A Raid Over Berlin

Chapter 4 Stalag Luft VI

At some stage, towards the end of the second night, our train came to a halt and, in the growing light, the guards could be seen putting on their packs and gathering up their rifles. We had arrived.

One of the doors was slid fully open and we were ordered out. The guards, who had been considerably strengthened by a detail from the prison camp, formed us up, much as we would have been in the square-bashing days of the RAF, and marched us off.

It was not a long or arduous march, perhaps even enjoyable after the confinement of the cattle truck, but upon arriving at our destination, our spirits took a nose dive as we surveyed Stalag Luft VI.

Originally built at the start of the war near the town of Heydekrug to house Polish prisoners, it was the northernmost POW camp within the confines of the German Reich. As Nazi aggression swept Europe, POWs from France and Belgium were added, followed by Russians. June 1943 saw a new clientele made up of British and Canadian Air Force non-commissioned officers, and, from February 1944, they were joined by American airmen unfortunate enough to be captured. By July 1944 it housed nine thousand Allied airmen.

On seeing it for the first time my attention was immediately taken by the amount of barbed wire involved. It not only surrounded the Stalag entirely and very securely, but within that were separate areas known as lagers or compounds (at Stalag Luft VI there were three: A, E and K), which were just as securely fenced from each other, creating prisons within a prison.

The fences, it seemed, were erected to a standard pattern, for wherever I went they all looked alike. There was, in fact, always two fences running parallel, about twelve feet apart, and about the same in height, thickly stranded with barbed wire, with the gap between them filled entirely with coiled barbed wire. The posts were of natural, unmachined, substantial tree trunks. As would be expected, the defences extended well below ground level.

At each corner of the wired-off areas were watch towers, referred to as Posten boxes. These were platforms hoisted a further ten feet above wire on timber stilts with a roof. They provided the guards who manned them, day and night, an uninterrupted view of both sides of the fences. The guards were armed with mounted machine guns and rifles, and for night use, searchlights to supplement the overhead lighting around the wire barriers.

Perhaps twenty feet from the wire, which all the boundary fences were known as by the prisoners, and on the inside, ran the warning wire. This was quite insignificant in appearance but the strict rule, laid down by our captors, was if any prisoner so much as touched it, they would be considered as attempting to escape and shot without further warning. This rule had to be accepted, and no one in their right mind would ever put it to the test.

When I look back, in my old age, I realise how easy it would have been for a prisoner to accidentally fall on to that low to the ground warning wire, for just inside of it, around the entire boundary of each compound, was a well-trodden path known as the circuit. This gave the longest uninterrupted walk possible, and it was very popular with most prisoners, in all weathers. Apart from the fresh air, which was so welcome after being shut up in a very crowded hut for many hours, if there was anything to discuss about RAF matters, escape plans or anything that our captors must not know about, this was the only place where there could not be any hidden microphones, or the enemy not secretly listening. It became crowded at times, especially on a fine day, and the chances of someone stumbling and accidentally touching the wire, was certainly not impossible.

Our party was marched from the main gate through several internal, but no less well guarded gates, to E Lager, which was very obviously newly opened and almost entirely occupied by American airmen. We were then herded into a large and, for a short time only, not overcrowded hut. There were no Americans in this hut but although we were segregated by huts, we could mix with them freely otherwise, and it was to be a very interesting experience.

The Americans were friendly, helpful and interesting, but I found them a little surprising. It must be remembered that there were no transatlantic air services in my youth; even if there had been the average person of that day would not have had the leisure time or the money to use them, and the same applied to the luxury sea crossings that were available. Knowledge of Americans came from the films that were shown at the local cinemas◦– most popular before the days of television. I would say ninety-five per cent of films shown were American, so we thought we really knew all about them. Those living in the cities were all well off◦– they took their girls out to dinner driving big cars or hailed a cab by clicking a finger and thumb, and there was always one at hand, or they were cowboys. These were quite different and spent most of their time at war with the Red Indians, showing unbelievable accuracy with their six shooters and always winning. In their spare time they would demonstrate their other skill, that of lassoing cattle.

The surprise was that they were much like us; back home they did ordinary jobs to earn an ordinary living. They were perhaps, in general, a bit more extrovert, especially when playing sports. We soon learned to play softball with them and had to get used to what we thought was the ungentlemanly barracking that went on, to try to put the striker off his game.

It was not long before American airmen were wearing RAF battledress blouses and vice versa. I did not swap mine as I thought the RAF ones looked warmer and more suitable for the bitter cold Baltic weather.

On the subject of clothing, heavy, warm clothing was an absolute necessity for all the crew of a Lancaster flying at high altitudes, except for the wireless operator. This was due, in my humble opinion, to a fault in an otherwise very well-designed aircraft, namely the heating system. Hot air was ducted from one of the engines on the port side to enter the aircraft close to the wireless operator’s feet, but there was no provision for the distribution of the heat once inside the aircraft. The navigator, who sat very close to me, got very little benefit from the system and the pilot, engineer and bomb aimer, none at all. It was designed so the two gunners had to rely on their electrically heated clothing, which was inadequate for the temperatures often encountered, while the heat being poured in at the wireless operator’s feet was sometimes almost unbearable and could lead him into a dangerous complacency as he dressed accordingly. He would wear only his ordinary battledress uniform, and over that the essential safety equipment. A May West life jacket and parachute harness of course had to be worn. A flying helmet was always worn because it contained the oxygen mask, earphones and microphone. Flying boots were worn as a protection from the uncomfortable heat, not the cold.

We had been reminded and warned of complacency by our Wing Commander at the briefing for our raid. When referring to the general details he said, ‘And you wireless operators take note◦– you might think you will always be snug and warm in your position, but if you get a bit of Perspex knocked out, you will know all about it. At least take your white sweater with you…’ which I did, ‘…even if you do not wear it, take it with you and stow it where you can get at it quickly’.

Immediately upon being attacked, when the cockpit roof was badly damaged, the wisdom of his words was brought home to me. Even in all the panic and shock I was very much aware of the unbelievably instant and severe drop in temperature. If our aircraft had survived that attack, would I have survived the return flight of three or four hours? At best, I think I would have suffered badly from frostbite.

The white sweater was a popular issue of flying clothing that, being heavily knitted in pure wool, was very warm and had an added quality. Because it was not obviously military in appearance, and even when worn with uniform trousers, it might help an airman shot down in enemy territory look less conspicuous when trying to evade capture.

Resistance groups in France, Belgium and Holland were aware of the white sweater. RAF Intelligence had told us that if contact was made with a Resistance Group, one of the tests they might carry out to make sure that you were genuine RAF and not an enemy agent planted in the chain, was to pluck a strand of the yarn from the sweater and offer it to a flame. If it only smouldered, this would show that the garment was made of pure wool and probably genuine. If the sample flared up, it was a synthetic material and the garment not a genuine RAF issue. No doubt the Resistance would soon be made aware that the Germans were now confiscating the genuine article, so the test would be of no value.

While walking the circuit one afternoon, two guards armed with rifles and fixed bayonets could be seen escorting a boy, dressed in knickerbocker trousers and a tweed jacket, through the main gate into our lager. The boy wore a foreign looking peaked cap and was grinning in an arrogant and defiant way. He looked far too young to be joining us but was marched straight into one of the American huts. It was a week or so before I learned the story behind this boy’s arrival.

It turned out that the boy really was an American airman. During a raid on Germany several months before, his aircraft, a B29, was shot down over France. He managed to evade immediate capture and was given shelter by a French family, at great risk to themselves. He was not passed on to a resistance group, as we had always been told would happen, but kept by the family as one of them. He lived quite openly it seemed, even occasionally doing a newspaper delivery job in full daylight, going to the barber’s shop for a haircut several times and generally living a normal life. His ability to do this would have been down to, firstly, the support given by a very brave family (I was not told what happened to them but they could have been shot) and, secondly, his remarkable physical appearance. It came as no surprise to find that the new prisoner was a ball man, which meant that he would have manned the ball-shaped gun turret protruding below the belly of the B29; to be able to even get into one, a man needs to be short in stature and slim.

Another interesting character, who came to join our ranks, was a Frenchman called Maurice who arrived two or three days after David and I. He could speak English very well and gradually, bit by bit, we heard the most incredible story. At the outbreak of the war, in 1939, Maurice was too young for military service, but after the fall of France, in 1940, he became involved with the Resistance Movement. He was mainly tasked with helping Allied soldiers and airmen evade capture and get to Britain, where they could join up with their old units. He then escaped to Britain himself, in a very small boat, where he joined the RAF and became a fighter pilot. On an offensive sweep over France he was shot down but survived uninjured to re-join the Resistance. Some time later he was arrested during a Gestapo raid but was able to prove, because he had time to put on his uniform and was already wearing his identity discs, that he was RAF and, therefore, a prisoner of war according to the Geneva Convention.

Our hut soon reached capacity and we had to get used to the way of life inside a prisoner of war camp. The most common type of huts, I was never in any other, were built together, rather like a row of terraced houses, but they only had a ground floor. To maximise space the beds were either two or three tier bunks, lined up on each of the side walls, and placed so close together it was a tight squeeze to get into them. This arrangement allowed around sixty prisoners to be penned up in each hut, but left little floor space for eating, cooking or any other domestic task. Fresh air was basically inadequate because there were only two small windows in the back wall and two more and the door at the front. Before darkness fell, the windows were shuttered up and the door securely bolted from the outside. I shudder to think what the air quality must have been at the end of a long winter night. In very warm weather there was a concession, the windows were left uncluttered allowing a bit more ventilation, but any attempt to even lean out of them would be risking a fierce attack by a guard dog or being shot by a patrolling guard.

There were no washing facilities in the huts and the lavatory for night use was a large metal drum which had to be emptied each morning into a pit near to the main latrine block, some distance away. The transporting of it, and it was quite heavy, was made possible by the provision of two wooden poles, which could be passed through a bracket on each side of the drum, with a man front and rear. I suppose it was like carrying a Sedan Chair with a different sort of passenger. The task was done on a rota basis with the two-man team excused all other hut fatigues, so it had its good side.

There was never any running water provided in the huts. In the place where we washed, water had to be pumped up by a semi-rotary hand pump. This was done on a rota system, each hut in turn, providing a succession of pumpers on its pumping days.

Red Cross food parcels were regularly available when we first arrived at Stalag Luft VI, and I cannot emphasise enough what a lifesaver they were. Even with them, we always felt hungry, but we were not starving. They were issued based on one parcel per man per week. Each one was opened under the scrutiny of the Germans, which was understandable, and any tins of food were not allowed to be taken away without first being punctured, as they would be very useful for escape purposes.

Our staple diet consisted of a meagre potato ration which was cooked in a communal kitchen. These were never peeled, in order to maintain what little nutritional value they had, and, psychologically, this was comforting as the skin took a little longer to chew. The contents of Red Cross tins were added to the potato ration to make corned beef hash or salmon clop, which was popular because it added a bit of bulk which was sorely needed.

There was only one small stove in each hut, and even that had a totally inadequate fuel supply, so individual cooking was limited to making toast with one of the precious slices of bread, if you had enough patience, and even then this was not recommended by the British Medical Officer, warning that the toasting of bread destroyed some of its nutritional value.

After a week or so in the prison camp the German bread, previously despised, took on a new image as hunger really set in, and it became craved.

The daily ration was issued firstly to the communal kitchen on the strict basis of one loaf to seven men, and from there to the huts, and it was here that the unenviable task of cutting each loaf into seven equal parts, before an audience of very hungry Krieges (an abbreviation of the long German name, Kriegsgefangene, meaning prisoner of war), was undertaken. It was carried out by a volunteer who had been a grocer and provision merchant in civilian life; although I am ashamed to admit I did not appreciate the value of his work at the time. The loaf was not uniform in shape and although of a standard weight, we had no scales to help decide what was a fair seventh, so it all depended on his skilled hand and eye coordination. During the cutting process if a crumb of the bread fell from the table it never reached the floor◦– there were too many hungry bystanders with eye and hand finely tuned to snap up this rare minute treat.

The temptation of eating it all as soon as it arrived was, on the advice of more experienced Krieges, resisted, but it took strong willpower and the experience of the long wait for the next issue to see the wisdom of this.

Also prepared daily and distributed by the communal kitchen was the midday soup which was no more than boiled swede. It was brought to each hut in a wooden tub and as another permanent fatigue, one man had the job of ladling this out to everyone in the hut. This was easier to share out than the bread because each man’s share could be measured using a skilled eye and hand with the ladle and making sure the watery soup was stirred frequently to distribute the lumps of swede. The only differential in the portions was that the splinters of wood that came from the tub became much more evident towards the bottom, and it was an acquired skill to separate the swede from the wood before spitting out.

It is no surprise to learn I was around twelve stone when I was captured but over the course on my internment I, like everyone else, lost a lot of weight◦– and strength, we didn’t want to do much at all but lay on the bunks◦– and was only around nine stone coming out; we were like skeletons.

We were forever on edge, living with the fear of what may happen next. There was one alarming incident, early on, that demonstrates this perfectly. One afternoon, without warning, two guards came into our hut armed with rifles and bayonets. They were accompanied by one of the security guards known as ferrets, who were always to be treated with suspicion as despite their seemingly innocent ‘just passing by’ attitude, they were very much on the lookout for any illegal activities or possessions. On this occasion there was just one single purpose◦– he had come to take the Frenchman away for further questioning.

Maurice looked terrible, but there was nothing any of us could have done to help, as he was marched out between the guards, while the ferret searched his pitiful left-behind possessions. Happily, we did hear later that he had been returned to the camp after this ordeal.

Our Camp Leader or Man of Confidence, to use his official title, was aware of what had happened and demanded to speak to the Camp Commandant. It was said that he got full co-operation from him (it was no secret that the ordinary German military had no love for the Gestapo or the SS), which was not surprising to anyone who knew him.

James ‘Dixie’ Deans, a Scottish bomber pilot who was shot down in 1940, spoke perfect German and became a renowned prisoner of war camp leader. He was eventually awarded the MBE and became a founder member and first president of the RAF Ex-POW Association. In 1945, he was to guide two thousand Allied POWs across Europe in what was known as the Long March, but more on that later.

Deans had the absolute trust and admiration of all the prisoners. He had that rare quality of being able to get respect from all, and yet he never shouted or threatened. He was always calm and collected and knew just how far to push the Germans and be uncooperative without risking a mass execution of those under his leadership, and yet he still earned and maintained the respect of our captors. I will never forget him or cease to be eternally grateful that he was there to guide and protect us.