Bill Clark's War, 2 of 8 Chapters He was Captured 4, Released 1, Escaped 3

To be one of 30,000 prisoners was not a brilliant performance, prisoners were suffering from exhaustion and the captors were making persistent efforts to keep control. So with fires blazing in all directions we were herded together inside a circle of tanks and armoured cars. When dawn came we were shepherded along to an outer perimeter and put in compounds and dannet wires, (circular barbed wire), erected to keep us in order. After two days in open desert came our first real problem. I happened to be the senior soldier of about ten of the original party. The officers had been flown to Italy, so when some water tankers arrived in the compound the remaining officers still waiting for Air-Lift, came out with “Officers First” there was an almighty rush and the tanker was tipped over and the water was lost in the sand.

While this was going on I wandered round the accompanying lorries and managed to pinch a full Jerry can. Making my way back to where my men were, I told them to line up with a tin or anything they could lay their hands on, although most of us could do nothing but cup our hands and then I open the Jerry can. What a disaster, it was full of diesel oil - and another day went by without water. We were all feeling desperate now, the Germans could not be expected to supply food and water to 30,000 prisoners without difficulty, but that fact didn’t help us.

The day before Tobruk fell, I had an ammunition box (150 lbs.) fall on my left foot and had to have my big toe nail removed. So at the time of capture I was wearing one boot and one slipper split down to the toe, and that footwear stayed with me for over a year.

The turmoil and confusion of those early days was unbelievable. The fact that you were a prisoner took some time to swallow; so many prisoners, so many Germans, smoke, fires and confusion. One tank went around the ammunition dump firing on each stack, blowing them all up, thus adding to our despair.

By the end of the second day the German forward line had moved out. We had spent the whole time in the desert sun without any cover and no water. Word got around that we were being taken by lorry to Benghazi, a two-hundred mile trip along the coast road toward Tunisia (but still in Libya). This was a nightmare of a ride; they were Italian lorries and Italian drivers. We had to stand sixty in each lorry, and some of the passes especially at Derna were horrendous. The ride took two days, spending one night at Derna, then on to Benghazi. We stood in the lorry which, under no circumstances would stop, and if you had the call of nature, you had to manoeuvre your way to the edge of the lorry. Having succeeded in doing this, the whole operation was useless because you found you couldn’t “go”.

Eventually we arrived at Benghazi and were put into compounds of about two thousand. That night some of our fighter-bombers came over and managed to strike one of the compounds. That didn’t raise our spirits at all.

We were told that as we were captured in an Italian colony (Libya) we would be handed over to the Italians and shipped to Italy. So the next day word got around that our compound was next, but the ship taking us was nearly full. Every man there was determined to get on that ship and not be left behind. The ship was about a quarter of a mile away.

Now as I mentioned before, I had a bandaged foot, and I swear that with the pushing and shoving my foot never touched the ground, such was the frenzy and fear of being left in that sun for possibly several days. As it was, many were left behind who couldn’t get up. Dysentery was taking its toll.

Crossing the Mediterranean was a nightmare. We had all heard of the ‘Altmark’ and how the Navy had rescued it, but that was a cruise in comparison. The ship we were on was a merchant ship with two holds. Two thousand of us in each hold, with two rope ladders in opposite corners. The effort of climbing down was bad enough, but once down, there was not enough room to sit and then dysentery took over. This normally two day trip took five whole days to get to Brindisi. The engines would stop for an hour or two, and then the ship was zigzagging. It was evident the Italians were scared of any British ‘Subs’. During this trip the prisoners were allowed to get some air, one at a time. To climb that ladder with dysentery knawing at you was hopeless. Some tried it, but their mates had to climb up and get them down. Needless to say I didn’t try it. The hole was like a cesspit by the time we reached Brindisi.

To get off the ship took a considerable time, extra ladders were lowered but many couldn’t get out by their own efforts. As we lay on that beach at Brindisi, taking in the fresh air we were beginning to realise that, now that our thirst had gone, hunger was taking over. We had not eaten on that trip and now the Italians were telling us that we could be marched through the town to the station and then to a camp where we would be getting food. We were told that we would move at midnight and they issued us with a ‘blanket’, (about one square yard each). To anyone ‘normal’ size, it was far too small.

Anyway, at midnight we started the march. The Italians were trying to humiliate us in front of the crowds, as we passed by a brothel a crowd of women came out and a tug of war ensued. It was the blankets they were after, and the language from both sides - you could cut the air with a knife!

So on to the station where we were put into trucks (forty to a truck) and pulled out of Brindisi. After about three hours we stopped and got off and were led to a dried up riverbed, which had been wired up and with additional machine guns. We stayed there for about a month.

Fortunately, being July, the weather was very kind to us. We were able to sleep on the ground, and if any rain did fall it soon dried up. The word came round that we were going to a new camp. On trucks we got, and arrived about twenty kilometres north of Rome. Our new address was to be ‘Campo 54’ Concentrimento.

The reception was quite unique, hundreds of Italian guards and another thorough search, although we had only shirt and shorts, they had to come off, and then file into the compound where there were large tents, (not as big as our marquees), to be occupied by sixty four men. The small blanket was the only bedding we had to sleep with. This Campo turned out to be the most miserable part of our captivity.

No water was available for the first three months. The only liquid had been in the swede soup, which was issued every day with a five-ounce roll and half an ounce of cheese. Such was the depressing time spent there. We would sit outside the tents after standing around for hours being counted, (what the Italians called ‘Appel’, roll call) — longer if it was raining, and take off our shirts and pop the lice-eggs that had accumulated in the seams. It was a daily ritual.

It was about November 1942 that the taps were erected in the camp and water was available if we were lucky. Sometimes one tap was working, on other occasions water was on between five and six p.m. according to the mood of the guards. Our problem was that we had no containers apart from a mug in which we collected our soup in. Later we had word that a Red Cross official was coming, as so far we were not registered as P.O.W.s and our folks at home did not know whether we were missing, believed killed, or what? Anyway he came, although we did not see him. It appeared that he was going to get us clothes and most of all, food parcels.

Weeks went by, the weather started to get cold, and being in a tent, dark at four, no lights, and nothing to read, and running out of conversation, life became very miserable. Arguments and rows were the order of the day.

I was put in charge of my tent (having stripes). It was unbelievable how petty everyone had become. For instance, when the ration was collected in a blanket, I had to lay out sixty-four rolls in a zigzag line, also the cheese (usually one-inch, by two inch). The lads were lined up, and because they had seen the lining up of the ration, I would start the pick-up of their issue at the other end of the queue or pick out someone half way along the queue to start, so as to prevent any moaning about favouritism.

Along came the day when we heard the Red Cross parcels were at the station. To put you in the picture-a full Red Cross parcel consisted invariably of: -

1 pkt. x 12 Water Biscuits 1 tin of Dried Milk 2oz. pkt. Tea
14oz. tin Creamed Rice 4oz. tin Butter 2oz. tin Jam
2oz. tin Cheese 4oz. Sugar 4oz. tin Pilchards
Added to this were 50 cigarettes (State Express).
The object of the Red Cross was to get this parcel to the prisoners once a week; it never happened. Our first distribution was one parcel, between eight men. Can you imagine sharing Creamed Rice between eight?
Anyway, we were very grateful to have a cup of tea and a biscuit with butter and jam. As for the cigarettes they were like gold dust. Those who didn’t smoke came off very well when bartering, unfortunately most of us wanted to smoke. Quite often the Italians and Germans pilfered the parcels, so we were never sure that we would receive the full parcel. At best, we would get one parcel between three, but there would be several weeks when there was nothing.
Christmas came and went and nothing improved except a little booklet from the Pope. January and February 1943 passed by and then when the weather started to get warm, the battle dress jackets arrived and I got a pair of boots (a bit large but better than a boot and a slipper). Then there were jobs to be had, for double rations, but they didn’t last long. I went to a farm where we had to chop the roots in the ditches to let the flow of water run freely. I was so weak then; the ‘pick’ I was using nearly pulled me over when I swung it.
Later, in March, there was news of a working party needed, to move out of the camp (anything to move out of the camp). Only thirty men were needed and they were soon picked out by an RSM who was captured with my lot. He said he needed a clerk, I said I was Clark, so he put me on the list; it was a lucky day for me.

Before I go on to the working camp, there was one episode at Campo 54 that made a big impression on me. One must understand that geography and worldly activities were very confined to the privileged few. For most of us in the army the world was revealed to us by the dubious expertise of teachers and books. Italy was a ‘boot’, Sicily was a ‘football’, the British Isles was a ‘witch on a pig’, and Australia was ‘underneath our garden’. Such was the limited experience of travel.

When we arrived at Durban (the most British town in South Africa), we were appalled at the treatment of the Africans, made to sit at the back end of buses, get off the path of a white man, and to find newspapers, road directions, in fact everything that had a name, written in Afrikaans and English. The Boers (Dutch origin), who hated the English for atrocities perpetrated during the Boer War, spoke Afrikaans. Although that was many years ago they have never forgiven us for it. The fact that they were on our side in this war was due to General Smuts, the Prime Minister, whose casting vote gave the allies the use of Cape Town and Durban for refuelling etc.

All South African troops were volunteers and were paid well for their enlistment. Of course much to the annoyance of ‘whites; the South African ‘blacks’ were able to take advantage of this, and greatly improved their standard of living, and formed into labouring corps. What annoyed the South African ‘whites’ was the way ‘us Iimperial troops’ on landing at Durban and Cape Town got on well with the South African ‘blacks’ and our fraternisation disgusted them.

After arriving at ‘Campo 54’ and settling down to the monotonous routine we found the senior soldier and he was made camp leader automatically. There were two thousand of us, sixty to a tent, but we only occupied one side of this compound with a large pit for a latrine at the end.

It was after about a month that the excitement arose one morning, when a large column of prisoners arrived. They turned out to be South African ‘whites’, and they arrived in immaculate uniforms and many had suitcases, others, army packs. Since Tobruk was a South African garrison we were really choked to witness this sell-out, right away the Italians exploited this.

A South African camp leader was appointed, although an Imperial soldier had seniority. It was the Italians way of stirring things up. As it happened, the South African camp leader turned out O.K. but the Boers on the whole were an arrogant lot.

A week later about two hundred ‘black’ South Africans arrived, and although the available tents were on the South African side of the compound, the South African ‘whites’ refused to have them. What is more the Italians let them get away with it, and only because we said we would have them on our side of the compound, was the matter resolved and so added to our education of the world, hence my satisfaction at getting on the working party.

That morning, after farewells were made, I joined the work party which turned out to consist of forty men, one clerk and one camp leader.

We marched down to the little station of Fara in Sabina, and got on the trucks, one for the P.O.W.s and one for the guards at the end of the train. It transpired that we were going to a brick factory about fifty miles north. The village was called Monnera, and the nearest town was Spoleto, (the town where Mussolini formed his Fascist movement). It was interesting to note that all the railways in Italy were electric, and it was noticeable that the stations were clean and tidy, unlike the dirt and smoke on the English ones.

We had been travelling about an hour when, on a long incline, there was a loud noise, bangs and breaking debris. It transpired that our truck and the guards’ truck had broken away from the train and was hurtling down backwards, along the track. We must have travelled about three miles before the truck stopped and the Italians got out of their truck, surrounded ours, but wouldn’t allow us out. There we waited a couple of hours before they found a spare engine to tow us the rest of the journey. On arrival we were taken to what appeared to be the village hall, especially wired up for our benefit.

So we had arrived, and compared to what we had previously, this was the best. The guards, and for that matter the workers at the factory, were not exactly ‘over the top’ to see us, but taking into consideration that the Italians were taking some stick from their allies the Germans, many had been moved to the Russian front. The despair on some of the mothers and sisters faces in that brick factory will always stick with me.

My duties as camp clerk were not clearly defined, so I was allowed out when the working party went out. Providing I kept to the working area I had quite a bit of freedom. When called upon to do some clerical work I was told to get a list of all prisoners, the names, regiments etc. Although we had been prisoners a year, I did not think it proper that I should do this, so I made out a list putting everyone in the Royal Artillery, I do not think any of us were.

The Italian Officer was very suspicious of all this, and I never had another job in that office, so I used to go around to where the fellows were working and we had many a laugh. The bricks were put on a conveyor whilst still wet and soggy, and our boys had to place them on shelves to dry in the sun.

When I called into see them on any pretext, they would turn their backs to the conveyor and engage in earnest conversation with me, and the bricks would plop-plop to the ground. The Italians would go mad, and the lads would make out they did not understand what they were shouting about, real pandemonium.

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