“Did your brother have a gun?” asked Bob Shand.
“No, but my father did. He never used it but he said he felt safer with a pistol under his pillow.”
“Are they still there?”
“No, Bobby went to Canada. He swam across the Niagara River to get over the border but later he became a Canadian citizen. He tried to cross the bridge from Lewiston to Queenstown but he hadn’t any papers so the Mounties wouldn’t let him over so he just jumped in the river and swam. I think he’s sailing again with a Canadian shipping line and…” he never finished his story.
“Raus! Raus! Alles aus!” Somebody had decided on an afternoon roll call.
Some of the lads in Camp 124
20. TOMORROW WHEN THE WORLD IS FREE
HX-212, October 1942
HX-212 is not the name of another Stalag. It is the code name of a merchant shipping convoy that left Halifax, Canada and New York on the 26 of October 1942 with destination England. It was a large convoy with five columns of vessels. Somewhere near the tail of the column the 4000-ton tanker Vic Island was chugging along well laden and heavy in the water. Vic Island was an old vessel registered in Canada and named after the island wildlife sanctuary Île de Bic in the St Lawrence River estuary. The crew of course were Canadian except the Donkeyman, the ancillary boiler engineer. He was Robert Black, Ian’s brother Bobby.
As they left New York their scent was picked up by a hunting pack of German U-boats. It consisted of 13 submarines and was called Wolfpack Puma. Against this the convoy enjoyed the protection of Escort Group A3 with one British destroyer HMS Badger, one cutter, one British corvette and 5 Canadian corvettes. The hunters waited until the merchant vessels were out into the North Atlantic. They submerged and in the dark hours of the morning of the 27 they came up in the middle of the convoy. The leading U-boat, U-436, scored strikes on four vessels. He damaged two American ships and sank one of the British escorts and an old Canadian whaling ship called Sourabaya.
Bic Island responded to the distress call of the Sourabaya and stopped to pick up survivors. In doing so she fell behind and began to straggle from the tight formation of the convoy. As daylight came the attackers moved out of range but followed their prey into the night of the 28. Under cover of darkness they popped up again, came upon the already limping American ship SS Gurney E. Newlin and pumped two more torpedoes into her bows. As the ship started to go down the Captain ordered the lifeboats over the side into a dark rough sea. Once more Bic Island came to the rescue still picking up survivors into the hours of dawn. By now she was lagging well behind the main convoy and well down in the water.
Hans-Karl Kosbadt had just taken command of U-224 in June of that year and this was his first patrol. It should have been obvious to him that Bic Island was on a mercy mission but he decided to attack. Two torpedoes and within minutes the Canadian tanker with its entire crew and the men they had rescued were at the bottom of the dark waters of the Atlantic. Mercy was not high on Kosbadt’s agenda.
Two and a half months later, just off the coast of Algiers in the Mediterranean, mercy was not high on the agenda of HMCS Ville de Quebec. The date was January 13 and the Wolfpack were now, themselves, being hunted. Ville de Quebec had been one of the Canadian escort vessels trying to pick up survivors back in October. They now had in their sights the submarine that had cruelly picked off the rescue ship. They came in hard and fast and rammed U-224 and as it submerged they surrounded it with depth charges. All but one of the forty-six crew died.
Had he known of this vengeful sequel it would have been small consolation to Bobby’s father. About the middle of February he received the official communication from the Canadian government that his son had been lost at sea. It was doubly cruel for the old man as it was addressed to Donald and Mary Black. One by one his family was being stolen from him. And now Bobby, killed by a submarine. Donald had spent most of his life making submarines. What cruel irony! Only Donnie was positively alive and he was now too busy with his own young family to come and visit an old man in Oban. Ian was somewhere in Poland and old Donald didn’t believe that he would come home despite the optimism of his young woman, Christina. She visited him sometimes to keep him up to date with the news. Her last visit was just after he had received the news about Bobby
Donald Black’s health started to slide. At the age of 76 he shrunk into a geriatric cocoon and died not many weeks later. When Teenie wrote to Ian and he eventually got her letter it came as a hammer blow. Like always it was great to receive and open a letter from home. But the moment he read the first few lines the world just crumpled in around him. It had taken Teenie three hours and ten scrapped attempts to write the letter. How do you tell someone who has next to nothing that the two rocks supporting him are gone? How do you try to substitute and become the rock to replace them? It wasn’t a role that came easily to Teenie. At home she had to work hard but she always had her mother, her father, brothers and sisters. Despite all her attempts to soften the blows they came like the two torpedoes that sank Bobby’s boat.
But somewhere in Teenie’s letter he found the spark of hope, maybe just a few words, maybe the fact that she still cared about him, maybe the curious way she signed off “Affectionately Christina”. Spring was breaking into summer and the smaller camp at Konitz was, although equally Spartan, less depressing than the oppressive atmosphere at Podgorz. The work was not difficult. The guards and prisoners had, over the years, found an accommodating middle ground. They were not exactly friends but the barked commands had practically disappeared and the silly tricks campaign had long since lost its humour and purpose. All of the prisoners desperately wanted to go home but they had become more resolute. They had never heard the popular song “The White Cliffs of Dover” but the lyrics could have been written just for them “…tomorrow, when the world is free.”
Konitz was Ian’s longest single stay in any of the camps, nearly two years in all, during which time the camp grew steadily in size. A contingent of Australians came from the battlefronts of Italy and several other British prisoners were moved out of the base camp at Podgorz. In the second half of 1942 the Germans began to take seriously the impending threat from Russia and needed the prisoners out so that they could fortify Torun. Austerity was biting deeper for the Germans and the Poles while for the prisoners the flow of parcels from home and the Red Cross supplies were now regular. Lately there was a feeling that some things were being pilfered by the guards but on a small scale.
In the summer of 1944 they saw lots of German soldiers, young and old, heading east towards the Russian front and many of the guards were being transferred also. Bob Shand was becoming restless. He could foresee what was about to happen.
“The Russians will push the Germans back to Berlin and we’ll get caught in the middle. There’s nobody really watching us now. I think it’s time to make our move and get out. Are you coming Ian?”
“Where will we go that’s any better than here?” answered Ian. “We have more food than they have and things are OK.”
“Yes. Things are OK now but what will happen when the Russians come? They’ll shoot everything in front of them. We can head down to the Black Sea and catch a boat somewhere. There’s bound to be something. Anyway it’s better than just sitting waiting. I don’t fancy having to tramp all the way back to Berlin. I don’t think we have long now; you can smell it in the air. They’re all running around crazy.” Bob was determined to go.
“Hell, that’s hundreds of miles, Bob. No, I think we’re better staying put. Our boys are winning in France and they’ll push the whole show through this way fairly fast.” Ian wasn’t so keen on breaking loose. He wanted home like everybody else but even after all this time they weren’t really sure about the lie of the land. Maybe they’d walk straight into the Russian lines.
But Bob was determined. “I don’t think our lads will come this far. They’ll let the Russians do the dirty work.”
So off he went, looking for someone else of like mind
to take a chance heading south towards Odessa on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine. He had heard of a few boys who had gone home that way in the last year or so. He had picked up some working clothes and had taken some letters from a Latvian mechanic who came to repair the tractors. His German was better than the others and he felt he could carry it off. He calculated that the main Russian push would come from Moscow across Belarus and down the Baltic from Stalingrad through Latvia and Lithuania. He found another prisoner to go with him and like the birds at the end of summer they went south. Ian Black stayed behind in Camp XXA (124).
By late autumn of that year the last of the grain harvests were all in and on their way to support the Reich. The potatoes and fruit harvests were all in store and there only remained the sugar beet, a harvest for the first days of winter frost. They worked out in the fields from morning roll call until dusk so each man had his little squirrel’s pack of Red Cross morsels to sustain him through the day. Sometimes they could exchange things with the local Polish people for bread or fruit and although they were not supposed to speak to locals, Ian had over the years learnt enough Polish to supplement signals and gestures.
One Friday they sat down in a field for mid-day break and he took from his pocket a black bread “sandwich” filled with corned beef. A young Polish lad was watching him enviously so he broke off a piece to offer the boy. The boy’s hand went out to catch it and then suddenly stopped. He backed away in panic, eyes flicking left and right.
“It’s alright,” assured Ian “It’s British not German.”
“I can’t,” the boy stuttered, “It’s Friday. I can’t eat meat on Friday. The priest will…” The words trailed off.
“Oh, don’t be bloody stupid son! Eat it! Nobody is going to see.”
The boy’s hand shot out and he grabbed and scoffed the meaty bread before any priest, God or the Devil could see what he’d done but the discomfort remained on his face and Ian felt that he might have been better to have enjoyed the meat himself.
A couple of weeks later the first snow fell and they retreated to the “warmth” of the wooden huts. In November the news had started to seep through that the tides of war were definitely turning. Germany now was fighting on two major fronts and losing ground on both. There was a feeling around that this would be the last winter in captivity. The main concern now, however, was, as Bob Shand had said, that they were nearer to the Russian front than to the advancing Allies in the west. Neither the guards nor the prisoners wanted to be around when the Russians came. They had heard too many stories.
In the days leading up to Christmas there was a distinct softening in the tone and treatment from the guards. They were trying to develop a “good chums” atmosphere, in part to protect themselves from future reprisals but also in the hope of picking up something from the Red Cross goodies. As the snow and the cold began to bite again it was warmer in the huts exchanging stories from home and showing well-thumbed photos of loved ones than patrolling the perimeter wire. Who was going to escape into the winter wilderness?
The musical instruments were taken out of store. The camp band was formed and concerts arranged. Christmas carols were sung and the Wehrmacht joined in the chorus with the original words of “Stille Nacht!”
One of the singers, known to the prisoners by his first name of Dieter, reminded them that there would be an English church service on Sunday.
“And I suppose you will have a service in German,” remarked Ian, “What will you be praying for Dieter?”
“I will pray for victory for the Fatherland and you will be praying for victory for England.”
“ Well there doesn’t seem much point in praying. God can’t give us both victory. Can he?”
“Perhaps it doesn’t matter who has victory now if this thing would just come to an end. I have heard that some of us will be going to the Russian front next week. Maybe I should pray that it isn’t me. Would you share that prayer with me?”
“I have stopped praying, Dieter. I just take what comes.”
Bob Shand
21. CARTWHEELS IN THE SNOW
Poland to Germany, January 1945
The snow stopped Napoleon when he decided to invade Russia. The snow stopped Hitler outside Moscow in the winter of 1941. The snow didn’t stop Stalin when he decided to push the Germans out of Russia, out of Poland and Czechoslovakia back into Germany. The Russian soldier is a hard vicious fighting man, harder even than the Scottish Highlander. In sub-zero temperatures across hostile, blizzard swept, landscapes they plunged west, killing or being killed, destroying but not themselves being destroyed, relentlessly fighting mile by mile through Eastern Europe. By mid-January 1945 they were just a few miles east of Torun with the rumble of mortar shells audible to anyone still in Stalag XXA. They had been expected for some time and most of the prisoners were out in satellite camps. Ian Black was still at Konitz.
During the night of the 19 of January the Kommandant at Torun received an order to leave the next day with all the prisoners and head north and west to Bromberg and on to the camp at Nakel. The operational order had been put in place several months before but the camp was now under new command and adequate preparations had not been made. A hasty decision was taken to leave the worst hospital cases behind. Then panic and confusion replaced the carefully planned operational order. The following three months have been compared by some to Dante’s Inferno but the first weeks were cold, cold beyond imagination.
German families and possessions were loaded onto trucks along with provisions for the first days. These rapidly bogged down in the slush and mud and were replaced where possible by horse drawn sledges. An enormous column, five-a-breast trudged out of Podgorz over the bridge to Torun and turned north to Bromberg and walked about 25 miles the first day. Various forms of shelter were sequestered and they slept reasonably well. It was discovered that their planned destination of Nakel, 15 miles west, had been overrun by the Russians. The increase in panic was exponential. A rapid change was made and the route swung to the north. Two days later Ian Black and friends found that the “Raus! Raus! Raus! Alles aus!” had returned in force as they quickly packed a few belongings and joined the juggernaut as it passed through Konitz.
The Stalag was now almost completely on the road except for one or two of the smaller camps had fallen to the Russians and the sick men left behind in Torun. However the guards had now lost contact with their central command and knew only that they had to move quickly to Stettin on the German Polish border. All wheeled transport was abandoned and the prisoners had to carry much of what was needed for the hike. Many of the prisoners were walking in wooden clogs with rags wrapped around the bottom leg to keep out the snow. Ian was luckier than some. He had carefully preserved his boots throughout the four and a half years of captivity. With his handyman skills he’d patched, stitched and mended soles and uppers and had used discarded pieces of fat to protect and waterproof the leather.
His socks too were in good order, darned regularly with the patent needle, and he had some spares. He hadn’t taken much along, just some clothes, as much Red Cross rations as he could find and the photo of Teenie. He didn’t take her letters. He had kept them all but now the photo was enough, signed like all the letters “With affection, Christina.” Despite the panic there was a feeling of optimism. Stalag XXA was behind them and they were walking home. These were men who had marched many miles, men who were trained to march. Walking home from Poland to Britain didn’t seem so unusual. They would get there eventually. But the Germans were in much more of a hurry. They weren’t just going home but running from the Russians. He wondered what had become of Bob Shand. At least it would be warmer where he had gone.
Ian’s first night on the road was an abrupt shock to his optimism. The vast column was now breaking up into units of about two to three hundred prisoners each with twenty to thirty guards. German family members and the administrative personnel formed their own ambulant groups. The plan was to occupy barns by the roadside and for most gr
oups this worked out OK, but the farming community had never planned to provide accommodation for a moving mass of nearly fifty thousand people. The snow was over a foot deep and still falling. Night came down and everyone was beginning to drag his feet in sheer exhaustion. With no barn in sight the group halted for the night in a wood by the roadside. The perennial potato soup was drummed up, more welcome than it had ever been, augmented by some nibbles from the Red Cross supplies.
They lay down among the trees, damp, cold and miserable. Within half an hour it became obvious that very few could sleep and those that did were unlikely to wake up. Frostbite also was going to claim a few fingers and toes. It is not known who came up with the idea but they separated into groups of about thirty and lay down in tight formation in a circle with their feet in the middle. In this way they formed “cartwheels” in the snow and sustained an adequate measure of body temperature to make it through the night. Morning eventually came and still damp, still cold, still miserable with hands, feet and brain frozen numb, they rose to a breakfast of “delicious” potato soup. Some didn’t drink it; they just cuddled the warm dish till it started to freeze.
The column of human misery plodded on. Place names are neither known nor relevant. Even the Kommandant, when interviewed at the end of the war, wasn’t able to give an accurate account of the route taken. The truth is that each group took its own route. The guards had maps but not all the roads were marked and in the snow there was nothing to distinguish a farm track from the main road. When they came on a town with a phone they tried to make contact for precise instructions but the Russians were advancing fast and penetrating in an irregular front so that abrupt changes were often required to avoid contact. The panic of the guards began to border on hysteria. Rifle butts were used to cajole tardy prisoners into moving faster. With so many route changes, physical exertion and the lack of solid food, the daily mileage rate became less. Some days they walked thirty miles but advanced perhaps only fifteen. The character of the guards changed profoundly.
Across the Bridge Page 13