A 'Long March' of Discovery: Zagan to Spremberg, January 2010
Title
A 'Long March' of Discovery: Zagan to Spremberg, January 2010
Description
Written by his daughter, the article details her research into her father's incarceration.
Creator
Date
2010-01
Temporal Coverage
Spatial Coverage
Language
Format
Four printed sheets
Publisher
Rights
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.
Contributor
Identifier
MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-610001,
MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-610002,
MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-610003,
MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-610004
MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-610002,
MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-610003,
MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-610004
Transcription
A ‘LONG MARCH’ OF DISCOVERY:
ZAGAN TO SPREMBERG, JANUARY 2010
By Pat Jackson, daughter of PoW 24748 Charles ‘Hank’ Hancock
[underlined] Pre-amble [/underlined]
Three years ago, all I knew of my father’s WW2 experiences had been from a few half-finished sentences before the subject was swiftly closed. Recently I discovered his Kriegie Logbook and dog-tag in an old document box, leading me to want to learn more. Since then I’ve puzzled over old photographs and records, researched the internet, found out-of-print paperbacks on Amazon and have also visited the National Archives at Kew and the RAF Museum at Hendon. I’ve seen for myself the bleak field in Driezum, North Holland, where his Whitley bomber crashed to earth. The journey has been full of surprises, with many new friends made along the way.
Above all, I’ve miraculously met three sainted Kriegies (Peter Donaldson, Cal Younger and Alfie Fripp) who actually travelled alongside my father, as he was transported from stalag to stalag on his very own version of a Cook’s Tour of Europe 1942-45. Peter, Cal and Alfie have all given me their first-hand stories – the stories that my father could not find the words to tell me.
So, thanks to Peter, Cal and Alfie, and especially from discovering Peter’s book [italics]’From Heligoland to Heaven’ [/italics] and Cal’s book [italics] ’No Flight from the Cage’ [/italics] (where my father’s name is mentioned more than once), I’ve found many answers.
I’ve learnt that his RAF career started in 1930 as a 16-year old Boy Entrant (a ‘Trenchard Brat’, along with his old brat pal Alfie Fripp). I’ve also learnt that, like Peter Donaldson, he [deleted] trained [/deleted] as an Observer/Navigator [inserted] , [/inserted] [deleted] with 77 Squadron of Bomber Command [/deleted] [inserted] dad with 77 Sq. [/inserted], flying Whitleys from RAF Leeming [deleted] first dropping leaflets, then dropping nickel ‘window’ and finally dropping bombs. [/deleted] [inserted] X [/inserted] Shot down over Holland in February 1942 by a German nightfighter, when returning from a bombing raid on Wilhelmshaven dockyards, he was the only survivor out of the crew of five. He was soon captured and his three-year career as a Kriegie thus began.
One day I peeled back a sunny photograph of my mother and me in his Logbook – to see the chilling swastika stamp of the Stalag Luft 3 Censor on the reverse. It was a shock, but I later confirmed that he had indeed been held in Stalag Luft 3 (then Sagan, south east Germany) for over a year until the Stalag Luft 3 NCOs were transported to Stalag Luft 6 Heydekrug, East Prussia (now Lithuania) in late 1943.
When the opportunity to visit Stalag Luft 3 (now Zagan, south west Poland) came out of the blue in January 2010, I jumped at it. I was invited to join a small group of distinguished members of the RAF Ex-POW Association, who in turn were accompanied by a large group of 100 enthusiastic RAF servicemen and women of all ranks (along with 18 young ATC Cadets and Combined Force Cadets) who were on a team-building exercise. Their objective was to emulate the forced ‘death march’ – the infamous Long March of the Kriegies in the depth of
[page break]
the bitter winter of 1945 – from Sagan to Spremberg railway station, covering 60 miles in five days.
The veteran Kriegies comprised Charles Clarke, Eric Foinette, Andy Wiseman and Cal Younger. Charles, Eric and Andy had all three struggled as participants of the Long March of 1945. RAAF veteran Cal Younger had meanwhile been transported from Stalag Luft 3 to Stalag Luft 6 in 1943 and then to the infamous Stalag 357 Fallingbostel in 1944, from where he too was forced out on a similarly long, but fruitless march in that bitter 1945 winter.
As first-hand witnesses to those gruelling events, all four veterans provided inspiration and encouragement through their reminiscences. [inserted] [deleted] , at question and answer sessions [/deleted] [/inserted]
We knew we had arrived at Stalag Luft 3 when a full-sized replica ‘goon box’ watchtower loomed into view. Its threatening outline gave a shiver of recognition for all that it had once represented. We next saw part of the original barbed wire fence, still standing. We walked along the markers depicting the route of Tunnel Harry, from which the 76 made their doomed ‘Great Escape’ in March 1944. We then toured the replica of Hut 104, constructed two years previously, from where Tunnel Harry had started. Finally, we viewed evocative mementos in the Stalag Luft 3 Museum, such as a dried milk ‘KLIM’ tin, assorted bent cutlery and cracked crockery, tattered home-made playing cards and odd chess pieces.
A memorial service, with two minutes’ silence, then followed in the chill morning air.
[underlined] Marching Out [/underlined]
As with the Long March in 1945, the march of 2010 started at Stalag Luft 3. [deleted] Indecipherable word [/deleted] [inserted] 3. [deleted] Indecipherable word [/deleted] [underlined] XIB [/underlined] [/inserted] It was a moving moment to see the young servicemen and women, and the even-younger cadets, form into a column, three abreast, ready to receive their marching orders. The temperature was minus 25 degrees Celsius, with occasional snow flurries.
Suddenly, they were off! Wearing weatherproof boots, thick socks and waterproof clothing, protected by a safety vehicle fore and aft, they set off at a brisk pace (some of the older ones said it was a little too brisk, but young pride was at stake). The Kriegies, with nothing whatsoever to prove, followed in a warm minivan, sharing their memories along the way.
There were brief stopovers along the way. First we were welcomed at the Ilowa Secondary School, [deleted] the Szkola Postawowa, with its special links with the Royal Air Force. [/deleted] Unfortunately, the school was on holiday that day, but we were given generous hospitality by the teachers, who proudly showed us round their orderly classrooms before we continued our way through the Polish villages of Borowe, Gozdnica, Przewóz, Potok and Leknica over the next days, stopping at the church of ? and pausing to pay our respects at the memorial marker at ?.
At the end of each day the marchers slept on camp beds in basic accommodation, having first enjoyed a hearty meal prepared by the field kitchen chefs. That said, it wasn’t all beer and skittles, as the blistered and bandaged feet testified.
One memorable night they slept in a draughty barn at Lipna, which had originally sheltered some of the Long March Kriegies. This gave the young marchers a raw authenticity – even to
[page break]
the extent of waking up next morning with snow on their sleeping bags. But morale was soaring, along with the pride, humour and camaraderie that comes with the feeling of a job well done.
Endless pitch-black pine forests passed us by on either side of long straight roads towards distant horizons. Surprisingly, few people were seen and, apart from the occasional garage ‘sklep’, there appeared to be no shops, post offices, banks or supermarkets. The flat Silesian countryside looked hardly touched. Having been part of Hitler’s defeated Germany until 1945, then part of the failed USSR for 40 years or more, finally belonging to a free Poland within the European Union comparatively recently, the area had suffered many years of war, deprivation and maladministration.
On the penultimate day we briefly toured one of the key 1945 resting places – the spacious country house at Bad Muskau, viewing the self-same stables in which Andy Wiseman had once sheltered as a young man. Crossing the River Oder, we finally arrived at Spremberg – a smart little German town, previously part of communist East Germany, infinitely more prosperous than anything we had just seen in Poland.
In 1945, the straggling column of some 10,000 Kriegies endured freezing temperatures, suffering frostbitten fingers and toes. Most found shelter at night in draughty farm buildings, but many didn’t. It is estimated that over 300 Kriegies lost their lives along the way, falling where they stood, too weak to continue. Their German guards were anxious to make haste to Spremberg, in order to escape expected reprisals from the feared Russians – notorious for their ill-disciplined soldiers bent on indiscriminate murder, rape and pillage. The Russians were rapidly advancing from the east. The German war machine was crumbling by the day. The allies were advancing from the west. The end of the war was only a matter of weeks.
[underlined] Marching In [/underlined]
Five days later, we were at Spremberg railway station – a desolate building. There was a biting cold wind and snow was falling gently. The waiting Band of the Royal Air Force struck up the vibrant ‘March of the Royal Air Force’ as the proud marching column, young and old now together as one, rounded the final corner. Led by the distinguished Kriegies Charles Clarke, Eric Foinette, Andy Wiseman and Cal Younger, they marched steadily up the icy gradient to the railway station. Eric Foinette, who had just celebrated his 95th birthday, was wearing the self-same great-coat he wore for the long march of 1945 (see picture). It was an emotional moment for the friends and bystanders, speechless and with tears welling.
Following together in the rear, marching to honour of their respective fathers, Frank Day and Ted Nestor, were Michael Day (with his Union Jack standard aloft) and Sharon Nestor Cottam. Their Stalag Luft 3 fathers had been compatriots on that same Long March of 1945.
We then assembled for prayers and a memorial service, opening with ‘Abide with Me’, creating yet another emotional moment. Wreaths were then laid in turn, as the band played the measured tones of Grieg’s Nimrod. After the haunting ‘Last Post’ followed by the proud National Anthem, the band played, of course, the upbeat theme from ‘The Great Escape’ film, for us to wipe away tears, smile once more and raise spirits as group photographs were taken.
[page break]
It was beyond uplifting to see the joy and optimism of the bright young generation of 2010, as they posed alongside the gallant Kriegies.
This experience gave me but a small insight of my father’s suffering as a Kriegie – the suffering he never spoke about. It was a privilege to know more of the brave spirit of the Kriegies, who had stoically endured their incarceration and then had to survive the hideous death marches of 1945.
[underlined] Dining In [/underlined]
We all spent our last night wildly celebrating in the great dining hall of Kliczkow Castle, which had once been requisitioned by Luftwaffe leader Herman Göring as his ‘hunting lodge’. How supremely ironic could that be? Now a tourist hotel and, appropriately, a part of Poland, it made a fitting highlight to a week of emotional highs and lows. For me, the journey was over. Yet another leg of my own personal ‘Long March’ of discovery had been completed.
[Photograph]
The 100 servicemen and women and young cadets, led by Sgt Neil Galloway (second from right) in 2010
[Photograph]
The column of 10,000 Kriegies make progress towards Spremberg railway station in 1945
[Photograph]
With snow flurries, the Kriegie veterans march up the icy gradient to reach Spremberg railway station on the final day. Charles Clarke centre, Andy Wiseman on right, followed by Eric Foinette (wearing his original Long March great-coat) centre on second row, with Cal Younger, as usual, hiding his light under a bushel [inserted] in the shape of Charles . . . . [/inserted]
[Photograph]
Job done! All smiles at Spremberg railway station, the happy group poses with the four Kriegie veterans, centre, accompanied by Joe Dutton [deleted] of the RAF Association [/deleted]
ZAGAN TO SPREMBERG, JANUARY 2010
By Pat Jackson, daughter of PoW 24748 Charles ‘Hank’ Hancock
[underlined] Pre-amble [/underlined]
Three years ago, all I knew of my father’s WW2 experiences had been from a few half-finished sentences before the subject was swiftly closed. Recently I discovered his Kriegie Logbook and dog-tag in an old document box, leading me to want to learn more. Since then I’ve puzzled over old photographs and records, researched the internet, found out-of-print paperbacks on Amazon and have also visited the National Archives at Kew and the RAF Museum at Hendon. I’ve seen for myself the bleak field in Driezum, North Holland, where his Whitley bomber crashed to earth. The journey has been full of surprises, with many new friends made along the way.
Above all, I’ve miraculously met three sainted Kriegies (Peter Donaldson, Cal Younger and Alfie Fripp) who actually travelled alongside my father, as he was transported from stalag to stalag on his very own version of a Cook’s Tour of Europe 1942-45. Peter, Cal and Alfie have all given me their first-hand stories – the stories that my father could not find the words to tell me.
So, thanks to Peter, Cal and Alfie, and especially from discovering Peter’s book [italics]’From Heligoland to Heaven’ [/italics] and Cal’s book [italics] ’No Flight from the Cage’ [/italics] (where my father’s name is mentioned more than once), I’ve found many answers.
I’ve learnt that his RAF career started in 1930 as a 16-year old Boy Entrant (a ‘Trenchard Brat’, along with his old brat pal Alfie Fripp). I’ve also learnt that, like Peter Donaldson, he [deleted] trained [/deleted] as an Observer/Navigator [inserted] , [/inserted] [deleted] with 77 Squadron of Bomber Command [/deleted] [inserted] dad with 77 Sq. [/inserted], flying Whitleys from RAF Leeming [deleted] first dropping leaflets, then dropping nickel ‘window’ and finally dropping bombs. [/deleted] [inserted] X [/inserted] Shot down over Holland in February 1942 by a German nightfighter, when returning from a bombing raid on Wilhelmshaven dockyards, he was the only survivor out of the crew of five. He was soon captured and his three-year career as a Kriegie thus began.
One day I peeled back a sunny photograph of my mother and me in his Logbook – to see the chilling swastika stamp of the Stalag Luft 3 Censor on the reverse. It was a shock, but I later confirmed that he had indeed been held in Stalag Luft 3 (then Sagan, south east Germany) for over a year until the Stalag Luft 3 NCOs were transported to Stalag Luft 6 Heydekrug, East Prussia (now Lithuania) in late 1943.
When the opportunity to visit Stalag Luft 3 (now Zagan, south west Poland) came out of the blue in January 2010, I jumped at it. I was invited to join a small group of distinguished members of the RAF Ex-POW Association, who in turn were accompanied by a large group of 100 enthusiastic RAF servicemen and women of all ranks (along with 18 young ATC Cadets and Combined Force Cadets) who were on a team-building exercise. Their objective was to emulate the forced ‘death march’ – the infamous Long March of the Kriegies in the depth of
[page break]
the bitter winter of 1945 – from Sagan to Spremberg railway station, covering 60 miles in five days.
The veteran Kriegies comprised Charles Clarke, Eric Foinette, Andy Wiseman and Cal Younger. Charles, Eric and Andy had all three struggled as participants of the Long March of 1945. RAAF veteran Cal Younger had meanwhile been transported from Stalag Luft 3 to Stalag Luft 6 in 1943 and then to the infamous Stalag 357 Fallingbostel in 1944, from where he too was forced out on a similarly long, but fruitless march in that bitter 1945 winter.
As first-hand witnesses to those gruelling events, all four veterans provided inspiration and encouragement through their reminiscences. [inserted] [deleted] , at question and answer sessions [/deleted] [/inserted]
We knew we had arrived at Stalag Luft 3 when a full-sized replica ‘goon box’ watchtower loomed into view. Its threatening outline gave a shiver of recognition for all that it had once represented. We next saw part of the original barbed wire fence, still standing. We walked along the markers depicting the route of Tunnel Harry, from which the 76 made their doomed ‘Great Escape’ in March 1944. We then toured the replica of Hut 104, constructed two years previously, from where Tunnel Harry had started. Finally, we viewed evocative mementos in the Stalag Luft 3 Museum, such as a dried milk ‘KLIM’ tin, assorted bent cutlery and cracked crockery, tattered home-made playing cards and odd chess pieces.
A memorial service, with two minutes’ silence, then followed in the chill morning air.
[underlined] Marching Out [/underlined]
As with the Long March in 1945, the march of 2010 started at Stalag Luft 3. [deleted] Indecipherable word [/deleted] [inserted] 3. [deleted] Indecipherable word [/deleted] [underlined] XIB [/underlined] [/inserted] It was a moving moment to see the young servicemen and women, and the even-younger cadets, form into a column, three abreast, ready to receive their marching orders. The temperature was minus 25 degrees Celsius, with occasional snow flurries.
Suddenly, they were off! Wearing weatherproof boots, thick socks and waterproof clothing, protected by a safety vehicle fore and aft, they set off at a brisk pace (some of the older ones said it was a little too brisk, but young pride was at stake). The Kriegies, with nothing whatsoever to prove, followed in a warm minivan, sharing their memories along the way.
There were brief stopovers along the way. First we were welcomed at the Ilowa Secondary School, [deleted] the Szkola Postawowa, with its special links with the Royal Air Force. [/deleted] Unfortunately, the school was on holiday that day, but we were given generous hospitality by the teachers, who proudly showed us round their orderly classrooms before we continued our way through the Polish villages of Borowe, Gozdnica, Przewóz, Potok and Leknica over the next days, stopping at the church of ? and pausing to pay our respects at the memorial marker at ?.
At the end of each day the marchers slept on camp beds in basic accommodation, having first enjoyed a hearty meal prepared by the field kitchen chefs. That said, it wasn’t all beer and skittles, as the blistered and bandaged feet testified.
One memorable night they slept in a draughty barn at Lipna, which had originally sheltered some of the Long March Kriegies. This gave the young marchers a raw authenticity – even to
[page break]
the extent of waking up next morning with snow on their sleeping bags. But morale was soaring, along with the pride, humour and camaraderie that comes with the feeling of a job well done.
Endless pitch-black pine forests passed us by on either side of long straight roads towards distant horizons. Surprisingly, few people were seen and, apart from the occasional garage ‘sklep’, there appeared to be no shops, post offices, banks or supermarkets. The flat Silesian countryside looked hardly touched. Having been part of Hitler’s defeated Germany until 1945, then part of the failed USSR for 40 years or more, finally belonging to a free Poland within the European Union comparatively recently, the area had suffered many years of war, deprivation and maladministration.
On the penultimate day we briefly toured one of the key 1945 resting places – the spacious country house at Bad Muskau, viewing the self-same stables in which Andy Wiseman had once sheltered as a young man. Crossing the River Oder, we finally arrived at Spremberg – a smart little German town, previously part of communist East Germany, infinitely more prosperous than anything we had just seen in Poland.
In 1945, the straggling column of some 10,000 Kriegies endured freezing temperatures, suffering frostbitten fingers and toes. Most found shelter at night in draughty farm buildings, but many didn’t. It is estimated that over 300 Kriegies lost their lives along the way, falling where they stood, too weak to continue. Their German guards were anxious to make haste to Spremberg, in order to escape expected reprisals from the feared Russians – notorious for their ill-disciplined soldiers bent on indiscriminate murder, rape and pillage. The Russians were rapidly advancing from the east. The German war machine was crumbling by the day. The allies were advancing from the west. The end of the war was only a matter of weeks.
[underlined] Marching In [/underlined]
Five days later, we were at Spremberg railway station – a desolate building. There was a biting cold wind and snow was falling gently. The waiting Band of the Royal Air Force struck up the vibrant ‘March of the Royal Air Force’ as the proud marching column, young and old now together as one, rounded the final corner. Led by the distinguished Kriegies Charles Clarke, Eric Foinette, Andy Wiseman and Cal Younger, they marched steadily up the icy gradient to the railway station. Eric Foinette, who had just celebrated his 95th birthday, was wearing the self-same great-coat he wore for the long march of 1945 (see picture). It was an emotional moment for the friends and bystanders, speechless and with tears welling.
Following together in the rear, marching to honour of their respective fathers, Frank Day and Ted Nestor, were Michael Day (with his Union Jack standard aloft) and Sharon Nestor Cottam. Their Stalag Luft 3 fathers had been compatriots on that same Long March of 1945.
We then assembled for prayers and a memorial service, opening with ‘Abide with Me’, creating yet another emotional moment. Wreaths were then laid in turn, as the band played the measured tones of Grieg’s Nimrod. After the haunting ‘Last Post’ followed by the proud National Anthem, the band played, of course, the upbeat theme from ‘The Great Escape’ film, for us to wipe away tears, smile once more and raise spirits as group photographs were taken.
[page break]
It was beyond uplifting to see the joy and optimism of the bright young generation of 2010, as they posed alongside the gallant Kriegies.
This experience gave me but a small insight of my father’s suffering as a Kriegie – the suffering he never spoke about. It was a privilege to know more of the brave spirit of the Kriegies, who had stoically endured their incarceration and then had to survive the hideous death marches of 1945.
[underlined] Dining In [/underlined]
We all spent our last night wildly celebrating in the great dining hall of Kliczkow Castle, which had once been requisitioned by Luftwaffe leader Herman Göring as his ‘hunting lodge’. How supremely ironic could that be? Now a tourist hotel and, appropriately, a part of Poland, it made a fitting highlight to a week of emotional highs and lows. For me, the journey was over. Yet another leg of my own personal ‘Long March’ of discovery had been completed.
[Photograph]
The 100 servicemen and women and young cadets, led by Sgt Neil Galloway (second from right) in 2010
[Photograph]
The column of 10,000 Kriegies make progress towards Spremberg railway station in 1945
[Photograph]
With snow flurries, the Kriegie veterans march up the icy gradient to reach Spremberg railway station on the final day. Charles Clarke centre, Andy Wiseman on right, followed by Eric Foinette (wearing his original Long March great-coat) centre on second row, with Cal Younger, as usual, hiding his light under a bushel [inserted] in the shape of Charles . . . . [/inserted]
[Photograph]
Job done! All smiles at Spremberg railway station, the happy group poses with the four Kriegie veterans, centre, accompanied by Joe Dutton [deleted] of the RAF Association [/deleted]
Citation
Pat Jackson, “A 'Long March' of Discovery: Zagan to Spremberg, January 2010,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 13, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/40503.