Life behind the wire.

John Stark, 105 Corps Military Police.
POW in Italy and Germany — 3 years 4 months in captivity.

Capture at Tobruk
I arrived in Tobruk in the spring of 1942 and spent many hours watching over the great mounds of supplies on the docks waiting for transport to the desert troops.

In June Rommel’s Afrika Corps attacked the Gazala line in the west with Italian support. After fierce fighting, they broke through our defences and the day arrived when I heard distant artillery fire.

Then a long range gun called Bardia Bill started to lob shells into Tobruk in an unnerving fashion, and out on patrol one night I watched, near El Adem a great body of troops and armour in retreat eastwards. It was then I feared for the future.

On 21st June, we received news that Rommel’s force had attacked. We were ordered to make for HQ and defend it. In single file, myself carrying a Bren Gun we reached the street and started moving down it hugging the walls of the buildings. Then a German tank fired shells and tracers, these missing us by no more than a couple of feet, so close that in a moment I darted, followed by others through an open doorway and in to a bare small room.

There we were sealed, for there were no windows or other exit doors. The tiny place was hot and the floor where we sprawled thick with dust and sand. We waited and listened to the sound of machine gun fire and then the tramp of marching feet. We heard German voices a few feet away, and realising that escape was impossible I asked one of our number who spoke German to call out that we were British; whereupon a voice in immaculate English told us to appear with arms held high.

Leaving our weaponry behind we emerged and were scrutinised by an officer who directed us to join a slow moving line of other prisoners.

As we neared the hospital grounds, there was a massive explosion. A nearby fuel dump triggered no doubt by a time fuse, had erupted, denying the enemy petrol.

Many prisoners were already grouped in the grounds and I soon spotted my close friend Harold Simpson, sitting dejectedly against a wall. He told me that several other of our section had been killed.

The following morning were led under guard towards El Adem, several miles south. Already hungry and thirsty we lay or squatted on the desert floor in the fierce heat craving for water and a few cigarettes, which might have been a temporary morale booster.

We wore our desert garb, shorts, short sleeved shirt, stockings and desert boots and I carried nothing but a handkerchief and Army pay book.

After a miserable night we boarded trucks to a transit camp in Benghasi. Covered with small tents, it was surrounded by double stands of wire and a trip wire. Here we were issued with food; a round 8oz loaf of bread and a small baked bean tin of meat.

Our stay in Benghasi lasted several days and the heat and thirst with hunger had to be endured. Then came the day when we were moved out in weary style. Guards marched us to the docks and we boarded a small cargo vessel.

We lay in the bowels of the ship for a day and a half climbing to the deck only once when the hatches were removed. That evening we berthed at Brindisi, Italy and slept in a dried up riverbed. So began three years and more of captivity.

POW life in Campo PG54.
The wire-surrounded camp of Campo PG54 was studded with large tents, but with a breathtaking view across across the Apennine foothills.

Simpson and I made for a tent on the camp perimeter and found one of the forty or so two-tier bunks near the tent entrance. From a pile of straw we filled our palisades, which were laid on wooden slats, the rest of the bedding comprising two thin blankets and a sheet, but no pillow. For punishment, one blanket would be confiscated, bearable in summer but uncomfortable in winter.

Two roll calls were held every day where we lined up for counting in hut formations. A menacing looking officer clad in black uniform, quickly dubbed ‘the black panther’; but a Royalist and not a Fascist sometimes overlooked these parades, for which we were grateful.

After morning roll call, we were issued with ‘coffee’ made from acorns and indeterminate ingredients. Then, from the cookhouse lying just beyond the camp perimeter our first meal of the day was carried in a large iron container, one to each tent. Using a long stick, the tent commander stirred the liquid contents and ladled out a scoopful to each man.

Those at the front of the line, received little more than flavoured water with, if lucky a few segments of vegetable. But, as the queue rotated fairly, so day-by-day one’s ration of solids improved. One small round of bread was issued and sometimes a tiny piece of cheese; and once a week we celebrated ‘meat issue day’, small pieces of meat swimming in oil.

Gradually the camp became more organised. The Red Cross, once they knew our whereabouts, started to send food parcels, British, Canadian and sometimes Argentinean. Many were no doubt purloined en route or later on, liquidated by Allied bombing of the railways, so that deliveries were intermittent. But we were joyful when they did arrive and on the night of issue many small fires were laid, fuelled often by wooden bunk slats. Crouching figures tended their brews and other concoctions; tongues were loosened, past deeds recounted, and plans laid for the future, for never — even on the darkest days — did we believe that anything but victory would eventually be achieved.

During the spring of 1943, brick barrack huts were built and one was converted into a theatre boasting a small stage. Our first production was a one-act play of no great merit in which I was cast as a young member of a group of castaways beleaguered in a small hut. Throughout the play I lay on my bunk in a state of delirium.

News of the Anzio and Salerno landings had reached us and the camp was agog with mostly false rumours of rapid advances. Then one day all the camp guards and staff pulled out, leaving unmanned sentry boxes and an empty Italian quarter. We were free. Our first impulse and plan was to leave and make for the hills, for we guessed that sooner or later the Germans would arrive and take control.

Simpson, I and a few friends decided to keep together and travel independently of the main body of prisoners. From the cookhouse we salvaged a large bag of rice and smaller bag of sultanas. With these and little else we descended the deep valley, hoping that we could live off the land, for the grapes were ripe and the peaches and figs were growing on the hill slopes. To be free of the wire and constrictions of prison camp was euphoric. On that first night, I slept on a grassy knoll above the valley, the air soft and still, my comrades’ close by.

Soon after sunrise, we moved off along a narrow track, the ground fell steeply away through a small coppice. Cutting down into the trees and bracken we made hideouts in the dense undergrowth. We saw no one and seemed to be dwelling in a paradise set apart for us.

During the afternoon two elderly peasant women entered the wood, bearing on their heads bowls of washing. Waiting among the trees we watched their approach, then moved towards them. They stopped and beckoned, laid down the bowls and removed the covers to reveal several loaves of bread, soup and potatoes flavoured with herbs and the crowning glories, several boiled eggs.

We expressed our thanks, as best we could and wished that we could have repaid them in some way. With signs and limited language they told us they would return each day with food and drink, taking turns with other women of the village.

We decided to obtain and husband as much food as possible, make for the hills and move south, despite the risks of being spotted. The following day we set off following a climbing track bordered by stonewalls. The country was now bare of growth with no humans or beasts in sight. Then, ahead we spotted the outskirts of a village and also the figure of a boy approaching us. Before we met he waved his arms, then pointed back to the village and cried Tedeschi, Tedeschi (Germans) words which caused us to retreat instantly.

During the night whilst we were sleeping, I was roused by the sound of vegetation rustling nearby. There was no wind or breeze to cause this and I decided that one of our group was moving about. But soon after dawn I was awakened by more movement and peering through the bracken a German soldier motioned me to rise, then sought the others lying nearby.

We moved single file along a path and in to a village square. Thoroughly downcast I leant on a wall and gazed down on a winding lane and watched a cart laden with purple grapes being drawn to the village. Eventually open lorries arrived and these we boarded until tightly packed and standing we were driven away.

From the warmth and colour of Italy we now moved through a sunless and flat countryside, most of the time spent sitting or lying on the truck's hard metal floor.

At last,we reached our destination, Muhlberg on Elbe. After 14 months of captivity in Italy, a short spell of freedom, we were POWs again and Stalag 1VB was to be or new home for a further two years.

POW life in Stalag 1VB
This camp was very much larger than Campo PG54 and housed many nationalities, French, Russians, Poles, Danes, South Africans, Serbs, and later Americans.

We found our way along a wide dirt road to the compound allotted to us, past rows of long wooden huts each divided in two with a central area containing a stove for some warmth and long tables and benches. A single ‘one man’ toilet served the 150 or more occupants.
As in Italy we attended two roll calls each day and were confined to our huts at dusk. We tried to tolerate inferior lighting and severe cold during the winter months. We had two meals each day consisting of a mug of ersatz coffee, a few small boiled potatoes, two small ladles of thin soup and a small wedge of bread. Satisfactory if supplemented with contents of a Red Cross parcel but near starvation rations if not.

But we considered ourselves lucky compared to the Russians who were grossly maltreated. Because their country had no affiliation with the Red Cross they had no assistance from that quarter and many died from typhus and utter neglect.

Watchtowers were situated at each corner of the camp and searchlights lit the ground during the hours of darkness. Dogs patrolled with their German handlers and raids were sometimes made if an escape was suspected. But no escape from Stalag 1VB was, I believe ever attempted, for we were far distant from Switzerland, the only possible goal.

Slowly the camp became more organised. Among our diverse numbers there were experts in many fields and talks and lectures were given on a variety of subjects. Some months after our arrival we managed to get built the Empire Theatre, with a large stage and even a raked auditorium.
The Red Cross, once they were aware of our existence sent copies of plays and a supply of greasepaint. Costumes were made from materials surrendered by enthusiasts and later also by our captors.

Our first production was ‘Boy Meets Girl’ an American play in which I played the part of a young and rather naïve actor and my opposite number, an RAF man, an extremely presentable female. The fact that female parts were acted by men incurred no hilarity or amusement which speaks well for the quality of our portrayals. Our first performance was launched with the Camp Commandant and his henchmen sitting in the front row. We ran for about 10 nights, the admission charge being one cigarette, these being a form of currency and useful in the acquisition of materials for the theatre through the more lenient sentries who would do much for British tobacco. Later a curtain club was formed for plays to be read with sound effects, in various huts after dark. The cast performed within a framework of curtain drapes.

A camp newspaper came into being under the editorship of a South African Dave Katzeff, and to this weekly paper I subscribed short stories and verse. It had to be presented to the Germans for censorship but after return quite often pieces were added which the censor would have struck out. My artist friend Harold Simpson, provided much of the illustrative work in professional style. A radio magically appeared, in some way smuggled in to the camp and after the daily news was heard from the British station, interesting parts relating to the various war fronts were noted and most nights a tubby sergeant would run the gauntlet of German foot patrols to broadcast the news from hut to hut, jumping from a hut window to scamper across no man’s land and then to be hauled in through the window of the next hut.

Eventually we knew that the Russians were approaching from the east and the Americans from the west and we realised that we were wedged in the middle between them. The war was now visibly and audibly closer to us.

Standing in the compound one day I heard the sound of planes and witnessed a seemingly endless stream of vapour trails at great altitude. This was a mighty host of aircraft returning home after a bombing raid of Leipzig, Dresden or possibly Munich.

Then a dramatic day arrived, when the entire German staff vanished overnight. We were advised to stay within the camp for in the countryside conditions were very uncertain. We gained access to the food supplies and cooked a very presentable meat pie, but a few mouthfuls were all that we could manage, our stomachs had shrunk due to meagre German rations.

With no German guards, I was instructed to man the main entrance gate. This was a somewhat eerie and lonely task, standing close to the empty German quarters with the rest of the camp soundly asleep in their huts. I saw in the direction of Muuhlberg and the Elbe, streams of tracers flying from east to west and sounds of a fight going on in a woodland not far away. That I supposed was where the Germans from camp had positioned themselves and been located by the Russians. I longed for some company and thought of retreating out of sight behind the sentry box, particularly when I saw a number of figures approaching down the road. But I realised that I must have been seen, so instead I waved and they passed me by and marched in to the centre of the camp.

They were searching for Germans, and finding a small number hiding in one of the huts, took them away quickly to be shot.

The following day, several Cossacks rode on horseback into the camp and tore down a section of a perimeter fencing before riding away. Out streamed a body of Russian POWs making for a farm not far distant, bent on looting and also, I fear vengeance.

One day Simpson and I ventured out for the first time in over two years, crossing some fields until we discovered a sizeable farm. Entering the farmhouse we discovered an elderly woman in the kitchen, she being the sole occupier. Exploring the adjoining buildings there was evidence of mass slaughter of animal, all of which had been taken away. It was not a place at which to linger.

Days passed with no sign of a move from Stalag. Food was still served by our own army cooks and on one occasion a supply of Russian bread arrived and slices full of whole barley were handed over, but I cannot remember managing to cope with it.

Our spirits were really beginning to flag now for we were idling the days away with no signs of relief from the continuing captivity, although a large number of Poles had left camp in an effort to reach their homeland. We were in limbo and the long wait for some positive action became depressing. Eventually we were ordered to assemble ready to move out, though our destination remained a mystery.

Carrying a few belongings, including my treasured diary, the following morning a host of men set off in straggling fashion traipsing the road alongside the Elbe. In our weakened state progress was slow, but we finally reached our destination of Riesa and then the following morning we were driven to Halle and its aerodrome where American women served us excellent coffee and doughnuts of incomparable quality. We flew across the Channel in a Dakota, sitting against the side of what appeared to be a whale’s rib cage and peering through a window as we flew low over the sea, spotted a convoy threading its way to France.

We landed at Cranleigh and there in brilliant summer sunshine found ourselves sitting at long tables being fed a typical English tea by members of the WVS. After almost three and a half years as a POW, I’d made it home and was finally reunited with my family.

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