

POW camp,

he

many British prisoners of war, and their personal of German barbarity and torture are bad enough in all But, inhuman and vile as the treatment of our men has

wrote, "I spoke to experiences conscience.

been,

it is

not to be compared with the satanic vengeance which has

been meted out to the Poles, the Yugoslavs, the Russians and the Jews." His distinctions were carefully made, but the juxtaposition

many families at home. ground in Germany were also

must nevertheless have been alarming Released prisoners of war on the

to

revealing details of the forced marches they had been on. a

On April

8

Sunday Times correspondent reported an interview with three

British soldiers a half

who had been on

the road from Poland for nine and

weeks before slipping away and being rescued by the advanc-

ing Americans.

They

died and "another 12 later, a

said that 7 of their

who

fell

group of around 170 had

out sick are

still

missing." Five days

Daily Telegraph correspondent talked to "some of the sur-

vivors of the British and

American prisoners of war who took part in

THE LAST ESCAPE

406

one of the worst forced marches of the war." These were the

men

from Lamsdorf. "No one knows how many died en route," he wrote, have the word of one British

but

I

the

North Country,

soldier, a lance-sergeant

that he had seen four

men

die a

from

week

ago.

Though they were occasionally clubbed with rifles, men died mosdy from exhaustion, malnutrition and dysentery. Today, even after a few days' rest and care by an American medical unit, the majority are

Reports

still

like these

Batch's mother,

too weak to talk except with long pauses.

who was

pers or hear the

made

caused alarm at home. Betty sick

and very

news on the

frail,

sure that

did not see the newspa-

radio, because the extra

well have killed her. This was the toughest time of

all

worry could

—"worrying,

frightening, impossible," as she recalled.

When

I

was on

my

own,

prayed that Batch wasn't

march.

I

had many

I

cried and cried.

I

I just

think

dreaded that

it

was deliberately not

my uncle in the Red Cross knew more

telling

me

POWs

in order to protect

while, Batch's father kept telling us,

know soon enough. Keep your

But nobody knew anything for uals.

sure,

tion

from the government

ing,

then dipping.

Batch's

me. Mean-

no use worrying.

chin up."

and certainly not about individ-

of

mother

to

Some

lists

at all."

of men and no

The

official notifica-

days went by with hopes

ris-

prisoners were already home. Betty took

Bournemouth

men who had been

for a rest,

repatriated.

expectation, but everyone was just a that

"It's

and

"Papers would have the names and numbers of camps that had

been released, but there were no

full

forced to

was going to be bad

than he was letting on about the condition of the

We'll

hoped and

sleepless nights, and, during the day, every

time the phone rang

news about him.

I just

among those who had been

and the seaside resort was

"There was

little

afraid to

something might go wrong even now."

a rising sense

of

hope too much,

WELCOME BACK

407

That mixture of hope and foreboding must have

man

Leonard's father and stepmother

They had

letter.

their

own problems

when they

The back

short of its target in London.

and

to rubble,

his

received his last

Their house

to deal with.

Hornchurch, Essex, had been blasted apart by

a

Nor-

affected

V-2 rocket

in

falling

of the building was reduced

stepmother was injured. That had happened in

February 1945, so that when Leonard began writing

his letter a

home he dreamed

of had been

month

later

he had no idea that the

He

shattered and the family was in temporary lodgings.

had made

the long trek from Stalag 344 at Lamsdorf, been frozen, sick, and strafed

town

by Allied

called

Bad

was too

sick to

had

camp

left

decided to

"My

planes,

Suiza, having

go on.

in

tell

and was

It

I

was the

ever will."

am

I

a bit of a

am

am

sorry that

can-

barely recovered from

mess of me. The

have ever experienced and

I

I

last

two

hope

I

I

A few days in the hospital had helped, his strength was re-

"unfortunately

though

time since he and his comrades

in the best of health, as I

turning, and he was a

lies

first

January that he had had the chance to write, and he

months have been the worst 4

an old spa

the truth.

which certainly made

dysentery,

at

been taken off the march because he

dear mother and father," he began, "I

not say that

what

now in a hospital camp

my

journey

ahead of me.

am sure

that

more

little

I

is still

optimistic than he had been, but

uncompleted and

do not know

I

do hope you have not worried too much

you must know what has been happening."

al-

He

looked forward to seeing them. In the meantime they should "start stocking the larder to fatten will

be

my

main

interest

were on standbv for

me

me

I

need

it.

Food

The Leonard

family

their loved ones dared to tell

them-

when

I

get home."

their son's return.

As the men neared home and selves that the ordeal really

War

up, and believe

might be

over, the psychologists at the

Office were dusting off the papers and the pamphlets they had

prepared years ago on returning prisoners of war and

them. Back in September 1943

a

how

to treat

meeting of army doctors in London

— THE LAST ESCAPE

408

had raised the question of rehabilitation. ninety prisoners

who had

5

A study had been made

returned under

with the Germans, and what had emerged was what was described a

"Rip van Winkle"

Three months

effect.

after

of

agreement

a repatriation

coming home,

as

a full

men were diagnosed as "sufficiently abnormal" to need The three-month interval was crucial, because, to begin

third of these

treatment. with, the

symptoms were masked by the excitement of getting home.

The meeting

agreed without hesitation that

a rehabilitation

was necessary, encouraged by Major General Vyse of the Red Cross, lot

said his organization

Richard Howard-

had come under

of pressure from relatives of prisoners for such

discussion then

be

who

Sir

meandered

—particularly

"left the

for

off into

men who,

its

hands of them?

ing prisoner of war could be

a

scheme.

a

The

responsibility this should

during the three-month interval, had

Colours" and taken up

have washed

whose

scheme

civilian jobs.

Or

Would

should they

demobbed

the

Army

insist that

for at least three

which would seem unfair and impractical? These

details

then

no return-

months

were thrashed

around without conclusion. Curiously, the minutes of the meeting only once mentioned specifically

what the returning prisoners might be suffering from,

and that was in

a

comment by

the

man from

the Ministry of Labour.

"Depression and apathy" was what they were talking about, and he

wondered whether hurrying men with these ailments

into jobs

would not do more harm than good. In the meantime, a lively public debate was taking place. tain

George

Collie, veteran of the First

World War and

a

A Capformer

prisoner of war himself, had published an article saying that return-

those who had been — "minor mental treatment two years or more —would need

ing prisoners of war

in captivity for

especially

special

for

abnormalities" before they were again ready for normal civilian Collie was congratulated by those

been unrecognized for

far

6

such problems had

too long and needed addressing urgently,

who thought his proposals a giant fuss One man who had been through a three-month stint

and condemned by those about nothing.

who thought

life.

WELCOME BACK

409

in a rehabilitation center as a repatriated prisoner

been

a total

waste of time.

Collie envisaged

—

thought

had

it

He dismissed as nonsense the traumas that

particularly those to

do with

a prisoner's

igno-

rance of events during his absence. "I cannot believe that to learn for the

first

time of the existence of the Beveridge Report [which rec-

ommended

setting

up the Welfare

State] will

produce any greater

have no turn-ups."

strain than to learn that utility trousers

The

wife

of a prisoner complained that, having been separated from her hus-

band

for years, she

would then have him taken away from her

other three months. "Please leave

Another

felt

that

me my

for an-

husband," she begged.

compulsory treatment would make returning

pris-

oners feel that they were captives again.

One wise correspondent suggested it was the relatives and friends who needed the help. "Many people do not

rather than the prisoners

realize the fall implications of

speak of them security.

as

men who

will

return."

back was going to be that

he has been building ily let

a

prisoner of war and often

his

remove these

The

real

real life

false ideas will ease the

problem

would be

for the

POW coming

"different

from the one

hopes on for years and one which

may

eas-

him down."

At the beginning of 1944, an

by

a

being well out of the war and living in comparative

Anything which

lot of the

being

Major

H.

P.

at the precise

Newman of the

article in the British

Royal

Medical Journal

Army Medical Corps

looked

problems that prisoners encountered in the camps."

Chief among these was "the absence of female society," by which

Newman meant

not so

much

sexual starvation as lack of affection

He was dismissive of the effect of no sexual interquite common for an Italian prisoner of war to believe

and tenderness. course. "It

is

that he will act,

and

I

become mentally deranged without

have heard

this

view expressed also by French prisoners.

But never by British or German prisoners of war." ever, that there

The tion that

might be

this physiological

fears

biggest danger to the

He did think, how-

— of impotence "quite unfounded." POWs

came from overcrowding

mental health was the

in the

irrita-

camps and the boredom of

THE LAST ESCAPE

410

having nothing to do. "All

Newman

childish."

prisoners would have about

and

false

hope."

make him small-minded and

this tends to

was worried about the high expectation that

home

— "their

How they handled this would depend on the recep-

tion they got

from

derstanding.

And

their families,

and on their

six

months

that these

that

families' love

and un-

loved ones should not be surprised by bouts of

restlessness, irritability, irresponsibility,

man thought

exaggerated optimism

most

to a year.

POWs would

get over their experiences in

But some might not, and there was

would sink into

New-

and even dishonesty.

danger

a

persistently antisocial behavior, such as

drinking heavily, or would go to the opposite extreme and become totally apathetic difficulty

Many men would need help, but the them to accept it. The task was to make

and indolent.

would be getting

that help available but to

make

it

unobtrusive. Information, social

centers and sympathetic specialists to deal with the returning

were

POWs

his suggestions.

Finally, in

February 1944, there was an authoritative report on

the psychology of returning prisoners of

Lieutenant Colonel A. T.

would be

particular

M.

war by the army's

expert,

8

Wilson. This recognized that there

men who had been in captivity for They would have adopted what he called "which was essential in the prison camp but in-

problems for

eighteen months or more. the Stalag Mentality,

creases the difficulties of re-adaptation

the

on return."

main burden prisoners would have on

bitterness, resulting

from "the

sterility,

passivity of Stalag life" but also

from

He

thought that

their return

was

deep

a

deprivations and enforced their feeling that they

had

missed out on so much. Wilson's findings had a solid basis to them. For four weeks, an exhaustive study had been

made of 1,200

prisoners repatriated under

an exchange agreement with the Germans. At

a special

camp near

Aldershot they had been drilled and lectured, examined and interrogated. atric

Most had

insisted that they did not

need professional psychi-

help with their problems but they did want to be understood

and to be dealt with

fairly

they had been through.

by people who were sympathetic

They

didn't

need

to

what

"soft handling," but "dif-

WELCOME BACK ferent handling."

There were

41

I

also certain issues guaranteed to raise

the blood pressure of a prisoner of war.

One was

back pay; an-

his

other was his entitlement to leave; a third was being given a quick decision if

that

on

his health

his suitability for

and

issues

helpful.

Most of these it

did

its

suggestions were taken on board by the

facilities

War

Of-

best to offer the right sort of atmosphere and the

men when

right sort of recuperation for the

the

continued military service,

was what he wanted. Minimizing problems over these

would be

fice,

and

they returned, even

were overwhelmed by the rush home

But

at the end.

there was one howler, admitted and corrected just in time.

if

The

phrase "mental rehabilitation" had crept into the instructions sent

out for dealing with the returning prisoners of war. of political correctness ruled

it

out.

of prisoners of war wrote from the

On March War

An early example

30, 1945, the director

Office to

all

concerned:

Experience has shown that the word "rehabilitation,"

though perfectly innocuous in

its

al-

primary meaning, has unfor-

tunately attracted a secondary significance in the minds of

many people and

is

frequently taken to connote a process of

mental or psychological reconditioning made necessary ex-prisoner of war tal case." fit

The

is

looked on

as

abnormal or even

as a

as the

"men-

who is perfectly normal and affronted. The Adjutant-General has

ex-prisoner of war

rather naturally feels

given instructions that the expression "mental rehabilitation"

or these words separately shall not be used in conversation or in writing.

The

training" will be

expressions "resettlement" or "resettlement

employed

instead.

9

Other acceptable words were "readjustment" and "reorientation," but "under no circumstances should the word 'mental' be used."

men coming House of Commons by

Similar consideration and thoughtfulness for the

home was urged on

the government in the

Lieutenant Colonel Louis Gluckstein,

MP

for

Nottingham

East.

10

Gluckstein had clearly seen Wilson's report, because his speech re-

THE LAST ESCAPE

412

army doctor had made. But

fleeted the points the

the

MP

empha-

sized the point about being careful not to add to the grievances of

men

returning from the camps in Germany. "In the settling of pay

and allowances," he pleaded,

"if there is

any doubt,

it

should be ex-

ercised generously in favour of the soldier. It probably will not

amount

to very

much in money. The Finance Branch of the War Of-

might consider acting generously and even improvidently.

fice

not think they would find themselves criticized

if

I

do

they did."

This plea for leniency and understanding would not always be

heeded

in the days ahead.

Peacetime gave the bureaucrats and the

pen pushers the upper hand prisoner of the

Germans

RAF Form

out

again.

He

the

also included

London,

signed himself

taken.

a civil

on

kit

when he was

shot

down and

his list of items his fountain pen,

From

a

returned, he filled

1784 requesting financial compensation for the

Germans had

central

When he

for four years.

of his uniform and his flying tured.

Group Captain N. C. Hyde was

the Air Ministry at Imperial

is

cap-

which

House

in

as

he

— servant "your most obedient servant,"

—wrote to Hyde, "The Air Ministry

loss

unable to pay

compensation for the confiscation of your fountain pen in the absence of a receipt by the enemy." 11

Normal

service

had resumed, and

the realities of war were already history.

The

bureaucrats appear to have been

States.

in

The

considerate in the United

agreed plan for Americans returning from prison camps

Europe was

Only

leave.

more

to send

after that

them home almost immediately for sixty days' two-month break would they have to present

themselves for two weeks at a recreation and rehabilitation center.

Home came Out of from

on

the blue,

Mai Parsons

received her wonderful message

Camp Lucky Strike in France saying that her husband John was

his

lantic

first.

—followed by more days of

way

silence as

he crossed the At-

and landed in triumph in New York Harbor. Fresh off the ship,

with the cheers of welcome

still

ringing in their ears, the returning

prisoners were taken by train to Fort Dix in

New Jersey.

It

was there

WELCOME BACK that John played a

game of pool and had

turn for the telephone. wife's

year.

He was

a

few beers while waiting

finally called to the

number, and heard her voice for the

The

feeling

413

was "indescribable," he

wonderful, a real release of emotion."

time in more than a

first

said; for

Mai

it

was "simply

12

Trains were waiting to take the servicemen west

—

"a special train

with triple- A priority," according to John, "which meant the right of

way over

all trains,

Even the sight."

rail

At Indianapolis he had

ing an hour

to

change

— and waiting was now an German

pack and the

rifle

at the

and Ohio.

yards were just the most wonderful

bus was about to leave for Lafayette. his

window and marveled

beautiful farm land in Pennsylvania

and sooty

dirty

we had

scheduled or nonscheduled." As he

crossed America, he looked out of the

— "the countryside

his

phone, dialed his

trains,

and that meant wait-

impossibility.

He

A

Greyhound

flung himself onto

he had brought back

it

with

as a souvenir.

just as Mai had imagined it would be as she month after month in her office, at the picture of

Their reunion was

had

stared, for

the returning soldier, resplendent in

Greyhound

I

uniform, climbing from the

bus.

called the bus station

from Indianapolis waiting.

full

I

and they said they had

late evening,

and so

his

He was

the

first

arms round me.

were

just

I

one

was right

can't

off,

and

it

It

like a

dream

I

said,

was

pulled up the pic-

He

because

put

we

don't think there

it

derful. It

was that way for two or three days,

lieve that

we were

it

It

was so wonderful.

remember what we was

there. I

off, just like in

hugging and kissing and crying.

was much conversation.

To John,

bus coming in

watched the bus come down the road.

and the doors opened, and he stepped ture.

I

a

was just

just so

won-

hard to be-

together again.

was

joy impossible to express as the door of the

Greyhound bus

opened and I was stepping off into the arms of my wife

after all

THE LAST ESCAPE

414

who

those long months. Unless you have been one of those

many

has faced death

times and stayed awake

many

nights

thinking that never again would you see your wife and loved ones, then there nally

coming home.

Everything was

was

as

he remembered

it.

"Mai had rented

a beauti-

apartment in the same neighborhood we had lived in before.

ful little It

no way you can know the happiness of fi-

is

as

though nothing had changed

walk to downtown.

was not the only one

him

to think

John

friends rallied round.

The

—same grocery

stores,

same

was truly home." But he had changed, and Mai

It

very next day

frighteningly thin. Family and

recalled:

we

started visiting relatives

—my

We

brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and so on.

wined and dined with

all

father,

were

my favorite foods. The butchers even

saved choice cuts of meat for us. Lafayette was rather a small

town, so everyone knew of

my homecoming. We

were ap-

proached by perfect strangers wishing us well and wondering if

there was anything they could help us with.

aunt took us to Michigan for

a

week of

My uncle

fishing

and

and boating.

Mai and I had two months of this, and then I had orders to report to Miami Beach, Florida, for a two-week period of recuperation.

We

left

Lafayette by Pullman and

queen traveling quartered at the All of our meals

German

first class.

Ocean Grande Hotel were provided

right

in a mess-hall-type setting

was

a

canteen-type place where

time day or night and get whatever

of the airmen that

also there with us.

tainment for the

we were on Miami Beach.

After reporting to Miami,

with

prisoners of war preparing the food and serving us.

Also, there

Many

king and

felt like a

us.

dog races.

I

we wanted with no

any-

charge.

had been with in the camps were

There were

all

sorts of activities

Mai and I went deep-sea

On August 6,

we could go

fishing

1945, there was

and enter-

and attended

word on

the radio

WELCOME BACK that

415

Two

Hiroshima had been bombed with an atomic bomb.

days later another one was dropped on Nagasaki and

Everyone was in

that Japan had surrendered.

on the radio

—

just

knowing

the war would soon be over and everyone could

of the world.

far corners

my homecoming, whelmed

a

mood. There was dancing outside around the

celebration

pools until the wee hours of the morning

from the

we heard

was

like the icing

The

that

come home

news, coupled with

on the

cake. It just over-

us.

Mai remembered

their time in those first

few months

after his

return as pure joy.

We

did a lot of swimming, bicycling, playing tennis, and just

picked up our

life as

John weighed

less

though there had been no interruption.

than 70

lb.

when he came

back, but by the

He was exacdy the same man that I waved off on the aircraft. He truly was the same person, and I thank God for that. Except that he did have nightmares. He used to dream about a fistfight he had had with one end of the summer he was up to 100

man

in the

camp.

It

was so

lashed out in his sleep and hit

he didn't really

would

to ask him, he

get

it."

He

talk

didn't

lb.

real for

me

him

and gave

that

one night he

me a black eye. But

about his experiences. Every time say,

want

Meanwhile, in Kansas City on

May

13

it.

1 3

,

John Anderson's mother

had received the best Mother's Day present possible safe

listening to

way and she was from voice.

music and eating

He

ice

extra time

a telegram

he had had in Brus-

cream, but

in a panic to be ready for him.

New Jersey,

—

and well and on the Atlantic heading

home. Perhaps she disapproved of the sels,

tried

"Hubba hubba," which meant, "For-

to talk about

from "her boy" that he was

I

now he was on

He

but she was out and missed the

his

telephoned her call,

missed his

took the train inland, long hours across the middle of

America, stopping for a while at Cincinnati.

"Still

going west.

It

THE LAST ESCAPE

416

won't be long," he wrote in his for his connection,

diary.

He

14

got to

Louis too

St.

and had to hang around from midnight

late

until the

morning. "Next stop KC."

He

rang his mother from the station when he arrived, and she

hurried next door and got her neighbor, Mr. Barrett, to drive her

down

in his car.

She didn't even give him time to change

and he arrived with her and

I

at the station in his slippers.

was crying. She was surprised to see

The

poured the weight back on." a victory

parade through the

next

me

his shoes,

"She was crying

looking so well.

I

had

month Anderson marched

in

watched by the governors of

city,

Kansas and Missouri and General Eisenhower.

As

boy

a

had seen some Civil

I

veterans of

World War

and

I

had

failed in

had reason to

captured. I

my

it

any regrets

my friend

On

Allen,

the

ment he could

was

—

my

turn. I

of war,

I

was proud,

never thought

I

had been shot down and

I

just that

Nelson's.

home had

march and

15

cup of water that

But apart from

that,

no

always been synonymous with fried

at Fallingbostel,

when

all

the nourish-

get was a few vegetable peelings, he had constructed

imaginary meals in his head roasts;

Now

a prisoner

veterans marching and

16

To Roger chicken.

I.

As

mission because

didn't have

I

drank that was

regrets.

be.

War

—bacon and eggs; bacon and sausage;

whole steaks with mashed potatoes. But mainly it had been

his

mother's fried chicken that dominated his dreams. "That was what

was thinking about when

And when

I

got

home

I

was eating old leaves and

there were lashings of

whelmed by the welcome he town of Kiowa in Oklahoma:

met

day

a girl called

leave.

He

of carrot.

was over-

And then

was on

my sixty-

I

we were married. I was matrimony, but we just hit it off

Three months

later

home

family for weeks.

Flo on a blind date while

nitely not looking for

bits

received from the people of his

They wined and dined me and my I

it."

17

I

defi-

—she

WELCOME BACK was fun

was

to be around. I

a

man. Definitely older and

I

was

was

just

in train

was

I

came home

I

my privacy.

didn't like standing in a crowd.

I

hard to handle after

all

those times being cooped up

wagons and barns on the march. Even now I

thing on

It

and

I left,

knew what was important. It made me value life room with so many men, I had

wiser.

After sharing a

learned to value It

boy when

have survived.

just thankful to

much more.

a

417

my plate.

a perfect

It's

eat every-

so important not to waste anything.

homecoming for Allen. For others

things did not

always go according to plan. Richard Burt was on that special train for

ex-POWs heading west, dropping off men

watched passenger a

along the way, and he

after passenger leave at their

hometown. His was

long haul to Utah, and every mile his excitement grew.

train at Salt

Lake

a lift to the

other side of the river to his home.

door, pushed

it

"They were

all

back to find

me

last. I

City,

open

for

He walked up

— and there was nobody

up the road

at

my

uncle's

the

standing in the yard.

I

to the

there. Just the dog.

farm but they soon came

was home

safe

and sound

at

18

George Guderley, thoughts of that cooling beer

Tavern with

left

took the bus to Bear River City, and then got

was 20 years old."

As

He

Little Buck, his friend

in Hank's

from Chicago, had sustained him

through the ordeal of Stalag Luft IV and then the march west. Guderley

may

have saved the desperately sick Buck with that lifesaving

measure of cream he

stole

from under the Germans' noses, but

gesture was far from being a cure, and

from the column, too

would ever see him

ill

to continue.

alive again.

Buck had been taken away

Guderley had not known

When

he arrived

Guderley went looking for him, asking around the but

it

was

a

hopeless task and, anyway, he was

had to concentrate on keeping himself alive. he

recalled, "but things

could do."

now

"I

if

he

at Fallingbostel, air force

people,

sick himself

and

worried about him,"

were so desperate there was not much

I

19

Guderley got home to Chicago in May, and

by going

his

to see Buck's parents.

fulfilled his

promise

THE LAST ESCAPE

418

They

lived

not

house not long cause

was in

I

a

deficiency. I'd

and

from

far

bad way with

I

went over

walk

didn't

I

felt like I

could

I

lb.

to their

go right away be-

hepatitis, dysentery,

gone from about 175

deep water. So when I still

home, and

after I got back. I couldn't

just trying to

time

my

down

and vitamin

to about 120

lb.,

was trying to run in waist-

walked up to their house. At that

know if Buck was

alive or dead. I hadn't

seen

or heard of him after getting him the cream in the barn.

Guderley had no idea what than alive

when he had

house of mourning resent his return

when

alive.

was

in a hospital in

Fallingbostel,

and

I

Was

own son had

their

And, not only

Germans, put on

seen him.

a train,

and taken

where he arrived

were both yellow!

no shape

great reunion.

several

It

me

and

via Berlin

that each other

stood outside

home from

"But he

it?

States.

He

and Hanover to

When

said,

all

of the

he eventually got

"George, I'm coming

my doorstep,

and we

We both had hepatitis, which meant that we

to have that beer in Hank's.

But it was

a really

was pretty damn good to see him again

had made

it,

We

and we

were both

just so

—

just

happy

sat talking for hours.

We

my house and my mother took our picture, which

have today.

We were two yellow guys, and we'd just come

the war, and

we

couldn't even have a drink!

We left Bob Otto back at Fallingbostel, and anxious to get had married

make

weeks before Guderley.

and he turned up on

like finding a long-lost brother.

I still

failed to

spoke on the telephone and caught up on

to see you,"

in

a

Chicago." Buck had been treated well by the

out of hospital he rang

were

he about to walk into

he was back in the United

that,

news and where we each had been. round

Buck had been more dead

— and face the recriminations of those who might

was

He

last

to expect.

home

just before

to Idaho

elated at being liberated

and the childhood sweetheart he

he was called up. 20 She rarely

left his

thoughts

WELCOME BACK during his

captivity,

been to

his

at

fill

and

419

on the march had

his technique for survival

mind with dreams of their

future

life

Gross Tychow he had received only the occasional

The

but that was not unusual. ters

by the bundle, some none

tract

at

all.

boat."

He

21

first

I

was

broke

Strike,

totally focused

American

soil.

on

down when he saw

nothing was going to

that. I didn't

the country to Idaho

happy

want

dis-

to miss the

—

it

was

at

being back on

at the harbor,

cheering and

it

"Crowds were waiting

shouting. Everybody was

her,

was go-

I

the Statue of Liberty

—and was overwhelmed

time he had seen

from

Some men got letHe reckoned he was just one of

him. "Some of the fellows went to Paris, but not me.

ing home, and

the

letter

post was a lottery.

Camp Lucky

the unlucky ones. At

camp

together. In

We were home again." As he crossed

—three days on the

train

—he could see ahead

him the same sort of laughter and happiness and relief there had been on the dock at New York. He went first to his parents' home, and they were excited to see him. Then, soon after, his wife arrived of

and the reception cooled.

She

said she

wanted

to talk to

me, and we went to some place

alone and she said she wanted a divorce. She just said, "I don't

want

to be married

had pretty well made up her mind.

as she

while

anymore." There wasn't

I

was away she had been enjoying

(whom I never met). Maybe she no way of knowing some, to no effect file

if I

with another guy

couldn't be blamed, as she had

We

talked

said she

would

would ever come home.

as far as reconciliation.

She

for divorce in a different county, so the local folks wouldn't

know about

it.

tinue, as she

had been the only

When

she told

I

wanted very much

me

girl I

for our marriage to con-

ever wanted for

she wanted a divorce

had been dreaming for

a year

have overcome such pain,

hidden in

my mind

for years.

I

my wife.

was heartbroken.

I

about being together and mak-

know how othbut I know much of it remained

ing plans for our future. Didn't happen. ers

life

much I could say, Unknown to me,

I

don't

THE LAST ESCAPE

420

He

tried a traditional cure

trying to

drown

—hitting the bottle hard,

my sorrows.

was on

I

had plenty of time to pity myself.

home

high of being

I'd

gone from

to an incredible low. It

blow to head

my

my

was

like a

all

the plans

in

thinking

had had

I

— the plans that had kept me going. For

prowled around with some of I

punch

I

family and then there was this

self-esteem and to

from the war, and

I

this incredible

Germany

the stomach. I'd been trudging through

was going to get home to

and

sixty days' leave,

my

buddies

in

my

few weeks

a

I

who came home

could have turned into an alcoholic.

But then he pulled himself together and found the strength that had

And there was a months later, who became

kept him going through the camps and the marches.

new

happy ending:

a

his wife

real wife,

—"my

He put the

first

girl in his life

my real

nine

love," as he

still calls

marriage behind him, along with his experiences

as a prisoner

of the Germans. "I didn't talk too

my parents.

don't

nobody

I

remember them asking

a lot

much about

it

with

of questions. In fact

much about what had happened.

said very

her.

We

just left

it

buried rather than dig up the memories." But he was a different per-

son

when he I

returned:

wasn't the same boy that had gone to war. I'd

twenty years in

back

I

maturity.

I

I

I

one

all

I

the booze that

it.

Before,

in the

I

got

I felt like I

home

I

it felt

good.

I

learned

a natural leader,

the marches. But,

me much more

could whip the world.

elected. I

cir-

when

I

and got

confidence in

A few months after I

ran for office as county recorder.

campaigned and got

when I came

had.

No matter what I faced,

had not been

camp or on

back, the experience ha
if

we

could get by under almost any

learned self-sufficiency.

could survive

nor was

was more mature, even

up

learned that

cumstances. I

a year. I

tried to drink

grown up about

I

went out and

was respected and honored, and

WELCOME BACK

421

Six thousand miles away, Betty Batchelder

was on vacation with her

mother-in-law in Bournemouth on the south coast of England.

war was over her.

Was

for

most people, and had been

When was

her husband alive?

this state of anxiety that she looked

for a while, but not for

he coming home?

I

"Oh

thought,

he saw

It

hotel.

What

had to be bad news.

dear God, what's he going to

tell

and he smiled, and that was enough.

us,

was in

It

up from what she was doing and

saw her husband's father come into the lounge of their was he doing there?

The

me?" Then

He

just said,

come home now, because know how he had heard, and I

"You've got to pack your bags and he's

on

his

way home."

never asked him.

It

I

don't

was

just

couldn't pack our bags quickly

But, back at Batch's parents'

such a wonderful

enough

to get back

home on

relief.

We

home.

the outskirts of London,

more waiting to endure. "It was quite a little while after that before we heard on the radio that prisoners were being released and were being brought back, but we didn't know exactly when. It was like sitting on hot bricks." Men were coming home from the camps, there were reunions everywhere, but still no Batch. Betty, seeing no point in just sitting around worrying, went back to her work at the War Office and to her lodgings in London. "No news, no telegram, no messages," she recalled. there was

In

my lodgings I had the front bedroom, which had a bay win-

dow.

It

was

a

Sunday, and

ing, waiting, watching. It

sort of star-gazing, even

would

see a

little

little, I

at the

just after lunch, it

window, look-

and

I

was

just

was daylight, hoping that

RAF uniform. Then I

road, this tiny

big knapsack on his back.

looked so

was standing

was

though

figure in

came walking along the

I

little

saw him.

airman with

I

He

a great

He was so skinny, poor little love. He

couldn't believe

it.

I

rushed to the front door and opened

stumbled downstairs and it,

and there he was.

He

looked wonderfully smart in his uniform, and beautifully clean,

THE LAST ESCAPE

422

because they had been deloused, but he was so thin.

ways been quite stocky

boy

as a

arms and

I just

—fighting

We

with nice broad shoulders.

"Oh

home had been

Batch's journey

He

and

his

had not been liberated

column had

slim,

fat:

each other's

oh

darling,

was the most wonderful moment of my

her.

never

fit,

just leaped into

kept on repeating,

He had al-

darling." It

life.

now

tell

actually over.

He

laborious, as he could

war was

until the

been marching toward Liibeck in complete

still

German forces at They were in a world

ignorance of events such as the surrender of the

Liineburg Heath happening only miles away. of their

own

on the morning of May

until the guards disappeared

8

and the prisoners were spotted by British army scout cars and told they were

The

free.

route

home was

the usual one

Channel, and then debriefing

It

was very

come

Cosford.

It just

seemed

a bit

a psychologist for

of a waste of time. I'd

Cosford from London, and on the way the train had

to

gone through I'd

Brussels, a flight across the

was interviewed by

superficial. I

about half an hour.

at

—

New

Barnet, where Betty and

been within about half a mile of her. Then

I I

had our

Cosford back to London and out to Barnet again. tube from Euston, and then

stopped the

tion,

but

bit. I

saw Betty

tears. It

what we

I

taxi

at the door.

a taxi

Words were

But the psychologists vant as Batch presumed,

at

last

I

into each other's arms in can't

I

superfluous.

all

his parents,

even remember

22

may not have been

as irrele-

because in the days that followed his re-

union with Betty he began to show signs of

gone to see

got the

wanted to walk the

fell

Cosford

I

sta-

was the end of the journey. said.

so

from the underground

because

We

flat,

had to go from

and

his

strain.

The

couple had

mother, in her excitement, collected

the family and friends together. Betty

remembered him becom-

ing very quiet as he had to deal with a barrage of well-meaning

WELCOME BACK questions.

"He

want

didn't

to talk about

423

camp

life

or anything,"

she said.

I

could see his face screwing up with the pain, because he

wanted to and he

forget.

said,

We had grabbed a few moments on our own,

"We must

get away.

can't bear all these people

I

coming and going." So we packed into

London and got on

the

care

where

It

were had

free

all

was going.

it

from

all

a small case

first train

down

took us

the questioning and

been too much.

and we went

available

—we didn't

to Cornwall.

hubbub and

We

gladness. It

He knew he was home, he knew he was

and he wanted to forget what he'd been through.

safe,

Batch was not alone in these feelings. Betty continued, "The next

morning we went down

to breakfast at our hotel

and there was an-

other young couple on the other side of the dining room. ex-prisoner of war too, and they had done the same as us

He was an

—run away

from family and friends because they couldn't take the excitement of people questioning him."

There would come

a

time

when Batch was ready

to talk, pre-

pared to relive the horrors. His marriage endured, and, as Betty "I think

our love has grown stronger."

a leading figure in associations for

And he himself would become

former prisoners of war. For oth-

however, the remembering would always be a problem.

ers,

ghosts of the Stalag would haunt

For now, though,

it

was

said,

them

The

forever.

a question

of returning to normal

life.

Norman Leonard was back with his parents after a stint at Cosford. They met him at Euston station and, after the laughter and the joy that he had escaped the vengeance of the Nazis in told

him

that

one of Hitler's

last acts

home. They would be staying with

damage

to their

relatives until the

V-2 rocket

house had been repaired. Meanwhile Percy Car-

ruthers was in the

He

Germany, they

of aggression had wiped out his

Cumbrian

had been met with

tears

worrying that he was so

thin.

hills

on the

little

and smiles from

farm he called home.

his family,

and

a lot

of

THE LAST ESCAPE

424

Nothing had changed

my

in

absence.

The same

old black-

learned to read the

window and the time. I walked down

to the familiar shops at the crossroads,

and there were the

leaded fireplace, the 10-foot settle under the wall-clock on which

I

same old names above the doors. But

There appeared

I felt a little

to be a frightening variety of

other lovely items

at the

apparent richness of it

had not seen for

I

all. I

goods on the

even bananas and

shelves. Eggs, vegetables, cheeses, fruit,

many

strange.

years. I marvelled

then came face to face with

an old school friend. "Hello, Perc, long time no see," he

"What do you getting rid of

think of it.

wanted

all this

And we

I

been

better; that

High time we were

rationing?

could do with some better weather

to say that everything

too."

said.

was lovely and had never

what he termed "rationing" was

me

to

a land

of milk and honey, providing four meals a day; and that as far as I

was concerned the sun shone from morning

obviously he would not understand.

saw him then not critic

of all

as a friend

but as

me, was good.

that, to

He

till

night.

looked so healthy.

a dissatisfied,

tilities

he had been

We were on entirely differ-

in a "reserved

and had made himself a nice

market.

I felt a

certain satisfaction

little

from what

make myself feel" prompted by chapel. "I

It

would be

a

had done. 23

all

with emotion,

His family

feeling. inside. "I

went through the motions, but

a passage in the

remember

I

filled

were overjoyed to see him, but he remained cold I

learned

fortune on the black

Richard Passmore's was strangely devoid of

ought to respond and

I

occupation" during hos-

But where Carruthers's homecoming was

I

six

I

grumbling

ent planets, our senses of values were worlds apart. later that

But

months before the

knew how I

couldn't

tears

came,

prayer book as he sat alone in a tiny

huge wave of grief mounting

inside

me

and

I

wept for so many friends dead, for fear and suffering and frustrated hope, for uncertainty, for a happy ending that had inexplicably

brought no living

and

joy.

Then I

feeling. Life

dried

my eyes and got on with the business of

had begun again." 24

WELCOME BACK But leaving the old

behind and coming to terms with

life

Len Jepps

one could be troublesome,

as

home had been marred by

difficulties

the

first

to admit,

425

and delays and,

he had become bitter that

by inefficiency and

He

error.

a

new

discovered. His journey

had expected

it

as

he was

had been prolonged

a deliriously

happy

union:

All the years

we were

been centered round us that

it

away, our one overriding thought had

and

this day,

who had

had changed

us.

families

had

period.

My wife

left

in

fact that

joy.

We

we were not the same

so long before and that our experiences

Neither had we realized that our wives and

lived the equivalent to a ten-year span during that

had been

and had become an less

never really occurred to

would be anything but an experience of pure

had completely overlooked the people

it

at

efficient

work from the outbreak of war

businesswoman, had spent count-

make her own life made many new friends and had had changed. As a result, we were virtually

nights fire-watching, and had had to

my

absence. She had

changed, just

as I

and we had to restart our married life from scratch. now understood why so many of my ex-comrades had had

strangers, I

news of broken marriages while blame on those

in captivity. It

women who were new

the temptation to begin a

life

is

difficult to lay

not strong enough to with somebody

else.

resist

They

were only human, they never knew whether the next day

would be

their last,

and they never knew whether their hus-

bands would ever return.

For spective,

my

part, I realized I

whereas

my

had become abnormally intro-

wife had been living a fuller

life

than

ever before. We set about getting to know each other again. We visited all our old relatives and friends in an attempt to re-

turn to the

life

we had

sorry for me, and

I

lost.

didn't

Mostly

need

I

found that people were

their sympathy. Small things

caused infuriating embarrassment, such as being afraid of crossing the street.

Then

the things that had annoyed

me

be-

re-

THE LAST ESCAPE

426

gan to amuse me, except that

I

would

find myself convulsed

with laughter at times which others thought inappropriate. 25

Jepps was showing

many

of the classic symptoms of dislocation that

no

the doctors had predicted. And, predictably too, he sought

Maurice Newey sought no help and needed no been away almost

as

mans

North

at

in Italy,

Tobruk

in

long

He

help.

had

having been caught by the Ger-

as Jepps,

summer of 1942, imprisoned Germany when he should have been

Africa in the

and then carried off to

liberated

help.

by the surrender of the

Italians.

On his

return to England,

he took the train north from London and "the grass looked so verdantly green, the trees so profuse with their blossom and the sheep so peaceful. This was the England tion.

This

He

really

was peace."

I

had always kept

in

my imagina-

26

got off at York late after nightfall to discover there were no

buses and no

But then

taxis.

He was in

a

bad

mood

as

he set off to walk home.

my anger just disappeared. Ahead

shimmering

in bright, silver

walls twinkling as

if

moat was covered

in

of me the city was

moonlight, the old buildings and

they had been dusted with

hundreds of daffodils in

full

crossed the bridge over the River Ouse, running

along

its

bloom.

my

I

hand

ironwork, and then York Minster came into view,

bathed in moonlight. There was absolute silence. barked, not a single noise disturbed

towering

The

silver.

Not

a

dog

me as I looked up, past the

spires, into the infinite sky

and said

quietly,

"Thank

me and keeping me safe and well." down at me as if to say, "Welcome

you, Lord, for looking after

The Minster home."

looked

A feeling of great peace

Fifteen minutes

marching up to

My

father

spread over me.

more and he was turning

in to his street

his front door.

was standing

gently pulled

me

in.

there.

We

He

took hold of

shook hands, and

I

my arm said,

and

"Hello,

and

WELCOME BACK

427

mouth to say something, but then my mother came running down the stairs and flung herself into Dad."

He

my arms.

opened

I

his

hugged her and bent

to kiss her.

noticed that she

I

had been crying and that she had no teeth in and, God, she

seemed

small,

all

in

one quick glance. She took a step back and

said in a surprised voice, "Eeh, Harold, doesn't

They

told

he look well?"

me that, after all me to be emaciated. I laughed and told them that

the reports on the wireless, they

had expected

we had had a bit of time to fatten up since we were liberated. Suddenly we realized that we were all standing up, and my father smiled and said, "Sit down," and motioned chair.

Nobody sat in his

This was an honor.

chair

me

to his

when he was

in the house.

Ma tea. I

was soon rustling up some sandwiches and

was keen to hear about

was in the Middle East,

Bill

my four brothers. Bob the was

eight,

tomorrow.

I

was

wondered

ther had to go to

they bade

fast asleep upstairs,

work

me good

and went to bed.

I

An overwhelming

my

to escape

and tickled

and

own

I

it

reminded

had

me

see

him

my

just turned

fa-

3 a.m.,

to turn out the light,

Then I went

my boots under the bed, and stretched came over me and tears

desire to cry

my

them

cheek

I felt

tight,

as

it

but one tear managed

ran down. After a while

unutterably weary.

drifted into a dreamless sleep.

I

I let

myself re-

was home, in

my

bed.

Doug Fry was door.

at 7:30 and

eyes. I shut

became calmer and

lax

would

stayed downstairs for a while.

rushed to

I

I

in

seas. Peter,

he would recognize me. As

if

night,

upstairs, undressed, put

out.

and

eldest

Norman was

in Austria,

Burma, and Frank was somewhere on the high

who was

pot of

a

He

had sent

almost too nervous to walk up to his a

telegram to his mother from Cosford

own

front

— the

first

communication she had had from him since January. At Cosford he had met up with an old gether.

friend,

and they returned to London to-

THE LAST ESCAPE

428

He

lived in Russell Square,

and we got the tube there and he

me to go up to the front door with him.

wanted

And he

said, "I feel funny. I

want someone with me."

"No, you're home now. You've got had

him

butterflies just like

When Home

I

as I

to

went

My

mother had had

coming, and she was

at the top

a

a

big

morning.

said to her, "It's

I

all

Welcome

telegram saying

of the steps.

was early

It

first

was

I

after-

thing

Mum," and

over,

I

my house.

off in a taxi to

noon, and she'd probably been waiting there since in the

I said,

go on your own." But

got there, there was bunting up and

banner.

"Why?"

I said,

she

"

cried.

He to

2

had survived. Others had not, and one of his

duties

was

go and see the parents of two of his friends who were not coming

home. "They'd known

me

since

was

I

there and say that their sons weren't feeling. ria

first

I felt I

a little kid,

and

coming back.

shouldn't be there. Seeing

I

had to stand

was not

It

them tempered

a nice

the eupho-

of my freedom and safety."

Sad scenes

like this

were happening

many

in

places.

Johnny

Gage's parents had no idea that he had been killed in the mistaken attack by

Typhoons on the column

at

Gresse and they had strung up

a

huge banner saying, welcome home, johnny across the front of their

One of his comrades rang with the news of his death. For those who survived, there was the question of whether 28

farmhouse.

peacetime could ever

camp bunk

up

to their dreams.

Lying

in his prison-

Luckenwalde, Ron Walker had imagined

at

dominated by

live

his love of gliding.

He

might go back to

a future

his old job,

but he really wanted something that would give him plenty of time off. "I

wonder

if it is

wrong 29

to

make

a

hobby the main reason

His dream was "to

fly

during the

and then during the winter evenings to work

at a

book, in a

ing," he asked himself.

tage with a big

things the

fire,

way she

little

cot-

me company and run Dare I expect so much happiness?" He ruled

with

does.

my

for liv-

summer

mother

out marriage completely, because

it

to keep

would

just get in the

way of glid-

— WELCOME BACK and decided instead to splurge on

ing,

a Jaguar.

"Then

might buy

later I

to take to gliding sites,

and

I

429

a sports car

a caravan,

could also use

which would be useful it

when

business and that way, by saving hotel expenses,

Back home, he got the car

self."

—

a

on

week.

the

a

bar stool in a hotel in Dorchester."

"We were

Germans

married within

"Man

say,

denkt, Gott lenkt"

was away on

I

would pay

for

it-

girl in

the world

sit-

He had been home only

months.

six

it

which he paid £100.

a Jaguar, for

And at the same time he met "the most beautiful ting

—either an MG or

I

gave up gliding. As

(Man makes plans, God

de-

cides)."

There were those

Dave Radke returned

him doing

for

whom home would bring disappointment.

to Australia with health problems that stopped

—and think-

the things he loved. Before leaving England

ing he had recovered from his ordeal of marching across

he went for bowling.

The

first

slower bowlers

were so swollen

I

could not

also unable to enjoy beer

"A

glass.

son of

—

move them

his

Australia in 1941 returned as a

had been

I

five

I

a

I

was

one

1

years of age

changed and serious per-

didn't

of the

civilian life difficult.

got back

or ten minutes in a cinema.

know what I wanted

I just

I felt a

couldn't

tremendous

to do. Also, having

couldn't stand being enclosed." 31

fice

He

after just

Before he

cinema buff who thought nothing of see-

"When

ing three films a day.

and

feet

30

2 5."

Australia he

than

and

legs

quickly enough."

wrecked insides bloated

Cal Younger found returning to left

my

rather happy-go-lucky youth of just under 2

on leaving

fast

delivery knocked the bat out of his hand. "Against

performed even worse, because

I

Germany

and was too weak to stand up to

a cricket trial

He

took

sit

for

more

restlessness

been cooped up,

a job in the

London

of-

—

Commonwealth Bank of Australia his employer in MelHe met a girl, and was drawn into the

bourne before he joined up. comfort of family

life,

"which

at that

time

I

craved.

I

had visions of

my feet on the mantelpiece and a pipe in my mouth, and of course it a mistake." He hated talking about his experiences, and told lies

was

when

asked:

THE LAST ESCAPE

430

If

know how

people wanted to

them

a story

became

I

about going out on a boat on a pleasure

washed on to the French

losing the oars and getting

said I'd never flown in the war. I

feeling guilty, but I'm not sure

was

a prisoner, I

suppose

trip

and

coast. I

must have been

I

what about. In Australia there

who had been

a feeling that those

spun

captured by the Japa-

nese had had the really bad time, and that

we had had

a soft

number.

Les Allan was another after

feet

He

coming home.

When

who

preferred fiction to fact for

was one of the

He

him.

had

a

his

home

introduction to civilian

was not

valid

on

life

conductor, she allowed

him

As he walked up the

They came

a close

mine included."

32

And,

Tring looked

a train ticket to take

Slough, and he hopped on. His

was the

driver,

when he

who

told

him

him first

his rail pass

who he was

explained

to the

on.

street

where he

people came out to

lived,

community, and they had known

out of their front doors to welcome

ing to take the kitbag off

at

clogs.

to see a double-decker bus going to

at

a bus. But,

cheer him. "It was

The WAAFs

brand-new uniform and

London. But he happened

Windsor, close to

life.

to get back to England:

had been permanently damaged by marching 600 miles in

after

years

Fallingbostel was liberated, he was given priority because his

Relief and happiness flooded over him.

to

first

many

me

and help me.

fifty-five

he recalled the joy of his return.

The

years on, they

"My mum

me all my

me home,

tears

rush-

were flowing,

would flow again

had kept the

as

faith that I

would eventually get back, and they had got hold of a Union Jack and they hung

on with

it

outside the house." And, after the celebrations, he got

his life

and said nothing:

People wanted to war, but

I

know about my

wouldn't

tell

them.

that they wouldn't believe

up.

It

might

also

it,

experiences as a prisoner of

Why?

Because

so consequently

I

had

I just

a feeling

bottled

it

have been because of a sense of shame about

WELCOME BACK being a prisoner of war caped. But

was

it

home

turned

431

—people might ask why

that people believed

we

to talk about

time, that

Those who

we were

didn't

hadn't es-

when

I

re-

had, in effect, been in

holiday camps, having a cushy time. That's it.

I

also because I got the impression

know

why we

said

didn't

lucky to have been prisoners

when

want

a

good

so

many

we'd had

other fellows had been killed.

Less than a year after coming home, he met the

marry and spend

his life with.

His reluctance to

talk

cret of his past. It wasn't hard to do. In those days

the war, talking about the

war was taboo

for

Doris gathered he had been in the army, but

girl

he was to

now made

a se-

immediately after

most people anyway.

at first she didn't press

him and he didn't volunteer any information. And when she did want to know more he told lies. "I said I'd been in Africa, which was totally untrue, but I didn't go into details. I didn't want to make out I was

a hero. I told

There were

her I'd been discharged medically unfit."

aspects of his behavior that Doris found odd.

"He

He preferred being at home. He wouldn't go go on holiday. He was always afraid to go any-

wouldn't go anywhere. abroad; he wouldn't

where.

He just didn't want to go out of the country." And

dozen years or so together, he began to

half a

came out would be

"We'd be

gradually. said,

but

I

tell

her why.

then, after

The

truth

talking to other people and things

was pretty surprised when he

finally told

me

he

when it did, I began to understand some of the things he did and the way he acted." He began meeting up with old army friends, and more inforhad been

a prisoner

mation came tions "If I

of war.

It didn't

out. Doris listened in

he had been held in and

remember rightly," Les was

hero

estimation.

I

ing at

worry about!"

all

to

The more she could even in his sleep

a

sink in at

awe

as

his formidable

said, "I

went up

first.

But,

he described the condi-

march a

across

Germany.

couple of grades in her

after that, despite all the fibbing. I

had noth-

Doris learned, the more she could understand.

make

sense of the nightmares

Now

when he would shout

words she couldn't understand and make the sounds of a

THE LAST ESCAPE

432

man

The bad dreams had begun

in pain.

home, Les

They were about being on

my

came

father

those days

having

it

he got

after

tell

He

bedroom.

several occasions

me

wouldn't wake

—

in

was thought to be dangerous to wake up anybody

nightmare

a

my

into

on

the march, and

—but he would

calmed down and make sure

would

months

six

recalled:

me

about

it

sit

on the bed

damage

I didn't

the next morning.

I

until I

myself.

had

Then he

dreamed about be-

ing on the march and helping to dress the frostbite wounds, because

was

I

and

a stretcher-bearer

medical knowledge.

I

used to see

half his foot with frostbite and he

left

me,

still

left

me.

was

It

More

a

and

mind.

in his

still

according to Doris

His broken ankle

more than

a

century

later,

lost

marching, being

—

that has

you never ever

it

the scars are

—though "not so often now

still

who had

still

It is

an

forget.

on Les

Allan's

He still wakes up in the middle of the night,

disables him,

in the last

few years."

and he struggles to stand up for

short period of time. But he has a balanced perspective

his prisoner-of-war life

was certain

still

amount of

The stench of frostbite.

Once you've smelled

than half

a small

was the stench

appalling smell.

feet

on

never

had

poor fellow

this

helped by a couple of his friends. never

I

at the

and

his escape

end of the war.

"I

from

a

death he often

felt

wouldn't have missed those ex-

periences and the comradeship they brought for the world," he says,

"but

if I

was told

self rather

than

I

had to go through

let it

happen."

it all

again

I

would shoot my-

Epilogue

The May

bells

brought the

of

St.

1989

6,

men

Clement's tolled for Dixie Deans.

—

forty- four years almost to the

London

packed the

RAF church

memorial

for his

wisdom and

his

But there was

months

he had

"a

their survival to

in the Strand in the center of

and pride mingled

as

Cal

much-loved man of rare qual-

born leader whose very bearing was enough to bring

rade ground to silence but his

1

service. Tears

Younger gave the address, praising ity ... a

date was

after

in his charge safely out of the hell of a collapsing

Germany. Five hundred ex-servicemen who owed his leadership

The

day

a pa-

who was never authoritarian. His heroism,

compassion

will

a sting in the

never be forgotten."

tail.

Deans,

earlier at the age of seventy-six,

who had

2

died a few

was without doubt the most

outstanding prison-camp leader of his generation, Younger declared,

and yet

after the

war he had been

all

but ignored. There were mur-

murs of approval from the crowded pews

as

he

laid

out his heartfelt

complaint on behalf of Deans: "At the end of the war one would have

thought that Dixie had lievably he

Unable

RAF the

a

magnificent future in front of him. Unbe-

was not offered

a

permanent commission

to progress in the service

and put

in the

RAF."

he loved, Deans resigned from the

his talents into a civilian job as

an executive officer at

London School of Economics. His courage

with

— the sort that had enabled him to stand jaw to jaw

German commandants and

of a raging battle

—was put into

ride his bicycle

though the middle

a different battle. It

turned out that

THE LAST ESCAPE

434

he had multiple

sclerosis, the fearful

wasting disease of unknown ori-

gin that strikes without reason or warning. til

he

there

the RAF, but, in retrospect, the

left

when he was

still

was not diagnosed unsigns

first

He fought the

a prisoner.

who had been

bornness that those instantly.

It

with him in

disease with a stub-

Germany recognized

His spare time was dedicated to an organization of veterans

He never complained,

of the camps and to reunions, which he loved.

but others did on his behalf. "Official recognition tice,"

Younger

and there was not

said,

his services to his country,

noncommissioned

the class terms that

postwar years.

As

The

his obituary in

ompense"

for

officer, still

fell far

short of jus-

a single dissenting voice.

MBE— an

Deans received an

many thought he

short of the knighthood that a

were probably

For

honor

far

deserved. But he was

and therefore not quite

a

gentleman

in

had such an impact on British society in the

MBE was decreed the right award for a sergeant. The Times of London

what he had done. To

with the likes of Cal Younger,

who

this

"seemed scant rec-

said, it

day

it

kept trying

remains

a sore point

—without success—to

get "Sarge"' upgraded.

Some would

see

what had happened

to

prisoners of war. Indeed, there were those

Deans

who

as a slight to all

felt

unappreciated

When

even before they arrived home, and with reason.

liberated,

man had been issued with an official booklet explaining plans to get them home and filling them in on matters such as each

back pay and the leave they were entitled

ment of welcome: "We want you are at last on your way home. We to receiving every care

to

to. It

know how

are sure

began with

glad

we

the the

a state-

are that

you

you can now look forward

and attention to make up

in

some way

for

all

make a man feel proud and worthwhile again, especially if they had come from the King or the Prime Minister, Field Marshal Montgomery, or General Eisen4

you have undergone." Here were words

to

hower. But the signatures underneath were B-list

Lord, the Adjutant General to the Forces, and

from the Air Ministry. Not even the

some of the for

First Sea

a

—the Second Sea personnel officer

Lord.

No

wonder

POWs felt they were the forgotten army, unrecognized

what they had been through and regarded

as slightly dubious,

— EPILOGUE

435

dishonored even, in people's estimation. Unless, they were heroes of the escape

popular television show This

circuit.

Is

as

we have

seen,

Years later Deans was on the

Your Life

—but

as a guest, there to

honor the much more celebrated "Wings" Day, who had been one of the "tally-ho boys" at Stalag Luft

Not

all

returning prisoners

III.

felt

disparaged or unjustly treated.

own particular life behind barbed wire each homecoming and each subsequent

Just as each individual had his

and on life

his forced

march, so

was different from the next man's. Alf Jenner went back to

his job

Norwich and was treated as "quite a hero." "There was no sense that prisoners of war had not done a good job, that they hadn't done their bit in the war." For him it would always be "the big experience of my life. I think about it with great honor not with great 5

as a journalist in

horror." Ernest

Boyd never

felt

any reticence

in chatting

about his

experiences to whoever would listen. Others might be silent, able to

communicate

their feelings only to other

ways willing to

talk,

ex-POWs, but he "was

al-

because those were probably the best years of

my life." Ken Brown bathed in the glory too. "Nobody looked down 6

on you

for being a prisoner of war,"

We were feted."

Batch Batchelder was

membered

tea

he

said.

"Rather, the opposite.

7

happy man too

a

—

to begin with.

He

re-

and buns, and words of appreciation from the mayor

and corporation. But then came public indifference, and even recrimination.

He

Germany and

felt

rejected

on two counts. The carpet bombing of

the destruction of fine cities like Cologne and Dres-

now felt by some to have been excessive. "Bomber" Harris who had masterminded that campaign, turned from hero to villain in postwar eyes, and the men den was

Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris

in his service experienced the

grateful nation.

"We were

—

same cold shoulder by

isolation.

did."

8

Having been

"Someone once

a prisoner

said

ended, then nobody wanted to

we made."

no-longer-

ignored," said Batchelder, "and then,

not quite animosity, there was a feeling that

what we

a

we

if

shouldn't have done

of war added to his sense of

we were heroes until the day the war know us. People forgot the sacrifices

THE LAST ESCAPE

436

He knew no

For Batchelder, the rejection was intensely personal.

RAF; he had never wanted any other

life

other than the

fly.

But when he got home he was told he was surplus to require-

job than to

"When the war ended I wanted to stay in the Air Force, but told me they had all the pilots they needed." Why had he been

ments. they

selected to be stood

down? "Because

my knowledge

out of date." His years in prisoner-of-war camps had experience that the

Why

RAF

hopes

—

just as

it

than he did?

must have been

It

be shot down, and yet he was, in

was

blow

list.

effect,

was pretty downhearted then.

to have a career in flying,

because

I

I

needed

took

a

and so

I

his

filling.

they had nineteen-year-

a

It

Deans when he was felt

He

so.

POW

hadn't chosen to

had always been start

his

told he

that his

being penalized for

had to

and

to his pride

Batchelder

time was counting against him, and unfairly

something new.

gap in

when

for Dixie

was no longer wanted on the active

"I

left a

considered too great to be worth

retrain a twenty-five-year-old

who knew more

olds

was three years

it.

my intention

from rock bottom with

job as a process worker in a chemical factory,

had

a job. I

wife to support, and not long after a

a

family as well." His war experience became a taboo subject. "I had to

move on and

forget about

children grew, he told

not

visit.

self in

ions.

But then

it. I

had to establish myself in

them nothing. The

personnel management, he began to

There were drinks

in

As

his

past was a country he did

mid-1960s, having made

in the

life."

fall

a success

in with old

of him-

compan-

London pubs with Deans and Younger,

which developed into reunions

—

to talk

about the good times, ac-

cording to Batchelder. "Very rarely did anybody talk about the bad." It

was the beginning of what would become the

RAF

Ex-Prisoners-

of-War Association. His

life

tirement. left

him.

flourished

—

a

good

job, five children, a comfortable re-

The memories never haunted him,

Who

but, equally, they never

could forget the degradation and fear and hunger,

dysentery so desperate he sat by a roadside and invited a

guard to shoot him, the horror bullets fired ollection:

from

a plane

of his

as a friend lay

dead

at

German

Gresse from

own side? He choked on that last rec-

His voice stuttered, and he looked away to disguise an em-

EPILOGUE

437

barrassment he had no reason to hide. "You know, that was the

first

my life that I'd seen somebody that I knew actually killed. He little New Zealander, a chap I'd known for three years, ever

time in

was

a

since I first

name with

the

not

day, let

went

to

all

fifty-five

Sagan

—name of Laurie Hope ..." And he spoke

the freshness and fondness as

years ago.

Memories

if it

had been yesternot even cloud,

like that did

alone die.

my life, but I couldn't forget those experiences. They made me a very different person. There was one occasion in my job when I was having to deal with a twenty- fiveyear-old graduate who needed putting in his place. He was being difficult, and showing off about his degree. He was so I

got on with

pleased with himself, and wouldn't see sense. So that

when

was

I

his age I

had already

lived

two

told

I

him

lifetimes. I

when I was flying, and then march. That was what made me what I am, and

should have died at least twice again on the

I'm proud of it.

Some minds and personalities were badly affected by prison-camp Then the home that prisoners had dreamed about turned into a

life.

hell

both for them and for their families. Wives and parents had been

advised to take

worry is

not

if

it

gently with returning prisoners of war and not to

they were shy or moody.

a sick

man," they were

told.

"Remember 9

tend to telling them what to do people's plates and put

it

But the

that a prisoner of war

official

when he

stole

in his pocket for later, or

advice did not ex-

food from other

hoarded matches

and candles, or woke screaming in the night with bad dreams. Most got over the period of adjustment, helped by love and sympathy.

Others cut short the leave they had following their homecoming and rushed back to the comfort and routine of military

Army monitored its men, and thousands were ical officers to specialist psychiatrists in

their liberation.

the

life.

The

British

referred by their

med-

months

after

first

three

THE LAST ESCAPE

438

The

of the marches they had undergone were at

effects

largely physical

—they had been from

up. But readjusting

proved more

with

A summary of the psychiatrists'

and they needed fattening

captives to being free

life as

difficult to deal

They knew

starved,

first

men

again

—much harder than they expected.

findings concluded:

they had changed and that things would be differ-

ent but they had not foreseen that they would be strangers in

own homes. Their general information was not up to date. They became embarrassed in company and found the noise of the children irritating. They often felt they were betheir

ing watched and were suspicious even of their neighbours.

was not easy to make decisions and once the

had passed off were glad

A

fifth

life at

just to

be

home tended

left

alone.

to

rather

and

loss

of confidence.

—

restlessness

Some wanted

life-changing gestures: selling up and starting

new

flat.

They

of them showed symptoms that would be worrying

lethargy,

It

excitement

10

were to continue for any length of time ity,

fall

initial

and

if

they

excitabil-

make dramatic, afresh somewhere to

—even emigrating or rushing into marriage with women they

hardly knew.

The group

borne troops captured

at

aggressive and difficult.

suffering the

The

six

to be the air-

months and

as

being

explanation appeared to be the short

time they had been prisoners.

took between

most turned out

Arnhem. They were characterized It

a

was generally acknowledged that

year for a

man

to adapt to Stalag

it

life,

and they had been released before they had got through the stage of anger and resentment. Hence they arrived

home

in the

same frame

of mind. "They keep together and resent discipline," the psychiatrists said.

There was another

side to

all this.

For some men, being

oner had been "a broadening experience

new hobbies and

a pris-

— they have read, developed

learned to understand and feel a deeper affection

for their comrades."

But

they, the psychiatrists concluded,

were the

minority. For the majority, the experience had been "a period of re-

EPILOGUE

more egocentric

gression, a return to a

—

the issue of guilt

life

and

men he

tremely rare, and another concluded that

it

saw,

more

how few men had

revealing fact was

one thought

was confined to

yes,

officers.

soldier's

— dark secret "capture provides an escape from man

ex-

even dead, but

not being captured." Yet being a prisoner might be every

uation which every

it

ever thought in ad-

— "wounded,

vance that they might be a prisoner

secret wish, his

a

life."

found signs of it in 90 percent of the

The most

pattern of

They were not neurotic, but to a more childlike existence. And then there was though the doctors disagreed on this. One of them

emotionally determined type of they had reverted

439

So

desires to escape from."

a sit-

feelings of guilt

would be buried deep but nevertheless capable of causing problems

when they surfaced. To Lieutenant Colonel psychiatry to the Royal

Army Medical

R.

F

Corps,

Barbour, adviser in

it

seemed

that

mattered most in each case was "the emotional maturity of the

what

man

concerned." Put simply, the situation that they had been through was

not going to make every

man

psychotic.

Some coped and some

didn't.

And some

talked and

some

didn't.

almost nothing about his experiences

them went

Bob Otto

—

to the site of Stalag Luft

until 2001,

IV

at

forest in

Poland or retraced

a

when

the two of

Gross Tychow. As Bob

talked to us about his prisoner-of-war years, as

mote

told his son, Randy,

we

stood in that re-

few steps along the route of the

"death march" in a small village, his forty-year-old son heard for the

very

first

time what his father had been through. Like Roger Allen's

family on that same

with

all

his

trip,

he had had no idea of the hero he had lived

life.

Official recognition of the

coming

in the

United

States.

POWs'

achievements was a long time

George Guderley

but returned to active duty for the Korean War.

rank of major after winning

Oak-Leaf Cluster. Yet tle

to survive

a

left

He

the U.S.A.A.F.

retired with the

Purple Heart and an Air Medal with

his eight

months behind barbed

on the road from Stalag Luft IV

wire, his bat-

to Fallingbostel, his

courage, and his endurance brought nothing. Twenty-five years after the end of the war, a suggestion was

made

that a

medal should be

THE LAST ESCAPE

440

struck for former prisoners of brutal and

surrendered.

ett

in

It

There was opposition

did not

under

their service

man, the

spirit

The

issue

may

to

honoring

men who had

with the historic image of the American

fit

of the Alamo, where the likes of Davy Crock-

and Jim Bowie had fought to the

give in.

honor of

dehumanizing conditions. The Department of Defense

rejected the idea.

fighting

war

also have

last

man and

died rather than

been clouded by the undercurrents

of the Vietnam conflict. Patriotism was a controversial word, and

many Americans

of that period were trying to forget their fighting

men, not remember them. In 1986, after a long campaign, the Prisoner of finally

War Medal was

authorized by Congress, but the accusations of cowardice did

not stop.

Two years later,

the issue was

still

contested

appeared in the Washington Post under the headline

We Honor it

Soldiers

Who

Surrendered?"

11

The

when an

"Why

article

Should

who wrote

historian

argued that any medal would go to heroes and cowards

alike, re-

gardless of whether an individual "fell into the arms of the enemy,

whether he was badly wounded or willingly threw up

his hands."

Senator Frank Murowski from Alaska wrote to the paper to set the record straight after this

insult to the integrity of

men who

tion and loyalty to our nation

have proven their dedica-

under circumstances few of us

can imagine and none of us would willingly endure. Few, any, prisoners of war chose to be captured.

shot

war

down out.

or their positions overrun.

Almost universally

form hard labor with quate shelter and

little

little

Their

POWs

aircraft

did not

their captors forced

them

if

were

sit

the

to per-

food, primitive sanitation, inade-

or no medical care.

to mistreatment or torture at the

whim

They were

subject

of their captors. Their

loyalty to their nation

was tested by pain, malnutrition, and

mind-numbing

12

Then, fiftieth

in 1995,

fatigue.

when

marked the the vieWar and World Second

the United States Senate officially

anniversary of the end of the

EPILOGUE tory in Europe, Senator John ers

Warner

— of war "a group who made

rose to

our undying respect."

They owed some

We

commend

the prison-

a large contribution to the Allied

more than owe them a

victory while also enduring suffering and sacrifice.

441

their fair share of personal

great debt of gratitude and

13

money

of them

too. Despite

military bureaucrats to be generous to

all

those pleas to the

men returning from

captivity,

the rules were invariably regarded as sacrosanct and the dignity7 of

men who

for years

had been humiliated was ignored. Each American

prisoner of war was entitled to one dollar for every day he had been a captive of the

—to be paid

enemy

who had

Except for those

escaped.

lump sum when he got home.

as a

The Articles

of War dictated that

duty to try to get away from a prisoner-of-war camp.

it

was

It

must have been some bean-counter who decided

a soldier's

that, if a

man had

succeeded in his duty and escaped, then he shouldn't be paid for the days he was free.

And

so one GI,

who had broken

the run for twelve days before the in solitary

out and stayed on

Germans caught him and put him

confinement for thirty days

as a

punishment, found that

$12 had been deducted from his pay when he got home. Issues like these

In Britain

it

would become

irritants

and then running

— and

still

The Geneva Convention

or-

was Lagergeld that annoyed the returning

does more than half

a

century

later.

sores.

men

dained that prisoners should be paid, and there was

a reciprocal

arrangement between warring governments so that each side could

The Germans paid the prisoners in a spefunny money that had no value inside the camp or

carry out this requirement. cial

currency

—

outside. Batchelder said

large

enough

riating it

had no use

at all

—the notes weren't even

to be used as toilet paper. But,

home, they found back pay in

it

that

up

to 10 percent

lieu of the Lagergeld

when

the prisoners got

was deducted from their

they had received. Even more infu-

was that the 10 percent was taxed

as if

they had actually had

in their pockets to spend. Consistently over the years,

after

government has refused

to restore the deduction.

government

With

infla-

THE LAST ESCAPE

442

tion

—and

through the natural wastage of death

falling

now

with the numbers of potential beneficiaries inexorably

molehills.

But the

insult

still

keenly

Germans

elder stopped resenting the

at the

penny-pinching of the

War

in dispute are

mountainous. Batch-

years ago, and even got over

the RAF's rejection of him after the war.

istry

—the sums

felt is

He

has never lost his anger

Office and

its

successor, the

Min-

of Defence. "Little things like that really do stick in the craw."

To some returning prisoners, official attitudes always seemed to be against them. Len Jepps's homecoming did not get any better. He had clashed with uncaring bureaucrats all the way back from Germany In England, he remained convinced that the army doctors added several stones to his weight so that he could not claim compensation for the damage caused by malnutrition. He was logged in at 12 stone by the army at a reception center, but made only 10 stone 4 lb. on a set of civilian scales two days later. The army also had him down as two inches taller than he actually was, he claimed. 14

For Les Allan, the

fight goes on. After finally

coming clean

to his

wife about his prisoner-of-war experience after years of concealing the truth from her and everyone else, he fair play.

He

became

a

started the National Ex-Prisoners of

with the aim of helping former

POWs

campaigner for

War

Association,

keep in touch with each other

who fell on hard times. His German nation as a whole has

but also of coming to the aid of those

main point of contention

is

that the

never been called to account for and, as a result, behalf.

the

The

treatment of prisoners of war

no compensation has ever been demanded on

official line

their

of the British government since the end of

war has been that the German government did not disown the

Geneva Convention did

its

—

as,

for example, the Japanese

government

—and that breaches of the Convention and any mistreatment of

prisoners were the result of individual

Former

POWs

like

They

acting unlawfully.

15

Allan feel betrayed by what they see as the

British government's connivance in sponsibility.

Germans

denying Germany's collective re-

smell a plot too. As they see

it,

in the postwar re-

construction period wary Western eyes were peering east toward

Moscow and

there was a political desire to strengthen, not weaken,

EPILOGUE

443

new West Germany as a bulwark against the expansion of Sovietone in which war-crimes invesstyle Communism. In this climate the

—

were curtailed for the same reason

tigations

prisoners had suffered easier to ignore

prisoners

POWs' own

On getting home,

—the hardships that the

a matter of

realpolitik of the

The

tors contain only a handful of testimonies

example

The former

Cold War.

—appear not

official

complaints

of the war-crimes investiga-

files

marches, and those testimonies that there are for

was

It

silence about their ordeal has acted against

few appear to have made

about what happened to them.

lan's,

embarrassment.

complaints and their claims.

became victims of the

Here, the men's them.

became

concerning the forced

—the American Dr. Cap-

to have led to prosecutions, largely be-

cause they lacked the precision of detail that was required by the

Nuremberg

tribunals. Either that or the

specific acts of atrocity could

There was one attempt and that came four years list

German

guards accused of

not be properly identified or found.

to assign general

after the

blame

war had ended.

for the marches,

Among

the long

of indictments against SS Generalleutnant Berger in his

trial

in

1949 was

that

between September 1944 and

May

1945, hundreds of

thousands of American and Allied prisoners of war were compelled to undertake forced marches in severe weather without

adequate

rest, shelter,

food, clothing, and medical supplies;

and that such forced marches, conducted under the authority of the defendant Berger, chief of Prisoner-of-War Affairs, resulted in great privation

The

and deaths to many thousands of pris-

Germans to evacuate prisoners to avoid their release by enemy troops, and emphasized that it was in fact the Germans' duty under the Geneva court accepted as "unquestioned" the right of the

Convention to remove long as

it

POWs

from

a potential

combat zone

did not put their lives in even greater danger:

evacuate can only be exercised

when

it

"The

—

as

right to

can be accomplished without

THE LAST ESCAPE

444

subjecting evacuees to dangers and hardships substantially greater

than would result

even

if

if

they remained at the place of imprisonment,

thus they might be rescued by the approaching enemy."

The

problem was that the right evidence was not forthcoming on what had actually happened.

An

made

English prisoner of war had

ten statement about terrible treatment

on the northern

line

a writ-

of march

from Stalag XXA at Thorn, and "the privations suffered and the mistreatment described were extreme." Regrettably, however, the prosecution had not produced the soldier to give his evidence in person

and to be cross-examined, and the court "does not finding guilt

upon

unsupported

his

feel justified in

affidavit."

There was more evidence about hardships on the marches

in the

south over the Czechoslovak mountains and into Bavaria. Here the defense argued that the rapid advance of the Russians had simply

caught the Germans by surprise and, though they had planned to put the

POWs

trains for the journey, in the event "this

became im-

Berger claimed that he had protested about the deci-

practical."

sion

on

—made by

Hitler, according to

him

—to move the prisoners, but

he was "without power or authority to countermand or avoid the order."

The

court ruled that "severe privations from cold and from lack

of food and accommodation" had indeed occurred on this march,

but the case once again foundered on evidence. "There factory evidence as to the actual losses sustained.

was compelled to make the march was called of the record

is,

therefore, unsatisfactory."

"substantial casualties

among As

who

satis-

prisoner

who

The

state

as a witness.

The

no

court noted too that

on protracted marches are not unusual even

well-fed troops, and

prisoners of war

No

is

would undoubtedly be

larger [among]

have long been in confinement."

for Berger's role, the court decided he

had acted with the best

of intentions, given the state of emergency that had existed at the time.

He

ger

if

they were

tify

his actions. Moreover, there was "no evidence to contradict his

"honestly believed" the prisoners would be in greater dan-

testimony ical aid

.

.

.

left

where they were, and that was

sufficient to jus-

that to the best of his ability, food, clothing, and

were furnished to the prisoners, inadequate though

med-

this was."

EPILOGUE

The

445

court was not totally convinced by the general's pleas of

justification.

"We may

have suspicions

as to parts

self-

of his story," the

judges declared, "but suspicion does not take the place of evidence

and certainly does not constitute proof of doubt. spect

We

beyond reasonable

not proved and he must be acquitted."

is

Looking back,

it

seems extraordinary that the case foundered for

lack of eyewitness evidence, given the to be given

—

if

amount

that

was clearly there

the men, by 1949 trying to put the whole ordeal be-

hind them, had spoken out and trial

guilt

therefore find that the charge against Berger in this re-

in the first place. It

if

may be

they had even

known about

significant that not

the

one of the ex-

POWs we spoke to ever mentioned the Berger trial. The vast majority

of them probably had no idea

But the central

it

was taking

place.

Did German treatment of British

issue remains:

and American prisoners of war amount to an atrocity? This book

may that

the

give comfort to both sides in this argument.

highly unlikely that either the

it is

German government

We

have shown

German high command

or

ever gave orders for British and American

prisoners of war to be systematically maltreated or massacred. At the

same time, the

details

of the marches and their unremitting hard-

— always known by the former prisoners of war themselves, but now revealed wider audience for the time — show delibership

to a

ate

and inexcusable cruelty that exposed

sickness, danger,

The

first

a

men

in captivity to

prisoners were

the depths of winter.

ill

They

prepared and

ill

and disease were

equipped for marches in

received woefully inadequate supplies of

food, medicines, and shelter, so that deaths trition,

inevitable.

from exhaustion, malnu-

And, though the very first marches

away from the advancing Russians could possibly be the

extreme

and death.

Geneva Convention's requirement

justified

under

that prisoners should not be

exposed to the dangers of being caught up in military action, subse-

quent marches could not. lifted this

First,

the Allied leaders had specifically

requirement in the hope that the Germans would leave their

prisoners of war to be liberated, but they did not. Second, the prisoners

had their

lives

endangered by being forced to continue marching

THE LAST ESCAPE

446

on open roads where they were

liable to

come under fire from aircraft

of both sides. Third, the intention behind the marches rapidly be-

came

(if it

had not been so from the very beginning) not to protect

prisoners from danger but to use

end of the war. The plain

at the

ately

them fact

is

as

human

shields or hostages

that their lives

were deliber-

and unnecessarily put at risk, and those who died on the marches

were victims of cruel and inhuman treatment.

The than

a

story

we have

told

is

quarter of a million British and American servicemen. Their

experiences did not result in

came very

one of courage and endurance by more

close to doing so. last,

The

a

catastrophic loss of life

vast majority of

many

they escaped the fate that

what of those who did not? The sad truth

is

men

—though they

got home. At the

of them had feared. But that

we do not know how

many prisoners

of war lost their lives in those final, frantic months of World War. Almost every one of the hundreds of personal

the Second

accounts

from

we have

falling

seen and heard speaks of men dying

from exhaustion and being

being shot while trying to escape, or

left to die in

just

more

often they are not. Sometimes as

lists

sickness,

the snow, from

from being shot

behind. Sometimes the dead are named, and some exist;

—from

for lagging

of casualties do

many as three-quarters of

those in a particular column dropped out through sickness, and those

who marched on

never found out what happened to them.

was no systematic attempt to find out

The homecomings

—

we have

as

at the

seen

And

there

end of the war.

—were

a

nightmare for the

bureaucrats, and, in their eagerness to be back with their loved ones,

few former

POWs

their comrades. It

the

seem

figures

to

up on what happened

would perhaps be twenty or

mood swung toward

pened

to have followed

thirty years later,

to

when

reunions, that people might ask what hap-

Harry or Hank; but by then no one knew

for sure. Official

produced by the American Department of Defense show that

93,941 U.S.

Army and

Air Corps personnel were captured and int

Of who

terned in the European theater of war between 1941 and 1945. these, 92,820

were logged

died while prisoners.

1

"

as

having returned, which leaves 1,121

This figure does not distinguish between those

EPILOGUE

447

who died during normal camp life in the course of the war and those who might have been victims of the marches and the horrendous conditions at the end. Individual

American veterans disagree with each other vehe-

mently about the mortality

One article in a magazine for for-

figures.

number of deaths could have been as high as 1,500 on the march from Gross Tychow alone, while an ex-prisoner who had been on the same march pooh-poohed the whole idea and put the death toll at six. "None died in the group I mer

prisoners of war thought the

18

19

was

in,"

death."

he added, "and

He

I

never heard anyone mention anyone's

admitted to freezing conditions and a shortage of food,

but he rejected the term "death march" and downgraded

misery walk." with the oners

Then

died between September 1944 and

British statisticians are unable to be of

May

1945

produced an admission that no consolidated figures

numbers of soldiers,

sailors,

war with the numbers who were known or captured and the numbers

who

20

number of prison-

war who died on the marches from the camps

reconciled the

as 8,348.

any greater help. Our re-

quest to the Ministry of Defence for details of the

we were

to "the

POW camps gave the number of British and American pris-

who

ers of

it

YMCA official closely involved

again, a senior

exist.

and airmen

to have

been

returned home.

in the east

No one has

who went

to

killed in action

The

only figure

offered was that in mid- 1946 the Secretary of State had an-

nounced in the House of Commons that the number of "unaccountedfor prisoners of

forty-nine. figures for

21

war from German camps" had been reduced

It left

its

us none the wiser.

men

The RAF came up with precise

killed in action, missing,

prisoners of war, but could not elaborate killed while prisoners

which category the

of war.

It

and American for sure.

remained

fifty officers

from Sagan had been placed.

to

wounded, and held

a mystery, for

murdered

How many

as

on those who had been example, in

after the great escape

British,

Commonwealth,

POWs died on the dreadful marches? We cannot tell

But from our researches we

where between 2,500 and 3,500. 22

will

hazard a guess at some-

— THE LAST ESCAPE

448

These deaths were to

men who had

all

more

the

happened

terrible because they

waited patiently for years with just one thought

one day they would see their home again. They died with the

that

worst behind them, and with fore in their captivity

them

home

—both

closer than

it

had ever been bemarches took

physically, because the

west, and mentally, because they

knew

it

was only

matter of

a

time before the fighting was over. Nevertheless, more than 250,000 survived to

tell

their tale,

however

As we walked among the pine

different.

men who had been

Luft IV, alongside

have been so

belatedly. It could

on the

trees

site

of Stalag

given back their lives half a

we were aware of the

century ago and had used them well ever since,

ghosts that haunt other Polish forests. Katyn, 1,000 miles away and

now

become a byword for massacre. There, in thousands of Polish army officers were shot and buried in mass

part of Russia, has

1940,

graves.

For years the world blamed the Germans,

emerged

that the officers

in

later, as

uniform the

cheap and

war

it

eventually

had been victims of Stalin and the Soviet

Union. They had committed no crime. They

men

until

wrong place at Europe came to an

just

wrong

happened

to be

time. Five years

in the

the

in

end, lives were every bit as

just as likely to

end with

a bullet in the

head or

a

bayonet

in the back.

Not one

of the

men we

interviewed regarded himself as a hero.

In their words, they were simply "doing their job and survived while

many

friends did not."

As one

POW said, "The tortures of war are

many, and the chances for survival are few. Each day

a

new and

dif-

ferent challenge for survival was met, and each day you prayed that

you would meet particular

was.

He

that challenge face to face

man had

had been

and every tenth

every reason to

in a

and pass the

know how

test."

thin the thread of

man was

lined

up

to be shot.

its

threat. In the life

intact

he and those thousands of other Allied prisoners of war did

forgotten.

life

Only the return of the

from carrying out

violence and chaos of 1945, to have escaped with your

a truly

That

group of prisoners accused of stealing bread,

loaf stopped the firing squad

counted

23

remarkable achievement, and

now one

—

as

—can be

never to be

Appendix I: Chronology of the End of the Second World War

1944

—Allied troops

June 6 D-Day

assault the beaches of Nor-

mandy.

June 13 V-l June 17

1.2

bombs begin

flying

to

fall

on London.

million Soviet soldiers attack

German

forces in

Belorussia.

July July

3

1 1

Red Army captures Minsk. Roosevelt announces he will run for an

unprecedented fourth term July

1 3

Red Army

as President.

captures Vilna.

Evacuation of Stalag Luft VI, Heydekrug, begins. July 20 Hitler survives assassination attempt by von Stauffenberg.

July

3 1

Red Army

12 miles

from Warsaw.

U.S. forces break out from Normandy.

August

1

August

7

Warsaw uprising begins. German V-l bombs have now

killed 5,000

people and

destroyed 35,000 homes.

August 16

Stalin refuses to help

August 25 Paris

September

8 First

is

Warsaw

uprising.

liberated.

V-2 rocket lands on west London.

September 10 Himmler orders the families of all German deserters to be executed.

September

1 1

U.S. First

Army crosses Germany/Luxembourg border.

— 450

CHRONOLOGY OF THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

September 27 Beleaguered

British forces

forced to surrender

surrounded

at

—only 2,400 men of

Arnhem

are

original force

of 10,000 escape. Hopes fade of an early end to the war.

October

5

All hospitals in trol

Germany are put under

military con-

and sixteen-year-olds are called up for military

service.

November 8 November 29 December 5 December 16

Roosevelt wins fourth term as U.S. President.

Red Army

crosses the

Danube and

General Patron's Third

encircles Budapest.

Army crosses

The German Army counterattacks

the River Saar.

in the

Ardennes

the Battle of the Bulge begins.

December

17

The SS

massacre seventy-one American

POWs cap-

tured at Malmedy.

December 24

POW work camps around Konigsberg are evacuated.

1945 January 12 Red

Army launches

offensive in Poland and East

Prussia.

January

1

7

January 19

Warsaw falls to the Red Army. POVVs at Stalag Luft VII, Bankau,

are evacuated in

blizzard conditions.

January 22 Stalag 344

at

Lamsdorf is evacuated.

January 23 Marienburg evacuation begins. 7

January 27 Red

Army

liberates Auschwitz.

Evacuation of

POW

7

s

from Stalag Luft

III at

Sagan

begins.

January

3

1

The Red Army crosses

the

German

frontier

and

is

95

miles from Berlin.

February 4

Stalin, Roosevelt,

and Churchill meet

at Yalta in the

Crimea.

February 6 Stalag Luft IV start

at

Gross Tychow

is

evacuated at the

of an eighty-six-day march.

February 9 British and American troops sweep through 7

Germany's western defensive February 10 Stalag VIIIA

at Gorlitz

is

wall, the Siegfried Line.

evacuated.

CHRONOLOGY

OF THE END OF THE SECOND

February 13 Budapest

falls

to the

Red Army

WORLD WAR

451

after a fifty-day siege.

February 14 British and American bombers attack Dresden.

Army crosses

February 23 U.S. Ninth

the

Ruhr on

the

Dutch bor-

der.

February 28

Two

Germans

million

the "red terror" through

flee

the Baltic port of Danzig.

March 6 U.S. troops enter Cologne. March 7 First U.S. troops cross the Rhine south of Cologne. March 19 Hitler issues the "Nero Order" for the destruction of all

industry, transport,

and agriculture

likely to fall to

the Allies.

March 24 Allied troops cross the Rhine in force. March 29 U.S. forces capture Frankfurt am Main. April 3 Stalag XIIID at Nuremberg is evacuated. April 6 Stalag XIB and 357 at Fallingbostel are evacuated. April 8 First reports of April 9 Konigsberg

POW marches appear in British press.

falls

to the

Red Army.

April 12 President Roosevelt dies. April 16 Colditz

is

liberated.

POWs left behind at Fallingbostel are liberated by the British Second Army. April 17 Bergen-Belsen concentration April 19

camp

is

liberated.

A POW column is attacked by Allied aircraft at Gresse.

April 22

Soviet forces liberate Stalag Luft IIIA at

Luckenwalde. April 27 U.S. and Soviet forces link

April 29 Stalag

VILA

at

Moosburg

up

is

at the

liberated

River Elbe.

by Patron's

Third Army. April 30 Berlin

falls

to the

Red Army

after a

nine-day

battle.

Hitler commits suicide.

May 2

British troops capture the Baltic ports of Liibeck

Wismar.

May 4 German

forces in western

Liineburg Heath.

Europe surrender on

and

452

CHRONOLOGY OF THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

May 8 VE Day— the

last

of the

POWs evacuated from

Fallingbostel are liberated.

May 9 Prague is liberated. May 12 Red Army releases British Luckenwalde.

and American

POWs at

Appendix 2: The Yalta Agreement on Prisoners of War, February 1945

The Government

of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the

one hand and the Governments of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and

Northern

Zealand, of the

Ireland,

of Canada, of Australia, of

Union of South Africa and of India on

New

the other hand,

wishing to make arrangements for the care and repatriation of Soviet citizens freed

by forces operating under

British subjects freed

British

command and

for

by forces operating under Soviet command, have

agreed as follows:

Article

1

All Soviet citizens liberated

by the forces operating under British com-

mand and all British subjects liberated by the forces operating under Soviet command will, without delay after their liberation, be separated from enemy prisoners of war and will be maintained separately from them

in

camps or points of concentration

until they

over to the Soviet or British authorities, as the case

have been handed

may

be, at places

agreed upon between those authorities. British

and Soviet military authorities

will respectively take the

necessary measures for protection of camps, and points of concentration

from enemy bombing,

artillery fire, etc.

Article 2

The

contracting parties shall ensure that their military authorities

shall

without delay inform the competent authorities of the other

THE YALTA AGREEMENT ON PRISONERS OF WAR

454

part\-

regarding citizens or subjects of the other contracting party

found by them, and

will at the

implement the provisions of triation representatives will

the

same time take the necessary

steps to

7

this

agreement. Soviet and British repa-

have the right of immediate access into

camps and points of concentration where

their citizens or subjects

are located and they will have the right to appoint the internal istration

and

set

up the

internal discipline and

management

admin-

in accor-

dance with the military procedure and laws of their country. Facilities will

be given for the dispatch or transfer of officers of

own nationality to camps or points of concentration where liberated members of the respective forces are located and there are insufficient officers. The outside protection of and access to and from the their

camps or points of concentration

will

be established in accordance

commander in whose zone they military commander shall also appoint a comman-

with the instructions of the military are located, and the dant,

who

shall

have the

final responsibility for the overall

tion and discipline of the

The removal

camp

administra-

or point concerned.

of camps as well as the transfer from one

camp

to an-

other of liberated citizens or subjects will be effected by agreement

with the competent Soviet or British authorities. Removal of camps

and transfer of liberated

citizens or subjects may, in exceptional cir-

cumstances, also be effected without preliminary agreement, provided the competent authorities are immediately notified of such removal or

propaganda directed

transfer with a statement of the reasons. Hostile

against the contracting parties or against any of the United Nations will

not be permitted.

Article 3

The competent

British

and Soviet authorities

will

supply liberated

cit-

izens or subjects of the contracting parties with adequate food, clothing,

housing and medical attention both in camps or

at points

of

concentration and en route, and with transport until they are handed

over to the Soviet or British authorities at places agreed upon between those authorities.

The

medical attention

shall,

on

a basis for privates,

standards of such food, clothing, housing and subject to the provisions of Article

noncommissioned

officers

and

8,

officers.

be fixed

The

ba-

THE YALTA AGREEMENT ON PRISONERS OF WAR sis

fixed for civilians shall as far as possible

be the same

455

as that fixed for

privates.

The

contracting parties will not

demand compensation

or other similar services which their authorities tively to liberated citizens or subjects

may

for these

supply respec-

of the other contracting party.

Article 4

Each of the contracting

parties shall be at liberty to use in

with the other party such of

own means

its

available for the repatriation of

its

agreement

may be

of transport as

citizens or subjects held

by the

other contracting party. Similarly each of the contracting parties shall

be at liberty to use in agreement with the other party for the delivery of supplies to

its

its

own

facilities

by the other

citizens or subjects held

contracting party.

Article 5 Soviet and British military authorities shall

make such advances on be-

half of their respective governments to liberated citizens and subjects

of the other contracting party as the competent Soviet and British authorities shall agree

Advances made

upon beforehand. in currency of

any enemy territory or in currency

of their occupation authorities shall not be liable to compensation. In the case of advances territory, the Soviet

vances the the

made

made

in currency of liberated

and British Governments

will effect,

non-enemy each for ad-

to their citizens or subjects, necessary settlements with

Governments of the territory concerned, who will be informed of amount of their currency paid out for this purpose.

Article 6 Ex-prisoners of war and civilians of each of the contracting parties

may, until their repatriation, be employed in the management, maintenance and administration of the camps or situated.

work

They may

also be

in the vicinity of their

effort in

employed on

camps

a

billets in

which they are

voluntary basis on other

in furtherance of the

common war

accordance with agreements to be reached between the com-

petent Soviet and British authorities.

The

question of payment and

THE YALTA AGREEMENT ON PRISONERS OF WAR

456

other conditions of labour shall be determined by agreement between these authorities. It

is

spective forces will be

understood that liberated members of the re-

employed

in

accordance with military standards

and procedure and under the supervision of their own

officers.

Article 7

The

contracting parties shall wherever necessary use

means

all

practicable

to ensure the evacuation to the rear of these liberated citizens

or subjects.

They

also undertake to use

all

practicable

means

port liberated citizens or subjects to places to be agreed

to trans-

upon where

they can be handed over to the Soviet or British authorities respectively

The handing

over of these liberated citizens or subjects shall in

no way be delayed or impeded by the requirements of their temporary employment. Article 8

The

contracting parties will give the fullest possible effect to the fore-

going provisions of detail

this

agreement, subject only to the limitations in

and from time to time of operational, supply and transport con-

ditions in the several theatres.

Article 9

This Agreement

Done

at the

shall

come

Crimea

into force

in duplicate

on and

signature. in the English

and Russian

languages, both being equally authentic, this 11th day of February, 1945.

The Senior American Officer's Complaint About Conditions at Stalag XIIID, Nuremberg

Appendix

Stalag Luft III

3:

1

Niirnberg-Langwasser

Germany Subject: Complaints respecting the conditions of captivity.

To:

I.

The Kommandant,

Under

Stalag Luft III

the provisions of the International Convention relating to

the treatment of Prisoners of

War (POW)

published at Geneva,

Switzerland, July 27, 1929 of which the U.S.A. and the

Reich are signatory powers. Stalag Luft

III,

The

German

Senior American Officer (SAO) of

Nurnberg, Germany, presents

in writing those basic

requirements violated by the detaining power at

this

camp

citing

its

authority as contained in the Convention and by subject. Violations are as follows:

A.

POW Camps (Part III Section II Article 9) 1.

Proximity of Military Targets: Stalag Luft

III is

within approx.

three (3) kilometers of a major railroad choke point and marshal-

ing yard. During the

by heavy

aerial

road targets.

which the

main

The

been close to

last

this

two weeks the local area has been bombed

efforts

with apparent attention to the

rail-

dispersion of bombs, both day and night, has

camp. There are no

slit

trenches or shelters

POWs are permitted to use during raids. Prisoners are

kept in the overcrowded huts at the point of guns.

The

location

THE SENIOR AMERICAN OFFICER'S COMPLAINT

458

of this

camp and

local air raid precaution policy

tenable and a protest of the strongest nature for present

B.

unjust and un-

The

present

cording to medical opinion

metabolism and

Under

& POWs

(Part III Section II Chapter II Articles

Inadequate Diet:

tion.

is

hereby registered

and future consideration.

Food and Clothing 1.

is

German

ration to the

1 1

12) ac-

than that required for basic

is less

will inevitably lead to loss

of weight and starva-

the present unhygienic and unhealthful conditions

men

resistance of the

will

become

so lowered as to render

them

highly susceptible to any disease. 2.

German

Issues:

Dehydrated vegetables are consistently wormy.

No ersatz jam or honey is issued. As closely as can be figured not more than twelve hundred and eighteen (1218) per day are available, which a protracted period. It

is

calories per

man

insufficient to sustain existence for

is

impossible even with an inflated imagi-

German

nation, to consider the present

issue as

"depot troop ra-

tion." 3.

Communal

Issues:

Permission

from kitchens during an as are possible 4.

may

is

requested to distribute food

air raid in

order that such preparations

be served warm.

Clothing Replacements and Repair of clothing nor as

is

There

Facilities:

there replacements or repair

required of the detaining power.

The

is

no stock

facilities

provided

from the Sagan area with only the clothing

rived stand.

men

majority of the in

which they

New Purges from the Italian Theater are destitute.

ing and shoes

now

ar-

Cloth-

being worn are rapidly wearing out. Booty

overcoats and trousers are suggested.

C. Installation of Camps (Part 1.

III

Section

II Article 10)

Overcrowding of Barracks: At the present time there sq.

ft.

of floor space and 119 cu.

minuscule area our

men must

ft.

of

air

eat, sleep,

ous condition of overcrowding, which

such

as cerebral-spinal meningitis,

is

only 19

space per man. In this

and

may

live.

This

is

a seri-

lead to epidemics

pneumonia, influenza,

etc.

THE SENIOR AMERICAN OFFICER'S COMPLAINT aggravated by no heat, malnutrition, and ditions are apparently 2.

Lack of Heat:

The

filth.

459

present con-

condoned by the responsible

authorities.

No coal is provided for the barracks and there is a communal

shortage in the

in seven kitchens.

Two

kitchens. Present ration

is

being used

kitchens have been closed and

180 kg per day per kitchen

is

available.

still

only

This condition enhances

the unhealthfalness of the barracks, dirtiness of food, utensils,

and containers and means cold or lukewarm foods are supplied to the men. 3.

A minimum of 400 kg per day per kitchen is required.

Shortage of Bedding:

Many men do not have

the depot troop

is-

Many have no beds of any kind and must sleep on the cold damp floors. At present there are 1,246 men sleeping on sue of blankets.

the floor in camps

and

5, 6,

7.

Stuffing and pallets are vermin-

ridden with no replacements and no opportunity to clean those in use. It

is felt

that

no "depot troops" of the detaining power

are

subject to this treatment. 4.

Poor Lighting: Lighting of the barracks and aborts low standard ity is

for depot troops

1.

III

Section

Inadequate Bathing and Washing but not executed in (2)

weeks.

fact,

The shower

be-

and no convenience of accessibil-

afforded between the hours of 2300

D. Hygiene in Camps (Part

[toilets] is

II

&

0600.

Chapter

II Article 13)

has been planned,

Facilities: It

to give showers to

POWs once each two Abwehr Dept.

officer reports that the

has

interfered unnecessarily and better facilities are necessary in order to utilize the

few

facilities available.

No laundry facilities and the

lack of hot water, soap, and space necessary for washing and drying clothes, dishes,

Wash

water faucets and

due to overcrowding this means that 400 to 500

men must depend

on two 2.

and food containers lead to infection and dysen-

houses have not more than two

(2)

tery.

(2) faucets.

Vermin: Rats, mice, out the camps.

lice,

bedbugs, and

fleas are

prevalent through-

An ti -vermin powders and disinfectant are too The present disinfectant is too weak to

sporadic to be effective.

destroy the vermin eggs and

it is

doubtful even that

it

liquidates

.

THE SENIOR AMERICAN OFFICER'S COMPLAINT

460

living organisms indicative of the filthy conditions. is

3

.

A blow torch

necessary for elimination of eggs.

No Cleaning Material: There are no cleaning materials available for cleaning the barracks, kitchens

POWs.

Soap

is

and aborts, clothing, and the

not available. Brushes, mops, and brooms are

nonexistent. Disinfectant and anti-vermin powders are not sued. Fifty (50) rolls for 5,000

men

for over

is-

one month has been

the issue of toilet paper.

E. Entertainment and Recreation (Part III Section II Chapter

IV Arti-

cle 17)

Entertainment: Books are practically nonexistent and congestion

1

camp

of billeting in

and normally used tual

and

necessitates utilization of space originally

and chapel, for barracks.

as a theater

spiritual welfare

is

Intellec-

suffering under almost insurmount-

able obstacles. 2.

Recreation: General space for calisthenics or organized athletics is

not available.

The

total lack

physical discontentment of

II.

Canteen Supplies: (Part 1.

Canteen Inoperative: articles

III

of facilities adds to the mental and

all

concerned.

Section

II

Chapter

II Article 12)

No provisions are available for purchase of

such as razor and blades, soap, toothbrushes, combs,

matches, barber tools, and mirrors. These items are badly needed.

Authorities of the detaining

power having announced

their helpless-

ness in alleviating these present deplorable circumstances due to

transportation and material shortages, the Senior American Officer

suggests the following course of action subject to the approval of the

German

Reich, the United States, and the Protective

Power

(Switzer-

land):

A. Parole xMarch 1

.

&

Prisoners of to escape) a

Internment

War

of this

camp

will

undertake (under parole not

march of 20 kilometers per day

to the Swiss border

.

THE SENIOR AMERICAN OFFICER'S COMPLAINT where they will be interned

for the duration of the

461

war with Ger-

many. 2.

Food would be provided according to the German march or one Red Cross parcel per man per 75 kilometers.

rations

March to New Location POWs of this camp will undertake a march of 20 kilometers per

B. Parole 1.

day to any location out of the military target area more accessible to the

Red Cross

supplies of food, clothing, and medical

equipment. Given the proper tools and materials they will do

what construction work 2.

Food

3

It is

will

is

requested that a representative of the Protective

permitted to

visit this

camp and confirm

statements.

(signed)

necessary.

be supplied in accordance with A. 2 (above).

Darr H. Alkire

Col. United States

Army Force

Senior American Officer

Power be

the veracity of these

Appendix

It

a

should not be

4:

a difficult

The Numbers Game

problem, should

Surely there must be

it?

reasonably accurate answer to the simple question of

British

and American prisoners of war

fell

into

how many

German hands during

World War. But the issue bedeviled us from the very start of our research for this book and still does. Even an approximate, round figure seems impossible to come by. The tally of POWs seems the Second

—

from one moment

to shift able)

time to the next (which

and from source to source (which

Of as

is

is

understand-

infuriating).

course the situation was constantly changing. Prisoners were

being taken such

in

all

the time

Arnhem

—some

in large

numbers

after set-piece battles

or the Ardennes offensive, others in handfuls as

when

—

bomber. And processing was slow even at the when communication between the two sides was reasonably efficient, it could be many months before a name was officially notified to the authorities at home via the Germans and the International Red Cross. But as the war headed for its climax there was a

crew bailed out of

most

a

settled of times,

often not

enough time

(or the organization) for this to happen. Pre-

sumably, however, someone in Whitehall or at

been counting and categorizing the casualties ing in action

came

in.

—and then reconciling the

Or would

they?

It

SHAEF

—dead, wounded, miss-

figures as

may not have been

force

men and

war

in

Europe

as

28,867

new information

as easy as that.

In July 1944, U.S. Military Intelligence gave the ican prisoners of

would have

number of Amer-

—of whom 16,593 were

air

12,274 were soldiers. But two months earlier the Ger1

— THE NUMBERS GAME

man

463

high command's figure for the number of American

held was 21,324. There 2

is

a gap,

POWs

it

but the two figures seem reasonably

reconcilable given that the U.S. figure had been boosted by 4,500

D-Day. So the

the estimated increase in prisoners taken since

real

comparison was between 24,367 (the U.S. figure) and 21,324 (the

German

figure)

Germans

—

a difference

of around 3,000. Except that

collected their figures differently.

from only the German army-run camps.

It

The

the

if

German

total

the

was

did not include American

most of the

of 21,324 predominantly com-

prised U.S. soldiers (12,274 according to U.S. figures), gest an overestimate of some 9,000

.

figure of 21,324

POWs held in camps run by the Luftwaffe—presumably, U.S. airmen. So,

.

.

it

could sug-

men.

To complicate matters even further, in August 1944 the War OfLondon gave the number of American POWs in Germany as nearly 7,000 fewer than the U.S.A. own figures of the pre22,000 vious month. Apparently not even London and Washington had figfice in

3

—

's

ures they agreed on. figure for the

Germany at the

That same War Office memorandum

number of

that time

British

also gave a

and Commonwealth prisoners in

— 160,000. Then,

in

November

1944, a draft of

SHAEF Operation Eclipse plan for repatriation put the combined

number of U.S. and British/Commonwealth

prisoners at

Such contradictory claims and calculations

we encountered.

It

numbers of POWs

becomes yet more

as the

One document Colonel E.

SHAEF

E

—or

difficult

at least

has special significance.

96,2 5 3.

illustrate the

when

end of the war approached.

discrepancies really begin to matter

1

problems

assessing the

It is

seem

4

here that the

to matter.

On March

24,

1945,

Straub, deputy director of the prisoner-of-war section at

headquarters, put his signature to a set of figures that were

then widely circulated to his colleagues. nal assault over the

It

was the very day that the

fi-

Rhine and into Germany was beginning, and the

paper was intended to give the very latest information on the prisonerof-war camps the advancing troops could expect to locations and their approximate

come

numbers of inmates.

It

across, their

gave what ap-

number of POWs of eleven diftotal of 2,173,714 broken down

pear to be very precise figures for the ferent nationalities

—adding up

according to the seventeen

to a

German

—

military areas (Wehrkreise)

where

— — THE NUMBERS GAME

464

The number

they were thought to be.

Germany was now 76,854.

5

These

were the

The

given as 199,592, and the

figures

were to appear

in

number of Americans

many

as

other documents, and

SHAEF conducted its repatriation plans.

on which

basis

of British prisoners of war in

apparent precision of these figures

be remembered that such

is

beguiling, but

should

it

degree of accuracy was extremely improb-

a

—

March 1945 as we have shown in this book the POW-camp system in Germany was in chaos. The terrible marches from the east were still going on, German bureaucracy so able in the circumstances. In

—

efficient for

most of the war

where anyone was ers arriving in

— —had broken down. No one could be sure

at this particular point.

new camps

Exhausted and sick prison-

—Moosburg or Fallingbostel,

were not football supporters clicking through in

for

example

They came

a turnstile.

hundreds and thousands, and were rarely logged or counted. There

was no cross-check of how many had arrived against how many had left their

previous camp. If there had been, then

how many had become the war, with Germany in

we would know

sure

casualties along the way.

in

collapse, hardly

reconciling figures. liaison

with the

How could

German

But

for

at this stage

anyone was counting and

they in the circumstances? Moreover,

authorities through the neutral agencies of

—

Power and the International Red Cross which had worked efficiently for most of the war was now virtually nonexistent. Straub's document itself states clearly that its figures are only an estithe Protecting

—

mate.

The

mating

crucial table

results

is

headed "Total of

of recent moves on Eastern front" (our

estimate can only have been evitably there

PW by wehrkreis italics).

made with inadequate

And

esti-

yet any

information. In-

must have been guesswork, error and, above

all,

double-

accounting.

The document was intended to provide an assessment of the size of a problem for those who had to deal with it. It was sent to all those departments who would be involved in the return of those prisoners all the way down the line to, At the time,

this did

not matter very much.

—

for example, the financial

currency. If figures were

branch whose job was to hand out foreign

on the high

side,

then that was better than

understating the task ahead. But, in hindsight,

much. That

figure of 199,592 assumes a

it

seems to matter very

huge significance against an-

THE NUMBERS GAME other

which

statistic,

British

POWs

that the official figure for the

home

logged as having returned

end of the war

does one explain this discrepancy of 30,846?

are convinced that the explanation

is

into Russian hands

fell

do not do so

a terrible fate

We

could equally claim that those

who must

have died on the marches from

in Stalin's forced-labor camps.

We

or

were not allowed home but were sent to

30,000 were the numbers

Some people

that tens of thousands of British

POWs who were liberated by the Russians, in other ways,

the east.

at the

number of

6

was 168,746.

How

is

465

—

for the simple reason that

all

the figures

March 1945

are inherently flawed. Serious doubts about the

figure

have been stated. But there must also be question marks over the cial figures

given for returnees.

comings were.

Men waiting in

offi-

We have seen how chaotic the hometheir thousands at improvised airstrips

manner onto waiting boats and planes as officials with clipboards ticked them off much though the administrators at MI9 would have wished them to. Some jumped on and

at ports did

not

file

in an orderly

—

any departing boat or plane when they could. At the other end, those

welcoming them back were overwhelmed by the sheer weight of numbers.

Some

POWs

remember being

were not even asked their name.

interrogated. Others say they

Many

returned in

a truculent

frame

of mind, unwilling to cooperate with any form of authority and simply

home for men

soon

set off

as

easy

to slip

as their feet

were on British

was

all

too

through the net of bureaucracy. And, once again,

at the time the counting of heads did not

men home

soil. It

as quickly as possible

seem important. Getting the

was the priority

—not reconciling

numbers, adding up and cross-checking.

One

Commonwealth prisoners of war held by the Germans got home. Some died in captivity in their camps through illness, Allied bombing, and enemy violence. (According to historian W. Wynne Mason, bombing alone accounted for around 1,000 notified deaths.) Then, as we have seen, an unknown number but probably running into several thousands died on those thing

is

sure:

Not

all

the British and

—

7

marches from the

east

and in the chaos of the

final

months and weeks.

Some men simply chose not to go home and began new lives in And some (though in what numbers we

Poland, Germany, or France.

THE NUMBERS GAME

466

do not know) undoubtedly sons,

fell

into Soviet hands and, for various rea-

were detained behind the rapidly descending iron curtain and

died there.

As

for

American prisoners of war, Washington seems

much more

to have

energetic than the British in trying to reconcile

its

been

casualty

numbers. Even before the war had ended, search teams were sent out to battlefields in listed

Europe

to track

down what had happened

to those

"missing in action" and to locate bodies, graves, or records of

treatment in the hospital. Records from the Germans proved hopelessly

POWs in Ger-

out of date, giving the total number of American

man hands any or

all

as 72,91 3.

But

this figure

almost certainly did not include

of the 20,000-plus American soldiers captured during the

Battle of the Bulge,

POWs in

8

which would have pushed the

Germany much

higher.

number of U.S.

total

A Military Intelligence

report after

war (November 1945) gave the number of U.S. prisoners of war in Germany as having been 92, 965. 9 the

So where do we end up solid

mire of

statistics? Is

ground to stand on? At the beginning of our story

mer of 1944

—

the

months of the war

300,000

—

a

it is

in the

sum-

Germany was approximately

this

had

risen to

180,000.

By

the

between 250,000 and nearly

wide margin, which represents roughly the lowest and

highest estimates. able as

—

there any

combined number of British, Commonwealth, and

U.S. prisoners of war in last

after this

—

is

Common

sense suggests that the truth

probably somewhere in the middle.

readily quoted for British

—unobtain-

The

POWs seems on the high side,

199,592 so

and the

fig-

War in the House The American fig-

ure of 180,000 quoted by the Secretary of State for

of Commons in ures

May

1945

may be more

realistic.

10

— apparently more diligently arrived —can more reasonably be at

relied on, at just over 90,000.

therefore not be unreasonable

than a best guess.

A

combined

total

of 275,000 would

—but cannot be taken

as

anything other

Notes

Note .After a

reference

same source attributed to chapter, in

number

in the text, all

subsequent quotations come from the

until either the next reference

someone who has been

which case that

number appears

or a quotation

cited in an earlier reference in the

is

same

earlier reference applies again.

Abbreviations

CAB

Cabinet

CHAR

Churchill Archives

FO

Foreign Office

IWM

Imperial Y\ ar

Museum

(the

Department of Documents unless

stated otherwise)

JX JSM

John Xichol Joint Staff Mission

PREM

Premier

PRO

Public Record Office (London)

USAFA

WO

United States Air Force Academy

War

Office

Preface 1.

Roger

2.

We

Allen, interviews with the authors,

were

that

in

September 2001.

Pomerania, near the coastline of the Baltic Sea, in an area

had been German for centuries but was handed

to

Poland

postwar redistribution of territory and movement of borders.

man

in the

The Ger-

population was ejected by force, place-names were changed, and

even- sign of the take their place.

Germans was

eradicated. Polish settlers

moved

in to

.

NOTES

468

3

Norman Leonard,

POW who was "almost a skeleton by the time

a

I

got

home," had come across concentration-camp victims on the march and

we

wrote, "At the time

felt

we had a certain affinity with them in our we learned later that there was really

condition and circumstances but

no comparison when the horrors of the concentration camps, of which we knew nothing at the time, were full revealed" (diary and interviews with JN, 2001-2). 4.

M.

R. D. Foot and

Fostered Escape

J.

M.

Langley, MI9: The British Secret Service That

and Evasion 1939-1945, and

Its

American Counterpart

(London: Bodley Head, 1979). 5.

Ralph Mattera, quoted

in Joseph P.

O'Donnell, The Shoe Leather Express

(privately published, n.d.). 6.

1

:

Ron Walker,

The 1.

diaries.

Coming

Russians Are

Victor

F.

Glo?y! True Accounts of RAF

Gammon, Xot All

Prisoner in Europe,

1939-1945 (London: Arms

&

Airmen Taken

Armour, 1996).

IWM 83/1/1.

2.

Richard Passmore,

3.

Cal Younger, Alb Flight from the Cage (London: Frederick Muller, 1956),

and interviews with JN, 2001-2. 4.

Camps

of officers were led by the Senior British Officer or the Senior

American

man

Man

Officer, a position accorded

there.

Camps

of Confidence.

Camps

drafted in from another

W. Wynne Mason, in the

who was known

of private soldiers also elected

Confidence, though sometimes

5.

by right to the highest-ranking

of NCOs elected their leader,

camp

a

noncommissioned

officer

a

as the

Man

of

might be

to take the position.

Prisoners of

War

(Official

History of

New

Zealand

Second World War, 1939^-5) (Wellington: Oxford University

Press, 1954). 6.

Dixie Deans interview,

7.

There

IWM Sound Archive 6142-1982. Some

Deans himself made German officer, but we think this less likely. Deans was not the sort of man to have done the Germans' dirty work for them. He would have made sure that terrible the

are differing accounts of this.

announcement

news

like this

came

say that

after a conversation with the

initially

from

their

mouths, not

his.

8.

Cec Room,

9.

Nicolaus von Below, At Hitlers Side: The Memoirs of Hitlers Luftwaffe

diary and interviews with JN, 2001-2.

Adjutant, 1931-1945, trans. Geoffrey Brooks (London: Greenhill Books,

2001).

..

NOTES 10.

Affidavit for sion,

Nuremberg

trials

469

taken from Nazi Conspiracy and Aggres-

VI (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing

Vol.

Office,

1946).

Hugh Trevor-Roper

1 1

(ed.),

War Directives (London: Sidgwick

Hitlers

&

Jackson, 1964). 1

Gammon, Not All Glory!

2

13.

RAF POWs

14.

Younger,

ers already held there

1

5

16.

Thorn as Stalag 357; knew it as Stalag XXA.

referred to

No Flight from the Gammon, Not All Glory!

the British

army prison-

Cage, and interviews with JN, 2001-2.

Robert John Parsons, The Best Seat

in the

House (Indiana: privately pub-

lished, 1998). 17.

Percy Wilson Carruthers,

Of Ploughs,

Planes and Palliasses (Arundel:

Woodfield Publishing, 1992). 18.

Gammon, Not All Glory!

19.

James Earl Taylor, A aries78

20.

21.

Gammon, Not All Glory! Ed Hays, The Heydekrug Run aries78

22. 23

.

24.

Baltic Cruise

(http://www.members.fortunecity.com/

—accessed August 2001). (http://www.members.fortunecity.com/

—accessed August 2001).

PRO WO 208/3342. Carruthers, Of Ploughs, Planes and Palliasses. The German military authorities had notified

Cross of the camp's existence in logged

having 671

as

after the transfer

POWs, British.

Investigation of Hitler

Joseph

And

P.

the International

On

June

1,

1944

—the figures were

later

Red

it

was

—

i.e.,

given as 5,643

(Data recorded by Commission for the

Crimes

see complaint

1944.

American. Three months

from Heydekrug

Americans and 865

Koszalin.

all

May

in Poland, Regional

by Jan Mikszo,

Commission

in

POW number 39219, in

O'Donnell, The Shoe Leather Express [privately published,

n.d.].)

2:

Abandoned 1.

to Their Fate

Prepared by Military Intelligence Service,

War

Department, July

15,

1944. 2.

U.S.A.E Oral History Interview, U.S.A.F.A. archive K239.0512-1130, recorded June 20-21, 1979.

3.

PRO WO

32/11124.

.

NOTES

470

4.

Winston Churchill,

My

Thornton Butterworth, 5.

" 'Blind

David Rolf, in

German

Early Life:

A

Roving Commission (London:

1930). British Government and POWs Bob Moore and Kent Fedorowich Captors in World War II (Oxford: Berg,

Bureaucracy:'

The

Captivity 1939-1945," in

(eds.), Prisoners

of War and Their

1996). 6.

W. Wynne Mason, Prisoners of War (Official History of New Zealand in World War, 1939-45) (Wellington: Oxford University

the Second Press, 1954). 7.

Quoted

in

David Rolf, Prisoneis of the

Reich:

Germany s

Captives

1939-

1945 (London: Leo Cooper, 1988). 8.

A harsh finitive

conclusion? Perhaps

work

for the official

—but one accepted by Mason, whose de-

New Zealand

knowledged authority on prisoners of war. footnote:

"The evidence makes

it

history of the

war

is

the ac-

He ventures his opinion in a

clear that the orders

were meant to

serve the needs of the administrative arrangements for evacuating prisoners, which, in the event of an undisturbed armistice situation,

have been 9.

all

the easier

if

no prisoners

at all

Of

these, just

camp. There were 476 work detachments. ber

1,

1944.

10.

Maj. Gen.

1 1

Quoted

12.

PRO WO

3

left their

F.

PRO WO

British

in the

Office figures,

main

Decem-

32/1 1124.

W. Simpson.

E.

856 were held

War

would

camps."

Marienburg had 25,000 prisoners of war, of whom 9,173 were and of the Commonwealth.

1

had

PRO WO

193/346.

in Rolf, Prisoners of the Reich.

32/1 1124.

commandants of British Army reception camps," June

"Instructions to

14.

PRO WO 193/347. PRO WO 32/11125.

15.

The

23, 1944.

expert was

Telegraph, 16.

Statistic

M.

R. D. Foot: article

December

6,

on him by Anthony Beevor, Daily

2001.

from Peter Calvocoressi,

guin History of the Second World

Guy Wint, and John

War (London:

middle of 1944, 3.5 million Soviet

Pritchard, Pen-

Viking, 1989).

By

the

POWs had died through murder or

neglect. 17.

The exact numbers of Allied prisoners of war held by the Germans is almost impossible read,

on

most gave

to establish: of the multitude of documents the authors different figures. See

POW numbers.

Appendix 4

for

more information

. .

NOTES 18.

"Repatriation of British

471

Commonwealth

prisoners of war from

PRO WO

Territory occupied by the Russian Forces." 19.

Lt.

Gen. W.

B.

Smith to Maj. Gen.

Mission, Moscow, August 16, 1944. 20.

From

DPW

PRO WO 2

From

1

22.

23.

(http://

24.

1944.

4,

Patricia Wadley, to

PRO 219/1456. Moscow, August

Moscow,

PRO WO

October

Even One

to

SHAEF,

No-

for General Smith,

193/347.

Is

Too

7,

1944.

PRO WO

193/347.

Many: An Examination of the

War

Repatriate Liberated American World

www.aiipowrma.com/research/wadley.htrnl

Soviet Re-

War

II Prisoners of

—accessed June 2002).

Earl of Selburne, Minister of Economic Warfare, letter to 1944.

24, 1944.

193/347.

Memo to Chiefs of Staff, fusal

R. Dean, chief of U.S. Military

to British Military Mission,

Military Mission,

vember

J.

German

193/347.

PM, July 25,

PRO PREM 3/364/8.

25.

WSC to Foreign Secretary, July 26,

26.

Memo to Chiefs of Staff,

27.

Telegram from Foreign Secretary to FO, October

28.

29.

PREM 3/364/8. PRO PREM 3/364/8. November 11, 1944. PRO WO

30.

Minutes of

3 1

Wadley, Even One

Is Too

32.

In Even One

Many,

October

7,

PRO PREM 3/364/8. 1944. PRO WO 193/347.

1944.

12,

1944.

PRO

193/347.

DPW meeting, December

1944 (our

1,

italics).

WO

PRO

193/347.

Is Too

Many. Patricia

Wadley goes

step

by step through the

diplomatic notes and conversations and deduces that Roosevelt over-

members of his Cabinet

ruled three

portant issue.

The

to

change U.S. policy on

this

im-

authors find her argument and her evidence totally

persuasive and acknowledge their debt to her scholarship. 33

.

This decision would lead to

go on long diers

after the

who would be

slaughtered.

A

forced back to the Soviet

particular

and army

row raged over

35.

36.

—arguments that would

Union

against their will and

the Cossack

army

to Stalin in brutal fashion. Forty years

officers involved faced accusations

that their involvement in this 34.

controversy

war was over about those tens of thousands of sol-

which was delivered up politicians

much

was tantamount to

a

in Austria,

later, British

from

historians

crime against humanity.

From JSM, Washington. PRO WO 32/1 124. Memo by Lt. Col. R. E. A. Elwes, September 1, 1944. PRO 32/1 War Office memo by Lt. M. L. Gilbert. PRO WO 32/1 111. 1

1

1

124.

—

.

NOTES

472

PRO WO

37.

Memo from Lt.

38.

"The committing of acts of violence towards

PRO WO

October 1944. 39.

"The evacuation of Allied 1944.

40.

PRO WO

32/11124. British prisoners of war,"

32/11124. prisoners of war from Germany," August 31,

193/347.

Minutes of Directorate of Prisoners of

PRO WO 41.

David James.

War

meeting, September 14,

193/347.

As deputy director of Military Intelligence (Prisoners of War) by the designation

DDMI(P/W) — Crockatt

—known

was head of MI9, the de-

partment responsible for escape and evasion of military personnel in

enemy

during the war was helping

territory. Its principal activity

men downed

behind enemy

air-

and escapees from prisoner-of-war

lines

camps evade capture and get home.

U.S. equivalent at the Pentagon

Its

MIS-X and was headed by

Ed Johnston, who

was known

as

civilian life

was the extremely wealthy heir to the Lucky Strike cigarette

fortune.

The Pentagon worked

Lt. Col.

very closely with MI9.

"On

every point

there was close, constant, and cordial cooperation," according to

D. Foot and J. M. Langley,

MI9:

The

Escape and Evasion 1939-1945, and

BodleyHead,

British Secret Service

M.

R.

That Fostered

American Counterpart (London:

Its

1979).

42.

Distinguished Service Order, one of the highest military awards.

43

"Possible behaviour of enemy towards Allied

Notes

in

for conference with

P/W on German collapse. SHAEF," September 30, 1944. PRO WO

32/11124. 44.

PRO WO

45.

From 1944.

46.

32/1 1124.

Brig. R.

H.

PRO WO

S.

Venables,

SHAEF

PWX

Branch, October 24,

32/1 1124.

"Crockatt" was misspelled, and his

initial

was given

as

M instead of N

small points but ones that suggest that the writer, Brigadier Venables of

SHAEF's prisoner-of-war department, or matter the 47.

fullest attention

his staff,

was not giving the

or respect.

"Protection of Allied prisoners of war against acts of violence committed by SS and other

German

forces,"

November

24, 1944.

PRO

WO

32/11124. 48.

DPW to Sub-Committee A of the Imperial War Committee, December 1944.

49.

PRO WO

Phrase used in

vember

24, 1944.

50. Joint Chiefs to

163/588.

JSM memo

PRO WO

to U.S. Military Mission in

32/1

1

SHAEF, December

Moscow, No-

124. 14, 1944.

PRO WO

32/1

1

124.

..

.

NOTES 3:

Out into 1

473

the Cold

"There was no booze confiscated

all

the

camp

in the

stills"

—

.

.

.

Germans had forbidden

the

John Hartnell-Beavis, Final

it

and

Flight (Braun-

Merlin Books, 1985).

ton: 2.

Arthur Durand, Stalag Luft III: The Secret Story (Wellingborough: PSL,

3.

From

1988).

the diary of Sqn. Ldr. C.

RAF Fighter Command,

N.

Campbell, Canadian Squadron,

S.

IWM 86/35/1.

Walker, diaries and interview with JN, December 2001

4.

Ron

5.

James Vaughter,

a

hut leader in the south compound,

many of us would

that

guards couldn't

kill

us

break into the open to

die in such a

and that

all

live off

mass uprising but we a

Bob Neary,

7.

Joseph

"We knew

also

knew

P.

O'Donnell, The Shoe

n.d.]).

Stalag Luft III (North Wales, Pa: privately published,

We thank Bob's widow for permission to quote from this. W. Lovoi, Listen My Childirn (New York: Vintage .

.

the

good many would get away and

the land" (Joseph

Leather Express [privately published, 6.

said,

.

1

946).

Press,

November-December 2001. and interviews with JN, December 2001.

2000), and interviews with JN, 8.

9.

From Eric Hookings's diary Munro Fraser, quoted

Maj.

in

David Rolf,

many's Captives 1939-1945 (London:

quoted in Rolf, Prisoners of the

10.

Sgt. Neil,

11.

See Chapter

1

2

Prisoners of the Reich: Ger-

Leo Cooper,

1988).

Reich.

11.

From an anonymous

diary held by the

RAF Ex-Prisoner

of War Asso-

ciation. 13.

Lt. Col.

14.

Bill

15.

Victor

Joseph L. Cittadini, 20th Mission (privately published,

n.d.).

Ethridge, Time Out (Oregon: privately published, 1997). F.

Gammon, Not All

Prisoner in Europe,

Glory! True Accounts of RAF

1939-1945 (London: Arms

Airmen Taken

& Armour,

1996).

16.

Diary of Walter Steck (confirmed by James Vaughter) in O'Donnell,

17.

Maj. Gen. Delmar T. Spivey,

Shoe Leather Express.

POW Odyssey

(Massachusetts: privately

published, 1984). 18.

19.

Anonymous diary, see note 12. Both Moose Moulton and Walter Steck

give this figure in their diaries

in O'Donnell, Shoe Leather Express. 20.

James Vaughter

in

2

Peter Hewitt in

Gammon, Not All Glory!

1

22.

There

O'Donnell, Shoe Leather Express.

are various accounts of this incident,

all

slightly different in de-

— NOTES

474

tail,

depending on where the writer was in the column. This

lation

from those accounts.

hurt. Cittadini says a

is

a

compi-

remains unclear whether anyone was

It

few were but not

seriously.

Walter Steck says two

were badly injured. 23

.

Quoted

The Longest Mission (The Association of Former Prisoners of

in

Stalag Luft 24.

III,

Anonymous

1995).

diary, see

25.

Geoffrey Willatt's

26.

Ethridge, Time Out.

27.

It

note 12.

diary,

IWM 88/47/1.

should be recorded, for the sake of accuracy, that some were appar-

ently untroubled by the march.

An anonymous

freedom

.

.

.

the novelty

.

.

.

—"the

comparative

He

even thought

the guards were lenient."

how well

the average

man came through the ordeal." He felt sorry for "the few ones who fell sick on the way." It has to be said that this is

unfortunate

he spoke for "most of us."

"It

is

truly remarkable

only benign interpretation of events that the authors have

The overwhelming weight 4:

note 12) ad-

diarist (see

mitted he "thoroughly enjoyed" the experience

of evidence does not support

the one and

come

across.

it.

Fears of a Massacre 1.

2.

PRO WO PRO WO

32/9906. 193/343, January 26, 1945.

3.

Stalag VIIIB at Teschen and Stalag 344 at Lamsdorf.

4.

PRO WO

32/9906.

5.

Ron Walker,

6.

PRO WO

7.

This committee

diaries

The

broadcast was monitored by the

BBC.

and interview with JN, December 2001.

193/343.

—separate from the Directorate of Prisoners of War

POWs from Commonwealth countries. PRO WO 2 19/1460. This seemingly simple suggestion provoked a for-

was concerned with 8.

est

of memos and myriad meetings. There were countless practical and

military objections to designating an area in

could be safely collected. hide troops and weapons? tial if

such

about

this.

a

which prisoners of war

What if the Germans used such an area to The Russians whose agreement was essen-

— —were particularly exercised

plan was to be put into action

They were cgnvinced the Germans would cheat. The U.S. Moscow reported, "The Soviets believe the Ger-

Military Mission in

mans would

locate our prisoners at strategic points, which, being free

from Soviet

attack,

treme

they might inform the Soviet

cases,

would serve

to cover

German withdrawals. In excommand of POW concen-

.

.

.

NOTES orations,

which

in fact did

not

475

exist in

order to free strategic areas from

The Soviets are convinced that unless some benefits acGermans they would not live up to the agreement" (PRO 193/345). Molotov dismissed the idea as "not expedient." He

Soviet attack.

crue to the

WO

thought

it

might produce "most unwished

for results, especially dan-

gerous for prisoners of war." In the end the proposal became academic,

overtook

as events

it.

But the idea that there could ever be

a "safe area"

or "an area of immunity" had already been systematically pulled apart.

In conditions of total war, 9.

10.

PRO WO Urgent

was

just

out of the question.

memo from the International Red

February

many,

it

193/343.

who had

just

Cross to the Foreign Office,

quoting Dr. Marti, head of the delegation in Ger-

17, 1945,

returned to Switzerland.

11.

PRO WO

12.

JSM memo, PRO WO

13.

PRO WO

193/343.

14.

Joseph

O'Donnell, The Shoe Leather Express (privately published,

P.

193/343. 32/1

1

124.

n.d.).

16.

Doug Fry, diaries and papers and interview with JN, November 2001 Norman Leonard, diary and interviews with JN, 2001-2.

17.

O'Donnell, Shoe Leather Express.

18.

Prisoner of

15.

War (Horace Marshal

Cross, January 19.

20.

Hansard,

Mai

22.

&

Sons, on behalf of the British

Red

1942).

Betty Batchelder, interviews with the authors, 2001-2.

2

1

1,

November

17, 1944.

Parsons, interviews with JN, 2 00 1-2

German Military Intelligence, which had warned that the Soviets would attack with five times as many men as the Germans on this front, seven times as many big guns, and seventeen times as many

Except

planes. Hitler chose to ignore this assessment. 23

.

Few German documents about the handling of prisoners of war appear to have survived the war. Our inquiry to the German Military Archive at Freiburg drew a blank. The human record is equally unhelpful. Prison-camp commandants tended not to write their memoirs haps there was

little

glory to be gleaned from being a

none worth recording ries

would be

ample,

was

for posterity.

interesting,

jailer,

And most of the guards, whose stomen at the time. (For ex-

were middle-aged

Theodor Lorentzen, see note 25 below, was born when he was commandant of Stalag XXB.)

fifty

—per-

certainly

in

1894 and

..

.

NOTES

476

24.

Statement by von Hovel to Capt. G. Hay, February

8,

PRO WO

1946.

208/4656. 25.

Deposition on oath given by Theodor Lorentzen to Capt.

F.

Lock of

War Crimes Group,

at

Wolfen-

No.

3

Team on

buttel 26.

1,

1947.

309/667. Staff of the

book Panzer Leader (London: Michael Joseph,

According to SS Gen. Walter Schellenberg the

first

German Army,

Himmler was

in

1952).

in evidence at

trainload of Jews under this deal crossed out of

early February7 1945.

5:

PRO WO

Gen. Heinz Guderian, Chief of General his

27.

Field Investigation Section,

May

Nuremberg,

Germany

in

paid 5 million Swiss francs.

The 1

2.

Retreat from Stalag Luft IV Cec Room recorded events day by day and kept the scraps of paper in his overcoat. On his return home it took two months to sort out the piles of paper he had collected and then write them up as his diary. Report by Albert Kadler, sent by International Red Cross, Geneva, to American Legation, Berne, December 1944. The date of the visit was October

3.

10, 1944.

Percy Wilson Carruthers,

Of

Ploughs, Planes

and

Palliasses

(Arundel:

Woodfield Publishing, 1992). 4.

Doug

5.

Robert John Parsons, The Best Seat

6.

Testimony of Dr. Leslie Caplan

Fry, interview with

JN, November 2001 in the

House (Indiana: privately pub-

lished, 1998).

American prisoners of war,

in

in the

Joseph

matter of the mistreatment of

P.

O'Donnell, The Shoe Leather

Express (privately published, n.d.).

September 2001.

7.

George Guderley, interview with the

8.

D. A. Harpin.

9.

See Chapter 6 for more on the marchers from the work camps in

PRO WO

authors,

309/667.

Poland. 10.

The

first

though

it

Soviet troops reached the

and began the assault on Berlin 1 1

Oder

at

Kustrin on January 31,

would be the middle of April before they crossed

Greg Hatton,

Stories

My

just

in strength

40 miles away.

Father Never Told

Me

(privately published,

n.d.).

12. 1

3

O'Donnell, Shoe Leather Express, and interviews with JN, 2001-2.

From T D. Cooke a piece

selves

in

O'Donnell, Shoe Leather Express. This sounds

of propaganda on the part of the

German

seem reasonable men who had the best

like

guards to make them-

interests of the prisoners

.

—

.

NOTES at heart.

Whether

477

there was any truth in

it

remains

a mystery. Hitler

was alleged to have made many threats against Allied be substantiated, though that does not

mean

POWs. Few

can

they were not made. But

the prisoners' reactions are interesting. Vulnerable as they were, they

were prepared to believe them

all

—and who can blame them?

14.

Roger Allen, interviews with the authors, September 2001.

15.

John Anderson has views with

JN

a slightly different version

18.

said, in inter-

often talk, mainly about food, but

women once in a while.

17.

He

of this.

the lights were out at night in our

we did talk about we had just had a Red Cross parcel because it was Thanksgiving week or Christmas week then men would begin to talk about women." His name was Ken Stanley. room we would

16.

"When

in 2001-2,

If we

were not hungry

—

if

John Anderson, diary and interviews with JN, 2001-2. As it turned out, the Germans were panicking with no good

They were wrong about how close not reach the Baltic and for another

two and

the

seal off the

a half weeks.

reason.

Red Army was. The Russians

did

northern corridor along the coast

The damage done

to the health of the

POWs by the speed at which they were forced to march was totally unnecessary. 19.

"Kriegie" was the fangener,

>:

The Deadly Road 1

2.

POWs' own

abbreviation for the

German

Kiiegsge-

meaning prisoner of war. to the

West

George Guderley, interview with the authors, September 2001 Statement by von Hovel to Capt. G. Hay, February

8,

1946.

PRO WO

208/4656.

5

Bob Otto, interview with the authors, September 2001. Cec Room, diary and interviews with JN, 2001-2. Doug Fry, interview with JN, November 2001.

6.

Percy Wilson Carruthers,

3.

4.

Of Ploughs,

Planes and Palliasses (Arundel:

Woodfield Publishing, 1992). 7.

Deposition taken by Lt. Col. William Hoffman, Minneapolis, December 31, 1947, and reproduced in Joseph Exp?-ess (privately published, n.d.).

ences in his memoirs

O'Donnell, The Shoe Leather also

recounted his experi-

—"Death March Medic," by Capt. Leslie Caplan,

August 25, 1982, which

is

also in

8.

O'Donnell, Shoe Leather Express.

9.

These

details are

P.

Caplan

O'Donnell, Shoe Leather Express.

recorded with precision in Room's

diary.

.

NOTES

478

10.

O'Donnell, Shoe Leather Express, and interviews with JN, 2001-2.

1 1

Caplan, "Death

1

2

1

3

Dr. Caplan's report mentioned two sergeants

German

in a is

14. 15.

unclear

if

who had

legs

amputated

hospital because of gangrene secondary to frostbite, but

it

these are the same.

John Anderson, diary and interviews with JN, 2001-2. Cec Room said of Pollack, "He was a brilliant man, and so inventive and

skilful

plies. All

16.

March Medic."

O'Donnell, Shoe Leather Express.

given that he just hadn't got any equipment or medical sup-

he had he carried in

windpipe of

a bloke

from

tin."

a

milk

who

a small haversack.

Clarence Brower was speaking in Lines,

made by

He

cut a hole in the

couldn't breathe with a strip of metal hacked

a

1994 video documentary, Behind

the U.S. 8th Air Force Historical Society

—

this

is

the

the

only account the authors heard of such an incident. 17. 18.

O'Donnell, Shoe Leather Express.

Greg Hatton,

Stories

My

Father Never Told

Me

(privately published,

n.d.). 1

7:

9.

O'Donnell, Shoe Leather Express.

The 1.

2.

3.

Rivers of Humanity

Pte.

Gordon Manners,

IWM 95/17/1.

Memo to Sir Ernest Burdon, in charge of Red Cross finances, February 2, 1945. PRO WO 193/343. Paraphrase of telegram received from American Legation, Berne, February 28, 1945.

The

telegram was also passed to the

don, which circulated

own

its

paraphrase on

War Office in Lon-

March

2.

PRO

WO

193/345. 4.

Room

5.

Memo from

called this "higher

Chapter

mathematics

as

taught by the Fuhrer." See

5.

the International

ary 17, 1945.

PRO WO

Red Cross

to the Foreign Office, Febru-

193/343. Dr. Marti, head of the delegation in

Germany, reported:

The

delegation

is

unable to

move

food, bandages, and medicines in re-

serve at Liibeck in the north and in Switzerland in the south.

Two

solu-

tions thus strongly indicated: i)

The immediate

transport of relief by

means of some hundreds of

.

.

NOTES be placed

lorries to

at disposal

479

of Red Cross with petrol and other

necessary accessories,

Protection against

ii)

Red

Cross.

air attacks

on secondary railway route

notified

by

We are using all means at our disposal but in view of the

immensity of the problem we beg assistance

in the execution of

our

task.

6.

Report of meeting with International Red Cross representative, Febru-

7.

PRO WO

8.

February 24, 1945.

9.

Message from U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall, Febru-

PRO WO

ary 18, 1945.

193/373.

193/373.

PRO WO

193/373.

ary 18, 1945: "You are authorized to take immediately

measures

as

you deem

all

such relief

necessary, in co-operation with International

Red Cross Committee and European representatives of the American Red Cross to the extent desired by you and without prior reference of your action to the

War

Department." Ref. no.

WX 39712. PRO WO

219/1640.

DPW meeting of February 21. PRO 193/373.

10.

Minutes of

1 1

W. Bampton,

IWM 94/49/1

12.

Rifleman Edgar Nance of the King's Royal Rifle Corps,

13.

Pte.

Gordon Manners,

parcels

which Geneva

POWs." He third of a 14.

IWM

is

"Much

talk of

IWM 95/15/1.

Red Cross food

supposed to have diverted for use of evacuated

got half a box on

box on March

95/17/1:

March

1,

which

lasted

two

days.

Then

a

7.

Les Allan, interview with the authors, January 2002.

15.

Stutthof, he said.

16.

Rifleman Edgar Nance of the King's Royal Rifle Corps,

17.

Affidavit

by 6341491 Charles Houston to

sion,

September

man

officers

5,

1945. In his complaint

who had

failed

IWM 95/15/1.

UN War Crimes

Houston named

Commis-

certain

Ger-

properly to feed, shelter, and provide

medical treatment for the 1,000 prisoners on this march, which began

on January 20 and ended on April 26

after a total of 1,200

E

19.

Alan Clarke, interview with JN, January 2002.

20.

Victor

Coster,

F.

Gammon, Not All

Prisoner in Europe, 21.

D.

Swift,

km.

IWM 98/7/1.

18.

Glory! True Accounts of RAF

1939-1945 (London: Arms

IWM 91/26/1.

Airmen Taken

& Armour,

1996).

NOTES

480

22.

Many weeks

the end of the march, Swift ran into what he took

later, at

to be the remnants of that Auschwitz party.

were down to "numbers you could 23

.

easily

What had been

thousands

count on two hands."

On the number of casualties on his march, Swift could only make a guess. "All sorts

were on the march and the

very

many thousands.

died

on the march, but

have heard

I

I

killings

and deaths must have been

happen

didn't see that

Some

of 30,000.

a figure

in the

bunch

of our lads I

was with.

24.

know what happened to those we left behind with illness and who became exhausted and couldn't march." February 28, 1945. Recorded in War Office memo. PRO 163/582.

25.

Minutes of DP

26.

He mentioned "negotiations to purchase lorries in Sweden to transport

I

don't

frostbite or those

supplies this

W meeting of February

from Liibeck to camps

was an

initiative

lorries

PRO

193/373.

Northern Germany" when

in fact

by the British Red Cross. The government agreed

to pay for the gasoline.

where "100

in

WO

21.

He

spoke of "similar projects in Switzerland"

from France have been assembled." Again,

this

had

nothing to do with the British government. 27.

Telegram from American Legation partment of

28.

PRO WO

29.

"ENS A"

30.

January

PRO WO

State.

at

Berne,

March

1945, to

7,

De-

193/343.

32/11680.

stands for "Entertainments National Service Association,"

which provided variety shows 18, 1945,

for the troops during the war.

SHAEF, from

K. G.

McLean BGS,

Chief, Plans Sec-

DAC of S. G-l. Subject: Plans for Allied POW during Operation "Eclipse." PRO WO 219/1448. From M. A. Stockholm, March 3, 1945. PRO WO 32/1 124. PRO WO 32/1 1680. tion, to Brig. Bosville,

31. 32.

1

33.

See Chapter

34.

Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1936-1945: Nemesis (London: Allen Lane, 2000).

12.

The bombing

of Dresden was also part of

a

wider strategy. Kershaw

points out that in the last four and a half months of the war 471,000 tons

bombs were dropped on German towns such as Essen, Dortmund, twice as much as during the whole of 1943. In March alone, he adds, almost three times as many bombs of

Mainz, Munich, and Nuremberg

were dispatched 35.

26, 1945. 36.

as

From Combined

—

during the whole of 1942.

Chiefs of Staff to

SHAEF

for Eisenhower, February

PRO WO 219/1466.

SHAEF, March 219/2418.

5,

1945. Report

on Oflag 79 from SBO.

PRO

WO

.

NOTES 37.

SHAEFG-3Div. PRO WO

38.

PRO WO

39.

Letter to

40. 41.

IVC

is

can be taken

42

At

at present."

their conference in

three zones

29, 1945.

25, 1945

in the Russian sphere,

and Stalin agreed to

—

PRO WO

Tehran

set

up

a

in

PRO WO 219/2418. from

for the

to

DPW said,

"As

32/1 1110.

November 1 943

,

Churchill, Roosevelt,

commission that would

These were meant

making plans

SHAEF

not considered that any action

it is

British in the northwest,

viet in the east.

icance in

2 19/2418.

32/11110.

SHAEF, January

PRO WO 32/11110. A memo dated February Oflag

481

American

split

Germany into

in the southwest, So-

to have purely administrative signif-

end of the war and the Allied occupation

of the conquered Third Reich:

They were not

intended to be frontiers

or demarcations for military action. But international politics quickly

gave them a greater importance. Lines in the sand had, in

drawn.

The

effect,

been

Russians were particularly happy with the arrangement,

which gave them 40 percent of Germany. 43.

SHAEF

PWX

Branch, G-l Div.

found numerous

numbers of

POWs

consistent. See

PRO

WO

The

219/3419.

authors

SHAEF and War Office documents that give estimated in

German hands

Appendix 4

44.

Churchill to Roosevelt,

45.

From SHAEF Main

46.

PRO WO PRO WO

47.

See Chapter

48.

From: Ops

for

—the numbers given were rarely

more information on

March

22, 1945.

to Chiefs of Staff,

POW numbers.

CHAR 20/2

March

1

3A.

Ref 2-83 1

29, 1945.

10.

219/2124. 219/3419. 2.

(c)

subsection. To:

G-2

(O.I),

March

15, 1945.

WO

PRO

219/2418.

53.

PRO WO 219/2419. PRO WO 2 19/1448. From SHAEF to FAAA, March PRO WO 219/1461. PRO WO 219/2418.

54.

Churchill to Stalin,

55.

Study of the

49. 50. 51. 52.

31.

PRO WO

193/345.

March 21, 1945. CHAR 20/213A. German National Redoubt, March 25,

Army, Office of the

AC of S,

G-2, U.S. Army.

1945.

PRO WO

56.

PRO WO

57.

Carlo D'Este, A Genius for War: A Life of General George

HQ

7th

219/2124.

219/2418.

don: HarperCollins, 1995).

S.

Patton (Lon-

.

.

NOTES

482

58.

Oflag XIII was eventually liberated on April

was not among

5. Stiller

the Americans there, but Waters was. Patton had

him

airlifted

hospital in Frankfurt, and the special treatment he received

some other prisoners of war.

Stiller eventually

lighter. Patton,

60. 61.

who was

there, greeted

him

annoyed

turned up at the prisoner-

of-war camp at Moosburg, where he was liberated on

59.

out to a

May

1,

10

lb.

in tears.

PRO WO 219/2418. PRO WO 32/11124. To be fair, even the British and Americans found agreement difficult. On March 2 1 Churchill sent a proposed text to Washington for Roosevelt to consider. It was a stern warning to German soldiers that ,

"though you may

delay,

you cannot stop our overrunning your whole

country both from the East and the West in the next few months." fighting

German many to

went

into the

people would then face starvation a

If the

summer, then no crops would be sown and the

—"you

will

condemn Ger-

winter famine the likes of which has never been seen in Eu-

rope." Churchill admitted he was worried that such a warning might backfire,

and the Germans would react by "starving

cluding prisoners-of-war on the grounds that starve next winter they

must begin

to save

up

now." Roosevelt replied that he thought the

if

all

foreigners, in-

they themselves are to

much food as they can moment "inappropriate." as

CHAR 20/2 13 A. 8:

Liberated by the 1

Red Army

Stan Moss, "Living under the Swastika" able via the

2.

Ron Walker,

3.

Cecil Rhodes.

diaries

War II Day

Day (London: Dorling Kindersley, 2001).

World

5.

Interview with Capt. N. Maclean,

by

March

19, 1945,

Eric Hookings, interview with JN,

7.

Leonard Pearman,

8.

Peter Hewitt, quoted in Victor of RAF Airmen

J.

D. B.

December 2001.

IWM Sound Archive

1 1

191-1989.

F Gammon, Not All Glory! True Accounts

Taken Prisoner in Europe, 1939-1945 (London:

Armour, 1996).

10.

by Maj.

PRO FO 916.

6.

9.

avail-

and interview with JN, December 2001.

4.

Mitchell.

— unpublished MS made

RAF Ex-POW Association.

Alan Clarke, interview with JN, January 2002

Gammon, Not All Glory!

Arms

&

.. .

NOTES 11.

483

The name also had another significance. In the camps, a parcel from home with Freeman, Hardy & Willis marked on it signified that it contained escape equipment.

12.

1

3

Patricia

Is Too

Many: An Examination of the

War

Repatriate Liberated American World

to

(http://

www.aiipowmia.com/research/wadley.html

Told to Carol Mather and quoted in one

9:

Wadley, Even One

Refusal

Must Go Home (London:

his

Soviet

II Prisoners of

War

—accessed June 2002).

book Aftermath of War: Every-

Brassey's, 1992).

Hostages of Stalin 1

Three zones had been agreed ing in

2.

November

1943.

in principle at the

Tehran summit meet-

Now a fourth zone was added—for the French.

Minutes of meeting between Churchill and

Stalin,

February

10, 1945.

CHAR 23/15. 3.

See Chapter

4.

For the

5

2.

text of the

Patricia Wadley,

agreement, see Appendix

Even One

Is Too

2.

Many: An Examination of the

War

Repatriate Liberated American World

Refusal

to

(http://

www.aiipowmia.com/research/wadley.html

This was not the only such incident Wadley 1945, Soviet

War

—accessed June 2002).

lists.

on June

Later,

29,

POWs at Fort Dix, New Jersey, were told they were going

to be forcibly repatriated.

which

Soviet

II Prisoners of

They

locked themselves in their barracks,

their U.S. guards then stormed. Inside they

hanged themselves or

killed each other.

turned over to the Soviets.

On January

found several had

Those who were not dead were 17,

1946

at

Dachau

500 U.S. troops needed tear gas to subdue 399 Soviets

in

Germany,

who were

refus-

ing to be sent home. There were numerous suicides. 6.

To Vice-Chief, Imperial General

7.

PRO WO

8.

P. J.

9.

PRO WO

10.

Staff.

PRO WO

193/348.

193/348.

Grigg, Prejudice and Judgment (London: Jonathan Cape, 1948).

32/11681.

Letter from British ambassador in

March

15, 1945.

PRO WO

Moscow to

Foreign Office, London,

193/248. According to our researches in the

Soviet military archives, the dead were given a proper military funeral

attended by a Russian general.

12.

PRO WO PRO WO

13.

March

11.

The

driver of the train

was prosecuted.

193/348. 193/349.

22, 1945. All correspondence in

PRO WO

193/348.

.

NOTES

484

14. 15.

Churchill to Stalin,

March

21, 1945.

CHAR 20/213A.

SHAEF DPWX memo, March 24, 1945. The exact number of Russian POWs in German camps in the SHAEF zone was given Confidential

gave the total

as 496,684. It as 276,446,

number of British and U.S.

prisoners of war

of whom 123,507 were in the Soviet zone. Figures were as

of March 15, 1945. 16.

CHAR 20/2 13 A.

17.

Much

18.

Wilmeth, memoirs, from Wadley, Even One

19.

Most of them had been in camps around Schubin in Poland, among them Oflag 64. They had been too sick to be evacuated west and had been overrun by the Red Army at the end of January 1945.

20.

This incident remains curiously unreported and undocumented, given its

of the following

apparent

size.

In

from Wadley, Even One

is

MI9: The

and Evasion 1939-1945, and

wounding

Is Too

American Counterpart (London: Bodley J.

M. Langley

write that "the

on the American prisoners,

fire

Many.

Many.

Too

British Secret Service that Fostered Escape

its

Head, 1979), At R. D. Foot and .Army opened

Is

several hundred; they said they took

killing

them

Red

some 50 and

for Hungarians."

They name the camp as Stalag IIIB, not Stalag IIIC. But they give no more details and no description of what happened, and they quote no source. also

Beyond Wilmeth

unforthcoming on

's

comments, the U.S. government archive

Moscow. Nor have we come across any anecdotal evidence. But dead and hundreds wounded was hardly

happen?

Or was

is

this incident, as are the military archives in

a trivial matter.

Did

it

fifty

really

there a cover-up by U.S. and Soviet officials, anxious to

keep secret an incident that could have damaged relations between

them 2

1

at a particularly sensitive

Wadley, Even One

22.

Ron Walker,

23.

CHAR 20/2 13 A.

24.

Is

diaries

Too

moment?

We just don't know.

Many.

and interview with JN, December 2001.

Both Himmler and Goering

make

tried individually to

West. Hitler, from his bunker

in Berlin, stripped

deals with the

both of them of their

ranks and ordered their execution as traitors, but, with the Reich col-

were out of

lapsing, they

and Himmler

in the

25.

CHAR 20/2 13A.

26.

On xMay

his reach

—Goering

in the

south in Bavaria,

north on the Baltic coast.

12 in a private

message to Harry Truman, the new U.S. Presi-

dent following Roosevelt's sudden death. Quoted in Churchill:

A

Roy

Jenkins,

Biography (London: Macmillan, 2001). This was

many

.

NOTES months before of

Churchill's

Commons on

meeting

August

first

485

public use of the phrase, in the

and almost

16, 1945,

when

xMarch 1946

in Fulton, Missouri, in

House

whole year before the

a

it

is

popularly

thought he coined the expression. 27. 28.

April 12, 1945.

PRO WO

32/11681.

Draft Paper for study of liaison officers only. Subject: Aid to April 15, 1945.

29.

"Summary of Operation Violet" by Brig.

30.

Wadley, Even One

3 1

For some reason, the Norwegian general was in

Is Too

his report to the U.S.

32.

Wadley, Even One

33.

For Allied

he made

Many.

these were to be Wismar,

A

and the Americans was held for

Moscow and

Mission there.

Is Too

POWs,

PRO WO 2 19/2423.

Nichols.

Many.

Magdeburg, and Leipzig. ments

POW,

PRO WO 219/2420.

Wustmark, Ludwigslust, between the Russians

similar conference

in

Linz on

May 23

to

exchange of prisoners in Austria. See

make

similar arrange-

SHAEF report in PRO

WO 219/3292. IWM Sound Archive

34.

Leonard Pearman,

35.

Alan Clarke, diaries and interview with JN, January 2002.

36.

A

1 1

191-1989.

revealing conversation was recorded by an interpreter at a

camp

in

England that held Russian prisoners who had been captured while fighting for the visit

them and

diers

Germans. In September 1944

a Soviet general

offered words of encouragement and sympathy.

were entirely skeptical about

Soviets never treat people in bulk.

his reassurances.

came

The

"Don't worry.

to

sol-

The

We shall find out who among you are

who are not," he said. He fingered the German uniform of men and added, "As for this, we shall burn it in a crematorium." A soldier, resigned to his fate, replied, "We know and us inside guilty

and

one of the

—

them 37.

too!"

PRO WO

32/1 1119.

Roosevelt had stunned Churchill by openly expressing at Yalta his eagerness to disengage from Europe.

"The United

States

would take

all

reasonable steps to preserve peace but not at the expense of keeping a large

army

indefinitely in Europe, 3,000 miles

away from home."

He

intended, he said, to limit American occupation of its zone in Europe to

two

years. It

was noted by observers that

Stalin looked delighted at this

statement. But Churchill was so taken aback by the implications that he

pushed

—and got—an additional zone of occupation

many, to be supervised by the French.

one against the Russians

He

in postwar

Ger-

did not relish being one-to-

in the event of the

U.S. pulling out.

.

NOTES

486

38.

RAF

airman Leonard Pearman added,

for people

who

we had fought

were. Suppose

were made. but not

"I

are fighting against their for the

can find very

own

little

sympathy

country, as the Cossacks

Germans. Plenty of

invitations

We were given the opportunity to fight with the Luftwaffe one of us took it up. We would have felt very unkind

a single

towards people enlisted in the British

Army who had

fought against us."

39.

Nicholas Bethell, "A Brutal Exchange," Sunday Times, January

40.

Did they

all

make

over claims that

home? There has been

it

many

and American prisoners of war never re-

British

turned from the Soviet Union.

The most

notable are

made

Cage (London: Fourth Estate, 1993) by Nigel Cawthorne, that

up

to 50,000 British

1974.

8,

controversy ever since

a

in

The Iron

who

alleged

and American prisoners of war disappeared

Wadley (Even One

into the Soviet gulags. According to Patricia

Many), reports of Americans

in the

Is Too

gulag trickled out for years.

Two

U.S. officers and forty-five GIs were reported to have been seen behind

barbed wire leased

in the Stalingrad area

from the Soviet Union

after

on August

some of

camps

Union with American and

the camps.

See Appendix 4 for more information on 41.

Greg Hatton,

Stories

My

Germans

re-

Frenchmen reported being

prisoners of war in in the Soviet

30, 1945.

1956 reported having seen American in

British prisoners of war.

POW numbers.

Father Never Told

Me

(privately published,

n.d.).

42.

Gordon Hemmings,

IWM 95/17/1.

43.

Wadley, Even One

Too

44.

U.S. Lt. Col. Francis Gabreski was on the ground at Barth, and thought

some

that

Is

Many.

made

deal had been

before the aircraft were cleared to land,

but he never knew what that deal was, as he reported in Hatton, Stories

45.

10: 1

My Father Never Told Me. PRO WO 32/1 11 19. Waiting for Patton World War II Day by Day (London: Dorling

Kindersley, 2001).

CHAR 20/21 3A.

2.

March

3.

This had been the case since October 1944, when Generalleutnant

22, 1945.

Gottlob Berger was apppinted (see Chapter 4.

13).

Churchill was horrified by this suggestion: "I ing is

my name

on the same piece of paper with

in his present

"Do

am

please get

mood." it

He

not

this

at all pleased

hav-

gentleman while he

was not disposed to wait for the General.

[the warning] out,"

he wrote to Lord Halifax, the

.

NOTES British

487

ambassador in Washington, on April 22, 1945.

PRO CAB

122/684. 5.

Buchenwald was freed on April

6.

Auschwitz had been liberated

and Belsen on April

12

on January

news of what they had discovered there 7.

Surprisingly,

until the

war was

over.

did not go as far as the warning Eisenhower

it

waiting for the politicians to agree April in his capacity as listed the

17.

27, but the Russians kept the

—had put out

at the

Supreme Commander of the

—commandants of camps, —but went way down the

beginning of

chiefs of labor or-

also

managers, foremen, and supervisors.

bility to factory

tired of

Allied Forces. This

obvious suspects

ganizations and the like

—

net farther and warned that "the

German

list

It

of responsi-

then swept the

population will be held re-

sponsible for the safety of prisoners-of-war, deportees, and workers in so far as

it

have neglected to protect them against any criminal

will

tempts with which they are threatened.

A passive

attitude of

at-

German

nationals in the face of threatened violence against Allied nationals will

be held to be

many, April 8.

crime and punished

a

3,

1945, in

Order

"Hitler's

PRO WO

as such."

Solemn warning

to

Ger-

219/1469.

for a Last Stand in the East,"

New

York Times, April 16,

1945. 9.

Bill

Ethridge, Time Out (Oregon: privately published, 1997).

Joseph L. Cittadini, 20th Mission (privately published,

10.

Lt. Col.

1 1

"An account of Moosburg" by

the evacuation of Allied

IViaj.

PO Ws

Gen. Walter Arnold, U.S.A.F.

Mike Spence. U.S.A.F.A. archive. Bob Neary, Stalag Luft III (North Wales, Pa:

n.d.).

from Nuremberg

to

(retd), in collabora-

tion with 1

2

1 3

Robert John Parsons, The Best Seat

in the

privately published,

1

946).

House (Indiana: privately pub-

lished, 1998). 14.

15.

Len Jepps, from National Ex-POW Association Archive. Moose Moulton in Joseph P. O'Donnell, The Shoe Leather Express

(pri-

vately published, n.d.).

Appendix

for the text of the complaint.

16.

Cittadini, 20th Mission. See

17.

James Oliver Badcock,

18.

19.

Most of this comes from Pat Reid, The Latter Days at Colditz (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1953). SHAEF to 12th Army Group TAC. Ref no: FWD-19 023, April 12,

20.

Named

21.

John Toland, The Last 100 Days (London: Arthur Barker,

1945.

3

IWM 99/47/1.

PRO WO 219/1461. as

Sergeant

Bill

Logan,

a

bombardier

in the

Eighth Air Force. 1965).

.

NOTES

488

22.

This

a figure

is

(New York: Vintage

Children 23

given by the author in Joseph

Maurice Newey,

.

24.

W.

Lovoi, Listen

.

.

.

My

Press, 2000).

IWM 90/4/

1

U.S.A.F. Oral History Interview, U.S.A.F.A. archive K239.0512-1130,

recorded June 20-21, 1979. 25.

Frank Stewart,

IWM 88/20/1.

G. B. Wright, "The Last Days of the War,"

26.

Lt.

27.

Another account

28.

The

29.

It

casualties at 10

offer

dead and 42 wounded.

was made on April

would be nearly

On April

26

a

IWM 98/4/1.

—by Capt. Kenneth Searle (IWM 92/31/1)—put the PRO WO

11.

week before

a

193/349.

the agreement was fully implemented.

complaint was made that "British, French and American

many younger British and American nonwere being moved to a possible last redoubt.

officers, all allied aviators,

coms and other ranks"

The blame was

placed on the SS and the Gestapo. But two days later

there was confirmation from the fers

PRO WO

219/1463.

Later he surmised that this had been a battle between the guards and the SS,

who had

tried to take the

Hitler s instructions. 31.

that "all trans-

POW have ceased. POW are collected as far as possible in large

of

Stalags." 30.

German government

It

camp

should be said that other reports

Patton was not the

minutes ing.

later.

to

murder

all

"The German army saved our

first

There

is

—

e.g.,

by

Bill

the prisoners,

on

lives."

Ethridge

—say that

through the gates, but arrived about twenty-five also dispute

on how many

he was wear-

pistols

Joe Cittadini saw only one "hanging jauntily from

his hip"

and be-

lieved the story that the general had given the other one to the

American singer Dinah Shore. 32.

Victor

F.

Gammon, Not All

Prisoner in Europe, 33.

Glory! True Accounts of RAF

1939-1945 (London: Arms

Airmen Taken

& Armour,

1996).

The agreement with Red Army would liberate Berlin. And in any case and in entirely the wrong place. The Russians took

Patton had been restrained by the politicians. Stalin

was that the

Patton was too the

German

late

capital the very next day,

on April

30.

Patton was closing in

on Munich, 300 miles away. 34.

111.

The

11: 1

Neary, Stalag Luft

.

Hell of Fallingbostel Cal Younger, No Flight from the Cage (London: Frederick Muller, and interviews with JN, 2001-2.

1

956),

.

.

.

NOTES

489

IWM 83/1/1.

2.

Richard Passmore,

3.

Jim Sims, "Scar on the Soul," unpublished account of his time tivity, from the National Ex-Prisoner of War Association.

4.

Gemmel and

Sims says that the man's name was Leslie

in cap-

came

that he

from Liverpool.

POW

5.

Ron Mogg

6.

This was the equipment that had been obtained

published his account of

life,

The Sergeant Escapers

(London: Allan, 1974), under the pseudonym John Dominy.

whose

down

theft

at

Heydekrug and

from the Germans had been concealed by the burning

camp theater. See Chapter No Flight from the Cage.

of the

7.

Younger,

8.

Younger continued

his tribute to

1

Deans: "He had great

faith in his ca-

pacity for the work, and drove himself with complete disregard of his

him

health. Yet there

was

would be wrong

to regard

in

neither ambition nor lack of humility. It

him

as

some paragon.

He

was never

that.

Had he been

so he could never have earned the affection that was his;

he was and

too

is

ness, but such

is

human his

a

person not to have

make-up

that he

a

was the

normal quota of weak-

man

the hour brought

forth." 9.

According to Victor

F.

Not All Glory! True Accounts of RAF Europe, 1939-1945 (London: Arms & Armour,

Gammon,

Airmen Taken Prisoner in 1996), the

number was

in

400.

10.

Dominy, The Sergeant Escapers.

1 1

Deans and the other sergeants had been

in

Sagan (Stalag Luft

1943 and had been transferred to Heydekrug (Stalag Luft VI)

III) in

when

Sagan became an officers-only camp. 12.

Younger

talks

of 1,000 Americans and 800

men from

K laager at Gross

Tychow. 1

3

Doug Fry,

diary and interview with JN,

November 2 00 1

14.

Roger

15.

Bob Otto, interview with the authors, September 2001. Cec Room, diary and interviews with JN, 2001-2.

16.

17.

Allen, interviews with the authors,

Percy Wilson Carruthers,

Of Ploughs,

September 2001.

Planes and Palliasses (Arundel:

Woodfield Publishing, 1992). 18.

Joseph n.d.),

1

9.

P.

O'Donnell, The Shoe Leather Express (privately published,

and interviews with JN, 2001-2.

Gammon, Not All Glory!

20.

Story told in Dominy, The Sergeant Escapers.

21.

Younger,

No Flight from

the Cage,

and interviews with JN, 2001-2.

.

NOTES

490

22.

Recorded

23

Ken Brown,

in a

SHAEF

PWX

memo, February

12, 1945.

PRO

WO

219/1448. .

24. 25.

26. 27

.

interviews with JN, January-February 2002 Dominy, The Sergeant Fscapers.

George Guderley, interview with the authors, September 2001. John Anderson, diary and interviews with JN, 2001-2. Gammon, Not All Glory/

28.

Les Allan, interview with the authors, January 2002.

29.

Alf Jenner was shot

down over

Berlin

on April

9,

From

1941.

his diary

and interview with JN, February 2002.

12:

Death by "Friendly Fire"

1.

Batch Batchelder, interviews with the authors, 2001-2.

2.

Leslie Frith,

3.

Richard Passmore,

IWM 94/25/1. IWM 83/1/1.

4.

Ken Brown,

5.

Cal Younger, No Flight fro??? the Cage (London: Frederick Muller, 1956).

6.

Cec Room,

interviews with

JN, January-February 2002.

diary and interviews with

JN, 2001-2.

7.

Alf Jenner, diary and interview with JN, February 2002.

8.

Bob Morton,

9.

Victor

10. 11.

F.

interviews with

Gammon, Not All

JN, 2001-2.

Glory! True Accounts of RAF

Prisoner in Europe,

1939-1945 (London: Arms

John Dominy, The

Sergea?it Escape?s

Percy Wilson Carruthers,

Of

Airmen Taken

& Armour,

1996).

(London: Allan, 1974).

Ploughs, Planes

and

Palliasses

(Arundel:

Woodfield Publishing, 1992). 12.

Not

all

the crossings were by bridge.

One column

that

came

later

went

over the Elbe by ferry at Bleckede. This column was the one attacked in the barn by British planes. 13.

Dixie Deans interview,

14.

American

parcel:

IWM Sound Archive 6142-1982.

corned beef, Spam, Klim (powered milk), Oleo mar-

garine, salmon, raisins or prunes, liver pate, biscuits, Kraft cheese, sugar

cubes, chocolate "d" bar, orange concentrate, Nescafe, soap, cigarettes. British parcel:

meat and vegetable, meat

roll,

margarine, condensed

milk, jam, biscuits, cheese, sugar, chocolate, porridge, egg powder, sardines, tea, prunes, soap. 15.

Gammon, Not All Glory!'

16.

This figure seems on the high

side,

though Deans was

might be expected to have known, given what

However, most other accounts put the death

a

in

meticulous

toll at

charge and

man he was.

between 30 and

37.

.

.

NOTES 1

7

Doug Fry,

interview with JN,

18.

Carruthers,

19.

There were

"friendly fire"

November 2 00 1

Planes and Palliasses.

Of Ploughs, a

number of other examples of what today is known as incidents. Geoff Wright's moving description in his diary

("The Last Days of the War," Oflag VIIB

491

IWM

southern

at Eichstatt in

98/4/1) of one such incident at

Germany should not go

14th April (A terrible tragic day).

Sat.

Got up

bowl of porridge with Hendy and Maurice. kit,

shook hands

bling to

march

at 5 a.m.

Shared

a

We all climbed into our

round and went our separate ways, Reg, Ken,

all

Hendy

Arthur and

unread:

ground [where they were assem-

to the parade

to Stalag

VILA

at

Moosburg], Maurice and

I

to the

hospital [they

were sick and could not march] The brigade slowly

moved out by

battalions.

.

been circling overhead.

For some time one or two aeroplanes had

An American

pilot told

me

they were

tangs but his friends thought they were Thunderbolts. planes

came down very low and did

side to side.

a roll twice

A few minutes later about six similar planes arrived and

leading plane

fire. I

it

his wings,

thought

a

and

rolled over into a dive

and

German

second

a

I

I

was watching the

saw puffs of white

later a burst

of machine-gun

had arrived and we were about to

fighter

see a first-class dogfight. Suddenly there

was

a terrible roar

plane after plane roared along the road and over the us with heavy machine-guns. self into a

iron basin.

above

me

velocity. I floor.

God

The

Looks

as well

as if

my head

I

and

blasting

flung

my-

into a heavy

of bullets was incessant. Just realized the roof

hail

wood, these

may

camp

have they gone mad!

corner of the lavatory and pushed

is

of the

with his wings, from

they circled and wheeled round the camp. While

smoke from

One

Mus-

you

weigh about

bullets

be out in the open

will

3 oz.

as lying

and are high-

on the lavatory

be a widow, Joan darling, in the

last

few

days of the war. Just one of those heavy copper-coated lead slugs will tear off an rible

arm or a

leg like a bite

form of warfare

dive for cover again.

not

live

I

a shark.

This

is

the

have ever seen. Hell, they are coming back.

without the one, nor do I

I

want

I

to live without the other.

peep out of the window and wonder

they have strafed the boys out on the road. Suddenly

into the room.

most hor-

My head and my balls must be preserved. I can-

Roar, bang, crash, blast, bang. if

from

He is white as a sheet,

dust. "Terrible, terrible"

is all

Hendy runs

trembling, covered in dirt and

he can

say.

"They're murdering the

.

NOTES

492

chaps."

I lie

him down on

bed and cover him with

a

dead," he says. "Lots of others dead and dying.

blood but he thinks

moved

off someone else.

it's

off and caught

Reg

Various people began to straggle into the camp.

bullet.

Ben

is

dead with

is

down,

a bullet

one

Lowe

his leg

The

in the shoulder.

a bullet

planes are

content with their morning's work.

toms of shock so to stop

I

him shivering and make him in hospital.

dying and about 50 wounded,

legs

and

list is

in a

through the spine, looks

Doug McClellan

got

hovering about but seem

still

Hendy

is

now showing symp-

Several

a

cup of tea.

The

casualties are

At present there are 8 dead, sev-

many of whom will lose arms, Germans have been killed and wounded also

eral

but the

Someone comes

put him to bed, cover him with blankets and coats

being collected and put

feet.

murder."

completely shattered by

dead, Tranton wounded,

is

it's

through the heart. Paddy Heenan?

Dead. Humphrey Marriot, with like dying.

"Ben's

covered in

The poor bastards had not

blast in the open. Christ,

it full

and says Johnnie Cousins

my coat. is all

remarkably low considering the

hail

of bullets and the

lack of cover. Later

I

hear that Johnnie has had his leg amputated

below the knee but

is

very cheerful. Poor Johnnie, to lose a leg in

the

few days of the war. Marriot has died of wounds, bringing

last

the death toll

The

official

up

death

to

toll

six.

would

later

be recorded as

1 1

British officers,

with 50 wounded. Official

SHAEF

documents

also recorded an attack

can fighter planes on a column of 700 British

from Breslau on February sian prisoners

27. Fifteen

were marching

were

at the rear

by two Ameri-

POWs marching westward

killed

and 29 wounded. Rus-

of the column, and

it

was

thought their greenish uniforms might have been mistaken for the khaki

worn by Hungarian 20.

Quoted

2

Younger,

1

in

troops,

who were known

Dominy, The Sergeant

No

to be in the area.

Escapers.

Flight from the Cage.

PRO WO

22.

Statement by von Hovel to Capt. G. Hay, February

23.

Jim Sims, "Scar on the Soul," unpublished account of his time tivity, from the National Ex-Prisoner of War Association.

24.

Joseph

8,

1946.

208/4656.

n.d.),

P.

in cap-

O'Donnell, The Shoe Leather Express (privately published,

and interviews with JN, 2001-2.

.

NOTES 25. 26

.

13:

493

Ken Brown, interviews with JX, January-February 2002 Gammon, Not All Glo?y!

A German Savior? W.

Lovoi, Listen.

.My

Children

(New

York: Vintage Press,

1.

Joseph

2.

X"ovember-December 2001. T Cec Room, diary and interviews with JX 2001-2. Maurice Xewey, IVVM 90/4/1.

.

2000), and interviews with JX,

3.

,

4.

Jim Sims, "Scar on the Soul," unpublished account of his time tivity, from the Xational Ex-Prisoner of War Association.

5.

T. D.

Cooke

in Joseph P.

in cap-

O'Donnell, The Shoe Leather Express (privately

published, n.d.). 6.

Hugh

Trevor- Roper, The Last Days of Hitler, 7 th ed. (London: Paper-

mac, 1995). 7.

Hugh Trevor-Roper

(ed.), Hitler's

War Directives (London: Sidgwick

&

Jackson, 1964). 8.

Recorded by Gen. Walter Warlimont

in Inside Hitlers Headquarters,

1939-45, trans. R. H. Barry (London: Weidenfeld 9.

Cited in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Vol.

& Xicolson,

1964).

VI (Washington, D.C.:

U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), prepared by the Office of the U.S. Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality as part of the

indictment for the

Xuremberg war crimes

March 1944 and came from

trials.

This order was dated

the Office of the Secret State Police in

Cologne. 10.

American Red Cross News

Service,

May

31, 1945.

Xewspapers carried

made on Swiss Himmler in the closing weeks of the war and had obtained permission for the Red Cross

fuller reports

Radio.

He

to enter

seems

of Burckhardt's statement, which had been

claimed that he had met representatives of

POW camps and prevent "any last- minute executions." This

a little fanciful

on Burckhardt's

the story told in Caroline

part,

and

it

does not coincide with

Moorehead, Dunants Dream: War, Switzer-

land and the Histoiy of the Red Cross (London: HarperCollins, 1998).

version there tives,

is

that Burckhardt did indeed

but the discussions were about concentration-camp inmates and

had nothing to do with ings

The

meet Himmler's representa-

POWs. Moreover,

the initiative for these meet-

had come from the Germans rather than from the Red Cross

week— long —before he agreed them.

and Burckhardt prevaricated for

moving

stage of the

war

a

a

to

time It is a

side,

at this fast-

mystery

how

NOTES

494

these meetings were translated into having been about Allied

Perhaps Burckhardt had been mistranslated

—

but

this

POWs.

seems surprising,

given that at least one newspaper that reported his speech had con-

firmed

its

content with Swiss Radio.

It

may well

have been that Burck-

hardt wanted to improve his image with the Americans.

known German sympathizer whose always been apparent.

When

He had been

neutrality during the

a

war had not

the war ended he was keen to reestablish

and nothing would have achieved that more than to

his credentials,

suggest that Hitler had wanted to massacre prisoners of war but that

somehow

the

preventing

Red Cross

—with him

in the lead

worth noting, perhaps,

this. It is

—had played

that,

a part in

according to Moore-

head, Burckhardt "returned to the archives of the International

Com-

mittee from time to time after the war and removed documents correcting his image for history." Incidentally,

it

seems obvious that

Burckhardt's information about Hitler's alleged threat must have

from Himmler's representative and therefore need not be taken essarily accurate. It

was

much

as possible, in the

to the

Western

11.

Moorehead,

12.

PRO WO

D

in

Himmler's interest to damn

hope of being seen

as a

come

as nec-

his fuhrer as

replacement acceptable

Allies.

it

mints Dream.

193/343.

13.

Reuter's report, printed in Stars and Stripes, August 25, 1997.

14.

He

Found

did save his neck.

ted suicide by biting

on

a

guilty

and sentenced to hang, he commit-

capsule of poison the night before his execu-

tion. 15.

This was not in

Hitler's only bizarre idea for

troops whose morale was flagging.

Goebbels ers of

—the threat by

encouraging

He welcomed — according

Stalin that, after the war,

war would be deported

to the Soviet

Goebbels Diaries: The Last Days, ed.

Hugh

a fighting spirit

all

Union

German

to

prison-

as slave labor (The

Trevor- Roper, trans. Richard

Barry [London: Pan Books, 1979]). Hitler thought fear of this happening to

them would discourage thoughts of surrender among the Wehr-

macht. 16.

Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1936-1945: Nemesis (London: Allen Lane, 2000).

17.

Trevor-Roper, Hitlers

18.

Ironically, this, of course,

SHAEF had 1

9.

Quoted

in

War Directives. was something that the military authorities

considered but more or

less

abandoned

at

at that time.

Arthur Durand, Stalag Luft III: The Secret Story (Wellingbor-

NOTES

495

The authors are grateful to Colonel Durand for the German prisoner-of-war administration contained in his

ough: PSL, 1988). insights into

book. 20.

There was, however, one innovation

annoyed the prisoners.

that

All

cans of food received in food parcels were to be opened immediately

and their contents ladled into other containers. This was because the

Germans

believed messages and escape tools were being smuggled in

this way. In fact the

many

cans had

air into tunnels.

draconian.

See Chapter

22.

Trials of

23.

it

it

pump

was hardly

10.

War

Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under

Law

ment Printing

Office, 1952).

No. 10, Vol. XIII (Washington D.C.: U.S. Govern-

apparently

thoughts and plans fense at his

as pipes to

always enforced.

Control Council

The word

being strung together

This new order was inconvenient, but

Nor was

21.

bigger blow to the prisoners was that the empty

uses, including

is

is

important here.

Berger himself

Nuremberg war crimes

The

source for Berger's

—in his evidence in his own de-

trial,

in his

own writings, and

in the

correspondence he had with former prisoners of war in the United States long after the war. All these are self-serving,

which means not

that they are necessarily untrue but that, in the absence of independent

corroboration, they need to be approached with caution. Berger wanted to present himself in the best light, naturally. to query, for example,

whether he

But the reader

do

for a relatively junior lieutenant general to will see,

many

entitled

really did tell Hitler to his face that

he didn't want the job he had been given. Certainly

we

is

it

was a brave thing

in those volatile times.

As

other claims by Berger appear to be fanciful rather

than factual. 24.

From Durand,

Stalag Luft

III,

as

is

most of what follows on Berger.

Durand's sources were Berger's testimony of U.S.A.F. Maj. Gen. Delmar T. Spivey,

Luft 25.

at his trial

who was

and the account

a prisoner at Stalag

III.

Berger's statement to Allied intelligence officers,

Nuremberg, October

19, 1945.

26.

If

such handbills existed, they would surely have been mentioned by

someone

—paper was

giene reasons. 27.

Berger's

list

a precious

commodity on

the marches, for hy-

A supply like this would have attracted

of claims went on and on

—and not

comment.

just in his evidence at

— NOTES

496

Nuremberg

as

he fought for his

tempted to rehabilitate Robert Kiibler (Chef

life

but in the years after

KGW:

he

at-

life

by

as

account of his

his reputation. In the

Das Kriegsgefangcnerrwescn unter

Gottlob

Berger (Lindhorst: Askania, 1984)), Berger claimed the following actions to his credit: •

he tried to ensure the best possible treatment of all

•

he introduced tolerant warders;

•

he made improvements in the

spiritual

POWs;

and cultural provisions for

POWs;

POWs were improved;

•

sport and entertainment for

•

he encouraged further professional training for

•

he protected

•

he

POWs;

POWs against illegally enforced hard labor; intervened personally on behalf of POWs who had contravened

rules; •

he saw to extraordinary measures for the improvement and general

POWs,

care of the

using every conceivable resource available to

him; •

he gave Russian prisoners parity with others and released including Russians, Caucasians, and Ukrainians bor, enabling

•

them

to

work

many

— from forced

la-

in a civilian capacity;

he ordered direct cooperation with the International Red Cross de-

regime and

spite the opposition of the

in direct defiance

of Hitler.

This allowed the Red Cross back into camps and also allowed many sick prisoners to get to Switzerland in •

he rebuilt holiday camps;

•

he

facilitated a successful

•

he built

•

he allowed

camp

a special

for

POWs

artist

and

transports;

effective medical conference in Berlin;

Muslim

to

empty Red Cross

prisoners;

work with German

artists in their stu-

dios and to exhibit their work; •

he risked his

own

life

by handing over many

sick

POWs to the Red

Cross; •

he successfully supervised the return of POWs from Upper

Berger claimed that

all

this

was accepted

28.

Trials of War Criminals, Vol. XIII.

29.

Glenn

30.

Kiibler,

B. Infield,

Eva and Adolf"(London:

as true

Silesia.

by the Red Cross.

New English

Library, 1974).

Chef KGW. However, Berger's account to an American judge

carrying out an investigation into Hitler's final days suggested

than just

a casual

more

acquaintance with Eva Braun. As chief of the SS main

.

NOTES he

office,

said,

convinced

if

"when I needed

497

help,

asked her and she could always be

I

the reason was good." Since he had held that position since

1940, he seemed to be implying a friendship of many years' standing. 3 1

32.

Trevor- Roper, The Last Days of Hitler.

The

following account

finitive Histoiy

33.

The

redoubt

last

sense, but

it

true Nazis that

is

was

a

—the

&

to

—never

mountains and

a fiction created

life

Germans

German Army

The

The SS

initial studies.

had

until they

idea took

on

a

did in fact explore the feasibility

of digging in and building fortifications in the Alps. But

yond

all

war

by the intelligence arm of

into unconditional surrender.

of its own, and the

idea that

fight a guerrilla

on fighting

the SS to counter the Allies' pledge to keep

forced the

any military

existed in

German propaganda. The

retreat into the

might go on forever was

Chancellor, Colditz: The De-

Stoughton, 2001).

Alpenfestung

monument

would

Henry

based on

(London: Hodder

it

never got be-

general Ernst Kaltenbrunner was then

given the task of examining the idea, but in Ernst Kaltenbrunner: Ideologof the Third Reich (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

ical Soldier

1984) his biographer Peter Black makes little faith

in the idea himself

it

clear that

and abandoned

it

Kaltenbrunner had

altogether when, at a

meeting on March 23, 1945, Hitler told him such

a

hiding place would

Germany was not going

not be necessary because

to lose the war.

Kaltenbrunner, a stubbornly loyal Hitler supporter right to the end and

beyond, believed him. But the idea of the fooled the Allied military planners, that they

would have

to extract

31, 1945,

life.

Eisenhower warned of his

drag on because of the problem of getting in "outlying areas a

.

.

.

such

as the

for

its

suppression" (New York

Jepps, liberated from his

repatriated,

tary traffic fantry,

watched

in

awe

fears that hostilities

German

would

forces to surrender .

.

.

number of troops Times, March 31, 1945). A month later, camp in Nuremberg and waiting to be

as a

a

very large

seemingly endless stream of U.S. mili-

headed southeast. There were

ambulances, and so on, nose to

remembered (National

re-

In a letter to Roosevelt on

southern mountain bastion [where]

form of guerrilla warfare would require

Len

redoubt successfully

very seriously the idea

Nazi diehards out of some mountain

treat at the cost of considerable loss of

March

last

who took

Ex-POW

jeeps, tanks, truckloads of intail

for mile after mile, he

Association Archive). This was the

force given the job of digging out the last-ditch defenders. It was not

needed.

The

last

redoubt was a myth

—Hitler never had any intention

NOTES

498

of ending his days leading

a guerrilla

gang

in the Alps.

His war requiem

was always intended to be Wagnerian, not the overture to William But

it

became

a

many Germans

of war and by

ers

34.

Trials of War Criminals, Vol. XIII.

35.

The

tribunal, sitting

more than

for granted that such orders

that this 36.

sion,

37.

as well.

years ago, seems to have taken

fifty

Nuremberg

it

were given, though we have established

was almost certainly not the

Affidavit for

Tell.

very powerful myth, clearly believed by Allied prison-

case.

Trials taken

from Nazi Conspiracy and Aggres-

Vol. VI.

It read,

"Whereas General Gottlob Berger,

charge of

all

prisoners-of-war in the

last

German

as the

general in

months of the war, did

call a

medical conference in Berlin to find ways to better take care of the medical needs of American prisoners-of-war and was instrumental in arranging for Red Cross food parcels to be distributed to American prisoners-of-war during the critical risk

own

of his

life,

should be treated tion

in

last

weeks of the war, even

and ordered that the American prisoners-of-war accordance with the rules of the Geneva Conven-

and not become hostages, and personally escorted American and

other Allied high-ranking officers to safety through

and did

lines,

try

during the

last

\merican former prisoners-of-war assembled

memorate nize the

in

Allied

it

resolved that the

Dayton, Ohio, to com-

the 20th anniversary of the conclusion of the

humanity of General Berger and thank him

and care he gave prisoners-of-war during the

38.

German and

days of the war to bring about an hon-

orable early conclusion of the war, therefore be

War

at the

war

.

.

.

recog-

for the protection

last critical

days of World

II."

U.S.A.F. Oral History Interview, February 1976. Office of Air Force

Vanaman — interviewed —went on to praise Berger

History, U.S.A.F.A. archive K239. 05 12-855.

when

the Cold

being right

down

to

it,

War was

in his

let

them

very chilly

assessment of what lay ahead.

we would be

what he wanted us

still

to

do

in a

much

for

"When you

better position today

— negotiate

a

Durand, Stalag Lnft III

40.

Trials of

War

,

Criminals, Vol. XIII.

get right

we had done

peace with the Western Allies and

face the Russians, with us at the back of them."

39.

if

.

.

NOTES 14: 1.

499

Home IWM 91/26/1.

Heading for D.

Swift,

3.

Cec Room, diary and interviews with JN, 2001-2. Jim Sims, "Scar on the Soul," unpublished account of his time tivity, from the National Ex-Prisoner of War Association.

4.

Leslie Frith,

5.

Robert John Parsons, The Best Seat

2.

in cap-

IWM 94/25/1. in the

House (Indiana: privately pub-

lished, 1998). 6.

Joseph

P.

O'Donnell, The Shoe Leather Express (privately published,

n.d.). 7. 8.

Army Group Adm. Instr. 93, March 30, 1945. PRO WO 219/1448. SHAEF Movement and Transportation Branch, April 29, 1945. PRO

21

WO 2 19/2425. 9.

Richard Passmore,

IWM 83/1/1.

No Flight from the Cage (London: Frederick Muller, 1956), and interviews with JN, 2001-2.

10.

Cal Younger,

1 1

Doug Fry,

12.

Percy Wilson Carruthers,

interview with JN,

November 2 00 1

Of Ploughs,

Planes and Palliasses (Arundel:

Woodfield Publishing, 1992). 13.

Cosford, in the Midlands, was the RAF's Center, and most returning gardless of the airfield at

prisoners of war of

all

RAF

Personnel Receiving

official

prisoners of war

went through

which they had landed back

services, the

it,

in England.

most frequently used

airfields

re-

For

were

Dunsfold, Ford, Hixon, Knettshall, Marston, Methwold, Oakley, Old-

ham, Seighford, Tangmere, Tarrant Rushton, Westcott, and Wing. According to Percy Carruthers, returning

Wing

POWs in April and May,

alone handled nearly 53,000

and on one particular day

132 Lancaster aircraft landed there, as he put

it,

a total of

"to disgorge their

scruffy, louse-ridden cargoes."

G. B. Wright, "The Last Days of the War,"

IWM 98/4/1.

14.

Lt.

15.

Frank Stewart,

16. 17.

Len Jepps, from National Ex-POW Association Bob Morton, interviews with JN, 2001-2.

18.

M.

IWM 88/20/1.

R. D. Foot and

Fostered Escape

J.

M.

Archive.

Langley, MI9: The British Secret Service That

and Evasion 1939-1945, and

Its

American Counterpart

(London: Bodley Head, 1979). 19.

As always in

this story there are exceptions.

Eric Hookings

remembered

being specifically asked "questions about any missing prisoners

—were

..

NOTES

500

column

there any people from your (interview with JN, 20.

December

During the 1982 Falklands used

this

making

form of words

it

behind, were they taken

left

ill?"

2001).

conflict,

BBC

reporter Brian

from an

to describe British raids

clear that the aircraft

had

Hanrahan

aircraft carrier,

returned safely while staying

all

within the censor's rules of not giving actual numbers. 2

1

Parsons, The Best Seat in the House.

22.

Roger

23.

Joseph

Allen, interviews with the authors,

W.

Lovoi, Listen

.

.

.

My

September 2001.

Children

(New

York: Vintage Press,

2000). 24.

15:

John Anderson, diary and interviews with JN, 2001-2.

Welcome Back Ethridge, Time Out (Oregon: privately published, 1997).

1.

Bill

2.

Published in The

Quill, ed.

E.G.C. (Ted) Beckwith (London: County

Life Ltd., 1947). 3.

Betty Batchelder, interviews with the authors, 2001-2.

4.

Norman

5.

"Rehabilitation of repatriated prisoners of war." Minutes of meeting,

6.

Collie's article

Leonard, diary and interviews with JN, 2001-2.

September

16, 1943.

PRO WO

was published

in

32/11125.

The Fortnightly

in

ments of others that follow were quoted by him submitted to the 7.

War

Office on July 26, 1943.

"The Prisoner-of-\\ar

June 1943. The comin a

memorandum

PRO WO

he

32/1 1125.

Mentality," British Medical Journal, January

1,

1944. 8.

"Report to the

9.

Memorandum

War Office on

psychological aspects of the rehabilitation

of repatriated prisoners of war," February 1944.

of war,

March

PRO WO

32/1 1125.

signed by Lt. Col. Headley for the director of prisoners 30, 1945.

March

PRO WO

32/11125.

1944. Report filed at

PRO WO

32/11125.

10.

Hansard,

1 1

Letter from Air Ministry to Gp. Capt. N. C. Hyde,

2,

IWM 88/14/4 and

4a. 12.

Robert John Parsons, The Best Seat

13.

John Parsons was discharged, went

lished, 1998),

study,

in the

House (Indiana: privately pub-

and Mai Parsons, interviews with JN, 2001-2.

and then took

a

joined the reserve, and recalled to active duty.

to the Indiana Business College to

job with the local telephone company.

when

the

Korean War broke out

in

He

also

1950 he was

. .

.

.

.

NOTES

501

14.

John Anderson, diary and interviews with JN, 2001-2.

15.

See Chapter

16.

John Anderson taught music

5.

one of his students; they had

at the University

six children.

of Georgia and married

He retired in

1982 and moved

to Florida. 17.

Roger Allen, interviews with the authors, September 2001.

18.

Richard Burt in Joseph

P.

O'Donnell, The Shoe Leather Express

(pri-

vately published, n.d.). 19.

George Guderley, interview with the authors, September 2001.

20.

See Chapter

21.

Bob Otto,

22.

Batch Batchelder, interviews with the authors, 2001-2.

23.

Percy Wilson Carruthers,

9.

interview with the authors, September 2001.

Of Ploughs,

Planes and Palliasses (Arundel:

Woodfield Publishing, 1992).

IWM 83/1/1.

24.

Richard Passmore,

25

Len Jepps, from National Ex-PO

.

W

Association Archive.

IWM 90/4/1.

26.

Maurice Newey,

27

Doug Fry, interview with JN, November 2 00 1 Victor F. Gammon, Not All Glory! True Accounts

.

28.

Prisoner in Europe, 29.

Ron Walker,

30. J. E.

Holliday

dorf RAAF 3 1

1939-1945 (London: Arms

diaries (ed.),

of RAF Airmen Taken

& Armour,

1996).

and interview with JN, December 2001. The

RAAF POWs of Lamsdorf (Queensland:

POWs Association, Australia,

Lams-

1992).

Cal Younger, No Flight from the Cage (London: Frederick Muller,

1

956),

and interviews with JN, 2001-2. 32.

Les and Doris Allan, interviews with the authors, January 2002.

Epilogue name

the Royal Air Force

1.

Its full

2

Cal Younger, interviews with JN,

3.

Deans was always known

is

promoted while he was fact a

would

warrant still

officer,

Church of St. Clement Danes.

2 00 1 -2

as a sergeant to his

a prisoner

men, even though he was

and for much of his camp

life

was in

the top of the noncommissioned hierarchy.

have been outranked by the most junior pilot

He

officer.

4.

Pamphlet published by the Directorate of Prisoners of War, February

5

Alf Jenner, interview with JN, February 2 002

6.

Ernest Boyd,

1945.

IWM Sound Archive

15587-1995.

..

.

NOTES

502

7

Ken Brown,

8.

Batch Batchelder, interviews with the authors, 2001-2.

9.

War Office

10.

interviews with JN, January-February 2 002

PRO WO

Advice to Relatives,

Army Medical

adviser in psychiatry to the Royal

by Brian Farwell, Washington

Article

August

F.

Barbour,

Corps. His team of

PRO WO 208/4419.

twenty-five psychiatrists saw 8,143 men. 11.

32/1 1125.

Interim report on returned prisoners of war by Lt. Col. R.

Post,

August

8,

1988.

12.

Washington

13.

Proceedings and Debates of 104th Congress, First Session, Vol. 141,

Post,

Washington D.C.,

May

18, 1988.

Len Jepps, from National

15.

The

Ex-POW Association Archive.

British government's position

(July 31, 2001) to a

tary

1995.

8,

14.

Under

former

was

set

out most recently in a letter

POW from Dr. Lewis xMoonie, Parliamen-

Secretary of State for Defence and Minister for Veterans'

"There

Affairs, stating that

is

no doubt

were cases of im-

that there

proper treatment by individual Germans of our servicemen held

oner of war. However, these represented improper rather than acts authorized or encouraged by the

The German

authorities did, in general,

acts

pris-

by individuals,

German Government.

implement The Geneva Con-

vention with respect to the prisoners of war." 16.

1

7

Trials of

ment Printing

Office, 1952).

No. 10, Vol. XIII (Washington D.C.: U.S. Govern-

D VA Advisory Committee on Former Prisoners of

.Annual report of the in

cooperation with the Department of Defense, January 1999.

John Frisbee and George Guderley, "Lest azine,

19.

Criminals Before the Nuernberg Militaij Tribunals Under

Law

War, 18.

War

Control Council

We

Forget," Air Force

Mag-

September 1997.

Claude Watkins, "A Realistic Look

at a

Long Walk," Ex-POW Bulletin,

April 2000. 20.

Chris Christiansen, Seven Years

Among

Prisoners of War, trans.

Winther (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University 8,348 appears in other sources as the

POWs who died It

was

in

Far East)

at the trials

comparison to

the entire course of the war.

the numbers of POWs

of Japanese war criminals in Tokyo.

killed in the

Its

accuracy

questionable, because the corresponding figure used for total

of British and American

POWs was 235,473 —which

is

is

numbers

almost certainly

an underestimate. See Appendix 4 for more information on bers.

Egede

This figure of

number of British and American

German hands during

also cited (as a

Press, 1994).

POW num-

..

NOTES 2

1

Quoted

in personal

Defence 22.

The

(ref.

total

correspondence to the authors from the Ministry of

HB(A)/6/3), January 22, 2002.

number of American

93,000-94,000 and 1,12

Commonwealth

total

casualty rate then the

emerges of war

is

who

503

a figure

died in

1

POWs in Germany was in the region of

died (see note 17).

number who

equivalent British and if

we assume

a similar

died would be around 2,200.

What

approaching 3,500 American and British prisoners

German custody. Some of these would have been be-

fore the marches, but there can be

little

have had the higher casualties because so

much more danger 23.

The

was close to 180,000, and

as a result

Larry Pifer in Joseph

P.

doubt that the marches would

many men were exposed

to so

of them.

O'Donnell, The Shoe Leather Express (privately

published, n.d.).

Appendix 2 1.

Zygmunt C. Szkopiak During and After

ment

(ed.),

The

Yalta Agreements:

Documents Trior

3

Although Colonel Alkire

refers to the

camp

as "Stalag

Luft

writing about conditions at Nuremberg, Stalag XIIID. practice for the

group moved to

POWs a

new

to keep their old

camp

III

location. Colonel Alkire

—the POWs were

still

It

III,"

was

designation

point that, although they were no longer at Sagan

Luft

to,

Crimea Conference 1945 (London: Polish Govern-

in Exile, 1986).

Appendix 1.

the

was

also

he was

common if a

large

making the

—the original Stalag

under the jurisdiction of

its

comman-

dant.

Appendix 4 1

"American

POWs in Germany," Military Intelligence Service, War De-

partment, July 15, 1944. 2

Quoted

in Chris Christiansen, Seven Years Among Prisoners of War, trans.

Egede Winther (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University

4.

PRO WO 193/347. PRO WO 219/1459.

5.

"Strengths and locations of

3.

Straub, 6.

POW camps in Germany" —from Col. E.

SHAEF PWX Branch,

G-l Div, March

Taken from Nigel Cawthorne, The 1993).

Press, 1994).

F.

24, 1945.

Iron Cage (London: Fourth Estate,

NOTES

504

7.

W. Wynne Mason, Prisoners of War (Official History of New Zealand in World War, 1939-45) (Wellington: Oxford University

the Second Press, 1954). 8.

Report from the Defence POW-Missing Personnel Office

www. dtic.mil/dpmo 9.

"American

POWs

in

Germany," Military Intelligence

Department, November 1945. 10.

Hansard

May

(http://

—accessed November 2001).

15, 1945.

Service,

War

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Tony

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Norman

Leonard, Jack Lyon,

Mac

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Mutton, Maurice Newey, Les Nichols,

Norman

Tom

Oates, David Osment, Neil

BIBLIOGRAPHY

510

Ostrom, Bob Otto, Richard Passmore, Frank Paules, Leonard Pearman,

Tony

Pelly,

Keith Pendray, Alan Percell, Cyril Pofney, Phil Potts, Derek

Ray Racy, David Radke, Allen Rawlinson, Arch Riley, Vic Robins, Cec Room, Len Rose, Gerhard Riihlow, Eddie Scott-Jones, Kenneth Searle, Pete Simpson, Jim Sims, Pete Skinner, .Arthur Smith, Harry Smith, Kenroy Smith,

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Taylor,

Taylor,

Index Bold face page numbers

refer to maps.

Air Ministry, British, 412

106-8; liberation

Akerman, Ron, 28

tions of, 31, 33, 248; mental reha-

Alexander, Harold, 200, 202

bilitation of, 412;

of,

201-2; loca-

numbers

of, 31,

Alkire, Darr, 259, 457-61

62, 240, 242, 276, 446-47, 462-63;

Allan, Doris, 43 1-32

official

Allan, Les, 176-79, 315-16, 430-32,

Soviet hands, 237-38, 239; treat-

ment

442 Allen, Richard, 95

XIB, 299; capture

of, ix;

on evacua-

tion of Stalag Luft IV, 123-24, 135; liberation of, 314-15; repatri-

ation of, 399, 416-17; return to

163,309-10,313,401-2,415-16 Ardennes, 71

Army Group B, German, 251 Arnhem campaign, 56, 60, 294, 438

atomic bomb, 415

abuses by, 375-76;

Attlee,

friendly fire of, 25-26, 255-57,

268-71;

398

Articles of War, 441

military, 31, 58. See also

specific units;

after liberation,

Arnold, Walter, 256-57, 271-72

x-xii

Altengrabow, 242

American

439-41; in

of,

Anderson, John, 131-33, 159-60, 162,

Allen, Roger, 310; arrival at Stalag

Germany of,

recognition

German

Clement, 106

Auschwitz, 187,254, 371

offensive of, 188,

Australian

POWs,

6,

72

199, 200, 201, 255-56, 298; Italian

surrender and, 44; liberation of

Badcock, Jim, 260-65

POWs by,

Bader, Douglas, 10,268

229, 264-66, 283-84;

Normandy invasion tection of

and, 51; pro-

POWs and,

62-63, 94-

POWs,

175-76, 179-81

Barbour, R. E, 439

5-6, 13, 19-20,

33-35, 13 1,305; British

W,

Barber, Tony, 229

95; Soviets and, 2 2 6, 2 3 7-3 8

American

Bampton,

Bankau. See Stalag Luft VII

POWs

Barker,

Raymond, 244

and, relations between, 125; British

Barth. See Stalag Luft

POWs on,

Batchelder, Betty, 102-5, 404-5,

for, 33;

277-78, 279; conditions

deaths

of,

466; families

of,

406-7,421-22

I

385,

5

INDEX

512

Batchelder, Harold "Batch,"

xii,

103,

317-19,320,321,329,330,331, 333, 346, 421-22, 435-37, 441-42

Buchholz, Wayland "Little Buck,"

122-23,127,149, 151-53,417-18 Bugs, Jason, 399

1, 450 Baum, Abraham, 201 Baumbach, Charlie, 336, 337-38

Burckhardt, Carl, 354

Baur, Hans,

Calvert, George, 330

Battle of the Bulge, 63, 21

1

Camp Lucky Strike,

Beckwith, Ted, 403-4 Belaria,

84-86

Belgian

POWs,

Burt, Richard, 417

397-98, 402

camps, prisoner-of-war. See

242

cific

also spe-

camps; building of, 40; escapes

Below, Xicolaus von, 15

from. See escapes; locations

Bergen-Belsen, 304, 318, 350, 374,

xxii-xxiii;

numbers

405 Berger, Gottlob, 357, 359-71, 443,

444-45

of, xv;

of,

of, xviw;

requests for help

from, 194-95

Caplan, Leslie, 117, 149, 150, 156-

Berghof, 14-15

57, 159, 163,

"Big Stoop," 116-18,376

Bombach,

nomenclature

164,443

Carruthers, Percy, 26, 27, 28-29,

Aribert, 121

1

bombings: of Germany, 15-16, 25, 193-94,215,255-57, 353-54,

16,

1

18, 303, 323, 340;

on evacua-

tion of Stalag Luft IV, 119-20, 126, 129-30, 133-34, 136, 147,

355-56, 435; of London, 35 Booth, George, 39

liberation of, 341; repatriation of,

Bormann, Martin, 361

387, 423-24;

Boyd, Ernest, 435

300

Bradley,

Omar,

Bristowjohn, 1,3,291,304 British Expeditionary- Force,

British

40

government, 46-49, 105-6, also

War

Foreign Office,

Office, British

Medical Journal, 409

British military, 40, 44, 51, 200, 256,

301,330-35,337,433,436,437. See also

Chiefs of

Staff, U.S.,

62-63, 94-95,

173, 194,

Braun, Eva, 365-66

189-90. See

POWs,

196,234 Churchill, Winston, 35, 48, 199; leafleting and, 253; as POW, 38-

276,400

British;

on Russian

Casablanca conference (1943), 48

60, 182

Brancato, Onafrio, 69, 72, 82-83,

British

162; leadership role of, 154, 341;

specific units

Brower, Clarence, 163

Brown, Ken, 303, 319, 329-30,330-

31,346,435 Brown, Reg, 335 Buchenwald, 81,254

39;

POWs and, 38-39, 54, 196, POWs and, 54; Yalta

358; Russian

agreement (1945) and, 232-33,

236,241 Cittadini, Joe, 74, 75-76, 78, 81, 87,

256,258,259,272,273,284 Clark, Albert, 31, 34, 278, 281, 282-

83 Clarke, Alan, 184-85, 223-24, 229,

246 Clarke, Vic, 24, 27, 29-30, 61-62,

146 Clifton, George,

202-3

INDEX

IVC

Colditz. See Oflag

Dodson, Kenny, 265, 268, 270 dogs as food, 158, 177,298 Dresden, 193-94, 353-54, 355-56

cold weather, 143, 178 Collard, Dick, 216, 245 Collie,

George, 408-9

Durand, Arthur, 370

Combined Operations, 58-59

Commando Order

513

dysentery, 84, 86-87, 134, 141-42, '

(1942), 352

142, 149, 150, 171, 189

concentration camps, 80-81, 187,

254,304,318,350,353,363,371,

Eagle Squadron, U.S., 31

405

Eden, Anthony, 54, 233, 234, 236, 241 Eichmann, Adolf, 370-71

Cooke, T. D., 158 Coster, E, 181-83 Crockatt,

279

Eichstatt,

Norman, 59-61,

Crowd Is Not Company,

A

197, 396

(Kee), xiv

Eighth Air Force, U.S., 31, 58 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 62, 93-94, 175, 196-97,

198,243,244

escapes, 12, 66-67, 131, 195, 245,

Daily Recco, 5 Daily Telegraph, 405-6

308-9,319-20,323-24,353,435

Day, "Wings," 435

Ethridge,

D-Day, 3-5, 51,296 Deane, John, 239

88,255,258-59,260,270,272, 278-79,281,283,284,403 evacuations of camps, 17, 168-

Deans, Jimmy "Dixie," 296, 302, 312;

award

to,

434; death

of,

433; on

Bill, 74, 76,

77-78, 79, 87,

POW

69, 361, 405-6. See

also specific

evacuation of StalagXIB, 328-29;

camps; as atrocity, 445; chronology

on friendly

of,

crossing

of,

334; front line

fire,

335-38; heroism

433; leadership role

of,

of,

1,3-4,

9-13,291-92,297,304-5,32122; liberation of,

"death march," also

xii,

Stalag Luft

449-52; complaints by prison-

German

ers about,

443-44;

counts

109-11, 139-40;

of,

ac-

information about, 92-95, 167-72,

339

189-92; numbers of evacuees, 172;

162, 164, 447. See

reasons

IV

39,

for,

93-94, 109, 111, 338-

445-46

deaths of POWs, 162-64, 177-78, 181, 235, 273-75, 290, 300,

332-

34,350,351-52,392,394,428, 446-48, 465-66 debriefings, 395-97, 422

defeat and surrender of

Germany,

Fallingbostel. See Stalag families of

POWs,

XIB

69-70, 176; finan-

cial assistance for, 98, 99;

informa-

tion for, 41-42, 95-103, 189-90,

405-6;

POWs'

thoughts

of,

144,

Red

71-72, 191, 196, 243, 251, 255-57,

148, 180, 258, 403-4, 418-19;

339, 346

Cross and, 33-34, 95, 98, 99, 100-

Department of Defense, U.S., 440, 446. See also American military displaced persons, 46, 1 19, 377-78 Ditton, Harry, 405 divorce, 418-20

105; repatriated

POWs and, 410-

28, 437; repatriation awaited by,

406-7, 421; United States and, 42;

War

Office and, 40-42, 91-92,

105-6

;

INDEX

514

58th Guards Division, Russian, 226 First

Army, U.S., 63

284-85, 288-89, 304, 306-7, 329 forced marches. See evacuations of

POW camps British, 41,

173-74,

234,235-36 447 Bomb Group, U.S., 256 France, 186,254 French POWs, 129, 226, 242, 261, 276, 302, 324

218;

57, 353-54, 355-56, 435; defeat of.

See defeat and

surrender of Germany; division 232; Russian offensive 74,

in, 19,

of,

73-

205

Gestapo, 37, 38, 112, 198

25-26, 255-57, 265-66,

268-71,312,330,334-35,344

366 Goecke, Paul, 273-75

400 Frith, Leslie, 318, 374,

Goering, Hermann, 355

386

Goode, "Pop," 282-83 Gorlitz. See Stalag VIIIA

front lines, Allied, 32,200, 311

205

front lines, Soviet,

Gluckstein, Louis, 105, 411-12

Goebbels, Joseph, 273, 355-56,

friendships, 6-7, 122-23, 130, 275,

frostbite,

203, 240,

in,

51-52, 232-33; SS control of camps and, 358-59 Germany: accountability for treatment of POWs, 442-43; bombing of, 15-16,25, 193-94,215,255-

and surrender

Fried, Freddy, 183 fire,

to,

retreats of, 312, 327; Russians in,

66, 129, 140-41, 158, 171,212,

friendly

warnings

251, 252-54; desertions

food, 33, 41-42, 48-49, 60, 62, 64,

Foreign Office,

units; Allied

Grigg, James, 50, 58, 189-90, 234,

159

In. Douglas, 95-100, 116, 124-25,

241,248 Gross Tychow. See Stalag Luft IV

146,299,334-35,386-88, 395,427-28 126.

guards, 9, 21, 26, 58, 79-80,

1

16-18,

139-40, 163-64, 184,214,225,

Gage, Johnny, 428

259,281-82,296-97, 351;

treat-

Gallin, 148

ment

348-49,

Gammon,

373, 376-77

Vic, 9, 302, 323-26, 333

Geneva Convention, 16; Commando Order (1942) and, 352; evacuations

3 60,

to, 41,

355-56,

442 payment of POWs, 44 ;

violations of, 259;

ment

of,

Guderley, George, 350; awards 439; on "Big Stoop,"

1

17;

to,

on evac-

uation of Stalag Luft IV, 120-24,

and, 93-94, 164, 443-44, 445;

German adherence

after liberation, 341,

1

work require-

176

127-28, 134—35, 137-42, 149, 151-53; repatriation

of,

417-18; on

Stalag XIB, 306-10, 312,313 guilt, feelings of,

439

Gepp, E. C.,43,55, 189

German

civilians:

129, 140, 166;

evacuation

POWs and,

70,80,83, 130, 145,

German

of, 76,

Hamilton, Jock, 323

16„21,

Harpin, D.A., 118-19

147,320

military, 16-17, 18, 85, 186,

261-62, 356. See

also

guards;

specific

Harriman, Averell, 239 Harris, Arthur, 43 5

Hartnell-Beavis, John, 68, 78, 87, 89

INDEX Hemmings, Gordon, 249

515

Kee, Robert, xiv

Heydekrug. See Stalag Luft

IV

Keitel,

Wilhelm, 109

Himmler, Heinrich, 16, 18, 62, 11113, 192, 193, 267, 357-59, 363-64

Kennan, George, 243 Kershaw, Ian, 194,355-56

Hitler, Adolf, 14—16; assassination

Kesselring, Albert, 16

attempt, 17-18, 36, 357;

mando Order

Com-

(1942), 352; last days

of,

366-67; "Nero Order" (1945)

of,

254-55, 353;

POWs and,

56,

193,196,351-52,353-54,357, 360, 364-65;

Red Cross

and, 360;

Lagergeld, 441 leafleting, 203, 251,

252-54

Leakey, John, 323

Lensburg, John, 163

Leonard, Norman, 100, 407, 423

suicide of, 243, 339

liberation of POWs,

Hitler Youth, 26, 344

31, 239, 246, 249,

xiii,

208-9, 217-

263-65, 267-70,

Hoess, Rudolf, 371

281-85, 312-16, 325-27, 340^7.

Home

See also

Guard, German, 186, 302, 310

specific

camps; behavior after,

Hookings, Eric, 70-71, 84-86, 211,

264,283-84,313-15,340-41,

230 Hope, Laurie, 437

chronology

hospitals, 145, 172, 198. See also ical aid

and

345-46, 348, 373-76, 381-82;

med-

facilities

Houston, Charles, 181 Hovel, von, 109-10

Howard-Vyse, Richard, 167-79, 408 Howe, Dick, 266 hunger and starvation, xii, 6, 140-41, 143,145,154-55,173,258-59, 290, 306, 320

Hyde, N. C, 412

treatment

of,

449-52; guards'

after,

341, 348-49, 373,

376-77 lice,

150, 156-57

London, 35 London Times, The, 434 Lord, John, 292-94, 315 Lorentzen, Theodor, 110-11 Lovoi, Joe, 68-69, 71, 82-83, 88,

276,280,281-82,283-84,284, 348, 400-401 Luckenwalde. See Stalag IILA

illness,

149-55, 191, 242, 273-74,

Insterburg (ship), 23-25

MacDonald, Murdo, 79 McHale, Tom, 5

"iron curtain," 241

Maclean, N., 208-9

289-90. See

Italy,

also specific illnesses

16,43-46

Japan, 50,237,247,415 Jenner, Alf, 316, 320, 321, 322, 329,

331-33, 341-42, 435 Jepps, Len, 257, 392-94, 425-26, 442

Marienburg. See Stalag

XXB

Marlag Nord, 89 Mason, Wynne W, 44, 45 Mauthausen, 353 medical aid and facilities, 149-53, 189, 362. See also hospitals

medical examinations, 394 Kaltenbrunner, Ernst, 368, 371

Katyn massacre, 448

Military Intelligence (MI9), 45, 197,

395-97

5

INDEX

516

Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Soviet,

243 Ministry of Defence, British, 442,

OflaglVC, 194-95, Oflag IX, 260-65 OflaglXB, 57

199,

447 Model, Walter, 251, 253 Mogg, Ron, 3, 291, 292-93, 304

Oflag XIIB, 202

Molotov, Vyacheslav, 54-55, 233,235

Oflag 79, 57, 194

Montgomery, Bernard,

Operation Eclipse, 191

265-70

Oflag XIII, 201,202 Oflag 67, 171

60, 200, 243,

298 Moosburg. See Stalag MIA Morton, Bob, 320-21, 330, 331, 332, 395

Operation Exodus, 378 Operation Vicarage, 197

Ostmann, Oberst, 322, 336, 339 Otto, Bob, 142-44, 299, 315, 418-20,

439

Moss, Stan, 204, 206

Moulton, Moose, 258, 260 Murowski, Frank, 440

Parsons, John, 24-25, 28, 106-8, 116,

39

Musk.ui. S2-83,86

257,258,273-75,283,375,37677, 397-99, 412-15 Parsons, Mai, 106-8, 412-15

National Ex-Prisoners of War Asso-

Passmore, Richard,

Murray,

S. S.,

ciation,

Naville, Gilbert,

190,354-55

342,378-80,388,424 Patton, George, 200-202, 259, 281,

NT-Day, 192-93

284,298

Neary, Bob, 74, 77, 78, 257

"Nero Order"

(1945), 254-55, 353

NTewey, Maurice, 277-78, 348, 426-27

Newman,

P.

H., 409-10

J. S.,

Paul, Jack, 129, 130, 145, 153, 160,

319-20,326-27 Paules, Frank, 163-64

of the World 405

Nichols,

6, 9, 11, 12, 22,

288-90,296-99,299,303,318,

442

Pearman, Leonard, 211, 219, 222, 225, 246, 247-48

197,242

Niemann, Vinnie, 277, 400-401

Phillimore, Harry, 48-49

Ninth Army. U.S, 242

pleurisy,

NKVD

Poland, 46, 232, 235, 237-38, 239,

(

Russian secret police), 238

Nuremberg, 87-88, 256-57, 281. See also Stalag XIIID Nuremberg tribunals, 355, 365, 368— 69,

443-45

289

240, 241 Pollack, Robert, 149, 162-63

Potsdam,

2

1

Prawitt, Oberst, 267,

268-69

Prisoner of War Information Bureau,

Oder

river, 120, 134, 137,

139

U.S., 42

O'DonnellJoe, 121, 155-59, 16162, 164,300-301,304,345 ,

Office of Prisoner of War Affairs,

German, 363-64 Office of Strategic Services, U.S.

(OSS), 197

Prisoner of War Medal, 440 prisoners of war

(POWs):

Allied

warnings on mistreatment

of,

203,

240, 251, 252-54; American. See

American 41

1,

POWs;

back pay

for,

412, 441-42; behavior after

INDEX liberation. See liberation of

POWs;

517

propaganda, 92-93, 100, 202-3, 238, 301

British government's attitude

toward, 46-49; brutal treatment of,

protection and rescue plans, 35-38,

27-30, 116-18, 405, 445; coping

43, 46-49, 56-63, 94-95, 195-99,

mechanisms

198-203, 241-42

of,

143-44, 155, 315;

count, failure to, 397; cowardice,

missioning pointing

of,

radio equipment, 1,3, 13,38, 71,

433, 436; disap-

homecoming

434-35;

of,

families of. See families of

POWs;

German

civilians and. See

German

civilians;

German

plans

for, 37, 56,

349-64; haunted by memories,

148,

tion,

436

398

144,

of,

167,266,290-91,321

RAF Benevolent Fund, 98 RAF Ex-Prisoners-of-War AssociaRecovered Allied Military Personnel,

192-93, 196, 199-200, 338-39,

436-37; home, thoughts

psychologists, 49, 407, 422

decom-

accusations of, 33-34, 440;

180,258,403-4,418-19;

Red

Cross, 39, 41, 64, 89, 189-90;

Berger and, 360-61; families of

leadership among, 9-10, 154, 291-

POWs and,

92, 321-22, 341; liberation of. See

100-105; Hitler and, 360; parcels,

POWs;

67,94,99,146,160,167,170,171,

liberation of

locations of,

33-34,95,98,99,

31,33, 171-72, 190-91; mental

174-76, 211, 297, 329; supplies not

rehabilitation of, 50, 408-11, 412;

getting through, 42, 62; tracking of

mistreatment of each other, 294—

POWs by,

numbers of, xv-xvi, 52, 196, 236,242,248,276,288,462-66; official recognition of, 434, 43941; physical damage to, 164, 429;

of immunity proposed by, 47-48

96;

protection

of.

See protection and

rescue plans; psychological

damage

49-50, 409-10, 422-23, 425-

to,

166, 170, 172-73; zones

Reed, Gordon, 330 refugees,

166,218,232

rehabilitation of

POWs,

50,

408-11,

437-38 Reid, Pat, 195, 199,266 relief efforts

and supplies, 167, 170,

26, 437-39; repatriation of. See

173, 174-75, 189-90, 191. See also

repatriation of POWs; rescue of.

Red Cross

See protection and rescue plans;

religious faith, 143-44, 315

responsibility for, 39-40, 58, 105-

repatriation of POWs, 377-95, 398-

6;

return to

Germany by,

402; across front lines, 243; chaos

x-xii,

142; revenge taken on, 16, 27-30,

of,

352-53; Russian plans

ning

for,

secrecy about experiences xiv,

232-50; of, xiii-

415, 429-31, 439, 443; "stand

fast"

orders

to, 43, 46, 57,

245, 302, 377; studies

of,

166-67,

410-1

1;

swaps, 42-43; VIP, 195, 266-68,

367-68 Prokhorovka, Soviet Union,

397; deaths during, 394; planfor,

49-50, 52-56, 191; slow-

ness of, 372-73, 377-78, 388-94;

Soviet interference

in,

232-50;

transport disputes, 238, 244

rescue plans. See protection and res-

cue plans Riding, Edward, 273

5

"Rip van Winkle"

effect,

408

INDEX

518

Rolf, David,

40

Rommel, Erwin, Room, Cecil, 12,

Smith,

28, 114;

on evacua-

26, 128-29, 130, 136, 137, 145-46,

147, 153-54, 154-55, 160-61,

162-63; liberation

on

of,

326-27, 348,

repatriation, 373; repatria-

on Stalag XIB, 299,303,319-20 tion of, 394-95;

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 48, 55-56,

14. 19, 20, 74,

92-93,

182,204, 205, 206, 336; camp liberations by,

200-10, 219-31,

German offensive of, 19, 120, 205; Germans in, 51-

239, 249;

73-74,

52,232-33; strength

ment of

POWs

by,

of,

24"; treat-

208-10, 221-

22, 223-24, 227-28, 230-31, 36, 243;

women

in.

220.

235-

221.224

Russian Liberation Army, 250

Russian

POWs,

ation, 375, 392; brutal treatment

186-87, 206-7, 290; Churchill

and, 54;

numbers

Soviet Union,

5,

442-43; death

toll,

207; German offensive in, 120; German offensive of, 19, 73-74,

205; military. See Russian army; negotiations with Allies over

POWs,

52-56, 232-50; relations

with Western

allies,

229-41; suf-

fering of people of, 207-8 Special Allied Airborne Reconnais-

of, 52, 53,

Special Operations Executive, British

(SOE), 197 Spivey, Delmar, 361, 369

SS, 57, 183, 219, 267, 268, 269, 302;

control over

236;

POWs,

357-61; danger to

58, 113, 193,

POWs from,

37-38, 350-51; power Russian

POWs and,

of,

111-13;

186-87

Stalag IIIA, 86,93, 171, 185,206;

conditions

51-56, 172, 261,

276, 288, 300; behavior after liber-

of,

181

sance Force (SAARF), 197, 241-42

233,239-40,253,273 Russian army,

B.,

Smith, Walter Bedell, 49, 53

16

tion of Stalag Luft IV, 124, 125-

349;

39

Slattery, Larry,

Romilly, Giles, 195

in,

210-12; escapes

from, 245; evacuation

of,

213-16;

liberation of, 217-31, 246; second

evacuation rumored, 2 /M 1 6 Stalag IIIC, 239 Stalag VILA, 88-89, 271, 275-80,

repatriation of, 52-56, 232-33,

388, 389; conditions

246-47, 250; returned to combat,

278-80; liberation

220-21; SS and, 186-87; Stalin and, 52, 246-4": United States

Stalag VIIIA, 450

and, 55-56

Stalag XIA, 242

at,

of,

276-77,

281-85

Stalag VIIIB, 94, 185

Stalag XIB, 178, 286-306, 380, 382;

Sagan. See Stalag Luft

III

arrival at,

161-62; atmosphere

Schellenberg, Walter, 369

300-301; escapes from, 308-9;

Schirmer, Robert, 170-73

evacuation

Searle,

Ken, 285

sex, lack of,

409

Sims, Jim, 290, 294, 343-15, 350-52,

373-74, 383-86

of,

of,

287, 303-6, 316,

317-23, 328-40; liberation

of,

312-16 Stalag XIID, 88 Stalag XIIID, 57, 252, 255, 362-63;

6th Airborne Division, British, 340

conditions

69th Infantry, U.S., 226

of,

270-75

at,

257-58; evacuation

INDEX StalagXXA, 47, 182,286,444 StalagXXB, 47, 176; evacuation 177-81; liberation of, 208-9

Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), 49, 59,

of,

60-61, 173, 175, 191, 192, 194, 195-96, 266, 397

Stalag 344, 57, 204, 407

surrender of Germany See defeat and

Stalag357,22,288,293 Stalag Luft VII, 183-84

surrender of Germany

248-49

Stalag Luft

I,

Stalag Luft

III, xv, 34,

519

Swift,

435; complaint about conditions

457-61; escapes from,

12,

D, 185-89,372-73

Switzerland, 193; as Protecting

92, 206, 358, at,

66-67,

353; evacuation of, 65, 72-83, 86-

Power, 30, 62,92, 190, 354-55;

Red Cross

parcels and, 174-75;

supplies for evacuees and,

1

74

90, 259-60, 361; location of, 64;

supplies in, 64—65

Taylor, James, 29

Stalag Luft IV, 9, 23,61, 99, 102, 108, 286, 299, 300, 439; conditions in, 6, 7;

escape committee, 120-21;

114-65, 115, 447;

evacuation

of,

reputation

of, 30,

114, 116;

Roger

of, 2,

18-30

410

Stalag Mentality, Stalin,

13, 16; evacuation

1,

Joseph: Allied warnings to

Germans

and, 240-41; Hitler and,

207; leafleting and, 253-54; Poland

POWs and, 246-17; Western POWs and,

and, 235, 239; Russian 52,

This Is Your Life, 435

POWs,

43, 46,

57, 166-67, 245, 302, 377

A. B., 39

Thorn. See Stalag 357; Stalag Tod, Willie, 266-69 Trevor- Roper, Hugh, 366-67 12th 2 1st

XXA

Army Group, U.S., 60, 266 Army Group, British, 60, 298,

377 typhus, 242,288, 351

United

53,203,236-37 "stand fast" orders to

Third Army, U.S., 188, 201, 259, 348

Thompson,

Allen's return to, x-xii

Stalag Luft VI,

telephones, 139, 190

Tennant, Coombe, Mrs., 42

States. See also

POWs:

families of

information on

American

POWs and, 42;

POWS and, 94-95;

American

hunger and starvation Stauffenberg, Claus von, 17-18

military. See

Steck, Walter, 81

439-41;

POWs by, Russian POWs and, 55-

56; Yalta

agreement (1945) and,

starvation. See

Stephens, J. D., 96 Stettinius,

Edward, 233

official

military;

recognition of

237

Stewart, Frank, 279, 281-82, 389-92 Stiller, Al,

Stimson,

Vanaman, Arthur,

202

Henry

Straub, E. E, 463

VE Day, 243,

Sunday Express, 42

Vernon, Dick, 305

Sunday Times, 405

VIP

supplies. See relief efforts plies

75,

361-63, 369-

70

L., 55

and sup-

245, 402

prisoners, 195, 266-68,

Vistula

367-68

Army Group, German, 359

Vlasov, Andrei, 250

INDEX

520

Wadley,

249-50

Waters, John, 201

67, 73, 83, 89-90,

Watton,John, 269

Patricia, 238,

Walker, Ron,

xiv,

93,206-7,210-11,211-17,220, 222,225-26,227-29,245, 428-29

war crimes. See Nuremberg tribunals Ward, Irene, 106 War Department, U.S., 31, 34 Warner, John, 441

War

90 Wilmeth, James, 239 Wilson, A. T.M., 410-11 Willatt, Geoff, 80, 87,

women, 220, 221, 224-25, 292 work camps, 176, 181, 185 World War II chronology, 449-52 Wright, Geoff, 285, 388-90, 391

Office, British, 174, 175, 404,

442; families of

POWs and, 40-41,

91-92, 105-6; mental rehabilitation plans of, 407-8, 411; protection of

POWs,

policy on, 35-38,

43, 46-49, 56-58, 59; repatriation

of Russian

POWs and,

233-34;

repatriation plans of, 49-50; "stand fast" orders to

POWs,

166-67,302,377 Washington Post. I he, 440 57,

Yalta

agreement (1945),

56, 231-34,

238,241,244, 247-48; text of, 453-56; violations of, 237, 239 Younger, Cal, 288,

6,

7-9, 11, 19-22, 286,

29^97, 301-3,

305, 306, 31

1,

313-14, 322, 329, 380-83, 429-30,

433,434

43, 46, 48,

Zemke, H., 248-49 zones of immunity, 47-48

JOHN NICHOL

is

a

former RAF

flight lieutenant

whose Tornado bomber was shot down on mission over Iraq during the Gulf War. He

captured and became

was

a prisoner of war. He

the bestselling coauthor of Tornado

a

is

Down and

author of five novels: Point of Impact, Vanishing Point, Exclusion Zone, Stinger,

Measures. He

is

and Decisive

also a journalist and widely

quoted military commentator. His

Web

site is

www.johnnichol.com.

TONY RENNELL

the author of Last Days of

The Death of Queen Victoria and coauthor

Glory:

of

is

When Daddy Came Home,

study of demobilization writer,

he

was

in

1945.

a highly

praised

Now a freelance

formerly associate editor of the

Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday.

Jacket design by Carlos Beltran Jacket photograph: National P. c h v e/ C o u rt e s y of Joseph O'Donnell (POW 1414), Gregory Hatton, and the 392 nd Bomb Group A

r

i

VIKING

AMEr 375

wv

1

c

PENGUIN GROUP (USA)

> ,

New

INC.

York, N.Y. 10014

"

The Last Escape

a

is

superb and moving account

their ordeal of captivity in Nazi

through the stories of those lously honest

"The

who

and thorough work

who endured imprisonment plight of the

A tale

Germany. lived

it,

of scholarship

War

POWs

II

and

—Carlo

and

is

both a scrupu-

a lasting tribute to

those

II.

has generally been overlooked and

John Nichol and Tony Rennell's remarkable story overdue contribution to the history

POWs

heroism and sacrifice, told

The Last Escape

during World

World War

of

of the Allied

is

a significant

and long-

of the war."

D'Este, author of Eisenhower:

A

Soldiers Life

and Patton:A Genius for War

"This splendid story takes us deep into the he,

in

terms

feel to

of likely surviving war, fortunate?

attempt escape? On coming home,

stance or someone

who

'gave up'?

fresh contribution to World

War

—Joseph "A book

anomalous world

like this

makes one

II

E.

It's all

is

What

POW.

of the

duty or desire does he

he seen as a victim of circum-

there

in this

book that makes

we fight?'"

a

history while unfolding a fascinating tale."

Persico, author of Roosevelt's Secret

ask, as did the

little

old

German

lady

who

— Bob

War

hobbled

along beside a column of disheveled prisoners, 'Oh children, children,

do

Is

why

Kerrey, former senator from Nebraska;

currently president of

SBN 0-670-03212-3

52995>

9"780670"032129

l

New School

Univerity