Douglas Wilmott Waters CPM
Title
Douglas Wilmott Waters CPM
Description
Douglas' autobiography which includes a section on his career after the war.
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Spatial Coverage
Language
Format
Eleven printed sheets
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
BWatersIWatersDWv3
Transcription
Douglas Wilmott Waters CPM
I was born in Dover, Kent on 22nd October 1920 and at that time we were living in Castle Avenue. At the age of 6 I went to a Convent, which was handy it being situated at the end of Castle Ave. I was late going to school due to some illness. However the Nuns did teach me to read. On my 8th birthday I went to the junior school of the Dover County School now known as Dover Grammer School. My first teacher was Miss Rookwood. She was a very well-known character in Dover a wonderful teacher. However she made me, as was common in those days, change from a left-handed writer into a right handed writer as a result I did suffer a stutter.
In 1930 we moved to Pencester Road which is in the centre of Dover and we lived there for the next 4 years. In 1932 our school moved into a brand new building built on Whinless Down which meant my brothers had a walk of about a mile. I suppose I could consider myself an average pupil. It was a grammar school where we were screened and I was in the B stream. We had three streams A, B, and C. However I did manage when I was 12 years old to get a prize for making the best endeavors [sic] in the junior school.
My Father decided that he would like a country life so in the early thirties he bought a field of about 4 – 5 acres in the village of Whitfield. He had a house built and on the land put in chicken houses and pigsties.
[photograph]
[italics] The house at Whitfield [/italics]
In due course we ended up with about 400 chickens, three sows and a boar plus their progeny, two dogs and five ducks. That’s when I became interested in farming. From the age of 13-16 my brothers and I cycled to school a distance of about 4 miles. Lunch we always had at school. It was good and cost in those days 9d a meal i.e. 3/6d a week or in our present money about 16p.
When coming up to the age of 16 I decided that I would like to go farming, after the usual discussion with the powers that be the Headmaster of the school, my father and others it was considered to be in my interest that I leave school and work on a farm prior to attending an Agricultural College. So in January 1937 I started work on a farm in Tunstall, nr. Sittingbourne at a weekly wage of 15/9 per week. I worked there for about 9 months and then entered the Kent Farm Institute on a year’s general agricultural course to be followed a year later by a course in Commercial Fruit growing. I passed each course and received two certificates, which disappeared years ago. On my summer vacation in 1938 I worked on Elliots Farm in Penshurst as a Hop measurer earning 10 shillings a day, a fortune in those days.
After finishing the fruit course I was offered a job with the Ashdown and General Fruit Company in Horsted Keynes, Sussex. The company had about 1200 acres and grew apples, plums, raspberries, blackcurrents, [sic] cultivated blackberries etc. and had on their land as well as cold stores a jam factory. I was employed primarily as a nurseryman running their fruit nursery, bringing on young trees and plants. I joined the company in June 1939 and war broke out in September that year but I carried on working in fact I was in what was known as a reserved occupation. I clearly recall the sight of the barrage balloons going up around London the day war was declared.
1.
[page break]
Christmas week 1939 I went home on a week’s holiday and during that week decided I would do my bit and join up. I went to the Army Recruiting office in Dover as I knew the recruiting sergeant-major, he had a son at my school. He asked me how old I was, I said I was just 19 whereupon I was told that as I was under 20 I could only join as a regular.
The next day I went by bus to Canterbury to the R.A.F. recruiting office and was told there were vacancies for three grades only – butchers, service police and wireless operators. I chose the latter and on the 9th January 1940 was ordered to report to Uxbridge in London where I was kited [sic] out.
With other recruits and then we were all sent off by train to Morecombe where for the next 4 weeks we carried out our basic drills and induction into the R.A.F. We lived in seaside boarding houses.
But it was a time of a very cold winter and I will never forget doing P.T. and drill in the ice and snow on the sea front.
On leaving Morecombe I was posted to Cosford not doing an awful lot until in April that year I received my posting to No 2 Wireless School at Yatesbury, Wiltshire for a 5 months course. This I completed successfully passing out, as we had to send and receive the month’s course in radio work. Our course consisted of handling radio equipment, using the Aldis Lamp and the use of flags. Our passing out exam consisted of sending and receiving the Morse code. At 21 words per minute, and using the Aldis Lamp, at 9 words per minute. On completion of the radio course I was posted to Stormy Down Aerodrome, Portcawl [sic] Wales for a months gunnery course. This consisted of learning to assemble and strip the Vickers and Browning .303 machine guns and then air to air, flying in Fairy Battles and Whitleys and practising air to air firing at drogues flown by another aircraft. I passed out as a slightly above average gunner. On completion of this course in November 1940 I was posted to the O.T.U. Harwell [Operational Training Unit] for a months course.
[photograph]
Prior to being posted to an operational Squadron. This course included a milk run over enemy territory. My trip was over the Brest peninsula. No bombs were dropped only at this time leaflets for the French population. The trip was uneventful. On completion of this course we were crewed up and posted to our Squadrons in 3 Group, flying Wellingtons 1C’s.
2.
[page break]
[photograph]
[italics] Wellington Mk.1C. My aircraft was N2746 BU-M manufactured by V-A Chester and delivered July/August 1940 [/italics]
I was posted to 214 Squadron in Stradishall, Suffolk on the 9th January 1941 having in the meantime a week’s leave with the family in Gravesend. This was the last time I was to see my father and before I left I had one beer with him in a pub down town. On arrival at Stradishall I was crewed up with Jack Tomlinson the other WOP/AG and the rest of the crew were all sergeants, Mick Elder being the Captain, he having already completed 14 operational trips as a second pilot.
During January and February that year very little operational flying was done due to continuous bad weather, we only did one trip to Dusseldorf. By March the weather was improving and on the 12th March we were briefed to bomb the Folke-Wolf aircraft factory in Bremen. I can remember seeing the works clearly as they were beside a river and it was a full moon. We returned that night safely. The following day we were briefed to go to Hamburg.
We took off at about 8.30 p.m. on a clear moonlight night, crossed the coast and as usual tested our guns, carried on and crossed the Dutch coast. Before long we ran into heavy flak having been coned by searchlights. I in the front turret fired down at the master searchlight and suddenly all the lights went out.
Within a short time whether seconds or minutes I cannot remember how long, the aircraft gave a sudden lurch and commenced to go down. Mick Elder, the Captain gave the order to prepare to bail out. I came out of the front turret and clipped on my chute, and stood by the front hatch. Surrounding the hatch were Tommy Tomkinson the other wo/ag, Sol Glazer the Navigator and the second pilot Vic Bagley. Mick turned and pointed towards the open hatch with his gloved hand indicating that we were to jump. I went first and as I left the plane I saw that one engine was on fire and the plane was heading straight towards the ground.
[photograph] [photograph]
[italics] Messershmitt 110 G9+HM Leewarden Aerodrome piloted by Ofw. Paul Gildner of NJG 1 Nightfighter squadron
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Almost immediately I noticed I was heading into some trees. I was unable to avoid them, as I was much to [sic] low and thereupon crashed into them, coming to rest and hanging about 12 feet from the ground. At the same time as I came to rest I heard the sound of a tremendous explosion as the plane hit the ground and blew up.
[photograph]
[italics] Wreckage of my Wellington at Jipsinghuizen being inspected by Ofw. Gildner and Uffz. R Muller [/italics]
I managed to climb up into the tree and release myself and duly fell to the ground. I saw a crowd of six to eight Dutch spectators from a nearby farmhouse to where I was taken.
Within minutes arrived a posse of Dutch police on bicycles from a border police station, which was only a couple of hundred yards up the road. In fact I could see the lights of the border post from where I landed. The village nearby was Jipsinghuizen.
I was arrested and eventually handed over to a German Luftwaffe escort which arrived at about 3 a.m. and was driven to Leewarden aerodrome, which was an aerodrome from where the 110 night-fighter that shot us down was stationed. I was told by the Germans at the aerodrome that the rear-gunner Danny had been killed by the night-fighter and that Tommy the other wop/ag had jumped but was much to [sic] low and had been killed on impact with the ground. We had jumped out at about 400 feet. At about 10 a.m after having a meal of ham and black bread I was driven across Holland to Amsterdam and lodged for the night in a cell in the old prison there.
4.
[page break]
[photograph]
[italics] The graves of George Cedric Daniel, Sgt. Alexander Graeme Elder, Victor Laurens Bagley, Sgt Sol Glazer, Sgt. John La Basse Tomkinson in Groningen Cemetary [sic] which I visited 22 May 1999. These are maintained by local school children [/italics]
The next day having met another R A F. bod, who had been shot down the night before me, and was also a sole survivor of his crew, we were taken under escort of two guards to the Station at Amsterdam, and taken on an express train to Frankfurt, and duly taken to the airforce Interrogation center Dulag Luft and after three days of questioning entered the main camp.
And after enough prisoners had arrived we were then transported by train to a permanent camp Stalag Luft 1 at Barth in North Germany.
[photograph]
[italics] Stalag Luft 1 25.12.1941
Jackson FAA, Ron Akerman, Trevor Aldwick, Bobby Harwood FAA, myself, Reggie Cullen, George Bessell RFM [/italics]
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[photograph]
[italics] Stalag Luft 1 16.1.1942
George Bessell, ?, Wilkinson, myself, Ron Akerman, Hamilton, Jackson Trevor Alderwick, Reggie Cullen, Tuby Dickson, Bobby Harwood [/italics]
[photograph]
[italics] Occupants of Room 23 Stalag Luft 1 28.12.1941
?, ?, Ron Akerman, Ramon, ?, George Bessell, Wilkie (Wilkinson), Tuby Dickson, myself (lining them up) Ham (Hamilton), ?, Reggie Cullen, Jackson, ?, ?
I was there for a year and then transferred to Stalag Luft ꞮꞮꞮ, the camp from which the Great Escape was later to take place.
It was at this camp that I met up with Ron Akerman and Reg Cullen, and we remained together for the next 4 years, although within a year Reg Brown joined us. He had been shot down flying in a Lysander dropping arms to the defenders of Calais, who were trying to hold up the advance by the Germans on Dunkirk. Unfortunately Reg was never to make to back to the U.K. being killed by friendly fire when we were shot up by our own planes during the last week of the war..
As the Russians advanced from the East we were moved on 14 July 1944 from Hydekrug on the Baltic coast by cattle truck to Memel. There we were herded into the hold of [italics] The Insterburg [/italics] a 1919 freighter for a three day journey of hell to Swinemunde. On arrival an air raid took place. The battlecruisers
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Leipzig and Prinz Eugen moored in the harbour opened fire adding to the deafening noise. During the journey in the Insterburg the toilet was a bucket passed down into the hold by rope which when pulled up the rolling of the boat ensured its contents split [sic] over the Kriegies (POWs) below. It was high Summer – the journey was hell, not to mention the ever present threat of mines or submarines. There would be no escape if the ship was sunk.
[photograph]
[italics] The Insterburg built 1919 sunk 3 May 1945 [/italics]
From there we had a train journey of a day and night, again with no food or sanitation before arriving about 2kms from the camp at Tyshow. It was a day I won’t forget. It was 19 July 1944, the day of the attempted assassination of Hitler. We were then marched up this road. The guards provoked by their commander then started to prod and stab us with their bayonets forcing us to run. The dogs were also set on us. The guard with me, Ron & Reg said he had been a POW in the last war and did not agree with this and we’d be alright if we stayed together and do not try to escape. The guards were then withdrawn. It was then we noticed machine guns in the woods on the side of the road. Passing the word down the line that no one was to break and run. There were also cameras to record the ‘escaping’ POWs who would then have been shot attempting to escape. This event called ‘The Run’ became a recognised war atrocity. We then had to enter a clearing, there was no camp and guards had been positioned either side of the entrance to again attack us as we entered. The German commander who instigated it was later executed by the Russians.
[photograph]
[italics] Site of “The Run” [/italics]
We left here in February 1945 for a march lasting three months with nothing to eat but what we could scavange [sic] from the countryside, potatoes etc. It was during the last week of the war that the barns we were in were attacked by Typhoon fighters of the RAF. Reg who was sleeping next to me in a barn died
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instantly along with one other man and a large number were wounded, the barn being set on fire.
The end of the war came for me on 2 May 1945 when we were freed by the 6th Airborne division at Luttow.
The POW camps I was incarcerated during the war were as follows.
Dulag Luft 2 weeks
Stalag Luft 1. March 1941 – April 1942
Stalag Luft ꞮꞮꞮ April 1942 – October 1942
Stalag Luft VꞮ (Hydekrug) October 1942 – 14 July 1944
Stalag Luft 1V (Tyshow) 19 July – 7th February 1945
I wish to let you know that if you read the following books in my possession these will give you a very good idea of life as a POW
[italics] Not All Glory [/italics] by Vic Gammon who I knew and before his death lived in Tunbridge Wells.
[italics] The Last Escape [/italics] and chapters 1, 5, 11, 12 refer very much to what I went through at this time.
[italics] Of Ploughs, Planes and Palliasses [/italics] by Percy Wilson Carruthers.
These books cover the events described above in far more detail than can be afforded here.
[photograph]
[italics] Red Cross Map dated 30th June 1944 showing POW camps [/italics]
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[page break]
On the 9th May V.E. day we were flown back to the United Kingdom in a Lancaster attiring at Dunsfold Aerodrome. A trainload of Ex-Kriegies were taken by a special train to Cosford and received a great welcome together with a super meal and the next day a medical kited [sic] out and sent home if one was O.K.
After about two weeks on leave went back to Cosford for a full medical and was then offered by the R.A.F. the following options 1. An immediate discharge 2. To carry on serving in the R.A.F. Until your demob group number came or 3 to go to a resettlement centre so as to reorienate oneself back into life again. This I accepted and went to a country house near Rugby for 3 months for a nice easy loaf [sic] doing nothing except seeing wartime news reels films, social events and generally having a nice time. In October 1945 I took my discharge from the airforce although my leave pay was not to cease until January 1946. I rejoined the Ashdown Company on their fruit farms however during the War they had bought 2000 acres of land in the I.O.W. and on one farm found some lovely deep soil so I was asked to go there and set up a fruit nursery bringing on raspberry canes, apple trees etc.
The Company helped me commute between Sussex and the I.O.W and gave me a motor cycle which I really enjoyed using, there was very little traffic on the roads in those days. To help me run and set up the nursery I had 7 German prisoners of war working for me, I carried on working there for a year and in February 1947 I saw an advert for the Colonial Police to serve in Northern Rhodesia.
I sent for an application form which I completed and sent off. Heard nothing more for about 6 weeks when I received a letter to attend for an interview in London.
The interview went well and was sent immediately to Harley Street for a medical and about August was told to attend No4 District Police Training School, Eynsham Hall, Whitney [sic] for a Police training course prior to going to N.R. Whilst on this course I broke my wrist whilst playing basket ball so was held back in England until my wrist healed. I eventually sailed for Africa in May 1948 and it was on this ship that I met your Mother. We were partnered in a deck quoits game. Little did I know that she had seen me the night before drunk with my mates in a half empty swimming pool, while the roll of the ship sent the water from one end of the pool up to the other where we were sitting.
My first posting on arrival in N.R. was to Livingstone. However on getting married some eight months later, as there was no married accommodation there we were transferred to Kasama, in the Northern Province a very good move. We went on our first leave to the U.K. in 1951.
On our return from leave I had by know [sic] been confirmed on a permanent and pension able basis I took over a rural station Kawambwa and was there for 18 months when I was transferred to Lusaka on Special Branch duties in Force H.Q. After 6 months I went back to Kasama this time as .D.C.I.O. Northern Division. By now my rank was Senior Inspector so on my next leave in 1955 I had to attend a Senior Detectives Officers course held in Wakefield by the West Riding Police. Apparently I did well on this course as shortly after my return I was promoted to Assistant Superintendent and took over the post of D.C.I.O. Lusaka having by this time passed all qualifying exams. Four years later I received my promotion to Superintendent and in 1964 on N.R gaining independence as Zambia became a Senior Superintendent finally retiring in 1967.
In Northern Rhodesia I was posted and served in the following areas
Livingstone 1948, Kasama 19491951 Kawambwa 1951 – 1952. Force H.Q. 1953 6 Months only Kasama 1954 – 1955. Lusaka C.I.D. 1955 – 1957 Kitwe 1958 C.I.D. Lusaka 1959 – 1964 and finally Force H.Q.C.I.D. as Senior Superintendent as 2 I/C.
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[page break]
[photograph]
Lusaka Police HQ
[photograph]
Receiving The Colonial Police Medal (CPM)
I would now like to write about three different cases that I dealt with in my Service in Northern Rhodesia. The first case was in 1950 and I can still remember this so well.
As I consider the person I dealt with was the most evil man I have ever seen.
During that year I read and heard about a most brutal murder that had occurred in Bulawayo in which an elderly white prospector had been murdered and his body stuffed in a 44 gallon petrol drum and that the murdered mans servant who was suspected of the murder had disappeared. In due course the B.S.A.P. contacted me in Kasama informing me that the servant came from the Mpika District and could we institute an immediate check and if found arrest.
I sent two African Constables to Mpika but they returned within the week saying they were unable to find the man. As information from Bulawayo insisted that the accused person was still in his village I contacted Gordon Tredwell the Mpika District Commissioner and he agreed that with the Police Constables should go two District Messengers who would know the area well. However they returned saying that there was no trace of him. Still information showed that the accused was living in the area so I decided to go. I went to Mpika with a couple of African Police, stayed overnight in Mpika and set out at first light by bicycle as the village was off any motor road.
As I entered the village I saw an African combing his hair I stopped and asked him if he had seen the man I was looking for. His reply was Bwana he just left the village pointing to a path going in the opposite direction. For some reason perhaps sixth sense I grabbed hold of the man’s right hand and saw immediately the top of his index finger was missing. This was exactly what I was looking for and I knew I had the right man I arrested him for the murder of the old prospector and took him to Kasama and locked him up until the B.S.A.P. escort arrived with the arrest warrant from Bulawayo. During the time he was in our Police cells the African police would not go near him this man’s eyes who I can still picture now radiated pure evil. The Africans considered this man to be evil and bewitched. However he was duly dispatched to Bulawayo and appeared before the High Court, was found guilty of murder and hung..
The second case deals with the mess some people make of their lives and the effect this may have on families. I first came into the picture I think it would have been about 1959. One evening I was called to attend a shooting in the Lusaka Hotel in Cairo Road. A man had been shot whilst kissing a woman in a telephone booth in the hotel foyer. The victim who had been shot in the back was removed to hospital, and the person who carried out the shooting had been apprehended immediately. I formally arrested and took him to Lusaka Police Station, and charged him with the attempted murder of a man called Richardson. He made a complete confession which shows what can happen to anyone when driven to it by family circumstances.
He gave me a complete run down of what led him to carry out this dreadful act which could have easily been a murder charge. He had come home that evening from the Copperbelt where he had been selling tyres. He was a tyre salesman and found his house in complete darkness, all lights were off the electricity bill not having been paid and his two young children alone in the house. He knew that his wife had been carrying on with a man called Richardson so in a complete rage he picked up a .22 rifle which he had only purchased the previous week and went looking for the couple and eventually found them in a clinch in a telephone booth in the hotel foyer. He fired at Richardson hitting him in the back
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and seriously wounding him. I feel the interesting points about the case are what happened to all the parties involved. The accused was sentenced to 18 months in prison for attempted murder, the wife went back to her home in Durban taking the two children and was killed a year later in a motor accident. Richardson was sent back to England to Stoke Mandeville Hospital as he was now paralysed for life from the waist down. About two years later whilst in hospital in England he asked to see a police officer and Clive Blackwell who was at the time on leave interviewed him: Richardson made a confession to a train robbery in which a mail bag containing about £5,000 in used notes had been stolen. He was the engine driver of the train but after stolen the bag of money had panicked and burnt the lot in the engines firebox. In view of his state of health and the cost of bringing him to trial in Northern Rhodesia he was never prosecuted for the theft..
The final story I will deal with is the case of to my mind a remarkable African called Martin Nondo, He was a Bemba from the village of Bwembya in Chief Mwamba District in the Kasama District. His father had for many years been cook to Supt. Brodie who in the 30’s and 40’s had been in charge of the C.I.D. in N.R. He left school having only had a primary school education, and soon after leaving school took up a life of crime. Over a period of some six or seven years had amassed about 12 to 14 years in prison in both Southern and Northern Rhodesia for burglary, car thefts and prison escapes. He loved cars particularly Rovers. At one time we also had Wolseleys. He also said he could out pace the police cars any day and he did give the traffic police a run for their money. He was also a daring escapee from prison. On one occasion having escaped one night from the Central Prison, Lusaka I was called out and with a large body of Police was looking for him in the Ridgeway area of Lusaka. He had attempted to burgle the Hospital Sisters’ quarters that evening. He was caught several days later and when I spoke to him saying where were you hiding in the Ridgeway he said he saw me and I had passed within two or three feet of him. He was standing up against a tree and being a black man has its advantages as one cannot been seen easily. To sum up it was finally decided in I think 1961 that Martin would serve all his sentences in the maximum security prison in Salisbury. Once again and this upset the B.S.A.P. he escaped. Nothing more was heard from him for the next five years although I had heard rumors [sic] that he had left N.R. and gone north. One day in 1966 after Ian Smith had declared U.D.I. I had a phone call from the British High Commission that Martin Nondo was returning to N.R. and would be arriving on a plane from Dar Salaam landing at Ndola. I drove to Ndola with my chief detective Inspector Kabage who also knew him well from the past. To our surprise he suddenly appeared wearing the uniform of a Major General of the Bulgarian Army and in his luggage which he had not declared there was an A.K.47 and an automatic pistol. On the butt of the pistol inscribed in Cyrillic on a silver plate the words [italics] To comrade Major General Chanda from the Bulgarian General Staff. [/italics] He at first denied being Martin Nondo but after taking him to a hotel for a beer and some sandwiches he admitted who he was and told us a rather remarkable story. Subsequently during the afternoon he was taken to Court and remanded in custody for the illegal importation of arms.
His story started from his escape. Reaching N.R. he contacted Kaunda’s party who then arranged for him to travel to Egypt and he was then taken on to Russia. The Russians soon recognized his potential and he received a full military training and that included three years in the Funze Military Academy in Moscow, which included visits to North Vietnam and West Africa etc. Unfortunately the Russians had miscalculated the situation then existing in Zambia. Nondo’s job was to take over the Zambian army, and the Vice President, at the time Kamanga, would take over from Kaunda. However in 1966 both the Army and the Police were still very much under the control of the expatriates and Kaunda having been forewarned of the situation gave orders for Nondo to be returned to prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence. Later that afternoon I drove Martin Nondo to Zambia’s maximum security prison in Kabwe and handed him over. What finally happened to him I know not but as he was to be a prime mover in attempting a coup against the Government I doubt that he will be free for many years.
11
I was born in Dover, Kent on 22nd October 1920 and at that time we were living in Castle Avenue. At the age of 6 I went to a Convent, which was handy it being situated at the end of Castle Ave. I was late going to school due to some illness. However the Nuns did teach me to read. On my 8th birthday I went to the junior school of the Dover County School now known as Dover Grammer School. My first teacher was Miss Rookwood. She was a very well-known character in Dover a wonderful teacher. However she made me, as was common in those days, change from a left-handed writer into a right handed writer as a result I did suffer a stutter.
In 1930 we moved to Pencester Road which is in the centre of Dover and we lived there for the next 4 years. In 1932 our school moved into a brand new building built on Whinless Down which meant my brothers had a walk of about a mile. I suppose I could consider myself an average pupil. It was a grammar school where we were screened and I was in the B stream. We had three streams A, B, and C. However I did manage when I was 12 years old to get a prize for making the best endeavors [sic] in the junior school.
My Father decided that he would like a country life so in the early thirties he bought a field of about 4 – 5 acres in the village of Whitfield. He had a house built and on the land put in chicken houses and pigsties.
[photograph]
[italics] The house at Whitfield [/italics]
In due course we ended up with about 400 chickens, three sows and a boar plus their progeny, two dogs and five ducks. That’s when I became interested in farming. From the age of 13-16 my brothers and I cycled to school a distance of about 4 miles. Lunch we always had at school. It was good and cost in those days 9d a meal i.e. 3/6d a week or in our present money about 16p.
When coming up to the age of 16 I decided that I would like to go farming, after the usual discussion with the powers that be the Headmaster of the school, my father and others it was considered to be in my interest that I leave school and work on a farm prior to attending an Agricultural College. So in January 1937 I started work on a farm in Tunstall, nr. Sittingbourne at a weekly wage of 15/9 per week. I worked there for about 9 months and then entered the Kent Farm Institute on a year’s general agricultural course to be followed a year later by a course in Commercial Fruit growing. I passed each course and received two certificates, which disappeared years ago. On my summer vacation in 1938 I worked on Elliots Farm in Penshurst as a Hop measurer earning 10 shillings a day, a fortune in those days.
After finishing the fruit course I was offered a job with the Ashdown and General Fruit Company in Horsted Keynes, Sussex. The company had about 1200 acres and grew apples, plums, raspberries, blackcurrents, [sic] cultivated blackberries etc. and had on their land as well as cold stores a jam factory. I was employed primarily as a nurseryman running their fruit nursery, bringing on young trees and plants. I joined the company in June 1939 and war broke out in September that year but I carried on working in fact I was in what was known as a reserved occupation. I clearly recall the sight of the barrage balloons going up around London the day war was declared.
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[page break]
Christmas week 1939 I went home on a week’s holiday and during that week decided I would do my bit and join up. I went to the Army Recruiting office in Dover as I knew the recruiting sergeant-major, he had a son at my school. He asked me how old I was, I said I was just 19 whereupon I was told that as I was under 20 I could only join as a regular.
The next day I went by bus to Canterbury to the R.A.F. recruiting office and was told there were vacancies for three grades only – butchers, service police and wireless operators. I chose the latter and on the 9th January 1940 was ordered to report to Uxbridge in London where I was kited [sic] out.
With other recruits and then we were all sent off by train to Morecombe where for the next 4 weeks we carried out our basic drills and induction into the R.A.F. We lived in seaside boarding houses.
But it was a time of a very cold winter and I will never forget doing P.T. and drill in the ice and snow on the sea front.
On leaving Morecombe I was posted to Cosford not doing an awful lot until in April that year I received my posting to No 2 Wireless School at Yatesbury, Wiltshire for a 5 months course. This I completed successfully passing out, as we had to send and receive the month’s course in radio work. Our course consisted of handling radio equipment, using the Aldis Lamp and the use of flags. Our passing out exam consisted of sending and receiving the Morse code. At 21 words per minute, and using the Aldis Lamp, at 9 words per minute. On completion of the radio course I was posted to Stormy Down Aerodrome, Portcawl [sic] Wales for a months gunnery course. This consisted of learning to assemble and strip the Vickers and Browning .303 machine guns and then air to air, flying in Fairy Battles and Whitleys and practising air to air firing at drogues flown by another aircraft. I passed out as a slightly above average gunner. On completion of this course in November 1940 I was posted to the O.T.U. Harwell [Operational Training Unit] for a months course.
[photograph]
Prior to being posted to an operational Squadron. This course included a milk run over enemy territory. My trip was over the Brest peninsula. No bombs were dropped only at this time leaflets for the French population. The trip was uneventful. On completion of this course we were crewed up and posted to our Squadrons in 3 Group, flying Wellingtons 1C’s.
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[italics] Wellington Mk.1C. My aircraft was N2746 BU-M manufactured by V-A Chester and delivered July/August 1940 [/italics]
I was posted to 214 Squadron in Stradishall, Suffolk on the 9th January 1941 having in the meantime a week’s leave with the family in Gravesend. This was the last time I was to see my father and before I left I had one beer with him in a pub down town. On arrival at Stradishall I was crewed up with Jack Tomlinson the other WOP/AG and the rest of the crew were all sergeants, Mick Elder being the Captain, he having already completed 14 operational trips as a second pilot.
During January and February that year very little operational flying was done due to continuous bad weather, we only did one trip to Dusseldorf. By March the weather was improving and on the 12th March we were briefed to bomb the Folke-Wolf aircraft factory in Bremen. I can remember seeing the works clearly as they were beside a river and it was a full moon. We returned that night safely. The following day we were briefed to go to Hamburg.
We took off at about 8.30 p.m. on a clear moonlight night, crossed the coast and as usual tested our guns, carried on and crossed the Dutch coast. Before long we ran into heavy flak having been coned by searchlights. I in the front turret fired down at the master searchlight and suddenly all the lights went out.
Within a short time whether seconds or minutes I cannot remember how long, the aircraft gave a sudden lurch and commenced to go down. Mick Elder, the Captain gave the order to prepare to bail out. I came out of the front turret and clipped on my chute, and stood by the front hatch. Surrounding the hatch were Tommy Tomkinson the other wo/ag, Sol Glazer the Navigator and the second pilot Vic Bagley. Mick turned and pointed towards the open hatch with his gloved hand indicating that we were to jump. I went first and as I left the plane I saw that one engine was on fire and the plane was heading straight towards the ground.
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[italics] Messershmitt 110 G9+HM Leewarden Aerodrome piloted by Ofw. Paul Gildner of NJG 1 Nightfighter squadron
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Almost immediately I noticed I was heading into some trees. I was unable to avoid them, as I was much to [sic] low and thereupon crashed into them, coming to rest and hanging about 12 feet from the ground. At the same time as I came to rest I heard the sound of a tremendous explosion as the plane hit the ground and blew up.
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[italics] Wreckage of my Wellington at Jipsinghuizen being inspected by Ofw. Gildner and Uffz. R Muller [/italics]
I managed to climb up into the tree and release myself and duly fell to the ground. I saw a crowd of six to eight Dutch spectators from a nearby farmhouse to where I was taken.
Within minutes arrived a posse of Dutch police on bicycles from a border police station, which was only a couple of hundred yards up the road. In fact I could see the lights of the border post from where I landed. The village nearby was Jipsinghuizen.
I was arrested and eventually handed over to a German Luftwaffe escort which arrived at about 3 a.m. and was driven to Leewarden aerodrome, which was an aerodrome from where the 110 night-fighter that shot us down was stationed. I was told by the Germans at the aerodrome that the rear-gunner Danny had been killed by the night-fighter and that Tommy the other wop/ag had jumped but was much to [sic] low and had been killed on impact with the ground. We had jumped out at about 400 feet. At about 10 a.m after having a meal of ham and black bread I was driven across Holland to Amsterdam and lodged for the night in a cell in the old prison there.
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[italics] The graves of George Cedric Daniel, Sgt. Alexander Graeme Elder, Victor Laurens Bagley, Sgt Sol Glazer, Sgt. John La Basse Tomkinson in Groningen Cemetary [sic] which I visited 22 May 1999. These are maintained by local school children [/italics]
The next day having met another R A F. bod, who had been shot down the night before me, and was also a sole survivor of his crew, we were taken under escort of two guards to the Station at Amsterdam, and taken on an express train to Frankfurt, and duly taken to the airforce Interrogation center Dulag Luft and after three days of questioning entered the main camp.
And after enough prisoners had arrived we were then transported by train to a permanent camp Stalag Luft 1 at Barth in North Germany.
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[italics] Stalag Luft 1 25.12.1941
Jackson FAA, Ron Akerman, Trevor Aldwick, Bobby Harwood FAA, myself, Reggie Cullen, George Bessell RFM [/italics]
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[italics] Stalag Luft 1 16.1.1942
George Bessell, ?, Wilkinson, myself, Ron Akerman, Hamilton, Jackson Trevor Alderwick, Reggie Cullen, Tuby Dickson, Bobby Harwood [/italics]
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[italics] Occupants of Room 23 Stalag Luft 1 28.12.1941
?, ?, Ron Akerman, Ramon, ?, George Bessell, Wilkie (Wilkinson), Tuby Dickson, myself (lining them up) Ham (Hamilton), ?, Reggie Cullen, Jackson, ?, ?
I was there for a year and then transferred to Stalag Luft ꞮꞮꞮ, the camp from which the Great Escape was later to take place.
It was at this camp that I met up with Ron Akerman and Reg Cullen, and we remained together for the next 4 years, although within a year Reg Brown joined us. He had been shot down flying in a Lysander dropping arms to the defenders of Calais, who were trying to hold up the advance by the Germans on Dunkirk. Unfortunately Reg was never to make to back to the U.K. being killed by friendly fire when we were shot up by our own planes during the last week of the war..
As the Russians advanced from the East we were moved on 14 July 1944 from Hydekrug on the Baltic coast by cattle truck to Memel. There we were herded into the hold of [italics] The Insterburg [/italics] a 1919 freighter for a three day journey of hell to Swinemunde. On arrival an air raid took place. The battlecruisers
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Leipzig and Prinz Eugen moored in the harbour opened fire adding to the deafening noise. During the journey in the Insterburg the toilet was a bucket passed down into the hold by rope which when pulled up the rolling of the boat ensured its contents split [sic] over the Kriegies (POWs) below. It was high Summer – the journey was hell, not to mention the ever present threat of mines or submarines. There would be no escape if the ship was sunk.
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[italics] The Insterburg built 1919 sunk 3 May 1945 [/italics]
From there we had a train journey of a day and night, again with no food or sanitation before arriving about 2kms from the camp at Tyshow. It was a day I won’t forget. It was 19 July 1944, the day of the attempted assassination of Hitler. We were then marched up this road. The guards provoked by their commander then started to prod and stab us with their bayonets forcing us to run. The dogs were also set on us. The guard with me, Ron & Reg said he had been a POW in the last war and did not agree with this and we’d be alright if we stayed together and do not try to escape. The guards were then withdrawn. It was then we noticed machine guns in the woods on the side of the road. Passing the word down the line that no one was to break and run. There were also cameras to record the ‘escaping’ POWs who would then have been shot attempting to escape. This event called ‘The Run’ became a recognised war atrocity. We then had to enter a clearing, there was no camp and guards had been positioned either side of the entrance to again attack us as we entered. The German commander who instigated it was later executed by the Russians.
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[italics] Site of “The Run” [/italics]
We left here in February 1945 for a march lasting three months with nothing to eat but what we could scavange [sic] from the countryside, potatoes etc. It was during the last week of the war that the barns we were in were attacked by Typhoon fighters of the RAF. Reg who was sleeping next to me in a barn died
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instantly along with one other man and a large number were wounded, the barn being set on fire.
The end of the war came for me on 2 May 1945 when we were freed by the 6th Airborne division at Luttow.
The POW camps I was incarcerated during the war were as follows.
Dulag Luft 2 weeks
Stalag Luft 1. March 1941 – April 1942
Stalag Luft ꞮꞮꞮ April 1942 – October 1942
Stalag Luft VꞮ (Hydekrug) October 1942 – 14 July 1944
Stalag Luft 1V (Tyshow) 19 July – 7th February 1945
I wish to let you know that if you read the following books in my possession these will give you a very good idea of life as a POW
[italics] Not All Glory [/italics] by Vic Gammon who I knew and before his death lived in Tunbridge Wells.
[italics] The Last Escape [/italics] and chapters 1, 5, 11, 12 refer very much to what I went through at this time.
[italics] Of Ploughs, Planes and Palliasses [/italics] by Percy Wilson Carruthers.
These books cover the events described above in far more detail than can be afforded here.
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[italics] Red Cross Map dated 30th June 1944 showing POW camps [/italics]
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On the 9th May V.E. day we were flown back to the United Kingdom in a Lancaster attiring at Dunsfold Aerodrome. A trainload of Ex-Kriegies were taken by a special train to Cosford and received a great welcome together with a super meal and the next day a medical kited [sic] out and sent home if one was O.K.
After about two weeks on leave went back to Cosford for a full medical and was then offered by the R.A.F. the following options 1. An immediate discharge 2. To carry on serving in the R.A.F. Until your demob group number came or 3 to go to a resettlement centre so as to reorienate oneself back into life again. This I accepted and went to a country house near Rugby for 3 months for a nice easy loaf [sic] doing nothing except seeing wartime news reels films, social events and generally having a nice time. In October 1945 I took my discharge from the airforce although my leave pay was not to cease until January 1946. I rejoined the Ashdown Company on their fruit farms however during the War they had bought 2000 acres of land in the I.O.W. and on one farm found some lovely deep soil so I was asked to go there and set up a fruit nursery bringing on raspberry canes, apple trees etc.
The Company helped me commute between Sussex and the I.O.W and gave me a motor cycle which I really enjoyed using, there was very little traffic on the roads in those days. To help me run and set up the nursery I had 7 German prisoners of war working for me, I carried on working there for a year and in February 1947 I saw an advert for the Colonial Police to serve in Northern Rhodesia.
I sent for an application form which I completed and sent off. Heard nothing more for about 6 weeks when I received a letter to attend for an interview in London.
The interview went well and was sent immediately to Harley Street for a medical and about August was told to attend No4 District Police Training School, Eynsham Hall, Whitney [sic] for a Police training course prior to going to N.R. Whilst on this course I broke my wrist whilst playing basket ball so was held back in England until my wrist healed. I eventually sailed for Africa in May 1948 and it was on this ship that I met your Mother. We were partnered in a deck quoits game. Little did I know that she had seen me the night before drunk with my mates in a half empty swimming pool, while the roll of the ship sent the water from one end of the pool up to the other where we were sitting.
My first posting on arrival in N.R. was to Livingstone. However on getting married some eight months later, as there was no married accommodation there we were transferred to Kasama, in the Northern Province a very good move. We went on our first leave to the U.K. in 1951.
On our return from leave I had by know [sic] been confirmed on a permanent and pension able basis I took over a rural station Kawambwa and was there for 18 months when I was transferred to Lusaka on Special Branch duties in Force H.Q. After 6 months I went back to Kasama this time as .D.C.I.O. Northern Division. By now my rank was Senior Inspector so on my next leave in 1955 I had to attend a Senior Detectives Officers course held in Wakefield by the West Riding Police. Apparently I did well on this course as shortly after my return I was promoted to Assistant Superintendent and took over the post of D.C.I.O. Lusaka having by this time passed all qualifying exams. Four years later I received my promotion to Superintendent and in 1964 on N.R gaining independence as Zambia became a Senior Superintendent finally retiring in 1967.
In Northern Rhodesia I was posted and served in the following areas
Livingstone 1948, Kasama 19491951 Kawambwa 1951 – 1952. Force H.Q. 1953 6 Months only Kasama 1954 – 1955. Lusaka C.I.D. 1955 – 1957 Kitwe 1958 C.I.D. Lusaka 1959 – 1964 and finally Force H.Q.C.I.D. as Senior Superintendent as 2 I/C.
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Lusaka Police HQ
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Receiving The Colonial Police Medal (CPM)
I would now like to write about three different cases that I dealt with in my Service in Northern Rhodesia. The first case was in 1950 and I can still remember this so well.
As I consider the person I dealt with was the most evil man I have ever seen.
During that year I read and heard about a most brutal murder that had occurred in Bulawayo in which an elderly white prospector had been murdered and his body stuffed in a 44 gallon petrol drum and that the murdered mans servant who was suspected of the murder had disappeared. In due course the B.S.A.P. contacted me in Kasama informing me that the servant came from the Mpika District and could we institute an immediate check and if found arrest.
I sent two African Constables to Mpika but they returned within the week saying they were unable to find the man. As information from Bulawayo insisted that the accused person was still in his village I contacted Gordon Tredwell the Mpika District Commissioner and he agreed that with the Police Constables should go two District Messengers who would know the area well. However they returned saying that there was no trace of him. Still information showed that the accused was living in the area so I decided to go. I went to Mpika with a couple of African Police, stayed overnight in Mpika and set out at first light by bicycle as the village was off any motor road.
As I entered the village I saw an African combing his hair I stopped and asked him if he had seen the man I was looking for. His reply was Bwana he just left the village pointing to a path going in the opposite direction. For some reason perhaps sixth sense I grabbed hold of the man’s right hand and saw immediately the top of his index finger was missing. This was exactly what I was looking for and I knew I had the right man I arrested him for the murder of the old prospector and took him to Kasama and locked him up until the B.S.A.P. escort arrived with the arrest warrant from Bulawayo. During the time he was in our Police cells the African police would not go near him this man’s eyes who I can still picture now radiated pure evil. The Africans considered this man to be evil and bewitched. However he was duly dispatched to Bulawayo and appeared before the High Court, was found guilty of murder and hung..
The second case deals with the mess some people make of their lives and the effect this may have on families. I first came into the picture I think it would have been about 1959. One evening I was called to attend a shooting in the Lusaka Hotel in Cairo Road. A man had been shot whilst kissing a woman in a telephone booth in the hotel foyer. The victim who had been shot in the back was removed to hospital, and the person who carried out the shooting had been apprehended immediately. I formally arrested and took him to Lusaka Police Station, and charged him with the attempted murder of a man called Richardson. He made a complete confession which shows what can happen to anyone when driven to it by family circumstances.
He gave me a complete run down of what led him to carry out this dreadful act which could have easily been a murder charge. He had come home that evening from the Copperbelt where he had been selling tyres. He was a tyre salesman and found his house in complete darkness, all lights were off the electricity bill not having been paid and his two young children alone in the house. He knew that his wife had been carrying on with a man called Richardson so in a complete rage he picked up a .22 rifle which he had only purchased the previous week and went looking for the couple and eventually found them in a clinch in a telephone booth in the hotel foyer. He fired at Richardson hitting him in the back
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and seriously wounding him. I feel the interesting points about the case are what happened to all the parties involved. The accused was sentenced to 18 months in prison for attempted murder, the wife went back to her home in Durban taking the two children and was killed a year later in a motor accident. Richardson was sent back to England to Stoke Mandeville Hospital as he was now paralysed for life from the waist down. About two years later whilst in hospital in England he asked to see a police officer and Clive Blackwell who was at the time on leave interviewed him: Richardson made a confession to a train robbery in which a mail bag containing about £5,000 in used notes had been stolen. He was the engine driver of the train but after stolen the bag of money had panicked and burnt the lot in the engines firebox. In view of his state of health and the cost of bringing him to trial in Northern Rhodesia he was never prosecuted for the theft..
The final story I will deal with is the case of to my mind a remarkable African called Martin Nondo, He was a Bemba from the village of Bwembya in Chief Mwamba District in the Kasama District. His father had for many years been cook to Supt. Brodie who in the 30’s and 40’s had been in charge of the C.I.D. in N.R. He left school having only had a primary school education, and soon after leaving school took up a life of crime. Over a period of some six or seven years had amassed about 12 to 14 years in prison in both Southern and Northern Rhodesia for burglary, car thefts and prison escapes. He loved cars particularly Rovers. At one time we also had Wolseleys. He also said he could out pace the police cars any day and he did give the traffic police a run for their money. He was also a daring escapee from prison. On one occasion having escaped one night from the Central Prison, Lusaka I was called out and with a large body of Police was looking for him in the Ridgeway area of Lusaka. He had attempted to burgle the Hospital Sisters’ quarters that evening. He was caught several days later and when I spoke to him saying where were you hiding in the Ridgeway he said he saw me and I had passed within two or three feet of him. He was standing up against a tree and being a black man has its advantages as one cannot been seen easily. To sum up it was finally decided in I think 1961 that Martin would serve all his sentences in the maximum security prison in Salisbury. Once again and this upset the B.S.A.P. he escaped. Nothing more was heard from him for the next five years although I had heard rumors [sic] that he had left N.R. and gone north. One day in 1966 after Ian Smith had declared U.D.I. I had a phone call from the British High Commission that Martin Nondo was returning to N.R. and would be arriving on a plane from Dar Salaam landing at Ndola. I drove to Ndola with my chief detective Inspector Kabage who also knew him well from the past. To our surprise he suddenly appeared wearing the uniform of a Major General of the Bulgarian Army and in his luggage which he had not declared there was an A.K.47 and an automatic pistol. On the butt of the pistol inscribed in Cyrillic on a silver plate the words [italics] To comrade Major General Chanda from the Bulgarian General Staff. [/italics] He at first denied being Martin Nondo but after taking him to a hotel for a beer and some sandwiches he admitted who he was and told us a rather remarkable story. Subsequently during the afternoon he was taken to Court and remanded in custody for the illegal importation of arms.
His story started from his escape. Reaching N.R. he contacted Kaunda’s party who then arranged for him to travel to Egypt and he was then taken on to Russia. The Russians soon recognized his potential and he received a full military training and that included three years in the Funze Military Academy in Moscow, which included visits to North Vietnam and West Africa etc. Unfortunately the Russians had miscalculated the situation then existing in Zambia. Nondo’s job was to take over the Zambian army, and the Vice President, at the time Kamanga, would take over from Kaunda. However in 1966 both the Army and the Police were still very much under the control of the expatriates and Kaunda having been forewarned of the situation gave orders for Nondo to be returned to prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence. Later that afternoon I drove Martin Nondo to Zambia’s maximum security prison in Kabwe and handed him over. What finally happened to him I know not but as he was to be a prime mover in attempting a coup against the Government I doubt that he will be free for many years.
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Collection
Citation
Douglas Waters, “Douglas Wilmott Waters CPM,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 13, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/35559.