Interview with Arthur Mace

Interview with Arthur Mace

Recalls his being shot down, being taken as a prisoner of war, and conditions at a prisoner of war camp.

01:01:52 audio recording

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AMaceHA[Date]-01

Interviewer: Ok. We’re ready to go again. Yeah. If you could sort of go from the sort of really the time on Whitleys.
AM: Yes.
Interviewer: Right through to being sort of caught and coming back home.
AM: Yeah.
Interviewer: That would be great because I’d just love to get the story before it, not being terrible but before it’s too late because once you’ve gone it’s gone.
AM: Yes. Yes. The Halifax did a lot of that type of work. Dropping of supplies.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: To the Resistance movement and so on. The Maquis as they were known but those special jobs they were a bit dicey to say the least.
Interviewer: Oh yes. Yeah.
AM: But it was all part of the game I suppose. I often think would I like to do it again? I don’t know. I think I would. You know, it’s one of those things that you just do it.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: You know, there’s a war on and that was the best way of doing it.
Interviewer: Yeah. You’ve got, you’ve got to get back at them somehow so that was the way that was offered to you so you went.
AM: Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: I had a very keen idea of going flying and you know I thought I would be like [pause] well an early wartime, First World War where they threw a leather jacket over their pyjamas.
Interviewer: [laughs] yeah.
AM: Dashed off, shot down a couple of Germans, went back and had their breakfast.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: It wasn’t quite like that.
Interviewer: No.
AM: I knew [General Flynn] clear things up for them in the Far East.
Interviewer: Singlehanded.
AM: Yeah.
[laughter]
AM: But yes. When I first got to the squadron and I was talking to one of the fellows there and he said, ‘Oh, you’re just joining the squadron.’ I said, ‘Yes. Yes. Got here at last.’ I said, ‘One good thing about this we get leave every six weeks instead of three months.’ ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘There’s only one snag.’ I said, ‘What’s that? Due to pressure of activities and so on?’ ‘No. No.’ He said, ‘The average they estimate of this squadron the average life expectancy is three weeks.’ So, if you’ve been here six weeks yes you can have some leave.’ I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a lot harder than I thought.’ But its, I was there ten months so it didn’t always work out that way and before that I’d been on daylight patrols picking out submarines in an old Whitley and they were not exactly top line aircraft. They were really a bit obsolete. But we used to do daylight. Go down to the Bay of Biscay, search for submarines. I had to send the weather report back but then the pilot would change course, take a different course altogether and say, ‘Ok, your forecast now.’ So I used to send a message back on the weather report which was largely used by the navigator. Various types of cloud and so on. I used to send the weather report. Having done that we would change course again before we finally got back on course. And no doubt the Germans knew what we were doing because they probably thought, ‘They’ve changed course here. They are broadcasting.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: We can watch them. That was alright but they never caught us. They did catch several fellows who were getting back. And they were supposed to be easy trips.
Interviewer: Oh right.
AM: But there are a lot of gravestones in a local churchyard when they brought back dead personnel and so on.
Interviewer: So the Whitley was, when was it sort of brought into service? In the late ‘20s. So that sort of period or —
AM: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Or the early ‘30s. Yeah.
AM: Yes. The average age I think for aircrew then was twenty two. So a lot were about eighteen, nineteen.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: Some who had joined up just before the war of course they got there early but the average age was about twenty two.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: And the losses [pause] I think there were fifty six thousand killed and what I remember of the figures I’ve read about since [pause - background noise] What I’ve read about it since they trained about a hundred and twenty odd thousand of which fifty six thousand were killed.
Interviewer: Good God.
AM: That’s without the missing.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: And severely wounded as well. And only, another one I was reading there was nine thousand prisoners which is not many after a hundred and twenty thousand trained.
Interviewer: No.
AM: And there again I was very lucky I was one. But there it seems when I found the aircraft after I was shot down stuck up a tree at first with a parachute waving out of the top. This was about eleven or twelve at night. I thought they must be able to see that for miles around. Nice white parachute up in a tree and me underneath it. And I dropped part of the way down. I couldn’t quite see the ground. What it was like. There could have been tree roots. Anything. So I then just released the parachute and dropped down that last ten feet in case I dropped on tree roots and suffered a broken leg.
Interviewer: Right.
AM: Or severe damage to my feet. But I decided in the end I’d get down and cut around from the top of this tree. I managed to drop the last little bit and I thought well nothing I can do now. One foot was damaged, I’d been hit in the shoulder and I thought I’d better get some sleep in. I’m in for a rough time tomorrow. So I laid down beneath a tree and went to sleep wrapped up in my flying kit of course. In March it was rather chilly.
Interviewer: I’ll bet.
AM: But I walked away from there and still nobody came. I’d got my compass only I didn’t know where I was at the time. It had been a very very heavy wind that night. It was reported a hundred and twenty mile an hour Jetstream down to twenty thousand feet which was rare. And of course we were right off course.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: I thought I was getting towards Holland instead of which most of the bombers came down scatter all over Germany including through the Ruhr Valley. Essen and those places. They were pretty hot. So they lost a lot coming home which annoyed me because I wasn’t harming anybody. I was going home to a nice meal there and I thought, I had visions of a nice warm bed and just a vision.
Interviewer: You just went along for the ride didn’t you?
AM: Yes.
Interviewer: On that particular trip.
AM: That’s right.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: Yes. I think really I was very very lucky because I’d had all these trips previously. Had some very close shaves coming back on three engines and landed away at in one case on a fighter ‘drome which wasn’t too easy with a Halifax. But we got over the coast, touched down. We made it. They refuelled us. Went back home in the morning.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: But on one occasion [pause] we used to drop what was known as Window.
Interviewer: Oh yes.
AM: Which was a silver foil.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: It mucked up the radar to say the least and then another of my jobs further out, every so many minutes. And when I looked down on the floor one night when we were over Germany, I don’t know why one of those bundles of Window had broken open. I bent down, cleared it all up, threw it out of a flare chute and I pulled the rip cord on my parachute. I thought oh now there’s a muddle. The parachute came out all over the place so I called up to the pilot and I said, ‘I’ve got some bad news for you.’ He said, ‘What’s that?’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I accidentally opened my parachute.’ He said, ‘Oh crikey. We’d better turn back.’ ‘No. No.’ I said, ‘Carry on because we had a good chance of being shot going back.
Interviewer: Oh yeah. Yeah.
AM: I said, ‘The big thing is don’t get shot down.’ He said, ‘Alright. I’ll remember that.’ He said, ‘If we do take my parachute.’ I said, ‘No. You’re surviving.’ We were over [the Hague] that night and in the end he said, ‘Alright, if we do if we do get shot down take mine.’ I said, ‘We’ll see if we do.’ And we continued and went all the way through to [unclear] and dropped our bombs and on the way back he said, ‘We might just make the coast.’ I thought oh yes. So one engine is packing up. So we went back on three. Still with no parachute. We drifted over the coast, landed on a fighter ‘drome, had a good meal with them and in the morning I was talking to one of the young fighter pilots, ‘Was it you in that aircraft last night?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Were you on the — ’ I forget where it was we were going now on this raid anyway and I said, ‘Yes, that was the one.’ He said, ‘Whose is the parachute all over the floor?’ I said, ‘Mine.’ He said, ‘When did that happen?’ I said, ‘Going out last night.’ ‘You were going out.’ He said, ‘I wouldn’t go on your job with it.’ [laughs] So, I said, ‘Well, where did you go then?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We landed over there, took photographs on reconnaissance, straight back and been to bed.’ I said, ‘Oh, we just got back.’ He said, ‘You were too slow.’ Yes I know.’ But anyway I rolled up my parachute, took it back, [unclear] we flew back to the base and went to the parachute section. There was a rule if you accidentally pulled the rip cord you paid them a half a crown for their kitty.
Interviewer: Oh right. Yeah.
AM: It was just one of these unwritten laws and I went in, bundled up under my arm. Parachute corporal came in. He said, ‘Hello sir, have we accidentally —’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Half a crown.’ I said, ‘It happened last night going out.’ He said, ‘Forget the half a crown. Cor,’ he said, ‘You earned that.’ He said, ‘You mean to say you’ve been there and back with virtually no parachute.’ I said, ‘Yeah. We were nearly over the target. We went there.’ ‘Oh well. Forget the half crown.’ He said, ‘I think we can say you’ve earned that.’ So I had, I had my half crown in my pocket which in those days was quite a bit of money.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: And he had the parachute and of course they did it and I suppose they, well how they’d folded them I don’t know. There seemed to be yards and yards.
Interviewer: Yeah. There was an awful lot of it. Double strings as well.
AM: That’s right.
Interviewer: Yeah. Oh yeah. The most lucky, lucky you had it on the night in question though.
AM: Hmmn?
Interviewer: I said it’s lucky you had it on the night in question. When you jumped.
AM: Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: Yes. That’s [unclear] of course. Another memory from another trip over Berlin. We’d been to Berlin and stayed over there taking photographs. The things they got us to do. We did these photographs and came off home. And then I told the pilot, ‘There’s a fighter about somewhere. I’ve just picked him up on the radar.’ So, ‘You gunners see anything?’ They said, ‘No. Can’t see a thing.’ But of course he was behind and underneath and the first thing I knew was a terrific upheaval of machine gun fire, cannon fire from the fighter and the aircraft just a complete furnace. The fuselage was just like looking down a blowlamp at the wrong end.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: And it [pause] I thought there is nothing I can do now but get out and the one fellow we took him there for experience, a pilot, it was a terrible experience. He got himself caught up somehow on his seat.
Interviewer: Oh right.
AM: And he was just shouting, ‘I can’t get out.’ Well, I tried to sort him out but you couldn’t do anything. He was pulling and tugging. So I grabbed the escape hatch and the engines by then were screaming. We went into full power mode. I just put my feet down, out through the hatch and I think I must have gone into a spin and it was, I was pressed into the side of the aircraft and couldn’t move. I had this really battering around the head and I’d been hit in the shoulder as I say and finally it blew up and I didn’t know anything else until it was lovely and quiet. This must be heaven. And I looked up and there was a parachute all open above me and it was such a relief. No sign of the aircraft. It had crashed already and I landed in these trees. In the morning I walked, well hobbled through the trees and down from the woods. One leg, foot I had to wrap up because I’d lost my flying boot. It was torn off. Not surprising. I went down to a little village on the Saturday morning. There were two little children in the village. I thought they might mistake me for one of their friends so of course I waved to them and one of them shouted, ‘Englander bomber.’ That was it. The game was up. The next thing I heard was a voice saying, ‘Englander. Englander Schweinhunt.’ I said, ‘I’m Englander. Yes.’ He didn’t speak any English. I didn’t speak any German to speak of but I did gather that he was shouting at me about being an aerial gangster and Luftwaffe murderer.
Interviewer: Dear oh dear.
AM: I took all this abuse from him until we got to the aircraft or what was left of it. There was one old German stood there near it. Big walrus moustache, a First World War German. He looked at me. The bodies of the crew all around except one. The navigator. He had already baled out and gone in the first instant. So he, the soldier said, ‘Comrades kapput.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he shook his head sadly and he said, ‘Englander bomber und Luftwaffe.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘[unclear],’ and ‘Brrr, Englander bomber. He indicated it was spinning and, ‘Feuer. Feuer.’ And he had apparently watched it all.
Interviewer: Oh right.
AM: I said, ‘Yes. I did have a close-up view.’ ‘Ich spreche kein Englisch.’ ‘You don’t speak English. I don’t speak German.’ ‘Nein.’ Just then some guards came up and he shut up straight away. But then there was a, well I think he was some local dignitary, came up with a car, got out and he spoke a little bit of English and he reached in his pocket. I thought oh the shooting starts now and he came up with a little flask. He said, ‘Schnapps?’ I said,‘Schnapps?’ ‘Yeah. Drink a bit.’ I said, ‘Oh, well, thank you very much. Danke schӧn.’ ‘Ya, good. Danke schӧn.’ So he wiped the top of his flask and gave it to me. So I took a swig of that. I didn’t, oh I daren’t let him see but it nearly choked me. That was, but he was very very pleasant. Chatty. He said, ‘Eisenach. Eisenach.’ ‘Oh yeah.’ And it was too. Lovely, lovely country. I said, ‘Eisenach. Yeah. Yeah.’ I said, ‘Wunderbar.’ And he was so pleased. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘Wunderbar.’ And then up on the hill was a castle. ‘In Deutschland [unclear]. I said, ‘Yeah. England castle.’ ‘Ahh, so England. Castle.’ [unclear] We were going great guns. You’d have thought he’d have given me a guided tour. And we went to the hospital and I was treated like a hero. My wound on my shoulder was attended to by a doctor and I said, ‘Is there anything in there?’ He spoke a bit of English. He said, ‘I can’t find anything. Maybe.’ So he said, ‘It will maybe come out or go around one day.’ I thought oh that’s nice. In came a nurse with a big bowl of soup and by that time I was lying on a bed and she said, ‘[unclear]’. I thought oh, ‘hungry’ I suppose. I said, ‘Yeah.’ [unclear] She said, ‘Yeah. Soup. It’s good.’ She gave me this bowl of soup and it was, I was very hungry but it was full of garlic and, but I managed a lot of it and when she came back she said, ‘Es ist gut?’ I said, ‘Yeah. Yeah. Finished.’ [unclear] she would say. ‘Yeah.’ So she said, ‘Oh well,’ and she went off with this bowl of soup, what was left and I thought well this is not too bad at all. I thought prisoners stood a very good chance of being shot on the spot. But later when I was picked up by the guards to go to the Interrogation Centre in Frankfurt it was rather a different story. I was slapped inside straightaway [unclear] in solitary and solitary it really was. Nothing to read. Nothing to do. Nothing to look at. Day and night all seemed the same. Then finally they sent for me and the interrogation started. I refused to talk. He said they’d send me to the Gestapo. I said, ‘Well, if you must you must.’ I said, ‘We’ll see when we get there,’ I said, ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘You can’t do that. I’m a military prisoner. The Gestapo is the secret police, I believe.’ ‘You forget you are in Germany.’ I said, ‘Well, yes. I had noticed it.’ But he said, ‘You will maybe have to go to the Gestapo.’ ‘No.’ I said, ‘You have already —’ I said, ‘I am under the Geneva Convention.’ ‘Just a minute. What is this Geneva Convention?’ I said, ‘You must report you have a prisoner with the name, rank and number.’ [pause] ‘No. I don’t think we know anything about this.’ I said, ‘Oh.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘You have reported me as a prisoner.’ ‘No.’ I thought, oh. ‘I wouldn’t be quite so cocky now about it. Nobody knows you’re here.’ So I said to him, ‘Well, how do I let anyone know?’ He said, ‘We have a Red Cross form.’ So I just filled in name, rank, number. Home Address. Squadron. And I said, ‘That’s it. Sorry. I’m not putting that in.’ He said, ‘You have to.’ I said, ‘I don’t have to and what’s more I’m not going to.’ I said, ‘That is the information which I can’t give you.’ ‘Right,’ he said, ‘You had an extra man in your crew last night so you could be mistaken for an agent.’ I said, ‘What? And landed in this state? [unclear] my face, wounded in my arm.’ I said, ‘I’ve got rips right through my clothing.’ I said, ‘I don’t think an agent would land like that do you?’ ‘Ah, but wait. Supposing he was an agent with you and your crew and you were going to drop him on the way back and you were shot down.’ So anyway, ‘Not really. Quite wrong.’ He said, ‘So, who was your squadron then?’ ‘I guess it’s up to you.’ I said, ‘You’ve got name, rank and number and that’s it.’ Then he lost his temper a bit. He said, ‘You are a typical stubborn Englishman’. I said, ‘Thank you very much.’ And he got really mad when I politely thanked him. So he said, ‘We must not lose our temper.’ I said, ‘No. I’m not.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Have a cigarette.’ Oh, I was dying for a smoke. I used to smoke in those days and he said, we were puffing at our cigarettes, ‘Now, we were saying your squadron.’ I said, ‘No. We were not.’ He said, ‘Finish your cigarette.’ And he called the guard, picked up his phone, called the guard. [unclear] He came in. ‘Back to the cells.’ And I was back in solitary. His parting shot, ‘Think it over. Until we establish your identity and your squadron you will be simply Mr Mace, agent. Think it over.’ Then the guard put me back in the cell. I was back in solitary for a day or two. Then one day the cell door opened. I looked up. A German guard stood there. He said, ‘Hey you’ve been battered about. How come? Do you need hospital treatment?’ I looked at him. I said, ‘Are you American?’ ‘Yep. I was.’ ‘But you’re over here now. Well,’ I said, ‘In that case no thanks.’ When I reached the prison camp what had happened he had lived in America for years but had never took out his [anti-alien] papers to become an American and he decided to pop over to Germany in 1938 with the war imminent and they grabbed him straight away. Put him in the Army via the German Luftwaffe and he was a guard in this Frankfurt jail. The worst tough luck. But he said that’s how he got there. I thought crikey. I was there and we used to have one bowl of watery soup and two rounds of almost black bread per day. That was it. I was so hungry. Very cold at night because the guard would come in and snatch my blanket away, bring it back in the morning. And I found a little piece of string under the mattress only about six inches long. I gave it a little tweak. That came out. I was busy tying it in knots and try to untie it again just to pass the time and the guard suddenly opened the door and came in, ‘Was ist das? Das ist verboten.’ That’s forbidden. And he snatched it away and I could have shot him. He’d taken my bit of string.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: Anyway, so I had nothing to pass the time. I finally went back to this interrogation. This officer said, ‘Oh, Flying Officer Mace, 78 Squadron.’ Well, I hope he didn’t see that I was shattered by it. I said, ‘Who?’ He said, ‘You heard me. I said Flying Officer Mace. Correct.’ I said, ‘Well, you’re right.’ He said, ‘78 Squadron.’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ I said, ‘I’ve heard of them. Yes.’ ‘That was your squadron and your Wing Commander Lawrence who has done forty trips and he’s got the DSO recently. Your adjutant is Flight Lieutenant [Brevice?] I said, ‘That’s all very interesting but you’ve got the wrong squadron.’ He said, ‘No. Don’t try it.’ He took out a book. He’d got the squadron history. I tried not to look too surprised. I so wanted to read it. He said, ‘Look on the wall behind you.’ And there was a whole map covering the wall, of every squadron, every training station, every RAF camp in the Air Force all on this map. ‘Now, you were telling me you trained and let me see. I think yes. You would have gone to Blackpool and then you would go finally to a place called Yatesbury. He said, ‘And then there’s another one near there. Compton Bassett.’ I said, ‘Oh, yeah. That’s one. ‘No. They were not. They trained ground operators.’ I said, ‘Oh, I’ve heard of it anyway.’ I said, ‘I know it had something to do with it.’ And he told me every station. Where the squadron was, who they were and everywhere I’d been trained. But [unclear] I thought, I said, ‘You know you know so much so why question me?’ ‘I want confirmation.’ I said, ‘I’m sorry.’ He said, ‘Do you agree?’ I said, ‘I can read your map. Yes. All those stations are on there obviously.’ ‘Well, you were at those training stations.’ I said, ‘If you say so, yes.’ Oh good. Now, we found in the aircraft a sheet of log paper. You don’t carry the book for obvious reasons and you have on there every report that came in over the radio.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ ‘Well, you had, “Receiving interference.” ‘Yes. Just the usual thing. You just record everything.’ ‘Oh. I see. And what was this interference?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ I said, ‘I just know it was just making it difficult.’ ‘Well, perhaps you would like to tell me. Go back to your cell and think it over.’ Back I went for another couple of days. Brought back, I was banking on it. He’s been playing on that interference. I bet he wants to know if their jamming of our radio was effective. So he said, ‘Flying Officer Mace.’ ‘Yes sir.’ ‘I’m not going to say which squadron because you’ll only deny it. But we have here your squadron and one thing you can tell me. Just one and you are free to go. Can we strike a bargain?’ I said, ‘Not really. I don’t bargain with the enemy.’ ‘No.’ He said, ‘It’s just to know one simple question and then you’ll go to a prison camp and no more questions.’ A shot in the dark. I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Right. What was this interference you were receiving?’ I said, ‘Static.’ ‘Static?’ ‘Yes, you know [unclear] the usual crackle and hissing on the radio.’ ‘We weren’t jamming you.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘No. No,’ I said, ‘It didn’t stop me getting the messages. It was just damned annoying.’ ‘And that’s all you have to tell me?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, as I said before you are a typical stubborn Englishman.’ I said, ‘As I said before thanks very much.’ And then he burst out laughing. He got up from behind his desk, came around, put his arm around my shoulders and said, ‘I hope one day maybe we will meet again.’ I said, ‘Not here I hope.’ He said, ‘No. No. No. No’ He said, ‘One day maybe,’ he said, ‘You never know. But in the prison camp life will be much better.’ And then I was taken off. I thought at least I’m out of that and two fellas came up to escort me to the, to the prison camp and they were big, well-built fellas, black uniform, had I seem to remember skull and crossbones insignia on their cap and lightning stripes on the collar of their uniform. I thought, ‘Oh nice, fellas. Very smart.’ So they just said, ‘Come.’ And I went with them not that I had much choice. Went down to the railway station. When we got there I said, ‘Wasser.’ ‘Wasser? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.’ One of them stood with me. The other one went into the buffet, got me a glass of water, brought that out and I drank that. I said, ‘Wasser.’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘In. Back out.’ ‘Ah, yeah. Yeah. In Deutschland its toileten.’ I said, ‘Yeah. In English, toilet.’ ‘Yeah. Come.’ They took me to the toilet while I could still stand up. I was nearly doubled up. We went over there and they waited outside. And then I was sitting with them on a train. There was an old chap in the section between carriages and he saw me. He said, ‘Englander schweinhunt.’ One of the guards said, ‘Nein. Raus.’ And the old boy picked up, he was carrying an umbrella, he raised it above his head and this German guard had a revolver too. Just patted it. ‘Raus.’ And this old German said, ‘Heil Hitler.’ And he went off to one of the carriages. I thought oh, that would have been a right beating up but they, they were protecting me for some reason. There it was. When I got to the prison camp one of the fellows said, shook hands, ‘Were they your usual guards?’ I said, ‘Yes. Seemed quite pleasant fellows.’ I said, ‘Black uniform and unexpected.’ He said, ‘Do you know who you were with?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘God,’ he said, ‘Talk about ignorance is bliss. They were two SS troops. They would have been just as happy to shoot you.’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t.’ I said, ‘I went along with them. They were quite pleasant.’ One slip and that would have been it. [unclear] ‘Well,’ he said, ‘They are Hitler’s crack troops.’ So, it’s you and me for the strange people. Quite unintentionally I assure you.
Interviewer: Well, yes.
AM: But then eventually we were loaded up into cattle trucks. I seem to remember it was forty men or eight horses printed on the side and we were all bundled into there and going down there it rained in torrents and I was drenched as were all the other fellows being picked up. Put them on this train or the cattle track and there were two guards had a machine gun. They sat at one end. We had the other end to ourselves and I didn’t like having the machine gun pointed at me. But we behaved.
Interviewer: Yes.
AM: As one does but it was a very very miserable cold journey. Finally after three days and nights [coughs] excuse me, and we arrived on the train again —
Interviewer: Three days and nights on the train. Three days and nights on the train.
AM: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Were you really? Yeah.
AM: We had about oh a couple of miles I suppose and the water was running down the back.
Interviewer: Good God.
AM: Getting into that train and the chaps chucked some wood shavings and stuff on the floor inside this cattle truck and that was our bed. For all of us.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: And we had one [coughs] excuse me, one Red Cross parcel and a long length of German sausage. Three days rations for three men and I was still hungry. I could have cleared up that parcel myself.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: But the [pause] lots of garlic in the sausage but by then I didn’t mind. Anyways, we carried on there and the train if it pulled in they would say, ‘Toileten. Raus.’ And we had to jump out the side door of this cattle truck and down, way out in the country using the embankment as a toilet. Back in the truck. That was it until we got to the prison camp and I was almost relieved to hear the old gates behind us. They were shot, shut rather. We got inside, into the barbed wire, marched to our compound and then they turned us loose. ‘Sort yourselves out.’ And the food at first wasn’t too bad because we had Red Cross parcels came through and so we ate reasonably well. Did our own cooking. But as the war went on the food became scarce and until in the end by the winter it was bitterly cold up on the Baltic coast. Bitterly cold, no fuel, very little food. One day we had a bowl of swedes boiled. That was it for the day. Red Cross parcels had stopped and we lived on well virtually a bowl of watery soup, sometimes a bowl of swedes and a couple of rounds of this so-called black bread and that was it. No light. No fuel. No heating. Nothing. And in the wooden huts that was bitterly cold. At least you had a bed or one of the bunks. Well, it was living under [unclear].
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: You couldn’t see anything. You couldn’t read. There were no lights, no fuel, and it was a very very nasty experience.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: but we were relieved finally. The Russians came through. We heard their guns thundering away one morning and there wasn’t a prison guard on the camp. We were sent outside. The whole place was open. Please yourself what you do. They’d all gone. The Germans. So we came out and the guards from the Russians came in and they virtually made us prisoner because they said you will remain here until we have all of your identification and it must be translated then into Russian and then to Berlin. Someone said, ‘That’s right. We’re being held as hostages as just a time killer.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: But we survived that alright and then one day, well I suppose two or three days after the Russians came I said to one of the fellows, ‘Surely they must let us go soon.’ [unclear] and then our, the wing commander of our hut he was the officer of the hut and he called us into his room. He said, ‘Right. So the thing is this. The Allies are advancing this way but there’s a lot of dispute. They’ve hit Berlin and so have the Russians.’ That was the big argument. Who has Berlin. He said, ‘I’m rather afraid we might be held as hostages. So I’m going to get through in the morning and I would like two fellows to accompany me. I’m going to make my way through to the Allied lines. It’s a bit tricky. It can be done.’ So he said, ‘Any of you would like to join me?’ I stepped forward. He said, ‘Are there any others?’ [laughs]
Interviewer: [laughs] yeah.
AM: ‘Do any of you speak German? Lift your arms.’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Right. I’ll take you two.’ And they went through. They got to the Allied lines and they immediately said. ‘Tomorrow, 2 o’clock there will be Flying Fortresses landing with American crews on the local aerodrome which is a couple of miles away.’ So, they said, ‘You’ll have to march down there. The Russians won’t stop you.’ We just had to march down, and they marched down. ‘Take as little as you can manage. Souvenirs, very few but you’ll want some. You can take one or two things.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: ‘This camp will be for refugees so any clothing regardless of what it is leave it. That will be for them.’ We turned up. These fortresses landed one after the other, loaded us up on board and we were home. I saw the white cliffs of Dover and I saw the devastation right the way from the Baltic coast on the borders of Poland which I believe is now in Poland but right from there, right down to, well almost into France complete devastation. Houses, whole cities almost destroyed and I thought it served them right. They shouldn’t have started it.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: But I was thoroughly interested in the white cliffs of Dover and it was a lovely sight.
Interviewer: I’ll bet.
AM: Back in England.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: And I’d had times when I thought I would never see it again because the night I was shot down was the night of the Great Escape when I think about seventy two prisoners broke out. I think it was Sagan and the, [pause] Stalag Luft 3 I think. They rounded them up gradually and shot them. Fifty of them. A dreadful thing. I mean to shoot prisoners in cold blood.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: They just took them out and shot them and that I believe was on the orders of Hitler.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: No prisoner could go back to the Allies but they were quite ruthless and there was one rumour going down the prisoner camp so we said, ‘All over bar the shooting.’ All happy little souls.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: That was the attitude.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: No. If so we had to take it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: But when the Germans were digging trenches just outside the wire of course we were curious on the inside of the wire looking through. One of them spoke German. He said, ‘Was ist das?’ He said, ‘Trench.’ ‘Yes I know.’ He said, ‘What’s that you got.’ It was a machine gun. ‘Here you go,’ he said. ‘Machine bom bom bom.’ I said, ‘I do know what they are. Why are they pointing this way?’ He said, ‘We are going to shoot you.’ He said, ‘Oh, that’s some nice news. Thanks very much.’ And then this German started laughing. ‘Nein. Nein.’ He said, ‘Parachute Englanders, American on parachute to relieve camp and we point guns at them.’ So he said, ‘As long as they are pointing them up that way.’
Interviewer: Well, yeah.
AM: ‘I don’t mind.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: And those laughed. Those with a sense of humour but he carried on digging his trench and the guns were pointing upwards.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: And we were quite relieved because they did have a habit of machine-gunning people but they, it was quite an experience. I don’t know. I sometimes wonder would I do it again. Yes, I think I would. I say that now. Too old to do it. But yes I can honestly say after I saw the Blitz on London and quite unnecessary bombing and they just thought they could get away with it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: But they didn’t.
Interviewer: Just got back and had a go at them.
AM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: But I was travelling through London one night at the time of the Blitz and on the Underground were all these people, local people had their beds down there or just their blankets. Some had a mattress in the underground tunnels.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: They had been given permission. ‘Keep clear from the line.’ But they could have the rest.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: And one little old cockney as I walked through he raised his head up on one arm and said, ‘You’re flying sir are you?’ ‘Yeah. Yes.’ ‘Well, next time you go over there just remember this won’t you.’ I said, ‘I will. I promise you.’ ‘Right. Good. All the best mate.’ And the next time we were over Germany I did remember it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: And my bomb aimer, the first time we went there we went to the three of the hottest targets in Germany. It was a nice initiation.
Interviewer: Oh yes.
AM: When they did that I got over the target and I thought yes I remember that old fellow. The old Cockney.
Interviewer: Yes.
AM: I will give them one for you.
Interviewer: Yeah.
AM: And the first three targets we did this bomb aimer of mine, he was a lovely fellow, afraid of nothing. He was on, we were on the target and he was calling out, ‘Left. Left. Steady. Steady. Right. Steady.’ He said back to me, but he said, ‘Steady. Steady [pause] Sort that lot out amongst you.’