SheppeyMiss
11-09-2010, 22:37
This is a first-hand account written by my father of his time as a P.O.W. during WWII.
He wrote it at the request of one of his old 'muckers' who was writing a book about their wartime experiences. He rarely spoke of that time of his life to his family.
He is now 91 and one of the diminishingly few survivors of that time. I offer his memoir as a memorial to all those who lived through similar events.
RONALD BOURNE
R.A.S.C
P.O.W. 43907 1940 – 1945
______________
RONALD BOURNE R.A.S.C.
serving with the 131 Field Ambulance R.A.M.C
P.O.W. 43907 1940-1945
This is the story of a prisoner-of-war. I have been asked to tell this and I ask myself "Why ........ ? Difficult to explain ....... It means delving into the past and into the sub-conscious ........ Is what I remember the truth, unvarnished, or is it flavoured with ideas and thoughts which should have no place in a recollection which must be historical rather than hysterical? I hope therefore that the end result will turn out to be factual, in reasonable chronological order and interesting.
The day I well remember - 28th May 1940. We had witnessed an Army in retreat over the last ten days; ditches full of burnt out vehicles; the roads littered with debris; civilians dead and dying, being attacked from the air; and I have a recurring pictorial horror of seeing the dead horses and cattle. The unit had pulled into a farm and set up station. Breakfast was rudely interrupted ..... The Germans lined us up in front of a ditch and the pantzer troops were all for finishing us off - but a senior Officer arrived to take charge and we were in the bag. That line up was the first time I and others had nearly died.
Thirty-two thousand - some say more - were rounded up in that last week in May and the first ten days in June. Fourteen days or so of walking - no food to speak of. German soldiers would knock over buckets of water put out by civilians. The long line as far as the eye could see moving relentlessly towards Germany. Ardenne - Luxembourg. Cattle trucks - 80 in each truck - to Trier. Two nights there - sleeping as best we could out in the open.
Fourteen of us were taken seriously ill when the train took us into Germany. We finished up in hospital at Meuhlberg - Stalag IVB. We were registered there. Harry Meaden and Royston Bourne, my namesake, were in the group. After a few weeks in marquees the Authorities moved us to Stalag VIIIB at Lamsdorf . Nobody prepared us for that winter. I saw grown tough men cry with the cold. I saw a man slip quietly to his last sleep. I saw a blanket alive with lice and the man too weak to take any action. My own case was between twenty and thirty ulcers from thighs to ankles - paper bandages - and pain out of this world. I still have the scars. The cure was a miracle to me but no doubt obvious to a medical man. A 50-gallon drum (I'm told) of cod liver oil had been found. I got a spoonful each day under supervision for three weeks along with the other deserving cases. The results were magic.
Then the Germans had a bright idea - they took our boots and gave us clogs and foot wraps. The snow builds up on the soles and you rick your ankles. But I began to take an interest in life again. I could walk!
About that time we got bulk Red Cross food from Argentine - Cheese. Smokes. I took an interest in singing in the Choir. A Band Sergeant from the Welsh Fusiliers was the Choirmaster.
Real Red Cross parcels started coming in! We had to share because there weren't enough to go round and they weren't regular. But they were a Godsend.
Winter passed and Martin - that's RSM Martin - insisted on our keeping fit! I scalded my feet carrying coffee. Damn those clogs. For some apparent reason the Red Cross issued us with pyjamas?? .... and boots! Memories of that 1941 Summer are a bit hazy. Towards the end of it, about September, I was picked for the first repatriation as one of about five hundred Geneva Convention people for about fifteen hundred wounded and sick.
Proper carriages, believe it or not!! First class treatment! Full publicity! Well Fed!! But the blind, the limbness, the lame arid the sick were all around to remind us of the horrors of war and mindless ill-treatment. We stopped for a night at Bad Sulza - that's a story in itself - and finished up at Rouen Race Course. I finished in Hut 444. While we were waiting I learned to drive a G.S.Wagon with a pair of horses. I used to go and collect stone and gravel for paths. Driving out into the City I actually bought bread and stuff. And we waited..-..and we waited.....and we waited.....
How do you tell the sick, the blind and the lame that the repatriation has fallen through? How do you cope with the news yourself? Hut 444 got drunk! Some of the bottles I had brought in from the town. I saw one fellow walk bare foot through broken glass and never a cut or a graze. Two of us were sober enough to clear up and put the rest to bed.
Back to reality. Across Germany. Across Poland to the eastern border to a town called Gratz and Stalag XX1.E. Flat for miles. Snow. In the middle of nowhere. But previous POW's had stuffed the rafters with goodies. Christmas '41 will burn in my memory.
We did not stay all that long but moved to the XX1.A Complex in Schildberg, still in Poland. We were first at the Seminar Camp and then at the Fabrik. A large party of us - about 400 - with a 131 Doctor, Major Matthews, I think – moved on to XXI.D/11. That was at Waterlager - to work! No more Geneva Convention immunity.
Waterlager was an ex-Polish Cavalry Barracks. The Germans had an Artillery. range there, an Officers' Training Camp and married quarters. The work consisted of trench digging; we made a ski-run with pine needles for the German officers; I worked in the Officers' cookhouse; and also we had 1500 sick and convalescent horses to look after; we built a rifle range and a swimming pool - for Jerry, not for us! And we saw the first American air raids - we actually watched them coming up the valley and taking pot-shots at the Waterlager bridge. They missed .
The working party was reduced to 120 or so. It was occupying four huts, now one hut. In August '44 we moved back to Lamsdorf. Now it was called Stalag 344 and by now it was filled to capacity. Daily bombing from massed raids had forced the Germans to bring the working parties back to the main POW camps. The war in Russia was going so badly for the Germans by then and the Americans were coming up from Italy.
Tom Mordle was my "mucker". We shared food, parcels, books and news at Schildberg, Waterlager and now at Lamsdorf. We had a radio at Waterlager - a crystal set it's true, with earphones - but we kept up-to-date with the news. We used to get the B.B.C European News Service. Buttenshaw was at Waterlager - a Sheerness lad in the RAMC. Tom Mordle and I had to split because I was unfit and he had to go out to work. I'd got boils on my neck. At Lamsdorf I paired up with Laurie Stephenson, a 6ft.4ins. Aussie. Back at Lamsdorf I went as a teacher in the School, also as a marker for games pitches. In general I was skiving. I just kept my head down. We watched American massed air-raids by day and English and Russian raids by night.
The Germans emptied Lamsdorf at Christmas 1944 and we started on what was called "The Great March." The Russians were coming. We marched west. I stuck it for one day. Then I hid out in a root cellar in a large farm complex and covered myself with straw. A great tank battle was raging in the distance. We heard later that the Russians had tried to cross the Oder using the thick ice. But the Germans shelled the ice.
The Germans found about fifty of us hiding at the farm and they marched us back to Stalag 344 by moonlight. Space, warmth, food parcels, abandoned clothing and blankets. We joined the unfit, the elderly, the fatigue parties. We left 344 by train. It was now January 1945. We were bombed and machine gunned by day. We were in a siding at Schweinfurt, when the British R.A.F. hit it with blockbusters. It was rumoured that there were 35,000 dead and wounded that night. We saw the stacks of bodies by the side of the rails. They were covered but we were told that's what they were.
And so to Hammelburg. There was a British POW Camp, a French POW Camp, a Russian POW Camp and an American Officers' POW Camp all overlooked by a huge water tower as a landmark. I saw history in the making there. An American task force attempted to relieve their Officers' POW Camp. We witnessed the battle - the direct hits on the water tower - the noise - and then silence. The Camp was opened up and the American POW's scattered but the invading transport was halted by lack of fuel.
We were moved again by train to Stalag VIIA at Moosburg outside Munich. That was in March or April 1945. We were under canvas in a gravel pit, 30ft down, sleeping on stones. Twice we were strafed. The Americans are coming! The German guards have gone! There was one jeep, an Officer and three G.I's. Within hours - Bath House, Bakery, Cookhouse, Clothing Store, all set up and working. Within a few days lorry after lorry - this was funny - each loaded with twenty-seven released POW's, moving off as soon as loaded, one, one, one and so on - we watched them going down the road. They were going to Straubing Aerodrome. They dumped the men in bundles of 27 all the way down the runway and we found out later that each group was just enough for a Dakota load. As soon as they were loaded they were taking off in a constant stream. It was just like a bus service - amazing to watch. Straubing had been a German fighter drome. This was where I saw a Lightning aircraft fly in one end of a hangar and come out the other! They were mad! They really were. Also we saw a bonfire at the end of a runway where a couple of Dakotas had collided. Nobody seemed worried. They all just carried on. It was mind boggling!
We were free and on our way to Namur in Belgium. We were processed, deloused, kitted out and fed. A couple of days later we were trucked to Brussels. That was on May 8th - VE day. We flew back to England in Lancasters. So ended five years as a prisoner-of-war.
__________________
In my story, or account of activities, there has to be a conclusion. A Beginning, a Middle and an Ending. Why, when, where, what, therefore. All I have done so far is to record milestones, signposts, times when we faced a death which would have served no purpose. We might have been shot when captured - or hit under sporadic shellfire or by small arms whilst marching - bombed by our friends - machine gunned by strafing whilst in the railway trucks - overcome by hunger or physical conditions or just died from natural causes in unnatural conditions - with no chance to say goodbye or farewell. The march in 1944/5 resulted in 27 deaths per 1000, so we were told. The deaths at Lamsdorf ran into hundreds over the five years - not all British. There was a compound for Indians who suffered badly from the weather - also a compound for Yugo-Slavs and Serbs.
I formed part of a bearer party too many times to forget or forgive. I salute the friends and comrades who did not make it home. Those of us who survived can all enlarge on the milestones and use the signposts to tell of the better times - Jimmy Howe's Band, for instance, and its signature tune "Sunrise" - good enough to broadcast when repatriated; the Choir; the Concert Parties; Sports Days; School at Lamsdorf; Cricket and Football of a very high standard. The outstanding support of the Red Cross. Dare I say it - the venison that XXID/11 had for Christmas! Real coffee in the Canadian Red Cross parcels! That first personal parcel in 1940 - socks and carbolic soap!
Our home-coming - the "Dear John's"; the passing of loved ones; the marriages that survived and those that did not. The illnesses that followed the five years. The weaknesses which were highlighted.
Me!! personally. Glad to be home. Frightened by the traffic and noise of London. Angry, irritable, not able to settle. Getting used to money and finding it not enough. Smoking like a trooper and knowing it was wrong. Feeling guilty when I realized I was eating more than my rations. Five years of sharing and watching the knife, the spoon and the identity disk made one acutely aware.
After eight weeks, back to the Army. Rehabilitation. P.T.- 100 yards in 11 seconds - the mile in 6 minutes. They counted my bits and pieces and passed me A.1. The Army could not cure the nightmares, sleepless nights and the black depressions - but time did.
Its 51 years since I came home. I married in 1946 and we were twelve months short of our Golden Wedding when my wife passed away last year.
I remember Tom Mordle, my mucker for 3% years. He lived in Midhurst. We kept in touch until he passed away. He was a few years older than me. Also Laurie Stephenson, the Australian giant. He wrote a few times from Australia and sent me a photo of his two lovely little girls.
There is one thing I would like to know, though. Who is or was Eileen Cahill? Her fiancee was in the 131, I suspect in the RASC. She wrote to my Gran in August 1940 when we had been posted as "Missing". Her letter was a comfort but Gran was in the same position herself - anxious to know what had happened to us.
Now I've told you what happened to me!!
_______________________
Orignal typed version attached below
He wrote it at the request of one of his old 'muckers' who was writing a book about their wartime experiences. He rarely spoke of that time of his life to his family.
He is now 91 and one of the diminishingly few survivors of that time. I offer his memoir as a memorial to all those who lived through similar events.
RONALD BOURNE
R.A.S.C
P.O.W. 43907 1940 – 1945
______________
RONALD BOURNE R.A.S.C.
serving with the 131 Field Ambulance R.A.M.C
P.O.W. 43907 1940-1945
This is the story of a prisoner-of-war. I have been asked to tell this and I ask myself "Why ........ ? Difficult to explain ....... It means delving into the past and into the sub-conscious ........ Is what I remember the truth, unvarnished, or is it flavoured with ideas and thoughts which should have no place in a recollection which must be historical rather than hysterical? I hope therefore that the end result will turn out to be factual, in reasonable chronological order and interesting.
The day I well remember - 28th May 1940. We had witnessed an Army in retreat over the last ten days; ditches full of burnt out vehicles; the roads littered with debris; civilians dead and dying, being attacked from the air; and I have a recurring pictorial horror of seeing the dead horses and cattle. The unit had pulled into a farm and set up station. Breakfast was rudely interrupted ..... The Germans lined us up in front of a ditch and the pantzer troops were all for finishing us off - but a senior Officer arrived to take charge and we were in the bag. That line up was the first time I and others had nearly died.
Thirty-two thousand - some say more - were rounded up in that last week in May and the first ten days in June. Fourteen days or so of walking - no food to speak of. German soldiers would knock over buckets of water put out by civilians. The long line as far as the eye could see moving relentlessly towards Germany. Ardenne - Luxembourg. Cattle trucks - 80 in each truck - to Trier. Two nights there - sleeping as best we could out in the open.
Fourteen of us were taken seriously ill when the train took us into Germany. We finished up in hospital at Meuhlberg - Stalag IVB. We were registered there. Harry Meaden and Royston Bourne, my namesake, were in the group. After a few weeks in marquees the Authorities moved us to Stalag VIIIB at Lamsdorf . Nobody prepared us for that winter. I saw grown tough men cry with the cold. I saw a man slip quietly to his last sleep. I saw a blanket alive with lice and the man too weak to take any action. My own case was between twenty and thirty ulcers from thighs to ankles - paper bandages - and pain out of this world. I still have the scars. The cure was a miracle to me but no doubt obvious to a medical man. A 50-gallon drum (I'm told) of cod liver oil had been found. I got a spoonful each day under supervision for three weeks along with the other deserving cases. The results were magic.
Then the Germans had a bright idea - they took our boots and gave us clogs and foot wraps. The snow builds up on the soles and you rick your ankles. But I began to take an interest in life again. I could walk!
About that time we got bulk Red Cross food from Argentine - Cheese. Smokes. I took an interest in singing in the Choir. A Band Sergeant from the Welsh Fusiliers was the Choirmaster.
Real Red Cross parcels started coming in! We had to share because there weren't enough to go round and they weren't regular. But they were a Godsend.
Winter passed and Martin - that's RSM Martin - insisted on our keeping fit! I scalded my feet carrying coffee. Damn those clogs. For some apparent reason the Red Cross issued us with pyjamas?? .... and boots! Memories of that 1941 Summer are a bit hazy. Towards the end of it, about September, I was picked for the first repatriation as one of about five hundred Geneva Convention people for about fifteen hundred wounded and sick.
Proper carriages, believe it or not!! First class treatment! Full publicity! Well Fed!! But the blind, the limbness, the lame arid the sick were all around to remind us of the horrors of war and mindless ill-treatment. We stopped for a night at Bad Sulza - that's a story in itself - and finished up at Rouen Race Course. I finished in Hut 444. While we were waiting I learned to drive a G.S.Wagon with a pair of horses. I used to go and collect stone and gravel for paths. Driving out into the City I actually bought bread and stuff. And we waited..-..and we waited.....and we waited.....
How do you tell the sick, the blind and the lame that the repatriation has fallen through? How do you cope with the news yourself? Hut 444 got drunk! Some of the bottles I had brought in from the town. I saw one fellow walk bare foot through broken glass and never a cut or a graze. Two of us were sober enough to clear up and put the rest to bed.
Back to reality. Across Germany. Across Poland to the eastern border to a town called Gratz and Stalag XX1.E. Flat for miles. Snow. In the middle of nowhere. But previous POW's had stuffed the rafters with goodies. Christmas '41 will burn in my memory.
We did not stay all that long but moved to the XX1.A Complex in Schildberg, still in Poland. We were first at the Seminar Camp and then at the Fabrik. A large party of us - about 400 - with a 131 Doctor, Major Matthews, I think – moved on to XXI.D/11. That was at Waterlager - to work! No more Geneva Convention immunity.
Waterlager was an ex-Polish Cavalry Barracks. The Germans had an Artillery. range there, an Officers' Training Camp and married quarters. The work consisted of trench digging; we made a ski-run with pine needles for the German officers; I worked in the Officers' cookhouse; and also we had 1500 sick and convalescent horses to look after; we built a rifle range and a swimming pool - for Jerry, not for us! And we saw the first American air raids - we actually watched them coming up the valley and taking pot-shots at the Waterlager bridge. They missed .
The working party was reduced to 120 or so. It was occupying four huts, now one hut. In August '44 we moved back to Lamsdorf. Now it was called Stalag 344 and by now it was filled to capacity. Daily bombing from massed raids had forced the Germans to bring the working parties back to the main POW camps. The war in Russia was going so badly for the Germans by then and the Americans were coming up from Italy.
Tom Mordle was my "mucker". We shared food, parcels, books and news at Schildberg, Waterlager and now at Lamsdorf. We had a radio at Waterlager - a crystal set it's true, with earphones - but we kept up-to-date with the news. We used to get the B.B.C European News Service. Buttenshaw was at Waterlager - a Sheerness lad in the RAMC. Tom Mordle and I had to split because I was unfit and he had to go out to work. I'd got boils on my neck. At Lamsdorf I paired up with Laurie Stephenson, a 6ft.4ins. Aussie. Back at Lamsdorf I went as a teacher in the School, also as a marker for games pitches. In general I was skiving. I just kept my head down. We watched American massed air-raids by day and English and Russian raids by night.
The Germans emptied Lamsdorf at Christmas 1944 and we started on what was called "The Great March." The Russians were coming. We marched west. I stuck it for one day. Then I hid out in a root cellar in a large farm complex and covered myself with straw. A great tank battle was raging in the distance. We heard later that the Russians had tried to cross the Oder using the thick ice. But the Germans shelled the ice.
The Germans found about fifty of us hiding at the farm and they marched us back to Stalag 344 by moonlight. Space, warmth, food parcels, abandoned clothing and blankets. We joined the unfit, the elderly, the fatigue parties. We left 344 by train. It was now January 1945. We were bombed and machine gunned by day. We were in a siding at Schweinfurt, when the British R.A.F. hit it with blockbusters. It was rumoured that there were 35,000 dead and wounded that night. We saw the stacks of bodies by the side of the rails. They were covered but we were told that's what they were.
And so to Hammelburg. There was a British POW Camp, a French POW Camp, a Russian POW Camp and an American Officers' POW Camp all overlooked by a huge water tower as a landmark. I saw history in the making there. An American task force attempted to relieve their Officers' POW Camp. We witnessed the battle - the direct hits on the water tower - the noise - and then silence. The Camp was opened up and the American POW's scattered but the invading transport was halted by lack of fuel.
We were moved again by train to Stalag VIIA at Moosburg outside Munich. That was in March or April 1945. We were under canvas in a gravel pit, 30ft down, sleeping on stones. Twice we were strafed. The Americans are coming! The German guards have gone! There was one jeep, an Officer and three G.I's. Within hours - Bath House, Bakery, Cookhouse, Clothing Store, all set up and working. Within a few days lorry after lorry - this was funny - each loaded with twenty-seven released POW's, moving off as soon as loaded, one, one, one and so on - we watched them going down the road. They were going to Straubing Aerodrome. They dumped the men in bundles of 27 all the way down the runway and we found out later that each group was just enough for a Dakota load. As soon as they were loaded they were taking off in a constant stream. It was just like a bus service - amazing to watch. Straubing had been a German fighter drome. This was where I saw a Lightning aircraft fly in one end of a hangar and come out the other! They were mad! They really were. Also we saw a bonfire at the end of a runway where a couple of Dakotas had collided. Nobody seemed worried. They all just carried on. It was mind boggling!
We were free and on our way to Namur in Belgium. We were processed, deloused, kitted out and fed. A couple of days later we were trucked to Brussels. That was on May 8th - VE day. We flew back to England in Lancasters. So ended five years as a prisoner-of-war.
__________________
In my story, or account of activities, there has to be a conclusion. A Beginning, a Middle and an Ending. Why, when, where, what, therefore. All I have done so far is to record milestones, signposts, times when we faced a death which would have served no purpose. We might have been shot when captured - or hit under sporadic shellfire or by small arms whilst marching - bombed by our friends - machine gunned by strafing whilst in the railway trucks - overcome by hunger or physical conditions or just died from natural causes in unnatural conditions - with no chance to say goodbye or farewell. The march in 1944/5 resulted in 27 deaths per 1000, so we were told. The deaths at Lamsdorf ran into hundreds over the five years - not all British. There was a compound for Indians who suffered badly from the weather - also a compound for Yugo-Slavs and Serbs.
I formed part of a bearer party too many times to forget or forgive. I salute the friends and comrades who did not make it home. Those of us who survived can all enlarge on the milestones and use the signposts to tell of the better times - Jimmy Howe's Band, for instance, and its signature tune "Sunrise" - good enough to broadcast when repatriated; the Choir; the Concert Parties; Sports Days; School at Lamsdorf; Cricket and Football of a very high standard. The outstanding support of the Red Cross. Dare I say it - the venison that XXID/11 had for Christmas! Real coffee in the Canadian Red Cross parcels! That first personal parcel in 1940 - socks and carbolic soap!
Our home-coming - the "Dear John's"; the passing of loved ones; the marriages that survived and those that did not. The illnesses that followed the five years. The weaknesses which were highlighted.
Me!! personally. Glad to be home. Frightened by the traffic and noise of London. Angry, irritable, not able to settle. Getting used to money and finding it not enough. Smoking like a trooper and knowing it was wrong. Feeling guilty when I realized I was eating more than my rations. Five years of sharing and watching the knife, the spoon and the identity disk made one acutely aware.
After eight weeks, back to the Army. Rehabilitation. P.T.- 100 yards in 11 seconds - the mile in 6 minutes. They counted my bits and pieces and passed me A.1. The Army could not cure the nightmares, sleepless nights and the black depressions - but time did.
Its 51 years since I came home. I married in 1946 and we were twelve months short of our Golden Wedding when my wife passed away last year.
I remember Tom Mordle, my mucker for 3% years. He lived in Midhurst. We kept in touch until he passed away. He was a few years older than me. Also Laurie Stephenson, the Australian giant. He wrote a few times from Australia and sent me a photo of his two lovely little girls.
There is one thing I would like to know, though. Who is or was Eileen Cahill? Her fiancee was in the 131, I suspect in the RASC. She wrote to my Gran in August 1940 when we had been posted as "Missing". Her letter was a comfort but Gran was in the same position herself - anxious to know what had happened to us.
Now I've told you what happened to me!!
_______________________
Orignal typed version attached below