The National Ex-Prisoner of War Association
Autumn 2011 Newsletter
VISIT TO THE PALACE
AUTUMN 2011 NEWSLETTER
ASSOCIATION NEWS by Les Allan, President
99 Parlaunt Road, Langley, Berkshire SL3 8BE. Tel/Fax 01753-818308.
Greetings to all members. We have had a busy couple of months since the last newsletter was sent out. On Friday 15th July a party from the association attended the Not Forgotten Association Garden Party at Buckingham Palace. The front cover picture shows John Scriven, who fell in the bag just after D-Day and his escort Mrs Andrelee Neal. In the distance Princess Anne is meeting select ‘old boys’ including Charlie Mayhead who was chauffeured to the event by daughter Mrs Sally Spring. I was sharing their table with my daughter Yvonne Lambert, while Reg Cleaver and his escort Mrs Janet Rivett and our Chairman Phil Chinnery and his lovely lady Cathy went off to try the Royal sandwiches.
The Garden Party is an opportunity for the old warriors of yesterday to meet the young warriors of today, many of whom have suffered severe injuries serving our country. The Not Forgotten Association has been taking care of the interests of our injured men and women since the end of the First World War and a very good job they are doing too. I would like to thank Rosie Thompson, the events organiser for inviting us.
Every September the United States armed forces commemorate the killed, missing and prisoners of the wars of the 20th Century. We were again invited by Wing Commander Colonel John T Quintas, boss of the 48th Fighter Wing, USAF to attend the activities at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk between 12th and 16th September. Unfortunately I had to abandon my plans to attend the Monday morning POW-MIA breakfast and had to eat mine in Wexham Park hospital in Slough instead. I spent most of the week there, but Charlie Waite, Allan Jones and Tony Hawkins went along to the Retreat Ceremony at the air base on the Friday to represent us. One of the unique events on the base is the 24 hour-long reading of the names of those who died in the service of their country, with serving men and women taking 15 minute stints at the podium throughout the day and night. Now wouldn’t it be nice if our country could commemorate the sacrifices of our men and women in such a way?
OBITUARIES. We regret to report the passing away of members Harry Jiles on 3rd August in Bournemouth, Iver Gordon on 3rd March in Glasgow and Frank McGauley on 31st March. We have also been notified that Courtenay Smithers has passed away in Australia. He was a former member of Arbeits Kommando E902 and Stalag 8B. We will remember them.
DONATIONS. We would like to thank the following for their kind donations to the welfare fund; Mr George Kent £50, Mrs Jennifer Snell £20, Judith Wiltshire £20. Many thanks also to those of you who have ordered association ties and wall plaques and added a few quid for the fund as well. If you would like a plaque the cost is £25 and the blue association tie is £9.50 including postage. It is doubtful that we will order further supplies in the future, so get yours now while you can. Please make cheques out to NEXPOWA and send to Phil Chinnery, 59 Pinkwell Lane, Hayes, Middlesex UB3 1PJ.
MEMBERS FEEDBACK - Obermassfeld. In the last issue we included a large number of photographs of former patients and staff. Bert Martin was one of the orderlies in the hospital and he tells us; Page 19 Upper picture – this photograph was taken during a brief period prior to the first repatriation when things were relatively quiet and we had in our midst Captain Temple Sylvester (brother of Victor Sylvester, the well-known dance band leader) who had been a fighter pilot in the First World War and then became a doctor. He was captured in North Africa and was far more interested in theatre than medicine it seemed, and produced some elaborate entertainments which ceased completely when he and so many of the actors went home in 1943. Names of those in the lower picture on page 19 are: Back row, left to right; Tom Gladden, Unknown, A Scottish physio, Bryce Woods, John Trower, Bert Martin, Les Shiner, Bill Jones, Eddie Payne, John Boyd. 2nd row down: Unknown, Guardsman Bryn Pritchard, Tom Lumley, RE, Unknown, Norris Coker, Guardsman Davis, Charlie Harris, Unknown, Unknown, A medic who had been badly wounded, R.Burborugh. 3rd row down: Unknown, Lou Ayres, R. Rummins, Unknown, Colonel Robertson, Major Chappel, A Sgt Cook, P.Chadwick. Front row: B.Rowley, Ike Beaumont, ‘Crick’, ‘Wingy’ Sadler, Bob Emery, Unknown, ‘Tubby’ Lees, John Long. Any additions or corrections are welcome.
There is something of a mystery around what happened to Tom Lumley, who was attached to the 21st British General Hospital to man the generating equipment. He was sent to a Straf Lager (punishment camp) for some disregard of the German discipline and as far as I ever heard, never made contact with anyone ever again, either during or after the war.
‘Wingy’ Sadler was from the Middlesex Regiment and had an arm amputated. During the inter-war years his parents were involved in the hotel business in Germany and he became fluent in the language. After recovering from his wound, he was made interpreter to Colonel Robertson and remained with him until the Colonel died in Lamsdorf before the repatriations took place. ‘Wingy’ came home in 1943 and settled in Slough with his wife. I think he died a couple of years ago.
Perhaps as many as half of the group in the bottom photograph would have been repatriated in October 1943. Some may have been involved in the abortive repatriation in October 1941 and did not return to Obermassfeld, accompanying Colonel Robertson to Lamsdorf instead. Quite a few would reappear in later groups, but this was probably taken in Obermassfeld, after we had received the first Red Cross parcels!
The photo on page 17 caught my eye as I noticed Horace Wilkinson, first left, back row. He was only a Corporal in the 17th British General Hospital, but had profound knowledge of so many diverse things and had a winsome sense of humour. Already perhaps close to 40, he was a wonderfully stabilizing character as time went on and liberation or repatriation seemed remote. He was on the first 1943 Repat, but after my eventual demob I almost bumped into him by chance on Charing Cross railway station and he told me had resumed the medical training he had volunteered out of at the start of the war! We kept in touch and I knew he became the head anaesthetist at Kettering General Hospital up until retirement. Then began an absorbing, often funny, sometimes incredible stories by post and telephone including the episode where, after the death of his father, he found himself left with the mummified head of Oliver Cromwell which he sought to have verified as authentic by sending it to a professor of forensic medicine. It was deemed to be almost certainly the real thing with the spear which had been thrust upward through his skull still intact. After fruitless attempts to have it rationally interred in places like St Pauls, Westminster Cathedral and a few other establishments, he finally had it accepted by the Sydney Herbert University where Cromwell had studied in his youth. Neither he nor his two sisters ever married and I cannot recall how I learned of his death in Woodbridge, Suffolk only a couple of weeks after our last chat over the phone.
The man immediately to Wilkinsons right is Geoffrey (Bunt) Bunting. They had both come from the 17th BGH and were of an age which meant they had volunteered to join the Medical Corps long before the War Office might have obliged them to enlist in some part of the services. They then were amongst the 31 members of their unit who voluntarily stayed with the casualties they were tending when the Germans were closing in on their patch. Bunt was always in the forefront of activity and he had acquired nursing skills which set a pattern for the likes of me to follow. He was on the first repat and worked in a military hospital in Kent until demob. Post war he set up his own business in lambs wool jackets of high quality as a wholesaler, then had a wider range of clothing in the street opposite the entrance to Windsor Castle. If any man deserved a medal, I think he did but as far as I know all he was handed was a ‘mention.’
On page 15 in the lower photo, there are several characters I could write about, but Mike Woodin, 3rd from right, back row, was in the same company as Airey Neave and after capture in Calais, they were both patients in the Catholic Seminary used as a POW hospital in Lille during the summer of 1940. Airey Neave was one of the first to make a ‘home run’ after escaping from the castle.
There are diverse opinions as to the restrictions imposed by our Senior British Officer, but it was generally implied that escapes were not to be carried out, but before he died, Mike, with whom I had kept in contact over the years, told me that Airey Neave had visited him whilst he, Mike, was still bedfast, and informed him that the German Commandant had actually threatened to have five medical orderlies shot if any man, staff or patient escaped. Cleary against the Geneva Convention yet seemingly never challenged subsequently.
Return Visit to Italy June 2011 by Bernard Collier
In June of this year I undertook a further, and possibly last, visit to Italy to find the grave of a POW who had been with me in Campo PG78, Fonte d’Amore, near Sulmona. The camp was situated on the lower foothills of the Apennine Mountains in the L’Aquila province Abruzzo region. The name of my fellow POW was Bert Death and I knew him because he and I had been involved in the musical side of entertainments in our Number 3 compound in the camp.
Following the ‘phony’ armistice of September 1943 we all managed to leave the camp on foot and most POWs headed south towards the Sangro River area. Here the Allied advance northwards through Italy had been held up because of very wet weather and stiff German resistance. This area became known as the ‘Gustav Line’ and Monte Cassino was close by. Unfortunately thousands of POWs were unsuccessful in reaching Allied lines and were recaptured by the Germans and some of us were held back in Campo PG 78 between September and December 1943. During this period train loads of re-captured POWs were shipped out in cattle trucks at regular intervals to Austria and Germany. I was sent to a work camp in the Sudetenland, German-speaking Czechoslovakia, aboard one of the earliest trains in early October.
On 8 December 1943 another trainload of POWs on its journey north was shunted into the marshalling yards at the L’Aquila train station and was (in our view) deliberately placed next to a German ammunition train. That day the 5th Bombardment Wing, 321st Bombardment Group of the US 12th Air Force attacked the marshalling yards with B-25 bombers. During the raid both trains were hit and some 400 POWs were killed including Bert Death and others who had been in Campo PG78. An eyewitness and survivor of the bombing raid was a Gunner Jennings of my old Regiment, the 104th Essex Yeomanry Regt. RHA who had been in Campo PG78.
I was fortunate to survive the war and on my return home I joined an organization known as the ‘Sulmona Reunion’. Over the years at annual reunions the tragic deaths of so many on that train cropped up in conversations. Before the organization was disbanded it was established that those initially buried in L’Aquila had been transferred to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery (CWGC) at Ancona in the Marche region of Italy.
As my son and his wife wanted to visit my granddaughter, who lives and works in Rome as a translator and administrator for an international law firm, we decided to combine a trip to Rome with one to Ancona. Although I’d been back to Italy on a number of occasions on formal visits to retrace escape lines in the areas of Abruzzo, Maiella and Tuscany, I had not been as far north as Ancona on the Adriatic Coast. Following a day in Rome visiting my granddaughter’s apartment and touring the San Giovanni in Laterano area of Rome in which she lives, we travelled to Ancona by hire car. On the way we called in at L’Aquila which in certain parts is still in a bad way following the destructive earthquake of two years previously. We visited the train station where the POW train travelling to Germany had been bombed.
On our way to the Marche region we went under the Apennines through the highest part of the Gran Sasso range via a tunnel over 1400 km long (in 1944 the Gran Sasso was where Mussolini was initially rescued by German commandos under General Otto Skorzeny from a mountain top hotel). In the Marche we based ourselves at a lovely apartment in converted farm buildings in the beautiful countryside near Jesi, some 30 minutes from Ancona. Through the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website we discovered that Bert Death’s grave was indeed in the Ancona War cemetery together with many others who were killed on 8 December 1943. We also found out the plot number of Bert Death’s grave and those of other British POWs killed at the same time as him.
The Ancona cemetery, like all those managed by the CWGC, is kept in immaculate condition. Bert Death’s gravestone was found in Plot 3, Row G No 5 where I left a Royal British Legion cross in remembrance of our time together in Campo PG 78 (see Photo). Other gravestones visited included Gunner F.W. Hogg, 3rd Regt. RHA and those of Middlesex Yeomanry Royal Corps of Signals members: Driver P.S. Allcoat; Driver E.Muir; Driver E.Sinclair; Signalman T. Jones. All these soldiers were POWs in Compound 3, Campo PG 78, Sulmona. I also found four gravestones of other artilleryman from the CWGC list.
I had a second miniature wood cross with a disc inscribed with the logo of the World War II Escape Lines Memorial Society of which I am a member of the main committee as the British Army Veterans Representative. I placed this cross at the foot of large white cross of remembrance. I’m glad I managed to make this visit to see the beautiful place where my friend and fellow POWs now lie following their tragic deaths in L’Aquila. Our short trip also enabled me to see other parts of the Marche including, the medieval towns of Jesi and Sirolo, the World Heritage Site of Urbino, the beach at Senigallia and the beautiful limestone Cornero peninsular near Ancona. Finally, many thanks to John and his wife, Tricia, for their support and physical help and to my grandaughter Carolyn for her excellent and valuable interpreting skills during my trip into the past in Italy.
Left - Phil and Les at the Palace Garden Party.
Above - Dame Vera Lynn and Wendy Craig
with other show biz supporters of the event
BOOK REVIEWS.
It is 1941, and the German High Command has sent General Irwin Rommel and the Afrika Korps to bolster the faltering Italian forces in North Africa and take over the beleaguered fortress of Tobruk. The defenders hang on grimly, but prisoners are taken on both sides in the ebb and flow of battle. In Greece and Crete, the reverse occurs; Commonwealth forces are overwhelmed by the might of the Wehrmacht, and many fall into the hands of the Germans. Many of the Australian and New Zealand prisoners eventually find themselves incarcerated in Campo 57, Gruppignano in north east Italy, under the iron fist of the notorious Colonel Calcaterra of the Caribinieri. Unbroken is the true story of Australian POWs, their capture, their attempted escapes and their ultimate liberation.
Softcover, 250 pages with illustrations. ISBN No 978-1-9215966-6-7.
Copies can be ordered from W.R.Beecroft, PO Box 251, Burpengary, Queensland 3410, Australia. Cost 24.99 Australian dollars plus postage. Tel 07-5498-5016.
Email insight2@hotkey.net.au
In 1939, Leighton Bowen was a Territorial Trooper in the North Somerset Yeomanry, but by June 1941 he had been captured and spent the remainder of the war in Stalag 8B Lamsdorf, a prisoner of war camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. The bare essentials of the Geneva Convention were observed, but life was full of hardships, tempered by the sheer good humour and comradeship displayed between the prisoners. What makes this account compelling is the liberal use of first hand reports from letters and, particularly Leighton’s diaries.
We are therefore shown not only what happened to him but, fascinatingly, the widening gap between the reality of his situation and his family’s perception, back home; a pattern common to all conflicts.
In a letter in December 1942 he wrote to his parents whom, astonishingly, appeared to think he was leading the ‘Life of Riley’ away from the battle lines. His mother, for example, constantly urged him to study and consider what he would do after the war, though for him, life was lived from one day to the next with no resources; the prisoners even searched dustbins for scraps – such as a half mouldy lemon that would help keep scurvy at bay. This is a well told story, with a wealth of detail about the injustices’ and hardships of life as a prisoner of war.
Copies can be ordered from Menin House Publishers, an imprint of Tommies Guides. Tel 0845-475-1945. www.tommiesguides.co.uk UK RRP £13.95. Softcover, 250 pages with illustrations. ISBN No 978-1-908336-02-6.
Sadly Robert has passed away recently, but copies of his book can still be ordered from Mrs June Form, 48 Elderberry Close, Stopsley, Luton, Beds LU2 8JD. Cost £15.50 each including postage.
THE LONG MARCH TO FREEDOM
During the winter of 1944, the Second World War was entering its final stages. From east and west, the Allies were closing in on the Nazi Empire. Allied Prisoners Of War, many who had been in captivity for over four years, were anticipating liberation. But prisoners held in camps to the east of the Greater Reich were soon to face an ordeal of terrible endurance. As part of Hitler’s plans for the defense of the Reich, prisoner of war camps in the path of the advancing Russian Army were hastily cleared and the prisoners force-marched away from liberating forces into sub-zero temperatures of the coldest winter in living memory.
To this day, uncertainty still surrounds the Nazi leadership’s intentions. Were the prisoners to be executed? Used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the Allies? Whatever the intention, amongst the breakdown of order and a disintegrating Nazi command system, thousands of men were marched and counter-marched across a landscape of chaos and suffering, their guards as confused as the prisoners themselves. In the course of the March, they would withstand appalling hardships and brutalities. Sleeping in the open in temperatures of minus thirty six degrees and lack of food was soon taking its toll, as related by the veterans, ‘When we got up in the morning, some didn’t get up… Little heaps never moved, they’d died during the night’. They also faced death from their guards: ‘They actually shot the blokes that couldn’t make it… taken away and shot’. ‘Some they put bullets in, others they just left to die’. In jarring contrast, they also faced death from their own side as Allied aircraft attacked Germany’s road and rail system: ‘There’s five planes up there, they must be ours’ thought one survivor, ‘and these buggers had turned around and they were coming in… They opened up with machine guns and bombs’.
In 2009, ASA Productions began filming the 3 part series, telling the story of the March and the events that led up to it, by interviewing those who had survived the March. And time and again during the making of the programmes, the indomitable spirit of these men would reveal itself as they turned from the horrors of the March and regaled us with stories of humor and compassion. But the experience of the Long March was only part of the story. As inexperienced young men, trained to fight, thrown in to combat and then taken prisoner, they had had to endure years of captivity. Many of them were forced to work for the German war effort during their time as prisoners. One Welsh soldier interviewed was highly indignant that he had joined the army to get out of the mines and: ‘ended up in the coalmines working for the bloody Germans!’ But, in spite of the grim conditions they experienced in the camps, their spirited attitude still came through, quite literally in some cases as we heard of devious schemes while in captivity such as distilling their own booze which would have unforeseen consequences. ‘And of course you only had one glass and you were flat on your back… it sent some of them blind for days’. Hearing these individuals recount their experiences really did bring home the quiet courage, fortitude and humanity of these men to all of us who worked on this production.
We also filmed military personnel of today, many of them young cadets, who, in temperatures below freezing, marched part of the original route taken by the Prisoners of War. Well equipped for the experience, their reactions to the conditions they met served to emphasize the ordeal suffered by the ill prepared, half starved prisoners. We also re-visited locations where the events of that terrible winter took place and re-created many dramatic incidents. We trust that the series will be a fitting tribute to all Allied Prisoners of War in WW11 and to the unknown numbers who did not live to see eventual freedom.
For they are the real heroes of the story, true examples of ‘Ordinary People – Extraordinary Efforts’. ‘The Long March to Freedon’ is will be aired on the ‘Yesterday’ Channel (Sky 537; Virgin Media 203, Freeview 12), beginning on 10th November 2011 at 10 pm.
Above – filming in the studio. Extras were filmed against a green screen. The forests and prisoner of war camps would be added later.
