Interview with Dixie Deans. Two

Interview with Dixie Deans. Two

Dixie Dean was shot down over the German/Dutch border and became a prisoner of war. He was elected as camp leader at the first prisoner of war camp which was a post he maintained at all further camps where he was held. He sent/received coded messages to/from the Air Ministry. He maintained morale and discipline within the camps. He embarked on the long march and negotiated Red Cross food parcels to be given to the prisoners on the march but while the men were sorting through these at the roadside they were attacked by British Typhoons with approximately sixty casualties.

00:59:12 audio recording

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ADeansJAG[Date]-030002

Interviewer: Mr Deans — reel 3.
DD: I had occasion to go to townships like Barth and [unclear] on medical treatment and was able to advise in the Escape Committee on possible approaches to escape. Possible approaches via these towns and what opportunities were available.
Interviewer: So you were really spying out the land in a way.
DD: Yes. I was able to see the other side of the wire so to speak.
Interviewer: What was the medical problem that you had?
DD: Well, I had to go to see a doctor about my eyes at that time and of course I got this multiple sclerosis which I didn’t know that I really was suffering from this even before I was shot down. I should never have been allowed to fly in an aircraft or even get in an aircraft had this been known before then. But there it was. It affected my eyes and [pause] mainly my eyes and so I had to, I think I once went in to the dentist at Barth in the local township as well as the opticians to see about eyes.
Interviewer: Were you satisfied with the medical attention which the Germans arranged for you?
DD: Oh yes. I had no complaint about it.
Interviewer: Coming back to the morale of the POWs did you either at Barth or in any other POW camp you were in find that any of the POWs became what we say is institutionalised in any way?
DD: Now, what would you define as being institutionalised?
Interviewer: Well, did they show signs of finding, of adapting to the fact that they were in a POW camp in any undesirable ways such as not wishing to show any initiative to get out of the camp or even wishing to remain in the camp. Being frightened of the outside world in any way.
DD: That I think is the thing which is within a man himself. I mean it’s not the sort of thing a man would come and discuss with me or anyone else. So I wouldn’t be aware of people who were like that. Don’t you agree?
Interviewer: Yes, but did you find by your own observations of other POWs that some of them didn’t show much keenness to make escape attempts?
DD: Well, that again is possibly [pause] I’m sure it’s a state of mind that some people were quite happy. Perhaps that’s a reflection of myself in that I made the camps too comfortable so people didn’t want to escape. Didn’t want to be bothered to escape.
Interviewer: Did any of the POWs ever look upon the escapers, the people who were keen on escaping as being a nuisance in any way?
DD: Oh yes. Yes indeed. There was quite a bit of feeling that way and they were a damned nuisance at times and that was freely expressed. They upset the whole routine of the camp because obviously when an escape attempt was made the Germans immediately clamped down and took away certain privileges.
Interviewer: What type of privileges would they take away?
DD: Well, for example the, occasionally we were allowed out in parties for walks in the local countryside and that was a privilege which they just stopped immediately if there was an attempt at escape.
Interviewer: Did this feeling that escapers were nuisances ever cause any bad feelings between escapers and non-escapers?
DD: Not really bad feelings. Just sort of vocal expressions of one’s disapproval that these people felt about these bloody escape people.
Interviewer: Did any, did any fights ever occur between POWs?
DD: There were very very few fights. People coming to blows. Even when there was justification for it. In fact, that was a thing that I felt was quite remarkable. How very seldom anyone ever came to blows.
Interviewer: What about stealing from one’s comrades?
DD: Again, it is almost, well it is almost unbelievable to think that there was nothing much at all. In fact, there was nothing really came to the surface of anything. Stealing. In fact, if there had been much in the way of stealing that obviously the other thing would have come in. There would have been fights as a result if somebody was found out.
Interviewer: In the British services you sometimes get rivalry between different units.
DD: Yeah.
Interviewer: Did you ever find rivalry between different blocks in the camps?
DD: Well, we had as much sporting activities as we could arrange. We had inter-block football matches and rugger matches and various competitions and that probably got that out of people’s systems. In fact, we were always having competitions between blocks and between rooms either of soccer or whatever was popular at the time.
Interviewer: Did people take a pride in their own block in the same way that people take a pride in their own unit in the RAF?
DD: Oh yes. Yes. Indeed. Yes. Yes. In fact, I can remember 2 Block and there was always quite a shout about which was the best block.
Interviewer: Was there ever any such thing as wearing badges or insignia to show which block you came from?
DD: No. It didn’t get down to that. No. No. You see they were paraded in blocks so that I think people felt that it was well enough known which block they belonged to.
Interviewer: Did the Germans treat POWs of the different nationalities exactly the same as each other or were there any differences?
DD: Well, I must say they tried. In fact, I insisted that they should whenever I saw any differentiation cropping up. We had one or two other nationalities. I think there were mainly Frenchmen working in the cookhouse at one stage and I know the Germans did try to differentiate and segregate these people as something below the normal and I insisted that they were POWs the same as everyone else and they should be treated equally.
Interviewer: Did the Germans agree to that?
DD: Yes. Yes. Verbally at least and generally speaking they did.
Interviewer: Did the Germans ever to your knowledge attempt to play on national differences within the United Kingdom like especially differences with the Irish?
DD: Or the Scots and the English. Not really. Mind you I think they realised they wouldn’t get away with it with me because A, I’m a Scot and the camp were mainly Englishmen.
Interviewer: So there was never any attempt to exploit Irish national feeling by the Germans.
DD: No. No.
Interviewer: Did you see anything of Russian POWs?
DD: Yes. We had some with us.
Interviewer: How were they treated?
DD: Well, there were only a few and we felt they were treated like dirt. In fact, I remember seeing one who looked almost like a bag of skin and bone and you know looked a bit as though he was on starvation diet. But he was only going to the ablutions. Going to the showers I think. Cleaning him up before they came into the camp itself and he looked as though he could hardly make the pathway up to the camp.
Interviewer: Did the Germans ever attempt to recruit any of the POWs for a so-called Free Corps?
DD: No. No. No, I never heard of anything like that.
Interviewer: Did you ever suspect any of the POWs as being plants of the Germans? Planted by the Germans.
DD: We did once suspect somebody because there were occasional little influxes of odd POWs being transferred from another camp and that always made one a bit suspicious when they didn’t behave in a normal way and I know we had a couple of occasions when we were suspicious of a new arrival. But in that, in those cases we always put the team of men on them to weed them out. Question them along different lines and eventually either they came through with a clean bill of health or we were further suspicious. But usually they came through with a clean bill of health and our suspicions were brushed aside.
Interviewer: Did you have any instances that you can remember of POWs who collaborated with the Germans apart from those you’ve already mentioned at Dulag Luft?
DD: No. I can’t think of one. No.
Interviewer: Did you operate secret radios?
DD: Yes. Yes. Yes. We always had one going. A fellow who was here yesterday called Bristow who always, he was a mechanical genius. He could make anything out of nothing. He made his own radio sets and he made a set which he built into a little box and he could get any radio station he wanted on it and even made a transmitter. And we, I was a code worker myself and we were getting code messages and one we had was asking us to listen in to a particular wavelength and this couldn’t, we couldn’t get it on the radio we had. So Bristow had to rewire the coil in this set so that it would get this particular wavelength that we were getting messages from London on and so we were able to almost have two-way conversation with the War Office, the Air Ministry. I know that was quite satisfactory at the time for us. It meant that we were able to get any instruction which was only occasionally they would put instructions over about something which was happening and warning us of something that was going on and though they weren’t often very precise in their instructions it was mainly a question of getting information.
Interviewer: What type of instructions would they give you?
DD: It was mainly a question of giving us information which might be useful to us and also possibly instructions about not doing something that Air Ministry didn’t think was advisable like [pause] oh God, I can’t think of a particular instance.
Interviewer: Were you ever asked by London to collect intelligence to send back?
DD: Yes. Occasionally we were but nothing very precise or detailed. But usually it was a question of reporting on tendencies and how things were handled by guards and German troops. Anything that we were able to notice when we were outside the camp but there was nothing very precise that I can recollect.
Interviewer: Can you remember approximately when you left Barth to go to Sagan?
DD: Let me think. It was ’41 [pause] very roughly I think it was about June ’41.
Interviewer: How did Sagan differ from Barth?
DD: Mainly in size I think. Not very much otherwise. It was a bigger camp.
Interviewer: Can I ask you at Sagan were you a camp leader there as well?
DD: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: How did you get on as camp leader with a senior British officer? What kind of relationship was there between the two?
DD: Well, I got on very well at Sagan where there were two, two group captains who shared the responsibility of acting as senior British officer. There was Group Captain ‘Wings’ Day and Group Captain MacDonald. In fact, there was a third one. Group Captain Kellett. But they used to come to these conferences with the Germans and I got on very well with all of them.
Interviewer: Were the officers in a separate camp from the NCOs?
DD: Yes. Separate compound. Yes.
Interviewer: So the senior British officer would be in charge of the officer’s camp.
DD: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: And you would be in charge of the NCOs camp.
DD: That’s right. Yeah.
Interviewer: Sometimes airmen exchanged identity with soldiers so they could go on work parties. Could you tell me what your attitude was to that as camp leader?
DD: That only happened in places where there was work parties and there were no opportunities for airmen to go on work parties generally and it was only at places like [pause] I can’t think of an example at the moment but at Lamsdorf, that was Stalag 8, that was a mixed Army camp where they had a compound of airmen. It was only in places like 8b where one went out on working parties that there was the opportunity to change identities and there were quite a few of those took place. So we had quite a number of Army fellows came to us as airmen but they were in fact Army chaps who changed identities.
Interviewer: Did that create any problems for you?
DD: Not really. I accepted it. As long a as I knew of it I could deal with it. It didn’t create any great problem to me and as far as the Germans were concerned it was just another body.
Interviewer: Did any Army people attempt to conceal the fact that they were Army in disguise?
DD: Well, as far as I was concerned they were just other POWs and it didn’t matter to me what they were. Whether they were Army, Air Force, Polish, Czechoslovakian or French. They were another body. But the Germans wouldn’t have liked if they had known.
Interviewer: Was there any, ever any record keeping by the POWs in the camps?
DD: In our own office we had our own records but only for our own consumption. Yes.
Interviewer: What kind of records were there?
DD: Mainly records of a person’s number, rank and name and where he was, where did he come from and that sort of detail. I should really have had my office manager with me here because I left all that sort of detail to them.
Interviewer: Why was it necessary to keep records?
DD: Well, mainly from the point of view of moving camp or individuals being moved from camp to camp then you wanted to know who was who and where they were going and keep a record of them in case one was asked questions about them at a later stage. And of course at some stage camps were merged or split up and you had really to satisfy yourself to keep a note of the number of people who went and where they went to. Again in case you were asked questions at a later stage.
Interviewer: Were you at Sagan when the Great Escape occurred?
DD: Not actually when it occurred. We, I think had just left Sagan when it occurred.
Interviewer: Did you hear about the executions afterwards?
DD: Yes. Afterwards we did. But we weren’t actually there at the time.
Interviewer: Did those, did the news of the executions come as a surprise to you?
DD: In a way. Yes. Although I felt that the Germans were capable of anything. From that point of view it didn’t surprise me.
Interviewer: Why do you say that you felt that the Germans were capable of anything?
DD: Well, I’m sure I felt that if they were given an excuse they would do [pause] in fact, I felt that if we gave the Germans some excuse at any time they would probably act similarly. I felt it had been a useful warning to us. To anyone in any camp that the Germans could behave that way.
Interviewer: Was there any bitterness about the executions?
DD: Well, yes. But I think that really brought people up with a jerk to remind them that that was the sort of thing the Germans —
[recording interrupted]
Interviewer: Mr Deans — reel four.
DD: It brought people up with a jerk when they came to realise that the Germans were capable of such an action.
Interviewer: So when were you moved from Sagan to Heydekrug?
DD: What’s the date? Have I got the date there?
Interviewer: In which year was this?
DD: ’44 was it? Or three.
Interviewer: Why did they move you?
DD: Mainly I think as we understood it, mind you we weren’t always told, given reasons for moving but I think it was mainly that a new camp was being opened for Air Force prisoners at Luft 6, Heydekrug. And that anyway the Germans argued that Luft 3 was getting too small because we were getting new batches of prisoners coming in all the time and all the compounds were full up. And I remember they were. Several, the equivalent of several block loads of prisoners were scattered all over the place where they weren’t really well accommodated. They weren’t in [unclear] or proper blocks or huts. They were in what should have been just a bit of ordinary of grassland where people were camping out.
Interviewer: Was there much difference between Heydekrug and Sagan?
DD: Heydekrug was a bit more spacious. It was a camp with more space available there. Although all these camps looked nice and fresh and green to start with but before very long when we had some thousands of POWs trampling over an area it soon became dirt and grubby and all the dust started swirling up and, well one its almost as though they put a share of prisoners in a particular area and they soon trod the grass away. Then produced dirt and rubble and of course basically meant that you trod the grass off and you got down to the earth and stones.
Interviewer: Did you have any elected position at Heydekrug?
DD: Yes. On the same thing applied you see. It was another camp, a new camp and of course we were all nicely ensconced from Luft 1 to Luft 3 and then to Luft 6 at Heydekrug. So there wasn’t really any question of re-electing or re-choosing. The same applied in the new camp as before.
Interviewer: In all the camps that you were in you of course were a long-standing POW in that you had been captured in 1940.
DD: Yeah.
Interviewer: Did you find any difference between POWs like yourself who had been in camps a long time and people who were shot down late in the war? In 1944 and so on. Did there seem to be a difference in attitude?
DD: Not especially. No. We looked upon new prisoners not as some, any change in attitude as a point of information. Getting new information from them as to what was happening at home or in the Air Force. How things were changing and we were interested in newcomers from that point of view. Get new life into it and see what changes there were and also there was usually a bit of fresh blood came in and one was always pleased to see any new. For example there was always a need for technicians and people who were capable of doing something which nobody else was and if anything new came in we were glad of it. Like skills.
Interviewer: Were new POWs welcomed in any way? In any special way.
DD: Well, yes we always gave them a little party even though it was only a tea party to welcome them and let them feel at ease and to show them, explain to them how to do things and to answer questions about what one had to do if necessary and what one’s rights and entitlements were. And usually one tried to find out what was happening and how much the Air Force was changing at home. And while that was off, and what staff changes there were in stations at home.
Interviewer: Did the authorities in Britain ever send messages to you through newly captured POWs?
DD: Yes, but nothing. I’ve no recollections of anything very significant coming through. But there were messages and I know I had a few come through on this code work and I know that my wife was, had got a letter during the war to say that I was working on this code work and that they would want to see any letter coming from me whatever it was even though it was purely personal. They wanted to survey it and I felt that they worded these letters to her rather badly in that I know she was a bit frightened with one she got as though she shouldn’t let anybody see any of my letters in case there was anything in it that might endanger my life or something to that effect. And I’ve forgotten now what it said actually but I know she was a bit concerned about it and showed it to her uncle and he more or less told her to ignore it.
Interviewer: But you felt it caused her unnecessary worry did you?
DD: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: Can you at this stage give a bit more detail about what this code work was? Was it something that was arranged before you were captured?
DD: In some cases it was although not in my case. I wasn’t a code worker before I was shot down but one or two people were and well, it meant in other words they had a register of all the code workers. They had the register at home of everyone who was a code worker and who was willing and capable of dealing with the code messages and the system was that if you were a code worker you had a particular system that you were briefed in and I’ve forgotten the details now. I suppose it was a defensive mechanism. I shut my mind of it and completely forgotten about it in case I was interrogated too much but it was a question of having a word on which one based the whole system of interpretation of what other words meant. I’ve forgotten now the details. Anyway, one could conceal in a letter quite a message but you really needed to put in quite a number of words to get even a sentence through in code. But it was quite possible and it worked pretty well.
Interviewer: Why was it necessary to have this method of having codes in letters if you had radio contact with London? Wasn’t the radio contact sufficient in itself?
DD: Not really and the radio contact was mainly a question of receiving particular stations or particular messages. But we didn’t really have the equipment initially to transmit messages. One could only receive.
Interviewer: Which camp did you go to after Heydekrug?
DD: From Heydekrug we moved down to Toruń in Poland and then we only stayed at Toruń for a very short time. Then we moved right across Germany to Fallingbostel.
Interviewer: Can you remember the year that these moves occurred?
DD: That I think was ’44.
Interviewer: What was the camp at Fallingbostel called? Did it have a number?
DD: Fallingbostel was Stalag 357. It was a former Army camp. In fact, I think it was an Army camp where the Germans used the British Army prisoners that were there for working parties.
Interviewer: Was it any different from the other camps that you had been in apart from the fact that it was originally an Army camp?
DD: Not really. It was basically the same type of camp. It was a pretty big camp too.
Interviewer: Did you hold any official position there?
DD: Well, again I was the camp leader as before. It was more or less carrying on the same situation in a different place.
Interviewer: At this stage the war was beginning to come to an end or drawing towards a close. Did the German treatment of the POWs change as it became obvious they were losing the war?
DD: Not really. Although I detected it in certain people, certain of the German authorities but in general there was no change. It was just as before and they wouldn’t recognise of course that the war was drawing to a close. That they were losing. They would never accept that.
Interviewer: Was it obvious to you as POWs which of the Germans were Nazi Party members and which Germans weren’t?
DD: Only in relation to their behaviour. We knew certain people who were Nazi types but generally we recognised a man from his behaviour. By his behaviour and we treated them as we found them. In other words if one man was a bastard to us well we treated him accordingly or we ignored them or whatever.
Interviewer: Were the guards easily corruptible?
DD: In many cases yes. Personally I didn’t deal in that but at the same time we always had fellows who were, seemed to be experts in, in corruption and dealing with corrupt people. But there always were some. Yes. And whatever the state of the war there was such people who were subject to whatever corruption came their way or whatever suggestions.
Interviewer: What did the POWs use to corrupt the guards?
[pause]
DD: This is terrible. I seem to be going blank.
Interviewer: Did they use the contents of the Red Cross parcels?
DD: Well, one could and did do on occasions. Yes. ‘You do this for me and I’ll give you this.’
Interviewer: Did the POWs ever manage to get outside the wire apart from on work parties? Or obviously on escape attempts.
DD: Well, there were occasions when people had legitimate reason for going out of the wire like going for treatment or some kind of medical. But there weren’t many occasions where that was possible.
Interviewer: Did the POWs on such occasions ever manage to make friendships or liaisons with German civilians?
DD: Yes. Well, whenever that was possible that was certainly dealt in that way. But it was so rare that that was possible that one hadn’t much opportunity to take advantage of it.
Interviewer: Did you ever come across the Gestapo?
DD: Yes. Yes. Only occasionally and only in smallish units. Very small. Probably the odd men here and there. I’m sure there was in that 357 the camp we had a couple of Gestapo men there. Of course, obviously the Germans wouldn’t advertise the men as Gestapo. We either had to find out by our own means or [pause] usually by interrogation or checking that we discovered the man who was Gestapo.
Interviewer: Who did you interrogate to find this out?
DD: Amongst some of the German staff one usually found that there was somebody knew about it more than somebody else and there was devious ways you had to use to find out.
Interviewer: What type of devious ways do you mean?
DD: Well, we found that certain persons were more informed than others and particularly when it comes to the inner workings of the Gestapo for example there were certain people who weren’t involved and weren’t informed.
Interviewer: But when you say devious means do you mean bribery?
DD: Yes. Yes. It’s amazing how much one could find out by bribery that you couldn’t otherwise and we found that.
Interviewer: Did you ever hear of an organization called [unclear]
DD: [unclear] [pause] I’ve got a feeling I do remember that but I can’t remember what connection with.
Interviewer: Was it in Fallingbostel that you came to be liberated?
DD: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Can you describe to me the circumstances under which you were liberated?
DD: Well, we eventually went on the march from Fallingbostel. The whole camp was uprooted and we went on the march and we went right down by Belsen. We weren’t very far from the Belsen Concentration Camp. Down to Belsen and then right on to the main road then and we went for miles right over the Lüneburg Heath and it was difficult to see just where we were going until eventually we came right up northeast and crossed the River Elbe. And it was then that I discovered we were going up near to Lüneburg. We crossed the Elbe at a place called Lauenberg. L A U E N. Lauenberg. It’s confusing between Lauenberg and Lüneburg and we crossed the Elbe at Lauenberg and then we were heading again northeast towards Lüneburg and it was then that I pause] well I discovered that was, well that was the obvious way we were going and I couldn’t see what the object was of going up there. They didn’t, the Germans didn’t seem to have any instructions and they couldn’t really tell us what the object of it all was or where we were going to and I’m sure they, they were helpless. They just didn’t know where they were going and we were just walking like dumb dummies in that rough direction and nobody seemed to know where they were going. Anyway, we having crossed the Elbe we were going down the banks of the Elbe really to shoot off upriver and there was a canal there we had to follow. The Elbe Trave Canal which went up to the Baltic. Or I think it went up to the Baltic. Somewhere near, oh I’ve forgotten now what the name of the town was but it shot up like that in a northeasterly direction and came into the Baltic. I’ve forgotten. Without a map I can’t really say what the place was.
Interviewer: That’s ok. The name of the place doesn’t particularly matter.
DD: Yeah. Anyway, we were just going down to the Elbe before joining this canal to go up this canal and it was not very far after that when we came across this village called Gresse which is where we were bombed.
Interviewer: Who by?
DD: British Air Force.
Interviewer: Can you describe to me what happened whilst that attack took place?
DD: Well, I had managed to get the commandant to run me up to Lübeck which was on the Baltic and it was in Lübeck that the Red Cross had their headquarters at the YMCA. They were all with the advance of the war they had cut all the communications from Switzerland so railways and roads and any means of getting Red Cross food parcels from Switzerland had been cut off. So the Red Cross had to transfer all their stocks of Red Cross parcels and their organisation up to Lübeck and again I managed to get the commandant to take a party of myself and some Germans up to Lübeck to see the Red Cross people and to arrange for so many thousands of parcels to be sent down from Lübeck to a place called Gresse where they could be picked up by the marching columns of POWs as they came through. And that I’d arranged and it was very unfortunate that the columns, the German commandant had arranged for the columns to all march through this place Gresse and pick up these Red Cross parcels which had been stored in the big sheds in the village. I’ve forgotten now whether it was two or three for each man which of course made it very difficult to carry. It was difficult to carry two Red Cross parcels to each man. Anyway, people picked these up and were just going out of the village to check on the goodies and see what there was and pick the best out and discard what they didn’t want and they were just on the roadsides doing all this business when some British in Typhoons came over and I think they thought they were German troops and they bombed them with anti-personnel bombs and [pause] Oh, I’ve forgotten. I think there was about sixty were killed and there were about sixty Germans killed as well fortunately. But there was about sixty POWs killed and of course a hell of a mess splattered all over the countryside. And of course the, it was peculiar I think somebody commented on the fact that there was a whole flight of these aircraft dive bombed but the last one in the group obviously realised they’d made a mistake and he peeled off and went on his way. So somebody realised they’d made a mistake but anyway that was too late by then. In the meantime the damage had been done.
Interviewer: What was the feeling of the surviving POWs about the attack?
DD: Oh, they thought it was terrible. Obviously they thought it was terrible and everyone was all bent then on getting some recognition banners to hang or trail around but it’s difficult there to say so after the event but it, and also it’s difficult to get some system of recognition to hang on your back or your bonnet or whatever and of course the POWs marching I’m sure they must have looked a motley scruffy lot. They had no sort of, I’m sure they couldn’t have looked like any organised body of military men at all. I’m sure they must have looked just like a shower of scruffs but people did try to get some sort of indication marker to show that they were POWs and not marching troops. But I’m sure that couldn’t have been very successful.
Interviewer: But did the POWs feel bitter towards the RAF?
DD: Well, I’m not sure that they felt bitter towards the RAF. Just, just our bad luck.
Interviewer: What had happened after this aerial attack?
DD: Well, the thing is it was only a sort of momentary thing. It was all over in about half an hour and the aeroplanes disappeared and the damage was done and, well I got the commandant to give me permission to go to [pause] was it Lauenberg? Anyway, it was a place where we’d discovered that the British troops were marching all the time and the Americans from the, from the west coming up and I got the commandant to take me down to the place where we believed the British advanced troops were to try and get them to stop this —