Interview with John Dominy and Peter Thomas MP

Interview with John Dominy and Peter Thomas MP

Interview with Ron Mogg and Peter Thomas MP

The Sergeant Escapers

Radio interview with Ron Mogg, Dixie Deans, Peter Thomas and Cyril Aynsley following the publication of, “The Sergeant Escapers” written by Ron Mogg. General conversation about the democratic make up of the prisoner of war camps they were held in, the entertainment, training and escape attempts that made up the camps.

00:58:30 audio recording

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ADeansJAG[Date]-050002

Interviewer: Sixteen minutes to midnight. Sixteen minutes to Sunday morning. Welcome back to the Nightline Studio. Everybody in the studio looks at their watches. I think it’s right. Mine is slow as always. I’ve been sitting on the train the last couple of days reading a book. I haven’t quite finished it. I intend to do so though. Often you get books given to you and you think well I’d better read it because I’m going to talk to the author and you scan through it and you forget about it. But this week I’ve had two books to read. One, my guest last night which I read completely and the second book is called, “The Sergeant Escapers,” written by John Dominy who is with us under his alter-ego which is the one he uses for church as Ron Mogg.
RM: Mogg. Mogg.
Interviewer: Why John Dominy instead of Ron Mogg though?
RM: Well, it is a pen name I’ve used for years and it happens in fact to be my step, my late stepfather’s name and I used it quite a long time ago in Fleet Street but the reason I did this which is the more important thing is that if I’d written with my own name on it it would just be another line-shoot and I didn’t want it to be that. It’s —
Interviewer: Now, “The Sergeant Escaper.” Sorry, the book is the latest and I’m not saying this detrimentally in a series of books covering the exploits of a very inventive and courageous part of the war. The prisoners of war. The POWs. And for the first time I’ve read a book which covers the NCOs side of the story because Colditz and things like this were officer’s camps. With us in the studio apart from John three other people who were with, sorry Ron, I’ll just call you it was very confusing, with Ron in the prisoner of war camp Peter Thomas MP who was, what rank were you Peter?
PT: Well, I started off by being a sergeant pilot but we all managed to get a certain amount of promotion during the course of the long years that we spent in a prison camp.
Interviewer: You got promoted within the camp.
PT: Well, we did yes. We became warrant officers eventually.
Interviewer: I didn’t realise there was promotion.
PT: Yes, well depending on how long you were there. I was there for four years and it, initially one wasn’t promoted but the Air Ministry with that sense of compassion for which they are well renowned decided, I think it was about 1942 wasn’t it that —
DD: ’43.
PT: Was it?
DD: ’43.
PT: ’43 was it? That promotion should be given to some of these unfortunate chaps who still remained on the same pay and so we were promoted and in the course of time we all became warrant officers. So that —
Interviewer: That must have been a great consolation to you.
PT: Well, it meant the consolation was that when we came back from prison camp after some years we had a large sum of money waiting for us in our bank which I must say was very pleasing as far as I was concerned.
Interviewer: Of course the thing —
PT: As were most people.
Interviewer: Whereas the officers were receiving certain parts of their pay in the camp you weren’t as NCOs.
PT: You weren’t.
Interviewer: So it was all going in the bank.
PT: Yes. They received a certain part of their pay which was translated into camp money with meant they were able to buy certain things. Rather restricting. I don’t think we suffered very much in that respect. I never felt myself that I wanted to have any part of my pay and I was delighted when I came back to find that I was on the whole certainly a richer man than that I had ever been.
Interviewer: Of the other two gentlemen with us, James Deans. Another pilot from that era. You’ve just returned from Australia again I believe.
DD: Yes. I’ve just come back from Australia and New Zealand. Initially I was invited by the New Zealand Ex-POWs principally to go there for their reunion and to spend about a month there on holiday. While we were there we decided to go over to Australia to visit some relations there and in so doing we met up with various POWs in, Ex-POWs that is in Australia and I’m very pleased to say that the Australians were so amazed and tickled that we in England and the New Zealanders and the Canadians all have POW Associations and meet regularly and have quite a brotherhood.
Interviewer: There is still very much this brotherhood of people who were in the camps.
DD: Oh indeed. In fact, I recently in the last few weeks I’ve been to a meeting of the Officer’s POW Association at the RAF Club. Now, this was an Association of POWs from the First World War and it’s interesting to note that their main aim is to maintain the friendships which were made while they were POWs and they’re still going strong.
Interviewer: These years later.
DD: Incidentally these men are getting rather old men. It was a dining club but I discovered that instead of having the evening dinner as they normally used to have they’ve now come down to having a luncheon because they can’t stand, they’re all getting very old and they can’t stand late night dinner.
Interviewer: Seems fair.
DD: So I have to give them a little talk on certain aspects of POW life.
Interviewer: Because you were very much the organiser.
PT: More than that.
Interviewer: Or so it comes out.
PT: More than that. I think I can say it’s only right that you introduced him as James Deans another sergeant pilot. In fact, he was a bit more than that. He was, he was the leader of the camp. He was the leader by acclimation. He was the man who throughout the whole of the NCO prison camps was the undoubted unchallenged leader and he is a man whose exploits in prison camp life have been recognised certainly by every prisoner of war who knew him but in my view hasn’t been sufficiently recognised generally. This man is one of the great men of the war.
Interviewer: I think we’ll talk about what makes a great man in a prison camp a little later but first of all welcome my last guest, Cyril Aynsley OBE. Get the credit in because we’ve got the MP in for Peter. It’s only fair. So, like Ron, a professional journalist. A reporter for the Express.
CA: Yes.
Interviewer: Were you a reporter when, before, before war broke out?
CA: I was a reporter in fact, for the Daily Express in Manchester before war broke out and came to London after the war but I don’t particularly want to talk about my experiences as a journalist. I think this programme should be in fact about what we are talking about is the sergeant, I must emphasise the word sergeant escapers. I was rather surprised yesterday talking to a friend of mine who was in the Navy during the war who was quite surprised when I was talking about Dixie Deans who has just been very very handsomely and rightly praised by Peter Thomas which would be I’m sure echoed throughout the world. What was surprising to this friend of mine who was in the Navy during the war was in fact that a pilot could be a sergeant and this I think must be stretched and underlined because it in fact was the basis of our whole existence in Germany. During the war the Bomber Command crews were sometimes a mixture of sergeants and officers. Very often the pilot was a sergeant and the observer might have been a flight lieutenant. The flight lieutenant in fact was junior while he was flying to the captain in fact who was a sergeant.
Interviewee: Of course.
CA: And what I want —
Interviewee: Democracy.
CA: To take it further is the fact that this was taken right through our whole existence in POW camps. We were an extraordinary democratic organization. We, in fact, elected our camp leader. It wasn’t a matter of rank. We elected him.
Interviewer: I want to ask you about this because going through Pat Reid’s books about Colditz he always refers to the senior British officer which was a ranking thing.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewer: The highest-ranking officer was it. He was sir and that was it.
PT: This is so important I remember you see Dixie in fact was without doubt the only man and I’m sure this is a certainty the only man who was capable of, in fact continuing his job as he did throughout four difficult years. I remember once when somebody said to me, ‘We would like Dixie to be camp leader in perpetuum. We don’t want him elected because he’s so good.’ And I remember going to see an Australian called Jack Connolly and putting this to him and he was very angry with me. He said, ‘This is nonsense.’ He said, ‘We in fact have been fighting for democracy and we’ve got to continue to fight for democracy in our own camp. We will, in fact insist that Dixie should be elected or somebody else will be elected.’ In fact, of course Dixie was elected. But this is very important. You see, this was quite different in Army camps and in officer camps. In RAF officer camps we in fact were totally democratic.
Interviewee: We brought this democracy I might tell you into, into the Army because at the end of the war we as a whole lot of RAF moved into a camp which had a lot of Army in and then we met then with this difficulty because there were senior Army men in there. Senior to Dixie, senior to us and they saw no reason at all why the old system shouldn’t prevail. That seniority should prevail.
Interviewer: It’s the pips on the shoulders not what’s in your head.
Interviewee: We, in fact managed to persuade them that it was in the interests of everyone in that camp that the best man should take over and we had the most this was my beginning in fact into political life. It’s referred to in the book. I organised I thought rather well an election in that camp and Dixie won by an overwhelming majority and we had the Army men who suddenly found democracy was in their midst. They voted with enthusiasm for the one man who really was able to talk to them.
Interviewee: The first experience of my life of a loaded meeting.
Interviewer: In what way, sir?
RM: Well, in fact Mr Thomas obviously with a political career which was then [unclear] planted if I might say so and no reason why I shouldn’t say so, planted certain of his colleagues and I was one of them who in fact. Said the right thing at the correct time and I’m afraid that the Army were completely overwhelmed by this very skilful piece of political engineering.
Interviewer: I think they call it public relations these days.
Interviewee: I know there was one rather amusing point from that meeting in fact. You’ll probably all recall Dixie wasn’t there of course because he was, you know as the meeting was about he was outside but there was one Army type who got up and said, ‘Well, the British Army have been doing it by rank since 1066 and I think the remark was made to him was, ‘Well, they lost that battle didn’t they?’
Interviewer: It must have been an incredible situation. I mean what was the population of the camps you were in?
PT: Wel now. That last camp it was over ten thousand.
Interviewee: Over ten thousand, yes.
Interviewer: So there were ten thousand men cut off with any conscious contact with the outside world. I mean, I know you had radio but how much credibility did the radio reports have within the camps?
Interviewee: Well, I think I can perhaps answer that.
Interviewer: Sure.
Interviewee: My first experience was in an Army camp where I was sent. A place called Lamsdorf near Breslau where we had no radio and the rumours were quite ridiculous. In fact, a man called Bristow who should be acclaimed made secret radios and we continued a service so the secret radio worked every night and although the news was bad at least, at least we knew what the news was. And this was vitally important because the strange thing was that although the news was bad at least we knew that this was the genuine news and even though the news was bad the strange thing was I felt about my experience in Germany was that the Germans although through their propaganda in the first two years I was there, that was ’41 and ’42 were in fact told that they were going to win the war I think talking to them never believed they were going to win the war. And yet we who in fact were recipients of the most dreadful news always knew we were going to win the war. Now, —
Interviewer: Never any doubt in your mind.
Interviewee: No.
Interviewee: Never any doubt.
Interviewee: No.
Interviewee: No.
Interviewee: And this is the most remarkable thing. It was a time of history in Britain in which I was proud to live because we believed in ourselves to a degree which somehow these days we don’t. I don’t want to get into an argument about that now but we had an utter belief in our own probity, in our own victory which never faltered at any time in the worst days. I’m sure that this would —
Interviewee: Well, the situation would have been very melancholy wouldn’t it if one had thought that —
Interviewer: This was what I was wondering. Whether there wasn’t an impression —
Interviewee: We were all very young you must remember you know.
Interviewer: Naturally.
Interviewee: The RAF aircrew were all very young. You were regarded as an old man if you were over twenty five and there you were confined. You weren’t allowed to go out and work. We were all within, within barbed wire. Confined into a small area and if you felt that there was no solution to it it was of course an extremely melancholy and helpless situation that one would be in. Never, people never in fact thought in those terms.
Interviewer: Never questioned.
Interviewee: Never thought of it.
Interviewer: Gentlemen, we must take a break and pause. We’ll continue our conversation after the news but right now we’re going to pause for tonight’s final thought from Liverpool poet Stuart Henderson.
[recording paused]
+The news reading itself was something which had to be conducted on a very secure basis. You could only have people on, people went into huts and then they read the news and you had to have people standing out by the windows to make sure that nobody was near and then they’d move to another hut. Cyril and Ron were closely involved in actually getting the news down and also reading I think didn’t you?
Interviewee: Yes indeed and it was a very curious experience. The set was in fact enclosed in a portable gramophone. Such things are not known of course these days that you wound up and the turntable could be taken off and the radio set was inside it. The gramophone could be played. The headphones were in a, in a porridge tin which was, in fact had a false bottom. You put the headphones on by one of these rugby elastic caps.
Interviewer: Skull cap.
Interviewee: Switched in, and you had the aerial was in fact a clothesline and the whole thing could be put up and taken down within nine seconds which was of course essential because late at night there wasn’t the same security. You couldn’t have people keeping a very close watch on the guards and of course the guards were constantly patrolling the camp. This of course went on in Dixie’s hut constantly. He was the only one of his many many terrible anxieties which were certainly —
Interviewer: The radio was in your hut.
DD: Well, at one stage I was the person least suspected by the Germans. They seemed to trust me so I had, I had —
Interviewer: There’s a lot of laughter going on that line. What was it about apart from you’ve got an obviously honest face.
DD: Well, I was an honest man and they always looked on me as such and of course that, my room was the least suspected so I had the radio in my room and I operated it while Ron Mogg took it down in shorthand and well unfortunately the Germans sometimes did these roll calls inside the rooms and counted people by their beds or in their beds and they did sometimes come in while we were just taking down the news and we had to work very very smartly to whip the radio apart and put a gramophone record on.
Interviewer: Now, you say that the Germans trusted you. Felt they could trust you.
DD: Yeah.
Interviewer: Did you encourage this feeling within —
DD: Oh yes. Indeed. In fact, at one stage at the very end when Grimson’s story, when Grimson, they realised Grimson was out they had a security man from Berlin came up to Stalag Luft 6 and this man made a point of keeping me in discussion for two or three days he was there. And this was obviously a very intelligent man who knew just what he was after and after a little while talking to me he said, ‘You know I think you’ve been playing a confidence trick with the commandant.’ I didn’t disagree with him because I knew damned well he was right.
Interviewer: And you wanted to continue being an honest man.
DD: Well, yes.
Interviewer: We haven’t really talked about Grimson yet. We’ll do that in just a moment. I want to ask one other question of Ron. Security within the camp from the German point of view what kind of A — what kind of a rapport if any was there between the prisoners and the guards? And B — how tight was security? As I said earlier the only impression that my generation have of the prisoner of war era is watching the movies and watching the TV shows when every twenty minutes Anthony Valentine rushes in and shouts, ‘Achtung. [Appel,’] and everybody piles out of bed. How tight was the security within? Once you were inside the cage.
RM: You mean the German security?
Interviewer: Yeah, well—
RM: I think it was more subtle than the achtungs and things like that. I mean the 5 o’clock raids by Gestapo and people like that. Incidentally, Jimmy was talking about putting the radio together while I was trying to burn the news one night because we had, or one early morning Jim put the radio on and put the first record which happened to be, “Tales from the Vienna Woods,” and the German was quite enthralled. And somebody had pinched the matches which were very short in those days and I was, so I was saying, ‘Well, I’ll make coffee,’ you know and put it on the stove and of course I had the news in to ignite and I had no matches. Panic. And while Jimmy sort of kept him in discussions and things like that I borrowed, I borrowed matches off him and —
Interviewer: Off the German guard.
RM: Yes. But it was more subtle in another way. There was a chap called [unclear] who had a very fine cockney accent and would go around the camp. He was an interpreter, a dolmetscher and he would go around the camp and you wouldn’t pick up, you know people watching Tally-ho which is mentioned here would not necessarily pick him up because he would be there in his goon suit and his ferret’s uniform you know and, and there would be this very cockney voice which would mingle of course with the ordinary English voices. That was quite subtle.
Interviewer: Who was that?
RM: I think they were a bit dim in other ways but —
Interviewer: I mean they used to go around and search for radios.
DD: And at all times day and night there were the ferrets going around.
Interviewee: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: Could you explain?
DD: Oh, the ferrets were again security or Abwehr as they were known as by the Germans. They used to be going around crawling underneath the huts and going around snooping and looking out for anything telltale of any kind which indicated tunnelling or any attempt to tunnel.
Interviewer: Because I know in the book you mentioned one of the security chiefs with a nice sideways sense of humour anyway.
DD: [Hemnitz?]
Interviewer: Yeah.
DD: Yeah [unclear] yes.
Interviewer: With his celebration of a hundredth discovered tunnel.
Interviewee: Oh no. That was —
Interviewer: Was that Hemnitz or —
Interviewee: No that was at Luft 1 [pause] Ludwig.
DD: Ludwig.
Interviewee: Ludwig. Yes. He put a cross up in the wire. Number 100.
Interviewer: To celebrate a hundred tunnels.
Interviewee: The hundredth one that was discovered.
Interviewer: Because they had microphones planted and everything.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewee: Of course, what was interesting was that although their security was strict they were in mortal terror all the time of the Gestapo themselves.
Interviewee: Yeah.
Interviewee: And sometimes the Gestapo came unheralded even to the Abwehr. To the local security. Sometimes the local security would get a whisper that the Gestapo were to do a surprise raid. They were completely terrified themselves and would in fact go around and ask us, pleading with us, ‘Please hide your radio set. Please hide it. Please tell the others.’ Because they knew perfectly well if a radio were discovered they in fact were for the high jump as well as we were.
Interviewer: Now, talking of searches and security what is this about Burns night?
Interviewee: Well, I think Jimmy is better at —
Interviewer: Jimmy.
Interviewee: It wasn’t Burns night as —
DD: Well, it was the 25th of January one year. 1943 I think it was. Ron and I were walking around the camp and we came across the security officer busy searching a particular room and throwing everything. They tore up the whole room and emptied the whole thing searching for maps, escape aids of all sorts and I stopped and I wasn’t really getting at him strictly speaking. I was just having fun. I said, ‘How dare you on this of all days to have a search and have such an upset.’ And he turned to me, rather obsequious I thought and said, ‘Oh, Mr Deans what day is it?’ I said, ‘Don’t you realise this is Burns Day?’ He said, ‘What’s that?’ I said, 'That’s the, this is the day when all Scotsmen revere their bard Robert Burns and there’s a very large number of Scots people here. I’m one,’ I said. Well, he immediately said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry Mr Deans what can I do? My search has gone so far it would take me longer to stop it than to carry on.’ So I said, ‘Well, carry on and get out quick.’ So as a parting shot I reminded him not only was it Burns Day but it was my birthday which it was and he then said, ‘What on earth can I do to, you know put right this wrong?’ I said, ‘Well, let me get the hell out of here.’ So Ron and I were just walking around the compound. We continued to walk around. Got back to my room and we had just settled down, having a bit of a rest having walked around when somebody knocked on the window and it turned out to be a major [unclear] one of the German officers who came around and said, ‘I’ve come to take you for a walk Mr Deans.’ I said, ‘I’m not going on my own.’ So I insisted that Ron should come with me and so we all went out for a walk and went into the woods and managed to pick some mushrooms. Managed to get a couple of eggs from a farm and so we came back and ate eggs and mushrooms that night.
Interviewee: The only eggs we’d had.
Interviewer: What an amazing story.
DD: But you see I really wasn’t feeling angry towards the Germans because after all these searches were everyday occurrences but I just felt facetious and I thought I’d play them up a bit.
Interviewer: This was a very important part I find from your book Ron as well as other books I’ve read about the war. This kind of goon bating. The psychological warfare between the prisoners and the guards.
DD: Yes.
Interviewer: Was it important within the camp at the time as a morale booster?
DD: Well, as far as our morale is concerned yes. I mean, we were always getting at them. As much, as much to boost our own morale as to really push them down. It had the double effect.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Just before we paused to earn the rent we were talking about security within the camps and also goon baiting. The morale boosting thing James Deans is talking is about. Entertainment within the camps must have played a very important part. I mean we see as I say in television and films the camp concerts and in the book there are photographs of the chorus, a completely devastating chorus line I thought. One thing I must ask is how did you get photographs within a prisoner of war camp?
Interviewee: Some were taken by —
Interviewee: By the Germans.
Interviewee: Germans. Most were taken by the Germans. The other ones were taken later because we had a camera of our own. Towards the end [Sandy Samms] who was a professional photographer took those other pictures. They come from all sorts of places actually you know. Quite a few from the Germans themselves.
Interviewer: It's amazing but as I say there was —
Interviewee: That one there is a photo of the —
Interviewer: The chorus line.
Interviewee: The Chorus line taken by the Germans.
You are looking very suave in full evening dress, Peter. Where did you get a dinner jacket in a prisoner of war camp?
PT: Actually one hired it.
Interviewee: The Germans. The Germans allowed us to hire these things for camp shows. They were under strict security. They used to take the things away you know but we could use them for the show.
DD: Well, again you see the Germans took these photographs and allowed us to have these photographs for propaganda reasons.
Interviewer: What? To show how well they were [unclear]
DD: To show how well they were looking after us.
Interviewee: Yes.
DD: And they took many many photographs within the camp and we’ve all got quite a lot of them but I’m sure that was the only reason for it was for propaganda reasons.
Interviewer: Now, I know that Peter and Cyril you produced Shakespeare within the camp. It is mentioned in the book.
Interviewee: Yes. Of course, the Germans rather believed that Shakespeare was a German and I in fact, produced Shylock, I’m sorry the Merchant of Venice in which I played Shylock. Now, the Germans in fact were very excited that we should be in fact producing a Shakespearean play within the confines of a prisoner of war camp. They felt this was some kind of victory I’m sure and they went to enormous lengths to ensure this should be a good production and I recall that they, in fact measured each member of the cast for costumes and we in fact were given costumes from I’ll never forget the name [Schlager of Charlottenburg] which was the main costumier of the German theatre and a magnificent set of costumes. Of course, in those days time was on our side and I spent many months I think preparing this rather splendid Shakespearean production which the Germans came to. The commandant came with his staff. What they weren’t expecting was that, was my interpretation of Shylock and I pulled out all the stops to make him the most dignified gentleman in the world and the Christians the most basically awful [slag] people. And of course this did not in fact please them at all.
Interviewer: I was going to say I would think a sympathetic Jew would have gone down really badly.
Interviewee: Well, yes. No. They weren’t very pleased at all.
Interviewee: Very good performance.
Interviewee: If I might say so, in connection you see entertainment did mean a lot because escape after all has been very much emphasised but I suppose in total of five or six percent of men were dedicated to escape but other men had other things to do. We had almost a university. We had men [pause] men reading for the law like Peter Thomas read for the law. We had men reading for the church. I got involved in some degree with Peter who is a very fine actor. I think that a good politician is also a good actor. And I do recall though that this is a rather sad story.
Interviewee: [unclear] yes.
Interviewee: I shall never be, I shall never be an impresario because I remember that we, I was asked to put on a production of a play by Maxwell Anderson called, “Winterset,” and I had set my mind on one young man to play the lead. The opposition in the theatrical community had decided upon another young man to play the part and in fact we had quite a quarrel about it and I won my day. But as Ron Mogg was saying the theatre was burned down so the play was never put on. But the point was this that the man I turned down for this part was a young man called Roy Dotrice. That is why I am sure that I shall never be a good impresario.
Interviewee: Oh, nobody is perfect.
Interviewer: You said earlier when we were talking the theatre broke down so that you could get parts for the radio. I don’t quite see the logique of burning a theatre down to get parts for a radio.
Interviewee: Well, it wasn’t intended to burn the theatre down. The fact was that this —
Interviewee: Oh, it was.
Interviewee: Particular part was housed in a, in what would be the dressing rooms and housed behind the stage and it was what would today be a record player and it contained a valve.
Interviewee: An amplifier.
Interviewee: An amplifier valve yes. I think there was a diatribe that Bris said he wanted and he was determined to get so he made the infernal machine and the infernal machine which he did it with in fact was an alarm clock and he cast some metal and spring loaded it with rubber bands, put a lot of red top matches in the metal and when the striker went the matches were drawn rapidly across an abrasive surface and of course boom boom. The thing caught fire and —
Interviewer: Presumably just parts had been removed.
Interviewee: Yeah. The parts had been removed by this time and to prove that we hadn’t got them we had to have a fire.
Interviewee: Destroy the evidence.
Interviewee: But —
Interviewee: This theatre I might tell you was an absolutely superb theatre and people, people may not realise this but theatre was put on in the prison camp not in a, in a slapdash amateur way. This was a hut which was allocated by the Germans for recreational purposes and that hut was converted into an absolutely superb theatre. A theatre which would today would be, would bear comparison with many many professional theatres.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewee: And the Germans allowed —
[recording paused]
Interviewee: Which was not. It was just taken away and this arrangement was made —
Interviewee: So to, we had —
[recording paused]
Interviewee: That was that.
Interviewee: Well, we had received information that the Germans were going to deny us this particular piece of machinery and so it was thought necessary to get the valves out of it before it went. Probably the best thing is while they were searching the wreckage the next day of course the whole place burned down instead of just the hut you see. The whole place burned down. The Fire Brigade rushed in. A little trickle came out of the hose and the prisoners were then allowed out to do some bucket chain stuff because there was a cigarette store nearby which we didn’t want to go up and [pause] but the next day anyway when everything had cooled down and the Abwehr were rather gloomily poking around in the wreckage Bristow was there and he happily showed me the pile of burned records and on top was, these were 78s of course, on top was, “I don’t want to set the world on fire.” You know one little —
Interviewer: A nice touch. A nice final touch.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewer: We’re going to take a break for the London news. Then I’d like to talk about the side we haven’t talked about which is the escaping side of the prisoners of war.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Tell me about, “The Sergeant Escapers.” A new book written by John Dominy and, well it’s a pen name for one of my four guests in the studio — Ron Mogg. Also, if you’ve just joined us, well the pubs threw out some time ago, Peter Thomas MP for Hendon South, a former Minister of State for Wales.
PT: Secretary of State.
Interviewer: Secretary of state for Wales. I’m sorry. I’ll kill that researcher. They got it wrong again. James Dixie Deans who was, well handed a great introduction from Peter Thomas as one of the great men of the prisoner of war. I don’t know if that is embarrassing for you James, is it?
PT: The war.
DD: It is rather but I’ve got broad shoulders.
Interviewer: And Cyril Aynsley OBE. OBE for what Cyril?
CA: Well, this is a mystery. I was very honoured. I was the chief reporter on the Daily Express for many years and retired about fourteen, sixteen months ago and it was seen fit by my colleagues to thrust this honour upon me for which I’m extremely grateful.
Interviewer: You had an award as a journalist.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewer: And you were talking, we were talking right at the beginning of our conversation about awards i.e. promotions within the camps. I note in the book something which I didn’t realise that you were paying income tax all the time you were in there which I think is the biggest liberty I’ve ever heard of. What about military honours for escapers? Now, the name which has come up in conversation so far we haven’t really talked about is Grimson who is a very important part of your book.
Interviewee: Rather. Yes.
Interviewer: Can you tell us about Grimson? Because an important point you make he never got anything except that once he got a boxing medal.
Interviewee: That’s the only medal.
Interviewer: You sound very bitter about that.
Interviewee: Well, I am because I feel I’m not bitter I just think that it hasn’t —
Interviewer: A little unhappy about the situation. A little disgusted.
Interviewee: Yes, I’m sorry the man who was so brave and who became a legend and who did so many gutsy escapes. Not just the one getting out and Jimmy said just now finally saying, ‘I’m not going home. I’m going to run an escape line.’ Which is utter courage. When they found that or when they officially declared he was dead I felt that it would have been fitting to have given him a posthumous GC or a VC. I had many —
Interviewer: Tell us about this man. This is a name which until two days ago I had never heard. I picked up your book and he’s mentioned.
Interviewee: You will have to ask all of us because he is a mystery man in many ways.
Interviewer: I mean he was an RAF —
Interviewee: He was a regular RAF —
Interviewer: NCO.
Interviewee: NCO. Yes. Joined before the war as aircrew and —
Interviewer: I think one of the earlier —
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewer: Captures.
Interviewee: He was shot down quite early.
DD: Presumably in 1940.
Interviewee: Yes. 1940 wasn’t it? Yes.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewee: It was about July I think it was.
DD: Certainly before me.
Interviewee: And you know he was quite an incredible man in that I think I mentioned there that his first escape was rather a fumbling affair where he just kicked a German in the backside and made a run for it. After that he became very clever but he wasn’t alone in this you see. There were people like Jock Alexander, Grimson, Morris, Alan Morris and well a whole hoard of people far too numerous to mention who were all escapers dedicated to escape. [Aussie Lascelles], Snowy Snowdon, Wimpy Wooton. You know I could go on and on and on.
Interviewee: Matt [Lehman]
Interviewee: Yes. Well, he ran, he ran you know the rackets.
Interviewee: Wasn’t it Grimson —
Interviewer: He had something special obviously.
Interviewee: The point about Grimson is that he was a man who was dedicated —
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewee: With a singleness of mind to escaping and he from that was the only thing really that he thought about from the beginning to the end of the day and he in fact was engaged in escapes which were remarkable and some of them worthy in themselves of each one of being an individual story. He eventually escaped but instead of escaping in order to get back to England which he could have done easily he escaped and remained outside the camp and assisted others to escape. Some of them back to England. He being outside, laying a sort of what’s the word?
Interviewee: Safe houses I suppose.
Interviewee: Safe housing.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewee: Along the way for them to go to.
Interviewee: A secret route out.
Interviewee: That’s it and this is quite remarkable.
Interviewer: How long did he run this escape route?
Interviewee: Well, about a year wasn’t it?
DD: Not as long as that but it was certainly several months he was outside.
Interviewer: So James, in fact there was an English RAF NCO.
DD: Yes.
Interviewer: Operating within Germany.
DD: Yeah.
Interviewee: Well, in Poland.
DD: And he was outside the camp in Poland and was even then sending messages back in to the camp and we used to provide him with a certain amount of Red Cross food which he used, A — to keep himself going and also for bribery because he had to bribe his way around and he kept writing notes in asking for whatever it was he couldn’t find and we had ways and means of getting it out to him.
Interviewer: In fact, how many people did get back to England through his efforts?
Interviewee: Certainly one.
Interviewee: One or two.
[unclear]
Interviewee: There was [Flockhart]
Interviewee: [Flockhart] and —
Interviewee: What about —
Interviewer: But a couple actually made it. Made a home run completely back to England.
Interviewee: Yes. Right back to England.
Interviewer: And obviously others were assisted along the journey.
Interviewee: Yes. Some were caught. Yes.
Interviewer: What happened?
Interviewee: And in fact when one was caught and Grimson was present this was at [Danzig] docks. His escape line, his underground line ran right the way from Lithuania which is way up in [pause] well Heydekrug in Lithuania is now Russia of course but it is a long way and in the more remote parts of the Baltic coast and his route and he used to travel up and down by train to help people and sort of that sort of thing. His route ran down to Danzig and from Danzig then the object of course was to get someone on board a Swedish boat to hide. And when one chap was caught he tried to create a diversion. I think this is how he finally got caught himself because he was a man who wouldn’t give up and they took the other chap who was also killed by the way by the, well murdered by the enemy. They took him along to [unclear] and Grimson was sort of on the same train trying to just, trying to get the moment to break. I mean he was so dedicated.
Interviewer: But even though the prisoner had been recaptured.
Interviewee: He was trying to get them —
Interviewee: He was trying to get them back on the train.
Interviewer: Back on the train.
Interviewee: He was a man who the one thing he did was to learn to speak German. Not just fluently but as a German.
Interviewer: Where did he learn? He learned —
Interviewee: In the camp.
Interviewer: In the camp.
Interviewee: In the camp.
Interviewee: From scratch I think wasn’t it?
DD: Oh yes, because —
Interviewee: Absolutely from scratch.
DD: He just couldn’t speak German really.
Interviewer: In the, that’s right in the book Ron you mentioned the fact that at the age of twenty four he decided to speak German.
RM: That’s right.
Interviewer: An amazing gentleman. An amazing man. What, I know in the book you describe him and also in our conversation as a mystery man. What in your opinion happened to George Grimson?
RM: It’s very difficult to talk about a myth. I can only give the official view and that is that he was taken by the Gestapo and vanished in their hands. I think everyone knows what happens to people or happened to people who were taken by the Gestapo.
Interviewer: Peter, do you agree with the official —
PT: Well, I don’t know. I don’t know enough about it but all one knows is that he is now, has been officially pronounced dead.
Interviewee: That’s right. I don’t believe it.
PT: But his exploits were so extraordinary that one can’t be absolutely certain about it.
Interviewer: Because I know when we were talking before we started —
PT: But he was, you see one of his escapes which is actually mentioned in Ron’s book is an escape which could only be done by someone who was able to pass himself off as a German without any question at all.
Interviewer: I would like you to tell us about that escape.
PT: Well, it essentially —
Interviewer: Just a moment.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Thank you very much [unclear] now where are we? Fourteen minutes to one. We are talking about Grimson’s escape, Peter.
PT: Well, Ron’s in a better position to give, give the details because he writes about them but simply it is this that he dressed up as a German soldier who was dealing with the electrical installations around the camp perimeter. He took a ladder. He went to the camp wire. He spoke up to the guard and said he was there in order to deal with some fault in the electric wiring. He put the ladder up against the wire and dealt with the fault, moved down talking to the guards all the time until eventually they were used to him moving.
Interviewer: Yeah.
PT: Then went too, in over the top of the wire, dropped a scanner over and cursed. Asked permission to go over and get the thing rather than have to go all the way back in order to fetch it and was given that permission. Climbed down over the wire and disappeared.
Interviewer: An amazing, amazing —
PT: It was an amazing escape. Amazing.
Interviewee: This was —
Interviewer: It’s pure nerve. Its pure fun isn’t it?
Interviewee: Oh yes. I think in fact what he did was he was to drop an ammeter.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewee: And then say to these say to the guards in the tower, ‘Oh, its broken. I’ve got to go and get a replacement.’
Interviewee: Something like that. Yes.
Interviewee: But the ammeter was one which had been made. It was a false one you know. Just one that had been made.
Interviewee: While we are talking about an external wire to reach it first he had to cross fifty metres of ground where you could be fired upon if you [pause] where you would be shot if, you were usually dead if you crossed it. He then had to go up one lot of wire with his ladder and then I suppose about a metre away from that would be another complete wall of wiring. In between were coils of Dennett wire. So it was quite a —
Interviewer: Just getting there was quite an achievement.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewee: The disquieting thing was that some of us who were in the know were actually lying in the sun watching this.
DD: Yes.
Interviewee: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: Oh, fingers crossed he’s not in it. James, I know that you were in the killing zone on occasion. I know there was one occasion when you actually walked into the killing zone because someone was in it to bring him out. Can you tell us about that?
DD: Well, you know I have completely forgotten about this until Ron, I read about it in Ron’s book so perhaps Ron’s memory is a bit better than mine is. I can’t —
Interviewer: Or maybe your modesty is slightly —
DD: I find I’ve closed my mind to a lot of things.
Interviewer: Ok. Ron.
RM: I think Jim is being a bit modest there but it just happened we used to take our walk around the camp together at a rather quiet time of the day when most people were eating at lunch time because there weren’t so many people to stop and ask you questions and we were, it was called pounding incidentally. Going around and around the compound. So we used to pound. On this particular day a chap had received a letter from home. These were called [mess pots] in the Royal Air Force and if you received a letter from home that your wife had run away or something like that or —
Interviewee: With an American.
RM: Well yes. And we had a classic case of in fact of I don’t know whether this was the chap or not but what was always done and this happened from the old days of the Royal Air Force in Mesopotamia if you got a [mess pot], “Dear John,” “Dear William, I’ve married another man,” or, “I’ve had a baby by another man,” sort of thing you pinned it up on the notice board so that everyone could have a read. Well, this chap had done it and then he suddenly —
[recording interrupted. Commentary repeats]
PT: Well, Ron’s in a better position to give, give the details because he writes about them but simply it is this that he dressed up as a German soldier who was dealing with the electrical installations around the camp perimeter. He took a ladder. He went to the camp wire. He spoke up to the guard and said he was there in order to deal with some fault in the electric wiring. He put the ladder up against the wire and dealt with the fault, moved down talking to the guards all the time until eventually they were used to him moving.
Interviewer: Yes.
PT: Then went too, in over the top of the wire, dropped a scanner over and cursed. Asked permission to go over and get the thing rather than have to go all the way back in order to fetch it and was given that permission. Climbed down over the wire and disappeared.
Interviewer: An amazing, amazing —
PT: It’s an amazing escape. Amazing.
Interviewee: This was —
Interviewer: It’s pure nerve. It’s pure fun isn’t it?
Interviewee: Oh yes.
Interviewee: Very good.
Interviewee: I think in fact what he did was he was to drop an ammeter.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewee: And then say to, say to the guard in the tower, ‘Oh, its broken. I’ve got to go and get a replacement.
Interviewee: Something like that.
Interviewee: Yes.
PT: But the ammeter was one that had been made. It was a false one you know. Just one that had been made.
Interviewee: While we are talking about an external wire to reach it first he had to cross fifty metres of ground where you could be fired upon if you, or where you would be shot if, you were usually dead if you crossed it. He then had to go up one lot of wire with his ladder and then I suppose about a metre away from that would be another complete wall of wiring. In between were coils of Dennett wire. So it was quite a —
Interviewee: Just getting there was quite an achievement.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewee: The disquieting thing was that some of us who were in the know were actually lying in the sun watching this.
Interviewee: Oh yeah.
Interviewee: Yes. Yes. Fingers crossed he’s not in it. James, I know that you were in the killing zones on occasion. I know there was one occasion when you actually walked into the killing zone and someone was in it to bring him out. Can you tell us about that?
DD: Well, you know I have completely forgotten about this until Ron, I read about it in Ron’s book so perhaps Ron’s memory is a bit better than mine is.
Interviewer: Or maybe your modesty is slightly —
DD: I’ve closed my mind to a lot of things.
Interviewer: Ok. Ron.
RM: I think Jim is being a bit modest there but it just happened we used to take our walk around the camp together at a rather quiet time of the day when most people were eating at lunch time because there weren’t so many people to stop and ask you questions and we were, it was called pounding incidentally. Going around and around the compound. So we used to pound. On this particular day a chap had received a letter from home. These were called [mess pots] in the Royal Air Force and if you received a letter from home that your wife had run away or something like that or —
Interviewee: With an American.
RM: Well, yes. And we had a classic case of in fact of I don’t whether this was the chap or not but what was always done and this happened from the old days of the Royal Air Force in Mesopotamia if you got a [mess pot] “Dear John,” “Dear William, I’ve married another man,” or, “I’ve had a baby by another man,” sort of thing you pinned it up on the notice board so that everyone could have a read. Well, this chap had done it and then he suddenly broke out and ran. Leapt the warning wire, the area I was talking about, crossed there. We were walking by and Jimmy just went over the wire. He was sort of clawing at the fence and the guns were coming down taking a sight on him. He was obviously going to be dead meat if something didn’t happen although he was demented, quite demented at the time and Jimmy just jumped over the wire and ran to him and pulled him off. Spoke to the Germans of course and told them not to shoot. They had such a respect for him. Incidentally they used to salute him latterly when he did his walk around the wire. Even the Germans. And they had such a respect they let him lead the man back.
Interviewer: I must be honest I would be inclined to salute a man who would do a thing like that.
Interviewee: Well, it’s —
[unclear]
Interviewee: I think people don’t quite appreciate what that means because if you, there is this warning wire. You had the two wires.
Interviewer: I think you could step over the warning wire and you were dead.
PT: If you step over the warning wire and if we were playing a game and the ball went over the warning wire that was one had to go to the guards and ask the guard if you could get —
Interviewer: Please could I have my ball back.
PT: And that in itself was a bit, always a bit shaky. The guards might say yes but —
Interviewee: Another guard.
PT: They were would train their gun on you.
Interviewee: Another guard in another box who hadn’t been, who wasn’t in the message, who hadn’t got the message might shoot you from the other side of the camp you see.
Interviewer: It kind of takes the fun out of football doesn’t it?
Interviewee: Well, no. You never know the chap in the tower. His wife might have been bombed in —
Interviewer: Yes.
Interviewee: Berlin the night before.
Interviewer: Yes.
Interviewee: You know —
Interviewer: What sort of rapport did you have with the normal Germans?
Interviewee: None.
Interviewee: None at all.
Interviewer: You’d no contact at all?
Interviewee: You never met them. Never saw them apart from they came into the camp in order to [pause] on a parade or something like that but they were the only people one never met were the security people who were in the camp. People who you have heard referred to as ferrets. Dixie would be in contact with the commandant and the officers and the —
Interviewer: What was the relationship because you were all NCOs?
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewer: I can hardly envisage a camp full of RAF NCOs taking kindly to going around happily saluting German officers although the guards saluted Dixie. How did you [pause] what was the kind of situation within the camp? Did you have to treat them with respect —
Interviewee: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Of their rank.
DD: Yes but in many many cases people just didn’t wear caps so that —
Interviewer: You don’t salute.
DD: They didn’t salute.
Interviewee: Yes.
DD: And that was quite normal. I did that often myself.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewer: No cap. No salute.
DD: Ok. You could probably come to attention if you were stood still but if you were walking past you just turned your head to one side as though you were looking at him and that was obvious.
Interviewer: A swift eyes right and keep moving.
DD: Yes.
Interviewer: It is a situation which I cannot envisage.
DD: But of course, at one time the Germans tried to make us if they saluted us they tried to make us give the Nazi salute.
Interviewer: Oh right.
DD: But we just wouldn’t do that.
Interviewer: Yeah. To what extent were you not pressurised but targets for propaganda within the camp?
DD: Well, in some cases they’d rig up a loudspeaker system where we got the German news giving us all the, their idea of how the war was progressing which of course didn’t agree with the BBC news which we were getting. Which of course in many cases was a source of amusement to us. But at the same time if we hadn’t had our own radio it would have had effect. Or it might have done.
Interviewee: We had a German newspaper the Vӧlkischer Beobachter, Frankfurter Zeitung which of course were German propaganda. They were very freely available to us. Also, Das Reich which was edited and written largely by Dr Goebbels.
Interviewer: One of the honest journalists of our time. Yes.
Interviewee: And Der Kampf printed in English.
DD: Yes.
Interviewee: Which was a very tatty job.
Interviewer: Did you get a chance —
Interviewee: We had our own camp newspaper.
Interviewer: I was going to say did you get a chance to publish your own paper?
Interviewee: Yes. But they were war paper so we couldn’t, we had to —
Interviewer: No, surely.
Interviewee: So what happened was we used to have the camp newspaper which we —
Interviewee: Which was all rather well down actually.
Interviewee: And pasted with everything like cartoons.
Interviewee: Local gossip.
Interviewee: Local gossip and reviews of camp shows and that sort of thing. You could paste it on a board and people would stand and read it.
Interviewee: The Germans used to get a bit upset sometimes when you put pieces of, well I suppose to them scurrilous verse out like when the Fins left for instance, came out of the war the verse went up, “I’m glad I’m not a Fin. They’ve been.’ Sort of thing. Once the Germans got the message they got upset about it.
Interviewer: Four years when an awful lot of the young men of Britain were in the situation you were in.
Interviewee: I was in there four years. Dixie was five.
Interviewer: You were in for five.
DD: Not quite. Nearly.
Interviewer: But a large part of a formative years of an awful lot of people listening to this programme was spent behind barbed wire.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewer: Obviously on the four of you it has had the long-term effect of sealing friendships, memories of people. Do you feel that it had a long-term effect on the civilised world? Do you think it was worth it?
Interviewee: From my point of view it was worth it. Yes.
Interviewee: Most definitely.
Interviewee: I would not have, I would not have missed it actually. I gained more from that period than I’d gained in any similar portion of my life.
DD: And I’ve always said even while we were in Germany and I was very often howled down about this —
Interviewer: Yes.
DD: There was an awful lot of good to be had out of being a prisoner.
Interviewer: In what way, Jim?
DD: Very few, well not very few but most of the POWs objected. They couldn’t see any good in it but well it taught you to be patient, to be forbearing and to live with other men.
Interviewee: Tolerance.
DD: Tolerance. Yes.
Interviewee: I’d say the greatest thing it taught you was loyalty.
DD: And loyalty. Yes. There were so many things that you learned through being a POW.
Interviewee: Tolerance is another.
DD: Yes.
Interviewee: When I was first taken prisoner of war we were at a place called Dulag Luft which was a sort of interrogation camp and I was put into a camp, into a hut and there was a chap who had been there a couple of days and he was on his back on his bunk and he was reading a book. As he turned over the page he sniffed every time he turned over a page. I was absolutely mesmorised by this gentleman. He turned over, he would go [sniff] and this sniff was going. I thought am I going to live with this, you know over the years and I couldn’t bear the thought of it. I just couldn’t bear the thought. I knew I couldn’t take it. Well, four years later as we went out the camp I said goodbye to that chap. He said goodbye [sniffs] [laughs] and one became affectionately disposed towards this idiosyncrasy of his.
Interviewee: I would also mention with every respect to James and his nationality we had some, as you know we had many Scots there and they managed to get hold of some bagpipes which the Germans called the dudelsack and they used to practice in various odd places. Even the Germans used to hold their heads and not least make funny noises and play it to [unclear] put their hands over their ears. But they were another tremendous morale raiser things like that and we ended up with a jolly good, well I don’t know much about the pipes Jim but I think it was a pretty good band. Although, they used to practice in a laundry which was completely of corrugated iron the whole thing and so you had the big chap with the drums, the kettle drums and the pipes all playing in this rather confined space where they practiced.
Interviewer: Now, that is learning tolerance. That is.
Interviewee: I think you were asking before when we were off the air whether we enjoyed it. Well, of course you couldn’t say you enjoyed it but I do recall one man who in fact learned to play the flute or at least was still learning to play the flute when the war ended and I’m sure he was very sorry when the war ended because he was getting on famously with the flute. I also remember that I was halfway through, “War and Peace,” and I never did finish, “War and Peace” at all so [laughs]
Interviewee: You as well. I’ve had three summer holidays so far. I have never finished, “War and Peace.”
Interviewer: Gentlemen, thank you very much. I must ask James one question. The tie you are wearing with the eagle and the barbed wire.
DD: That is the tie of the Royal Air Force POW Association of which we are all members. I happen to be the president for my sins and well this is the tie. You haven’t got yours on, Ron.
RM: I know. Very remiss. I’m sorry.
Interviewer: It’s a tie that you could all be proud to own and wear, gentlemen. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me this evening. It has been a fascinating conversation. I think we could be here, I could be here for eight years but thank you.
Interviewee: Thank you.
Interviewer: Ronald.
RM: Thank you.
Interviewer: Peter Thomas. James Deans.
RM: Thank you.
Interviewer: And Cyril Aynsley. The book ladies and gentlemen, “The Sergeant Escapers,” written by Ron Mogg under his other name John Dominy published by Ian Hammond and its yours for a nominal two hundred and forty, no. Two pounds forty and worth every penny.