Dedicated to
Freda
and our three daughters
Gillian, Kathryn and Vivienne,
who, after much cajoling and nagging
compelled me to put
my wartime memories on paper.
Summer 1941: Working party at Neurode Coalmine
Neurode: The Guesthouse
Neurode: View of the Mine
Neurode: Summer and Winter landscapes
Gunner Page, killed in the mine explosion
The M.V. Durham 1935/6
Cairo 1937/38
Summer 1942: Pupils and teachers at Lamsdorf “school”
Summer 1943: A group of Merseysiders at Gleiwitz Aerodrome
April 1945: Hohenfels, Bavaria. Red Cross parcel deliveries
The car of the Swedish delegate
British Red Cross ‘Personal Parcels’ List
Chez Alfred: Return visit to the restaurant in Place Dalton,
Boulogne, where in May 1940 his platoon left him behind!
The Author: Arthur Evans C.B.E.
Reunion 1958: Jack Clifton, Jim Duffy, the Author
Arthur Evans C.B.E.
First published in 1995 by Ashford Writers
Second reprint 2000
Third reprint 2005
Fourth reprint 2011 by Jo Harrison at Smashwords
Production copyright ©
Arthur Evans C.B.E. 2011
Photographs are from Arthur Evans’ own collection.
Cover design by
Pat McNeill
Edited by
Jo Harrison
Published by
Jo Harrison at Smashwords
All rights reserved.
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Paperback ISBN 9781849141635
Sojourn in Silesia: 1940 - 1945
Arthur Charles Evans CBE
Table of Contents
Just over ten years ago I composed the account of my time behind barbed-wire solely for the information of my family, and all purely from memory: no diaries, no written records. However, at that time Freda, my wife, was an enthusiastic member of a writer’s group. She and her colleagues insisted that my writings justified wider publicity in book form.
The interest in that this book has already engendered is most gratifying and now, because of the website (designed by my eldest daughter Gillian), the demand for copies is even greater.
I have received, and attempted to answer, many letters – a few from fellow POWs, but chiefly from their children or, latterly, grandchildren. Sadly, in one case I was able to identify to a nephew his uncle shown in the 1941 group photograph of the coal mine working party, who, regretfully, was shot dead in 1944 by a German guard for not resuming work quickly enough after a break.
A grandson of the late RSM Sidney Sherriff has also been in touch. RSM Sherriff as the SB. was much respected and well known to all who were incarcerated in Lamsdorf and richly deserved the honour he received after his return to the UK. A third example concerns a colleague who was directly responsible for smuggling Wing Commander Bader out of Lamsdorf wearing army uniform, to a working party on Gleiwitz Aerodrome in 1942.
Remarkably, an Australian correspondent has tried to persuade me that Bader was not in Lamsdorf in 1942 but in a hotel in Liverpool where the writer waited on him. According to him, the German authorities had allowed Bader temporarily to return to the UK for special treatment to his leg stumps, on the understanding he duly returned to Lamsdorf! I am still not convinced!
In the end, there was so much correspondence that we started storing it in cardboard boxes – and so when writers asked if we’d heard from their old comrades at arms that their relatives had mentioned, it became increasingly difficult and time-consuming to go through all the letters to find out if we had any trace of them.
However, little did I realise then that we were about to enter a technological revolution – and neither did I think at my great age I would be expected to get to grips with it. Fortunately, with the advent of the internet, my daughter Gillian has now been able to create a website called Lamsdorf Reunited (www.lamsdorfreunited.co.uk) on which we keep everyone’s contact details on a separate database. The incredible reach of the worldwide web means we can easily bring together people from all over the world.
So, where before I was receiving letters I now mainly receive emails from places as diverse as South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Where I could not help personally, I advised the correspondents to contact the Ministry of Defence and the Committee of the International Red Cross in Geneva. This applied particularly to relatives seeking information about the sites of graves of those of our comrades who lost their lives, either by gross neglect by the German authorities or unfortunately by ‘friendly fire’ during the death march in the snowbound months of early 1945.
One factor has surprised me! Not one of my ex-colleagues on the working parties in the coal mine or at Gleiwitz Aerodrome has contacted me. There must be a few still about!
The website (www.lamsdorfreunited.co.uk) has dramatically revived interest in my book, necessitating a Third Edition. I am shortly about to arrive at the eighty-ninth anniversary of my birth and am still fortunate enough to drive my car and disport myself on the bowls greens of Kent.
Please continue to send your letters and emails!
Arthur Evans 2005
Arthur, as you may be aware, passed away on 18 March 2011. His granddaughter Jo Harrison has, for several years, been responsible for the website and the sales of his book. Just before he died, Arthur requested that some of the profit from the sales of the book should go to The British Red Cross. At the time of this request I hadn’t realised quite what The Red Cross meant to him. We have recently been reading his letters home, during his 5 years incarceration. Reading about the Red Cross parcels and seeing how important they were to the survival of Arthur and his peers is astonishing. So, we are pleased to be honouring his request and donating monies to this worthy charity.
It is important to note here, we no longer keep contact details. Now that Lamsdorf Reunited has become Lamsdorf Remembered, we no longer take submissions of photos, stories or memorabilia from relatives of former prisoners of war at Stalag VIIIB. But you are welcome to view them on the old Lamsdorf Reunited pages. Alternatively you can submit photos and stories on the Facebook page: (www.facebook.com/LamsdorfRemembered).
So, as we enter a fourth reprint we hope you continue to enjoy this firsthand account of life behind the wires as a prisoner of war.
Kathy Gower, May 2011
Were my father still alive, he would be about 88, somewhat younger than Arthur. Their service in World War Two was different – my father just old enough to be an air gunner in the Halifax in 1945, still a teenager. Arthur was captured in 1940, and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of Nazi Germany.
I have grown more curious about the experiences of veterans of that war as I become older – somehow the ones I knew spoke of it little, and possibly even reluctantly. And I did not know enough to know what to ask, I suspect. It has also been said that veterans of war service could not relate to those with no such service, could not tell their stories, even to their own families. The experience was perhaps too vast, too overwhelming. This may have been one of the origins of the so called, ‘Generation Gap’.
It has also been true that for many veterans, they were ‘fine’, got on with their lives, until the fiftieth, or sixtieth anniversary of a battle or a campaign they were involved in, trumpeted on television, prompted old suppressed memories and indeed post traumatic stress disorders sometimes.
One is left to wonder how those who fight in our armed services now, in foreign countries, will fare in the future, let alone now.
However, some veterans have left records of their experiences, including this book by Arthur. There are fewer and fewer of his generation left now – and they were all heroes, they all endured five years and more of war, served in all kinds of ways both dramatic and mundane, then came home and quietly got on with putting the world back together again.
Mark Gower 2011
France
The Kentish countryside was at its most beautiful. It was the 22nd May 1940, the orchards were a sea of pink and white blossoms, the hedgerows were in full leaf and the village gardens flush with early summer flowers. The weather was perfect, warm sunshine and a cloudless blue sky attracting the skylarks. Already at mid-morning the temperature had persuaded the ladies to don their summer frocks and the men to discard their jackets. All were going about their business, carefree and cheerfully, with a confidence born from the certainty of age-old continuity in this quintessential corner of England, this paradise on Earth.
Unfortunately, a couple of dozen miles away over the calm, blue waters of the English Channel, all hell was let loose and the menace of the dark ages was about to engulf Europe. Like grey rats, evil forces were swarming through Holland, Belgium and France with the object of extinguishing freedom and civilisation as we knew it.
We were in convoy en route to rejoin our regiment, the 2nd Battalion Irish Guards, temporarily encamped on a common in Tunbridge Wells. A week earlier we had left to test-fire our new anti-tank guns on Lydd ranges.
Somewhere between Tenterden and Goudhurst the convoy was halted by a despatch rider who handed an envelope to our platoon commander, Lieut. A.R. Eardley-Willmot. The message instructed us to retrace our steps and proceed to Dover for embarkation to France as part of the 20 Guards Brigade.
The past two weeks had been hectic. A fortnight or so ago I was at home on leave with my parents and sister Dorothy in Cheshire. It was a warm Whitsun weekend but over the radio we were all startled to hear that the ‘phoney war’ was over. The German armies had invaded France and the Low Countries. In a matter of hours a telegram had arrived informing me that all leave had been cancelled and to rejoin the Battalion immediately. Dorothy accompanied me to the bus stop and we waved goodbye. Hitler did not know it, but Arthur was on his way!
There was dramatic news when I reached the camp. During Whitsun weekend the Battalion had been rushed to the Hook of Holland to escort the Dutch Royal Family, government ministers and the country’s gold bullion to the UK. With the loss of eleven killed, they accomplished their task and were now back with many hair-raising stories.
The Battalion had been given two weeks to reorganise and regroup. To take advantage of this interval, the anti-tank platoon, which I jointly commanded, was sent to Lydd ranges for target practice.
We were billeted at St Mary's Bay Holiday Camp. The first anti-tank gun had reached us in March and the officer and I took it to the School of Artillery at Netheravon in Wiltshire to devise operational instructions. It was a Hotchkis and new to the British Army, so the object of the exercise was to subject the weapon to meticulous inspection and draft a manual of instruction for other users. We spent an interesting and pleasant few days with a warrant officer gunner who was also seeing this type of weapon for the first time.
The British Army, however, lived up to its reputation. We had been back with the Battalion only a few days when the full complement of four guns arrived. Unfortunately, they were not Hotchkis, but Peugeot 37 mm!
Back to Netheravon, to be met by our amused and bemused warrant officer. The drill, as before, was repeated. Still in my memory is a pleasant Sunday evening in Salisbury, where I enjoyed a crab salad in an olde worlde restaurant, close by the Cathedral.
Having now familiarised ourselves with our new weapons on the Lydd ranges, we rolled along the A259 - four 15-cwt trucks each towing a gun and carrying its crew, and two 2-ton trucks with our kit and other supplies. I was driving the leading truck, with the Lieutenant beside me. Just outside Folkestone, we called in at a roadside cafe to replenish ourselves. I didn't know it then, but that was the last good meal I would eat for several years.
We reached Dover by late afternoon and joined other lines of transport that were heading towards the docks. We were cheered on our way and regaled with cups of tea by the people of Dover.
I handed a letter that I'd managed to write, to a little girl, putting my family in the picture, and asked her to post it for me. She did... I believe her name was Sheila. And that was the last my parents heard from me for some months.
With the 2nd Battalion Welsh Guards, we formed the 20 Guards Brigade and by midnight were loaded on two cross-Channel ferries. The Irish were on the ‘Queen of the Channel’. I was responsible for seeing that our trucks and guns were safely loaded, so was among the last to board and found the only space left in which to relax was the broad stairway leading down to the saloon.
Approaching Boulogne at dawn, it was startlingly obvious that the Stukas had had a field day. The docks, warehouses and buildings surrounding the harbour were in ruins and still smoking. CSM McGarrity, in whose company I'd served in Cairo before the war, turned to me with a foreboding expression and said: "We will never get out of here."
His pessimistic attitude surprised me. Firstly, he was supposed to exude leadership and enhance morale. Secondly, until then I had been under the naïve impression that we were on our way to Berlin! [The CSM did get out and ended up in India as a drill instructor.]
It was with the greatest difficulty, with floating wreckage and mobs of refugees on the dockside, that our ship tied up and we started to disembark. The cranes were damaged and out of action – heavy equipment and vehicles had to be handled by the ship’s derricks. What a contrast from Dover. Here was utter chaos. No French official appeared to be in charge.
We formed up in the customs sheds. There was a sudden loud bang. A Welsh guardsman had ‘accidentally’ shot himself in the foot. We moved forward into the town and assembled in the Place Dalton, by the church where the market is held, to await orders. During this interval, I walked around to the back of a restaurant, Chez Alfred, (it is still there) to see if a meal could be rustled up for the lads. But, despite some arguing – some in English and some in French – they did not want to know.
I retraced my steps and to my horror and surprise the square was empty. My platoon had driven off without me. I hitched a ride on a passing army truck to catch them up. But, on the outskirts of Wimereux I learned that the object of the occupants of the truck was to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the advancing Germans. Their destination was Calais, where they planned to embark to the UK.
Somehow or other I made my way back to port and by mid-afternoon I was reunited with the platoon. Much to my chagrin, it appeared my absence had not been noticed!
The platoon had been divided into two. My half, with two guns, was covering the main road through Outreau to the port, and the other, with Eardley-Willmot, was responsible for the coast road. We had an ideal line of fire and were facing a right-hand bend about 400 yards away. Immediately in front of us was a low stone wall about two and a half feet high. Behind us were some houses. All day we had heard the rumblings of gunfire but now – about 5.00pm – it was growing louder and nearer.
Surprisingly, a private car containing some Frenchman drove at speed past our position and round the bend towards the Germans. Perhaps we should have fired at it but it all happened so quickly.
We soon had more serious matters to occupy our minds. The distinct rumbling of tanks could be heard approaching our position and, sure enough, one appeared unconcernedly round the bend and then stopped. I could clearly see the tank commander’s head above the open turret with field glasses to his eyes. We opened fire and the tank rocked as we scored two direct hits. The crew bailed out and abandoned it. Soon a second appeared and that too was effectively disposed of.
While congratulating ourselves on our success we came under fire – from motorcycle troops who had been accompanying the tanks. In my mind’s eye I can see them now… jumping over low stone walls about two hundred yards away. We exchanged fire with our rifles as well as the guns. The encounter lasted about fifteen minutes.
A cause for concern was the sight of German infantry manoeuvring around our flanks. From the absence of defensive fire, it appeared that we had no supporting troops either side of us. We were stuck out on a limb!
As a matter of fact, I had not seen any other member of the Battalion since rejoining the platoon. Things were suddenly brought to a dramatic conclusion. There was a deafening explosion, the blast from which knocked me to the ground. My first thought was that one of our guns had blown up. But then I noticed the ‘potato mashers’ – German hand grenades – sailing through the air towards our position. We were in imminent danger of being surrounded, so I gave the order to disable the guns and withdraw.
The following is taken from ‘The History of the Irish Guards in the Second World War’:
A German motor-cycle platoon commander published an account of this action, from his point of view, in the Army magazine Die Militarwoche. After Abbeville had fallen, he wrote, the German armoured formations pushed on towards Boulogne. Late in the afternoon we were just outside Boulogne, in Outreau. The tanks were leading, behind came the motorcyclists. Suddenly the advance halted. From ahead came a lively sound of fighting, the sharp bark of our 20mm guns and the furious machine gun fire from our tanks. In between there were dull, heavy thuds. An enemy anti-tank gun? Then a despatch rider dashed up “motor cyclists forward”. In a flash we had dismounted and were worming our way forward on both sides of the houses. Fifteen yards ahead the road bent sharply to the left. There stood two of our own tanks, hit by the enemy anti-tank gun. A tank lieutenant explained the situation. Round the bend were two anti-tank guns which covered the whole road and were in positions covered from direct fire. Our job is to capture these guns, so that the advance may go on. And we must do it, for every minute will save us casualties.
The Company Commander decides to put in one platoon on the left of the road and one on the right, and take the enemy position from both sides at once. Brief instructions are enough, and the men prepare for action.
No 3 Platoon vanished into the houses on the right, and for us the job being with getting through a thick hedge. In two minutes we have got through, one by one; and we deploy for attack. We creep unseen almost to the ridge – just in time to see the flash of a shot from the enemy position. Did that one catch No 3 Platoon which had a shorter journey than we? Section 1 gets its machine gun into position and fires a burst. At that instant hell is let loose. The houses ahead of us and the little wood are occupied by the enemy. Burst after burst of machine gun fire comes whipping into the long green grass. We crouch in the thorns and nettles whilst the bullets whistled over us. Where are the bastards? We can’t find where the shots are coming from. There must be regular fortifications, as if there wasn’t enough to deal with already. Meanwhile we have found that a direct attack on the enemy anti-tank guns is impossible.