As pressure on space at Fallingbostel became greater, large numbers of prisoners were shipped out at frequent intervals. My turn came fairly quickly. This dispersal was done on the basis of nationalities and we, the British, had one notable distinction. The Germans published work tables on the output of each nationality with, of course, their own countrymen well on top. To our satisfaction we were at the bottom. The Germans expected us to be ashamed of this position, but, of course, we were delighted. The only problem was that often we had longer hours working in order to fulfil our ‘quota’.
The next camp was somewhere in the Brunswick area, and set amidst an industrial area. This, of course, was quite contrary to the Geneva Convention, as we were in the middle of prime targets for Allied bombing. We were formed in to work parties and proceeded to undergo some really hard labour in the marshalling yards. We carried railway sleepers and laid track. One of the least popular jobs was ‘stopping’ or packing stones beneath metal sleepers using the flat end of a pickaxe. The weather was generally cold and wet, and on our meagre rations we found it hard to keep going. There was a daily sick parade but the German doctors were wise to any attempts to deceive them, and minor ailments were not considered as an excuse to avoid ‘Arbeit’. We were always accompanied by armed sentries, unlike Polish and French prisoners who often worked unsupervised.
We had little idea of the progress of the war, but news eventually filtered through that there had been an invasion in France but it had been beaten back.
There was a considerable amount of air activity, and as our group of about twenty men was walking to work one morning we were attacked by a section of German anti-aircraft gunners coming off duty. They had obviously had a very bad night and wanted to work out their frustration on the enemy. A free-for-all developed, with our two sentries unslinging their weapons but unable to fire for fear of hitting their own men. The fight lasted only a few minutes and the gunners then made off to leave us to recover. Nobody was seriously hurt but there were one or two black eyes and cut faces. We were not allowed to take cover in air-raids and it was a miracle that none of us was killed.
This is a posed photo of a German anti-aircraft crew – almost certainly not the one that attacked Dad and his comrades.
The situation was now becoming really desperate and we began to talk of escape, feeling that as we were now certain that the Allies had gained a foothold in France we could, with luck, reach our own people. We were later to realise that we had not only underestimated the distance involved but that we had not the resources to succeed.
It was easy enough to slip away from a working party, although the dicovery that you had gone could not be concealed for long. I teamed up with a man from Sheffield who had been a P.O.W. since Dunkirk and who spoke excellent French as he had managed to hide out in France for about a year. Our opportunity came a few days later. We had noted that Polish prisoners wore a ‘P’ on their uniforms and we managed to persuade two of them to exchange their jackets for our battle-dress tops. We believed that as Poles we would have a greater freedom of movement. We had collected together whatever food and bits of clothing we could muster, and on the day we chose we simply walked away from the working party. We were not popular with the other prisoners because our absence would mean long ‘counting’ parades and tighter security. We were soon in the country and to our astonishment were not challenged by anyone. As it was growing dark we noted with interest a couple of French P.O.Ws. working in a field as agricultural labourers. They were not supervised so we approached them and my fellow-escaper, whose French was a good deal better than mine, asked them where we could get both shelter and help. They became very nervous when we revealed that we were British. However, they told us to walk to the next village along the road and to go to the rear of the church where the priest lived. They could not guarantee help but felt that he might be sympathetic. We arrived in the village just as the light failed and soon found the house behind the church. Our knock on the door was answered by a German soldier who looked us up and down – saw the ‘P’ on our dress and began to address us in fluent Polish. We were dumbfounded, and as he motioned us inside we knew our ill-fated attempt to escape was over. The room was full of Germans – it was a guard-post for the village, and we thought it wise to reveal our real identities. The Germans thought it a great joke that we had been recaptured so soon and so easily. A telephone call confirmed our story, but we were not to go back to our own camp. We spent an uncomfortable night in jail in a nearby small town and the next day we were put on a train together with a sentry. This was not so uncomfortable as usual because this time we were in a civilian carriage with the sentry in the corridor. The journey was not too long and soon we found ourselves standing on a station platform with sundry other British prisoners, all of whom had committed some offence against the Reich. We were eventually herded in to a cattle truck and began a long journey – this time, to our sorrow – heading east, deep into Germany.*
After a number of days we arrived at a remote camp which we were told was a special security camp for ‘difficult’ prisoners. Actually the regime was no worse than other camps but the work was devastating. We were in Silesia and were about to be introduced to the iron-ore mines or ‘Indian country as it was known amongst P.O.Ws. (because of the reddish tinge the iron ore dust gave to your skin). We had to fill a given number of tubs per day before we were let out of the mine, but it was not wise to work too hard to fill the tubs quickly as the quota would then be increased. There were many nationalities working in the mines, and once again the British were bottom of the output league. The Germans could not understand why this gave us cause for amusement rather than shame.
After a few months we were astonished to be told to gather our gear and to prepare to move. This was because, we later learned, the Russian advance from the east was getting too near.
*So deep that today this region is in Poland. Dad could have said more about his time in Silesia but perhaps it was too painful to recount. Our mother says that he once told her about it and she said it was seriously bad.