The itinerant group of prisoners had a couple of quieter days until they reached Hitzacker on the Elbe, on the evening of the 10 of April. They were halted while the SS packed yet another bridge with explosives and blew it into the air in front of them. Their route across the Elbe to Domitz was now blocked. The guards went into a frenzy shouting at the prisoners for being too slow and threatening to shoot everybody. They eventually calmed down and realised that they would have to go southeast down the banks of the river and try to cross at Wittenberge.
On the morning of the 12 Combat Command A drove due east from Hanover heading for an Elbe crossing at Taggermunde just 45 miles from Berlin. When they got there the bridge was blown. That just left Combat Command R heading for the bridge at Wittenberge, the only bridge still standing. As fate drew XXA and the 5 Armored together, neither knew that this would be their last bridge and that in the coming days, while one would weep tears of joy the other would weep tears of bitter frustration.
The prisoners were now at and beyond their natural limits of endurance. Back in Hamlin they had raided the schrebbergarten allotments by the railway track, pulling small seedling vegetables from the earth by the roots and eating them on the spot. Some still had a few tiny carrots or turnips but they were excruciatingly difficult to digest for these men whose stomachs had adapted to eating nothing for days on end. Moral was at the lowest point since they left Poland in January. Now, in the middle of April, they had thrown aside their greatcoats and balaclavas. Ian had thrown away everything except what he had in his pockets, not very much except the photo of Christina.
They had no idea where they were going or why. They wanted to turn and meet the oncoming Americans but they knew that this was more dangerous than running with the Germans. They started to believe that they wouldn’t come out of this mess alive. Each day brought new terrors. Each day their physical state ebbed away. Each day their minds grew closer to the brink, closer to the point of giving up.
On the night of 11 April they slept in the fields outside the town of Politz, just a few miles from the bridge at Wittenberge. Thousands of prisoners of all nationalities, active German troops and civilian refugees were all converging on the last bridge. In the morning of the 12 they set off towards the bridge. Ian’s boots that had served so well were now falling apart. He tied a rag round one of the soles to stop it falling off and flapped on. Progress was slow, not just because of bad footwear. So many people converging on a town, crossing just one bridge, brought things to a grinding snail’s pace. Everybody pushed and shoved, women, children, soldiers, prisoners, handcarts, bicycles, tanks, jeeps, animals all thronged across the Elbe knowing that the Americans were just down the road and coming fast. The people of the town stayed put, better the Americans than the Russians, but the moving mass that had come from the east had nowhere to stay.
The 5 Armored boys were slowed down a little at a village south of Wittenberge. The accompanying Cub spotter planes came upon a column of American prisoners who spelled out “USA” on the earth with packs and clothing. Combat Command R charged into the village, freed their comrades, fed them chocolate bars and tobacco, exchanged hugs and hellos and then rolled on towards Wittenberge. They nudged along the southwest ridge of the river exchanging intense fire with the Germans. By early afternoon they were about half a mile from the bridge.
Three quarters of the way across, Ian tripped on the loose sole of his boot. Down he went and pulled himself into a huddle at the edge of the bridge. Bob Potter and the others were carried along by the mass of bodies. The bombers swept in from the west. This time they didn’t drop bombs on the first run; they’d already dropped them at Magdeburg further south. They skimmed down spitting out bullets from their twelve machine guns. Like at Hamlin those at the front and the back ran clear of the bridge. Bob got clear but Ian huddled tighter to the parapets of the bridge as he watched bodies rip apart in the hail of bullets. He started to shudder uncontrollably. He looked down at his boots and started to cry. All these years he’d taken such loving care of his boots and now they were falling apart on his feet.
The B-26s banked left and right and came round a second time either side of the bridge strafing the outside and under the bridge, trying to dislodge the demolition men laying their charges underneath.
There comes a moment for people under extreme danger and stress that the brain ceases to function normally. Some people disregard the danger and charge on. Some just give up. Some manage to find that extra spark in supernatural ways. Ian Black had just given up. He sat there sobbing at the state of his boots waiting for the next hail of bullets. Suddenly he stopped sobbing and started laughing hysterically. Looking at his crumbling footwear he remembered his brother Bobby so many years ago when he raced in bare feet, when the big lad spiked him but he still won the race. He heard his mother’s voice calling,
“Run lad! Run! Run, Bobby! You can do it.”
His mother was here now. She had come to help him.
He could see her face clearly now. She was smiling gently.
“Mammy!”
“Run, Ian lad, run! You can do it” she chided him as her face slipped out of view.
He stood up, ripped the errant sole off his boot and ran. He drew, from his ragged body, the last remnants of strength. The P-47s droned back in and he put in a final spurt jumping over dead and dying bodies. Someone caught his foot and pulled him down. He shook loose and ran again. A panzer tank roared up behind him and he ducked to the side as the tank passed through and over the human mass. The P-47s droned in closer and back at the beginning of the bridge they started coughing out a curtain of bullets. Ian was nearly over, just a few yards to go. There was a thunderous bang and boards, girders and concrete soared into the sky. As the middle sections of the bridge disintegrated Ian scrambled the last few yards and ran towards his mates on the other side.
As he got to them he stretched his arms out and wriggled his fingers like Al Jolson.
“I’d walk a million miles for one of your smiles, my Ma-a-a-m-m-y!” he sang.
They thought he’d lost the place entirely. Two of them caught one arm each and hauled him along.
“You daft bastard!” chibbed Bob Potter, “We thought we’d lost you.”
Ian just smiled at his friends, fell in step and trudged on.
Half a mile down wind of the bridge the concrete dust settled on the tanks of Combat Command R of the 5 Armored Division, US 3 Army. The men shook their heads in disbelief. They were so sure that this one was theirs. Major General Lunsford E. Oliver wasn’t just sure. He knew the bridge was his. He knew he was going to be first in Berlin. He didn’t accept the news that the bridge was lost.
“Get the Treadway boys to build another one!” he commanded.
But the Treadway boys were way back down the line and the forward unit had insufficient material. The Elbe at Wittenberge was as wide as the Rhine. However next day the German Commander of Wittenberge surrendered without a battle and volunteered to replace the bridge. Oliver was ecstatic. Next stop Berlin! Or so he thought.
Meanwhile the 9 Army had crossed the Elbe further south at Magdeburg but they too were stopped. On the 12 of April President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Georgia. Harry Truman took his place. The commander of the Allied troops was General Dwight Eisenhower. He also had political ambitions. The Germans would never surrender Berlin without a fight and it was believed that upwards of 200,000 American servicemen would lose their lives. Best to let the Russians take it. Who made the final decision is another enigma of the time but on the day that Roosevelt died the push for Berlin stopped.
Ian Black, meantime, trudged on towards nowhere .Five years of war had wreaked havoc across Europe. British, German, French, Russian, American. Nobody really won. They were all still just pawns in a cruel game.
But Ian Black’s “finest hour” was not far away. Freedom would come in time.
23. “WHERE YUH FROM BUDDY”
From the Elbe to Blighty, May 1945
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br /> After Wittenberge the push northwards slowed down. The columns of prisoners still on the south side of the Elbe were soon freed. Many in fact were freed in the first two weeks of April but for those who had crossed over there were a few more weeks to wait. The German command structure was in tatters. The 5 US Armored didn’t get to Berlin but they’d done their job. They had “split up the enemy, cut communications and spread hysteria. From this point on most towns and villages, army personnel and prison guards quickly surrendered. They were glad to see the whole thing coming to an end.
In the last days of April, Ian Black and Bob Potter were back near Schwerin where they had been in February and were waiting out their last moments of captivity. Having stopped they now had some opportunity to get a little food however poor in quality. They were housed in a railway compound still under the guard of the fanatical Hitler Youth and SS with just a few old familiar Wehrmacht faces. There was one in particular that they all remembered well. They could all remember his rifle butt.
Guns rumbled in the distance and the guards grew edgy. The gunfire rumbled nearer. As the first American tank crashed through the perimeter wall the guards dropped their guns and put their hands in the air. The prisoners went crazy. It is a story told so many times. “Somewhere in Germany a tank crashed through the wall and we were free”. The Americans handed out what rations they had to the gaunt figures.
“Any of these guys give yuh hassle?” asked one GI, pointing his machine gun menacingly at the trembling guards.
All eyes turned to the rifle-butter. His eyes flickered nervously and he turned to run away. He only got a few steps before he was pulled to the ground. Five years of pent up frustration was released from those who still had boots intact. A few minutes later the dead body lay in a bloody mass of pulp and the prisoners turned back to the cigarettes and chocolate bars babbling like little children.
The Americans chatted and joked with the filthy, ragged ex-prisoners.
“Where yuh from Buddy?” a black soldier asked Ian.
“Scotland. What about you?”
“Atlanta, Georgia, Buddy, home of Coca Cola.”
“What’s Coca Cola?”
“What’s Coca Cola?” echoed the GI. “Hey guys, Scotty here’s never heard of Coca Cola.” “Try it when yuh get back to England.”
Getting back to England wasn’t as fast as they hoped. Trucks came next day to take them to a massive field barracks at Luneburg. They were stripped, washed and deloused, hair cut and issued with varying bits and pieces of uniform. They got their first square meal in five years and couldn’t eat it. Nobody cared. They were like little kids. Excitement was fever pitch. Thousands of prisoners were scooped up and passed through Luneburg from mid-April until the beginning of May. Dakota aircraft flew everybody home but there was a pecking order. First the sick and injured, then the Americans because they owned the Dakotas, then officers and then the lads who’d been longest away from home, and then all the stragglers from the last groups to be freed. On the 7 of May Germany signed an unconditional surrender. On the 8 of May as all of Britain celebrated VE Day, Ian and the stragglers of XXA were on their way home from Germany.
It sounds so simple flying home but Ian and friends were terrified. First they had the pent up expectation, then the waiting, then their time came to board a Dakota. It was a shuddering, bone-shaking box with wings; no windows and nowhere to sit except the floor, which rattled with vibration. The plane took its place in line for take-off but there was some delay and then eventually it bumped its way to the end of the runway. The engines revved and the plane started to shake itself apart, or so it seemed. The ex-prisoners decided it might be better just to walk home. They’d make it in a month or two. This machine wasn’t going to make it into the air. It was about to disintegrate. And then they were up, across the devastated plains of Europe heading home, shuddering and shaking all the way.
Well, not quite all the way. The American Dakota just took them as far as Brussels to a British base. Another delousing, another half-eaten meal, another wait, another Dakota and they crossed the English Channel and the White Cliffs back to the land they had thought they would never see again. They landed at Wing in Buckinghamshire but they still weren’t home, not really home. They were trucked to an Army camp that had been set up to receive the homecoming prisoners. The army bureaucrats had gone into overdrive and streamlined the name and pack drill procedures.
First was another delousing, into a large Nissen hut and a tube with spray powder was stuck in trouser bottoms and sleeves. With all bugs killed they went to that night’s accommodation. Individual bunks, real sheets, real blankets, all clean. Then each man received a kit bag and full kit. Next stop the dining room for their first sit-down meal in five years. And then more Army formalities; repatriation documents had to be completed and then telegram forms were issued.
“Fill them up quickish like,” instructed a sergeant. “Tell your folks you’re back in Blighty and you’ll be going home tomorrow. Make it quick and we’ll get them away today.”
They were given some money to get them by the first weeks of liberty, told they were free to roam around but to be up sharp next morning. Free! Free! Free! No guards, no barked commands, no bombs, no bullets. Free! First a wash and a real shave and then full of silly childish elation, Ian went in search of the American NAAFI canteen to try some Coca Cola.
He found the canteen, which sported a sign saying “AMERICAN PERSONNEL ONLY”, but he decided to go in anyway. He walked up to the bar and asked for a Coca Cola.
“Sorry soldier. Ah can’t serve yuh, in here.”
A sergeant, who was leaning on the bar, turned round.
“What outfit yuh in, Buddy?”
“8 Argylls.”
“Where yuh been fightin’, then?”
“France, a long time ago. I’ve been in Poland five years, a prisoner.”
“Barman! Give this man his drink!”
The barman stood his ground, “He can’t drink in here if he’s not GI.”
The sergeant stood up and glowered at the little barman. “Ah said, give the man his drink. He’s with me. Ah’m buyin’, OK?”
Ian took his ice-cool Coca Cola and took a sip. It hit his raw stomach like a sledgehammer and his face winced. He knew he couldn’t drink it but couldn’t just leave it after nearly causing a battle in the American bar. He chatted to the sergeant and faked a few more sips then said he had to get back for a parade.
There was no parade, of course, just a beautiful lounge on a beautiful clean bed. Not alone, he lay shaking with excitement. Two minutes later, up again chatting to all the other ex-prisoners. Handshakes, backslaps, laughing, joking, promising to keep in touch with each other, everybody was euphoric. Even some of the lads who had hated each other back in the prison camp and on the march were now good friends. All the tensions and bitterness of years of frustrating captivity began to slip away and be replaced by a strange apprehensive joy and thoughts of home.
Morning came and names were called. A travel warrant, ration coupons (double ration coupons for returning prisoners) and a leave pass valid six weeks. A truck came and took them to the station. They travelled together into London and shook hands and parted. Most would never see each other again. Bob Potter was already home, back on the streets of London. Ian and a few others were heading north from Euston via Glasgow. There was an emotional goodbye as they stood in front of the station. Bob promised to come up to Benderloch for the wedding.
“D’you think she’ll still want you. You don’t look too pretty Jock”
Ian was down to about seven stones in weight, his face was gaunt and he still had a slice of hair missing down the right side of his head.
“You look a little scrappy yourself. Do they have scarecrows in London? Maybe you could get a job scaring the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.”
“Yeah, but we made it Ian, lad. There were times I thought I’d never see Trafalgar Square again.”
“Aye, Bob. Take care. �
�Beannachd leat!” Ian bid his friend farewell.
“Bennack late!” returned the Londoner.
Ian Black, laughed at the Cockney pronunciation, slapped Bob Potter on the back, threw his kit bags across his shoulder and went for the train. As they sped north the euphoria of the day before started to slip away and in its place profound doubts, fear of this new-found freedom, not sure exactly what to do or what to say when they met people again. What they didn’t realise was that meeting people was not going to be their problem. The real trauma for nearly all returning prisoners was the conflict of emotions that they had just started to feel, one moment riding on the crest of a wave and then sinking into the trough of depression the next.
In Benderloch, Teenie MacKenzie received her telegram, squealed with delight and jumped on her bicycle down to the church to prepare the marriage banns.
The train rolled into Glasgow. Ian crossed the city to change stations and catch the first train north, to Oban. The West Highland train was crowded mostly by men in uniform. Most were going home on normal leave. Some like Ian were returning for the first time in years. The half-bottles of whisky and screw-top beer bottles were in good supply so the atmosphere was very Highland and the banter as much in Gaelic as in English. They were going home.
24. GET UP AND DANCE
Oban, 11 June 1945
By tradition marriage banns must be called in church for three successive Sundays before a wedding in Scotland. Teenie spoke with Alexander MacDonald, the Ardchattan Parish Minister and he agreed to officiate and the date was set for the 11 of June. The wedding would be held, not in the church at Ardchattan, but along with the reception in Kennedy’s Tearooms in Oban. This venue had a lower floor for the ceremony and reception and a dance floor. Upstairs was a balcony overlooking the dance floor with large windows looking out across Oban Bay.
Across the Bridge Page 15