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Lansell West Transcript of interview by Ina Bertrand 21 December, 2000 - tape 2
Now we were in Moosberg Camp, which you said had lots of different nationalities in it. And the Russians had the worst time of the lot, because the Germans we trying to persuade them to work for them. Yeah, yeah. Can you describe what your, living quarters were like in Moosberg. Bunks, you had wooden bunks, and with um, what we call a palliasse in our Army and stuffed with paper fibre and … Right We, we were issued with so many blankets, don’t know how many, forget now how many blankets we had. The thing that did stick to us more than anything, when we were first there we were issued with old French Army uniforms from the First War, and eventually the British Red Cross supplied us, this is what I can’t understand, what the hell the Australian Government was doing. The British Army supplied us with battle dress. There was probably an explanation, they supplied us with new battle dress, new boots - British Army boots - shirts, underwear. We were made. Made a hell of a difference. So the Red Cross was allowed in. How often did they come in? Oh I don’t know where … They used to just be dropped in to the camp, and we didn’t know where it came from. Right. The Red Cross were sending it from Switzerland, I suppose and ah, there were odd occasions, when Red Cross people came and checked the camp out, and asked you different questions. You were schooled in what you had to say and you got better rations that day. Extra blankets if it was cold. As soon as the Delegation they would leave, they would take them all back off you. The huts again … you mentioned the … … .wooden huts, wooden bunks and palliasses. With blankets, so what about your food? Where did you collect your food from? Oh, we had a cook house there, with each camp and they were supplied with rations, by the Germans, and the cooks would cook it up, dish it out to you, you might get, half a quarter loaf of bread a day and a bowl of soup and some boiled potatoes or whatever’s going. Did you, was there ever any argument about the sharing of this food. Did everybody feel it was done fairly? Yeah, most of the time, yeah. Who decided was it the cooks decided? Oh, the NCO’s that were running the camp. Right, so, your own NCO’s were running it? Yeah, well, well sometimes the British NCO’s which were good blokes too. Right. So the Germans allowed the NCO’s from the Prisoners of War to work out how the place would operate? Yeah, the Germans would just check up and try and find fault, if they thought they needed to find fault. How did they count you? That’s a circus! The Germans are the worst people … they’re brilliant, clever, clever race, but counting - they’re useless. You’d just need to shuffle your feet and they’d lose count. "Crucifix!" they’d start to say and they’d go back and start again. They’d be yelling at you, they’re hopeless counting. So you had to line up in a parade ground? Yeah, and they’d count you. Did anyone ever escape from Moosberg? Oh, I suppose … One bloke that I heard a lot of stories about … he escaped, he made a hammock out of the cord we tied around our Red Cross parcels. Very strong cord, to secure our parcels. And he made a hammock out of this and he strung it under a train and got away. That was the story, whether it was right or not. A lot of blokes used to try but … So you did you hear anything about these blokes who tried but did they just disappear? Sometimes they’d come back, and they do punishment like, and they then. What sort of punishment? Oh, they put them in solitary confinement and jail. Did you ever end up in jail? No, I certainly should have a few times. Can you remember those occasions. Why were they? Oh, one occasion I went out scrounging for food when we were on the march. This forced march. Went out scrounging for food and blundered into another bloody German barrack, in the dark. You’re that hungry you’d anything … not long after we started to get Red Cross parcels. Trucks coming from Switzerland, we didn’t know it, but it was loaded with Red Cross parcels for us. Oh God, it was like Christmas. Did you get mail in Moosberg? Yeah, yeah, From Australia? Fairly regularly, yeah. Right. There was one hold up there, one time, got no mail for so long, and they, the Germans admitted, they said, they didn’t realise, our mail … that German mail was mixed up in the same bag as ours. You see. Right. The German prisoners sent mail here... sent the mail to the PD people. Our families’ mails was in the same bag. There were the Germans, complaining that they weren’t getting any mail. So the Germans stopped this mail and they were only holding up their own people too. All the mail was in the same bag. Right. um, We were allowed to write pretty regularly, got a letter form about that long I suppose, about once a month I think and the other fortnight … That’s about a foot long. … fortnight you got a postcard sort of thing to send. That’s quite a lot. What about pens or pencils, what did you use for writing? I just, just what ever you could get. Well, what could you get? I’ve still got letters in there that I sent to my wife. Right, are they written in pencil? Yes, pencil they’re mostly in, yeah. I’m going to pass them onto my daughter. Did anybody keep a dairy? Oh, you weren’t supposed to. I could never understand the blokes, now. You were always lectured about it: "Don’t keep a diary! If it ends up in enemy hands, it could be handy to them". So I never … I couldn’t see the point in keeping a dairy. The more secrets you had the better. There were blokes that … a great act, they had to have a dairy. You know. How did you spend your time? When you weren’t working? Well where were you working? All sorts. Labouring jobs mostly labouring jobs. Ditch digging … So you were taken out in work parties. From the camp? Yeah, every day.   Right And then these took you to Munich, you said, the next stage after Moosberg was working parties in Munich. In Munich. So how did you get, from Moosberg to Munich? Oh, they took us there by train. Right. And did you stay in a camp in Munich too? Yeah. And what was that like? Oh, it was great! There was all Australians in that camp. Ah the first one we went to was a staging camp, a British Camp, a place called Westendlager. It was all right but then we got shifted from there to a place called Bergam Liam - all Australians. That was the best camp I was ever in. Right, right, what made it so good? All Australians, we were all mates. Right. We had good NCO’s there … the first sergeant we had there, he got sent back to the Stalag in disgrace, for … the Germans charged him with sabotage, cos he worked that much on our behalf. Got blokes off work and that when they weren’t sick. and all that sort of thing. He finished up as sergeant in the NSW police. Jack Quigg was his name, I meant him once since the War, he said, "If you’re ever over came and look me up again". So what did you do in that camp? Was it much the same sort of work? Yeah, mostly building work. New flats going up everywhere, you know, for that huge population, we were working on these … labourers, brickies labourers and everything, you name it we were there, and … Were you under guard the whole time you were working? Oh yeah, yeah. Civilians watching you too. But ah, as the War progressed, after Stalingrad things weren’t going to good. And they cut down the number of guards, so that at the finish of the War a lot of us were going to work with an armed civilian looking after to us. We could more or less do what we liked with them. So what this … this means that you were amongst the civilian population while you working? A lot of the time. How did they treat you? Oh good, pretty good. The odd one that called you "English swine", you know, but not many. The old … the old Germans that fought in the First War, they were the best to deal with, cos they knew what the Australians were like, and that. What was the camp like in Munich? Oh, it was quite good Describe it. Oh, wooden building, I’ll get a photo.   No, no tell me. People can’t see a photo over the mike. Describe it. It’ll give you a better idea, if I get a photo. You were talking about what the camp looked like in Munich. So they.. the huts are made of timber, aren’t they? Yeah, yeah. We had coke stoves in the back to keep them warm. Very effective they were too. So you weren’t cold there? Oh, no, no they had double glazing in the windows. Right, were they built specially as a Prison Camp or were they used for something else before hand? I think they were used for conscript workers too. Right, so Munich was the best camp of all. How long were you there. 18 months or so, you said? Yeah, about 18 months, I think, yeah.   And you talked about air raid, there, while you were there. Is this British planes? British bombers, yeah, Lancaster bombers, yeah. Coming over us. And this, why did you leave Munich? The only reason we were given, we could get, was that the British Government had insisted on em shifting us, or they said, they would put German Prisoners in bombed areas of England in retaliation. But the German employers, the builders, they put up a petition to the German Army to keep us there. They said "We want the Australians here, they’re good workers". The German Army said, "No, you can’t interfere with the Army. Our orders are they have got to be moved". Right, how did you travel from Munich to Lamsdorf? Oh, we didn’t travel from Lamsdorf from there. Oh, Lamsdorf, yeah, well by train. Right, conditions any better on that train, than the earlier ones? On yeah, yeah, we were in the passenger train. How long did it take? Or, a couple of days, I suppose, 2 or 3 days. Were you fed? Most of … well we had Red Cross parcels then you see, you’d save a bit out of your Red Cross parcels for a rainy day all the time. So you knew a little bit about the way things operated, you were able to manage better yourselves? Yeah, yeah, yeah, organise us, once you were given the Red Cross parcels, you tried to make them spin out. And you traded, a good thing about the Red Cross parcels you could trade with the Germans. They never had tea or coffee and we had real tea or coffee. They were glad to get it, they’d give you so many loaves of bread for a packet of tea or packet of coffee. What was in a parcel? Were they standard parcels everybody got the same or … Ah, much the same you got What was in a parcel? Good variety, you got ah, so many biscuits, small packet, like a, provita biscuits type of thing. A tin of jam, or some honey, ah, coffee or tea, coffee or tea, soap - which is a big item, get a cake of soap - tinned meat, tinned fish, tinned meat, cheese sometimes, and then it started getting Canadian parcels, they were good too. And the Germans allowed you to get these. They didn’t rifle them first, or anything like that? Oh, we never had any experience of it, no. Right. And you were able to trade it with your German guards? Not officially no, you weren’t supposed to trade with them officially. You’d be working alongside them, they’d say, "Have you got any, packet of tea, or a bar of chocolate". You’d get 3, 2 or 3 loaves of bread for a bar of chocolate. Right, they didn’t beat them out of you, though, they didn’t use their power? No, no, no they didn’t ever … I never knew of it happening. Not in any camp that I was in. Right. All right, describe Lamsdorf. What was the camp like there? Oh, it was a huge camp, all British of course. How huge, how many people? Oh, I don’t know must be 20,000 there. Gracious. And ah, a lot of British prisoners, taken, like from Norway, and France and Belgium and all that stage of the War. And then the Middle East, and airmen that were shot down a lot of them finished up there too. And ah So was it different in the way it was an organised from the smaller camps, especially Munich where there were only Australians. Was it … did the British organise it in a more hierarchical sort of way? Better, better. Moosberg, the main staging camp there, was run by the French. A lot of the French were good blokes too, some of them weren’t too good either. I had a lot of good friends amongst the French. What made you say some of them were not so good? What.. Some of them were anti British. Quite openly, anti British. Did that include Australians? Were Australians considered British? Or when you say British did you mean from England? Well they just lumped us in with, lumped them in, they lumped us in with them.   Was the treatment you were getting better, as you moved along and moved from one camp to another? No it got worse over there. It got worse over there. Right, in what way was it worse? Oh, the Germans, the Germans were more strict. And the War was going against them, you know. So they were taking it out on you? Yeah, well there were, very, no, getting nervous you know. They didn’t like the way things were going. A lot of them were diehards, they wouldn’t even have it, at that stage, that they were going to lose the War. I had my head shaved and when I was sent out on the working party, from that Lamsdorf, and one German came and looked at it … a photo of me, and they had a photo of me when I still had hair you see. He said to me, he said, "What year were you born in?" I told him, and he said, "What was your mother’s maiden name?" and I told him, and the thing is why was he asking these sorts of questions. They must have had it all down somewhere. So why did you have your head shaved? What did you do that for? For hygiene reasons, especially the way you were living, you could keep yourself a lot cleaner if you got rid of your hair. How did you keep clean? Did you have shower blocks? Yeah, yeah. Was the water drinkable? Oh, yeah, quite good water, yeah. The last factory we worked in in Poland, we had a shower there when we finished work. Women used to use the shower too, and there was, one bloke there he was a bloody rapist, if he got a chance, and he picked this little Polish girl, and she was a girl that was very useful to us, she’d get us maps and compasses when we wanted to try and escape and it was a little Irish bloke, going steady with here on the quiet. And he told this bloke, he said, "If you lay a hand on her I’ll bloody kill you. I’ll tell you now," he said, "I’ll kill you. You, you keep away from her". He never touched here again either. But they’d use, use the shower, and they’d move down the end and we’d use the shower and sit up the other end. But you’d talk to them, they were nice girls. OK, what else in Lamsdorf? Anything else happened that, were you ever bombed in Lamsdorf? Not in Lamsdorf, no. OK, then you were safe there then? We first met the Canadian troops there, from Dieppe. Lot of Canadians in that camp there. Um, then you moved on again to Lazisk? Yeah that’s that working camp we went to.. It was the only working camp, we went to. What do you mean by a working camp? Working party, working at a power plant, power station. Right. How many of you, this was a smaller camp? Oh, 250 in there, then they doubled, they doubled it, late in the War. Right, that was reasonably close to Auschwitz wasn’t it? Yeah, yeah. Did you know that Auschwitz was there? Oh, we knew yeah, yeah. How did you know? We tried to talked to Poles but they wouldn’t talk to you. They wouldn’t talk about it. So how did you know? Is this just the grape vine operating to tell you, is it? The Poles told us, there were, there were, well working alongside - not actually alongside but close to - conscript workers from Auschwitz, Jewish. You were? Oh yeah, we worked with them, yeah. You weren’t allowed to have anything to do with them. They wouldn’t let you go near them. You know, poor buggers. They worked them, till they couldn’t get another ounce of sweat out of them, and then they’d take them back Auschwitz, and bring another lot out. They’d probably gas them straight away. Right. The work you were doing, what was that, on the power station?. They were adding to their power station, and we had to handle … our … the gang I was in, we had to handle all the building material that was coming in. Machinery of all sorts - turbines dynamos, filters and all sorts of stuff - we had to handle all that. Mostly out in the open too which was pretty hard in the winter time. Colder in Poland, than in Germany? Oh yeah, it’s cold in Poland, but yeah, they had this stack of bricks outside the factory, out in an open field. You’d get that wind coming down from Russia, howling through the bloody … and that, they stuck it out there because you had to work. You had to keep moving. If it was sheltered at all you’d go easy, but you had to … we had, balaclavas, we had scarves, mittens that we were issued with, handling these damn bricks - you had to prise them apart with a crowbar to get them, to move them. And we had to load them on the trucks, and bring them down to the factory. When we did that, we had to lump cement and that was a horrible job - the bags were so weak, cement needs so many layers of paper thick. Those days there were about 2 layers and you’d finish up with more cement on you than you’d put in the truck.. And glass wool … I never … I finished up with TB you know. And I reckon that had something to do with it. Handling that stuff, the glass particles were flying through the air like sparkles all the time you were handling it. Food and living conditions, there? Oh, much the same. We were getting Red Cross parcels fairly regularly, but it was the winter time and the supply had cut out. The Russians... the Germans were short of transport for the Russian front you see, we didn’t get parcels regularly, in the winter time, which is the time you really needed them. But ah, But it sounds as though that was a better camp than Lamsdorf? Yeah, in a way yeah. And then the Russians broke through? Yeah. January, 1945, so you’re nearly near the end of the War by then. Yeah, yeah, we knew they were, only 50-60 kilometres away. They came up so far … what the hell are they waiting for? We didn’t realize they have got go build up. They’d come such a hell of a long way, from where they started and it took awhile to get strong enough, to build up supplies and move on again and we didn’t realize … it’s taken them … it’s such a big job. See the Germans couldn’t handle it, when they invaded Russia they were too strung out. But the Russians - they had the men and that to do it, but .. How did you know that the Russians were coming? We were getting the messages from the Poles, and the Russian camp down the road … every night or two someone was disappearing, without telling us that their mates were going. They knew their Army wasn’t far away. Right. What was the German response to the Russians approaching? Oh, they were very thoughtful, very thoughtful. We had a little German girl there - Trudy was her name. She was a Hitlerjugend member. Real diehard Nazi - from the time they were 6 or 8 years old, they get them and indoctrinate them, all the time - she used to hate us. "Swine!" she’d say, "Swine." She used to judge all the magazines, along the platform, all the stuff that was stored in the magazine, she was in charge of all of that. And the last couple of months, of the War, she’d come to our … it was a civilian looking after us then, an armed civilian - she'd come and said, "Can I take that man there with me?" It’s me, she picked me out. And she said", I picked you, I want you to help me, do this job. I picked you because you are always nice." I said I don’t think any of the other blokes here are ever any different. They didn’t talk to her even. You know. Anyway, she took me with her, and I helped her, and she asked me to shift different things, and I shifted them, and when it was time to come back, I just walked back to the mob I was with and just joined them. She must have realised that I wasn’t interested in her. And another bloke, Ron Reed, a pommy bloke, she picked him the next day to go with her, and Ron wasn’t having any either. She was getting nervous you know, with what was going to happen. So she was looking for someone to support her, when... Yeah, to look after her. Yeah. She was a very attractive girl, but we just didn’t like her. OK, the Army? you said there were only civilian guarding you by then. What were the Army doing? They were all up in the front, they called a lot of them up into the Army. There were a lot of civilians working, working the factories, responsible jobs in the factory, but they were still getting called into the Army. For Hitler, the army was first, of course, before everything else. So the main Germans were disappearing from all around you? Yeah, yeah. Did you consider upping and joining the Russians yourselves? No, I spoke to a Polish underground Officer oone time since the War, and I was working with him out here. I said, "I could never understand … you never ever tried springing any of our camps". He said, "I tell you the reason, you’d be more trouble than what you’d been worth". He said, "If you can’t speak Russian or Polish, you’re no good to us", he said, "If you had to act in them sudden, you know what’s it’s like in the Army if you get a sudden order, you’ve got to be able to understand what, the officer or the NCO is talking about. You wouldn’t have understood and you would have been shot, and probably would have got us shot too". He said, "It wasn’t worth the risk". He said "We did think at one stage of springing Auschwitz, but they didn’t have the spirit. We made some approaches there, but they just didn’t have the spirit to take it on". A funny experience happened there, about this civilian being in charge. We were in the yard there one day, when an air raid siren went - this was in the closing stages of the War. And all of a sudden he comes these bloody, Super Fortresses - they’d never got down to that way. And what had happened the Russians had given the American, American Airforce authority to land and refuel, and rearm in Russia. So they could bomb both ways, you see. They wouldn’t allow them for a long time, but anyway the Russians had relented and there’d be a great swarm of these planes come over. We realised they were buzzing the factory - they weren’t worried about us. But I said to the boys, "Come and we’ll go over and talk to the dobras" … that’s the girls you see, Russian, Polish girls, and that, German, working in the factory. They were … those that didn’t have responsible jobs were allowed to go up in these slit trenches up on the side of the hill. I said, "Come up there, ah, come up and talk to the girls, better than sitting here". So we went up and this silly bloke, he just went along with it, he didn’t dare to say anything. He didn’t say "No", or "You watch yourselves, or you’d be dead". That’s what he used to say, and anyway these girls, were sitting, down there, these steps down in to it. Open trenches, right, with seats along each side. The girls were all sitting down there, or 12 or 14 of them sitting down there. We climbed down our end, talking to them in Pidgin German and I can, one of our blokes - I always remember this - he started whistling the tune Jealousy, you know the tune Jealousy? Yes, yes All of a sudden the girls all started whistle humming it, or singing it. Right. It must be an international song now. Yes They all knew it anyway. I always remember that - the bombers going over, the noise of the planes, I can remember the girls singing. All right and then, the Germans remembered that you … they had to get rid of you and move you on. What did they do then? Ah when it got to the final stages. Ah when we got back into Bavaria, we got, the worst part of the winter, we were getting through … You haven’t talked about the marches yet. When you left Lazisk … How did you leave Lazisk? Oh, about 1 o’clock in the morning, they dragged us out and started us marching, and when we come out and formed up out on the road to march off, these Russian girls from the camp down the road, to say goodbye to us, you know. They used to come up and we’d have a party, there and the boys would be playing the musical instruments and they’d play dance music, and the girls would go up there. I don’t know why … they were allowed up to the wire to watch, and listen … this was in the closing stages of the War, they wouldn’t have been allowed early in the piece. Thoroughly enjoyed the music but I’ll always remember them coming up to say goodbye to us there. We marched, bloody, about 18-20 kilometres a day. How many of you? Oh, 500 was in our party. Were there still 500 at the end? No, there was quite a few dropped off - frost bite and one thing and another. Quite a lot had dropped out. How many do you think of the 500 got through? I think that most of them would have made it. Maybe 300 or more than that? Oh, a good 400 anyway? Good, OK. So they marched you. Tell us about the marching. How far a day? 15-20 kilometres a day, sometimes a bit more. Where were going to? Nobody knew. Just to keep us away from the Russians, was the main idea I think. But we crossed this river there, I forget now the names of the rivers, back into Czechoslovakia, we marched into this town, in Czechoslovakia the, the people would bring food out to us. They never had much, you know. They had been starving, but they bought boxes, bits of food in for us, and the Germans were going to kick it into the gutters, so you couldn’t get it. But there can’t have been many Germans in charge of you by this stage? No, not many, no. Anyway … . What did you do at night?. They’d herd us into a barn, a barn, there was a German sergeant, he used to go ahead of us on a motor bike, and he must have commandeered these barns, for us, and you’d camp in the straw. The farmers didn’t like you camping in the straw, because they reckon the stock wouldn’t eat it after you camped there. I don’t know why. But, … Was that so they could lock the doors and make sure you’d be there in the morning? Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you’d pile up together - four of us, you’d, would, never take your clothes off, just take your boots off. Take your boots off, and we had 4 blankets, a blanket each, and we’d make a bed out of 4 blankets for the lot of us, and get under as best we could. And pull the straw over you. Burrow into the straw, it was quite comfortable Damn nuisance when you had to go to the toilet at night, then, you’d be walking all over the other blokes, camped in the straw. How were you fed? Well that’s, I mentioned before, 4 or 5 a handful of boiled potatoes a day, that’s all we got. And this was distributed to you by the guards? Yeah. Right and this went on for months? Four months, yeah. So did you wash at all in that time? Towards the finish, when we were in Czechoslovakia, it was compulsory, everybody had to wash. But by the time I got to the water it was like soup. It had come from the river but they couldn’t be bothered getting anymore. You could say … call it a wash, but it wasn’t really a wash. It didn’t feel like it. What about toileting. Could you drop out of the line? Oh yeah, a lot of the blokes had to, they had dysentery.. Going through the towns they’d just squat in the main street, they couldn’t do anything else. Right. If you’ve got dysentery you just had to go and that’s, I was, I was glad … that’s a thing I never ever got dysentery at any stage in the Army. I was more constipated most of the time. And were you on the road, when you were finally, the War ended? Ah ,we, we come to a village in Bavaria, about to cross a river, and we start to walk across the bridge, and a German Post Girl came past us. She spoke beautiful English, and she said, "Why do you boys keep marching?" she said, "The Russians … the Americans are right behind you". So, the snow storms are very heavy, a storm had set in you see. Snow storm, and all of a sudden, sudden heavy little snow storm came from nowhere. I said, to these two blokes, we were dragging a little German wagon with Red Cross parcels we’d got. We’d got them at the railway junctions, that is other story. And I said to these two blokes, I said, "Look, as soon as we see a barn, I’m making a run for it", and they said, "It’s too risky", and I said, "Please yourself, I’m taking the cart anyway". Got up the road a bit and I looked back and you couldn’t see anything, from here to the door away, either way. Because of the snow? Yeah, I saw no guards or anything, so I ran for it, and these two blokes come with me. There was a little barn up the side of the hill. And we made our way up the barn, and no shots were fired and nobody yelling out or anything. We raced into this barn and dragged the little trolley in with us, and slammed the door and watched through the cracks in the wall. There’s was a farm house just alongside, a little farm house, and soon as, everything, everybody had gone and it got quiet - it’s nearly dark - we decided we’d go in, find out who was in the house and tell 'em that if they’d keep quiet we’d look after them, when the Americans came. And there was a lady there, she was scared stiff she was, she had two kids with her. About 7 or 8 I suppose, and she was scared stiff when she saw us. "Kein Angst, kein Angst" I said "We are Australians soldiers. You keep quiet, don’t tell the Germans we’re here and we’ll put in a good word for you, when the Americans come". So anyway, she seemed agreeable, she was scared stiff, she was still frightened of us, they were told awful things about Australian soldiers, you know. You know that night, we went back in and took some coffee, we shared some coffee, they hadn’t seen coffee, they hadn’t seen real coffee in their lives, shared a few tins of food with them, and the two kids, and they thought this was marvellous. Anyway, we went to bed that night, went up in the loft sleeping on the straw. And all of a sudden I could hear Germans talking outside the barn. You could hear the rattle of equipment and that, stacking their arms (they’ve got a term for it - can’t think of it now), and you could hear the rattle of equipment, all around the barn, and not one of them came in. You’d have think they’d have come in, at least camped on the floor. They must have had orders, we’ve got to move in a few minutes, we can’t, can’t waste any time. It’s starting to break daylight and they moved off because the American planes were coming round you see. We’ve seen plenty of American airmen - they must have had fighters zooming around again. Even while we were in the marches they’d come over and have a look around. No German planes about at all. Anyway that night passed and one of my mates used to snore, and I’d deck him, "What’s the matter!" I said, "Shh!" "Bloody Hell", he says and we listened to all these German voices, we thought we were sprung, we were gone, you know. But anyway, that next morning they got out, climbed down from the loft, before going to brew up some tea or coffee or something. And I’m still up there, and next thing the door opens and a German Officer walks in, didn’t ever look up and he just turned around and walked out. And I went into the kitchen where they’re brewing up their tea or coffee or whatever they decided they’d have, and this lady’s there and the two kids, and her father turned up, she must have rung the father to come and keep an eye on things. You see A nice old bloke, he turned out. And, we were sitting around the table drinking this coffee and that, and in walks a bloody German Officer with a map case. He throws the map case down on the table, the map down on the table and said, "Where is such and such a street?" he said, and she says, "So, and so" in German, then - turning to us - "Franzosen" (French), they had a lot of French prisoners working on the farms. He just walked out, he didn’t worry about us. That night the Americans started shelling the … what had happened, the German SS had set up a self propelled gun behind the convent, they were firing with the protection of the convent, that’s the sort of mongrels they were. And that convent had been turned over to all wounded and sick people, but anyway, we were there, that … that night, that, that happened, we said, "Oh, we better … ", they’ve got a cellar in there, "We’d better go down the cellar", when the Americans starting shelling, this area where we were. So we get down the cellar, we’re got down the cellar, with this woman, and her 2 kids, and my 2 mates are over, one, one side, and this woman’s over in the other corner with her 2 kids, and I sat on the steps, halfway down you see, put on a big brave act you see. She said, "Hast du Angst?" - they had the light on, I dunno what the light was, you see. "Hast du Angst?" ("Are you worried?"). I said, "Nein, nein," I said - my teeth were nearly rattling, you know. Anyway the shelled, shelling stopped, and the next day there’s an English woman come up (an English woman married to a German, you know) she said, "I think you boys better move", she said, "We’re taking all these people up to the convent, and going into the cellars, because I think, there’s going to be, about to be a big fight here soon. I think it would better if you, go over the other side of the road, follow the road up, you come to another road, going off that way", and she said "There’s a farm house up along that road a bit, they’ve undertaken they’ll hide you there". So we started out in narrow, low scrub over the other side of the road, we started walking, dragging our little wagon, what was left of our Red Cross parcels, and all of sudden somebody yells out "Halt!", and there’s 2 bloody SS men, worst ones that you could run into. "Was ist das?" "Food. Essen, Essen, Pakete. Essen." "Essen? Essen? Du hast Essen?" "Ja, ja," we said, "We’ll give you schnapps for essen", a couple of bottles of schnapps, purloined them from somewhere, and we just let them pick through what they wanted out of our boxes and take what they wanted, they were both armed you know. But we worked out after, they were both deserters. They’d cleared out from the German Army. Vicious looking pair they were, the SS were, vicious mongrels. Anyway the next thing happens, "Hallo!" and here’s a German Officer and an Army nurse - this is like a picture, a movie you see - an Army nurse, all in full uniform, and this Officer spoke perfect English, educated in England, some of his time. "Oh Australians," he said, "We heard, we heard there were Australians in the village, I wanted to see you". He said, "I want you to help me. I was taken prisoner by the Australians at el Alamein, and", he said, "They treated me very well". He said, "I was repatriated in an exchange of prisoners, that’s why I’m back here". He said, "There’s a problem. We want the Americans to stop shelling the hospital, because the shells are landing on the … firing that gun there, and … " he said, "they’re landing on the hospital". He said, "I want you to come with us, if you will, in the morning, under the white flag and go down to the river and tell the Americans." We weren’t too happy, and "Well" he said, "We’ve got the wounded, these sick prisoners in the hospital too, you know". So we said we’d better go, we weren’t feeling brave about it though. Anyway we started to march back to, through the village to the convent, and this nurse - she was a good looking sort, you know, and nice clean uniform and everything - We get back to the hospital, and the … some German civilian appeared, he must have been the Manager of the hospital, or something, he come out and he said, "Come with me", we went down a corridor, here’s this nurse woman sitting there with a couple of bottles of wine, drink this wine. Then a nun come looking for us, and took us into this ward, she said, "We’ve got something for you to eat." We had our own, but she had white bread! Where they got the white bread from I don’t know. She took us into this ward, and it was full of broken glass, all the beds were covered with broken glass, floor and everything, and suddenly I saw the glass was going out the windows, with the artillery fire you see, and anyway we were sitting there eating this food, and then all of a sudden a mortar bomb lands on the roof outside somewhere, so the other 2 blokes took off ahead of me, and I, staggered out, waited behind to grab somethin', forget what it was. I get out the door and there was a German Officer running, coming from that, and I’m going this way, I think, I saw the door, to the cellar, and as I reached the cellar door, he looked at me and laughed. I thought "I don’t know what you see to laugh at", you know. He might have been bomb happy too, but anyway, we went down in the cellar, people everywhere, it was crowded, we waited there that night, just sat, stood, stood, there all night, didn’t even lie down And when it’s breaking daylight, when the boys went outside, the, he said "The bloody yanks are here!" He said, "They’re all ready to go", and we went out and here’s these American soldiers. Ah, glad to see you lot. "Hey, you guys, where’s the cigarettes? Give em to these Aussies", and they treated us like royalty, and we had to go back and be interrogated by an American Officer, a Major, and he’s lying back in a sofa with his shoes off, lying back sprawling over this sofa. We stood in front of him, saluting. "OK, Aussies", he said, "You don’t look too fat on it." "No we’ve been doing it a bit rough." "Oh, OK", he says, "You get back up across the river". We marched out of the room. An American sergeant marched us down, a big party of German prisoners alongside us,. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor buggers, you know, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for em, and one little bloke, he was only a kid, he said, "Do you think we’ll be prisoners long?" I said, "No, the War’s nearly over. The War’s nearly finished, you won’t be prisoners long". So how long had you’d been a prisoner? Nearly 4 years. Nearly, 4 Years. Yes. But, I tell, I’ll you this story about this nurse. We got across the river, an American truck took us back over and dumped us in another village. We waited to be interrogated again there, an American Officer, Jewish he was too, opposite us at the table when we walked in, he said, "OK, you right", and next thing, a couple of American soldiers wheel this woman in, under arrest, and she looked at us and spoke to us and we spoke to her, you know, this American Jewish bloke he said, "You know this lady?" We said "Yes". He said, "She’s under close arrest", he says, "She’s a bitch". They’d found her nursing in concentration camps. She wouldn’t … she’d look at you and smile, but she’d never talked. I thought there was something, about her, you know. We want to hear about what happened when you got home, but there’s not a lot of time on the tape left, so, just some general things about the whole of the POW experience. What was the worst thing about it, about being a prisoner of war for you? Well being sold out, being sold out like a mob of sheep, not giving us a chance to fight. OK We were soldiers. Yeah, there were good things though too, happened. What, what would be something really good. That made you feel good even in the middle of this awful experience? Good, good, one of the best things I remember, was the German women that were prepared to give us a few cigarettes, every now and again. One lady, she used to leave little parcels of food, near a building site, where we were working, and there was Dusty O’Brien, he left a note for her, and he’d go out and get it and bring it back and share it with us. He said, "Why do you treat us like you do?" She wrote back in English, she said, "My husband was a prisoner of war in England during the First War, and he always remarked about how well the English treated him". Right. There were very few women, that were spiteful. They’d lost husbands, sons, brothers and that. But ah, they still realised that you were human like everybody else. I’ve always maintained that if women had the say in things, there’d be no Wars. There wouldn’t, they’d be no Wars. Katherine the Great, she had a bit of a reputation, but she had a bit of a reputation in other directions, too. But I mean if women were running the World it would be a better place. Um, what about medical attention? If somebody got sick while you were in any of the camps, what happened, did you have your own doctors? Yeah, we had our own medical orderlies. Right, did you have doctors too? Some camps, in the bigger camps, yeah, doctors, yeah. And what about medical facilities, were there hospitals with proper equipment? In the camp you had your own little hospital, like, and in the big camps, they had a big decent hospital, you know. And were they properly supplied with drugs and … . With whatever that was available you got. Yeah. OK, Because the German Army they were doing it pretty hard towards the close of the War, they, it’s surprising that they did keep it up as well as they did. Right, and the cruelty that you saw, do you think, was that ah, German policy, or was that some people are better than others. So some guards were just nasty people or was it a policy to look after POW’s better to look after civilians and … . I think, especially the Russians, yes, a Russian’s life wasn’t worth tuppence. They had been indoctrinated … they’d been drummed in them from childhood that the Russians were an animal like race, you know. What did you think about Germans by the end of the War, as a people. Had your opinion of the Germans changed? I respected them, I respected the German people, for a lot of things. But I , I couldn’t bear Nazi’s, I couldn’t, they should all be drowned, shot. Could you tell the difference, could you tell which Germans were nazi supporters? … Oh you could, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. By their behaviour? Yeah, yeah, they’re just vicious animals, like animals. Cos the thing is, we are trying to forget, we’ve got people here that would act the same way if they were given authority. Like the vermin we got roaming the streets, here, if they put them in a uniform, and give them a rifle, say "You go down to Frankston tonight and clean up that street down there. Get all the people off the street". What did you talk about with your mates at night, what were the things that you … did you talk about home, or escape or food? Food mostly. Food mostly. Did you go in for any of those games of imagining a meal that you would like to eat or? Some did, I never got to that stage. You had a craving all the time for bread, just bread and golden syrup. You know golden syrup, that is all I wanted, more than anything. I spoke to other blokes, that were prisoners with the Turks, and they said, all they used to long for is bread and golden syrup - something sweet. And a smoke of course, I was a, I was a heavy smoker in those days. Many a time I used to trade my food rations for cigarettes. But you weren’t a heavy drinker? No, No, no. Were you a heavy drinker by the time you came out of the Army than when you went in? Oh yeah, I didn’t drink at all, when I went into the Army. Right. But the first drink I had was in the dessert, and you only got a lousy little water bottle a day of water. And you used to get a bottle of beer ration a day each man. Oh, right. So I used to give mine away and then suddenly one night, why the hell don’t I drink it myself. So I said to these blokes I used to give it to, I said "I’ve decided I’ll drink it myself". They said, "Yeah, good on ya". So I used to drink me own beer then. Now on Crete of course you got used to drinking their wine. Um, was there a lot of talk about women?. Yeah, yeah, a lot yeah. You didn’t see many women in the camps did you? Not so much talk about women, when you were in a bad condition, and starving and lousy on it. The last thing that you would think about was women. The last thing that you thought about. But once you started to get fed and that... And once we got to Munich and saw a nice looking German girl, and that, nice looking Russians girls, the conscript workers and that. We went to a delouser once in Munich and they brought in a batch of about 15-16 Polish girls all naked, into the same delouser. General opinion went up from our blokes, the rotten bastards that could do it, you know. To dehumanise these girls. You were issued with a little towel about that big, and those girls were trying to cover themselves, imagine how they were trying to cover themselves, and that’s what we thought the Germans were doing it for. Because nobody had any lustful attitude to those girls, I mean, we were in too poor a condition to be interested. You know. But you did feel pity for them? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, lets get you home to Australia. How did you manage that? On a troop ship? Yeah, Arundel Castle. OK. I was in England, and, and one of my mates told me, he said "I’m going up to Buckingham Palace to watch … Want to come?" I said "No I don’t want to go to bloody Buckingham Palace." I said, "What for? "Ah, go up and see the King and all that", "Damn. I’m not interested in that". He said "I’m in a bit of a spot", he said. "We’ve got a Lieutenant … He’s a hell of a good bloke too. But … " he said, "He’s got to find six men to go with him. To accompany him, to this, and … " he said, "I’m one of them". I said, "Righto Jack," - I’d like this Jack. I met … went to say hello to his widow the other day at the Nursing Home not far from here - Anyway Jack’s … we went. And it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen. We get to Buckingham Palace, we’re walking through the Palace, and a bunch of flunkies are standing there like this and Jack walks up to him, and he says, "How you going mate?" And he says, "Keep going sir". We sauntered go down the steps out the back, and, into the lawn area there. And all just sauntered with our hands in our pockets, smokes and what not. Wander out there and walk right across the other side, where they had trestles tables set up, with the food. So Jack and I wandered across over there and all the rest of the mob followed and some of them decided they wanted to go to the toilet. Wanted to know where to go to the toilet and they said, "You go in that tent over there". And he just went and did it on the floor, on the lawn. It seemed strange, you know, in Buckingham Palace? Anyway, it turned out it is a special function for Prisoners of War and out come marching and that, you know - pommies all in perfect formation, Indians, New Zealanders, we were the guys that were the rabble of the lot, you know. Anyway, when it came to the … they formed a 3-sided square and the King and the older one came around that way, and the Queen, the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret came around this way talking to us blokes. Jack said, "Come and have a talk." I said, "I don’t want to talk to the King". "Gawd, you’re funny," he said. "Well come and have a talk to the Queen." "No," I said, "I don’t want to speak to the Royal Family, not really interested in the Royal Family". And he said, "Come and have a talk to old Stanley Argyle." Have you heard of Stanley Argyle? No. He was the Prime Minister, at one stage I think. Is that who you mean. Right Yes. OK. He was Sir Stanley by this stage, and Jack said, Jack says "How you going Sir Stanley?" "Oh very well, thank you. How are you?" He told us then, very interesting, he said, "You know, the people here don’t realise how close we were to losing the War." This is the Gospel truth, he said, "They don’t realise how close we were to losing the War." He says, "Those rockets, at the finish they were really worried", he said, "They really had them worried, we had every available plane out bombing those sites to stop them". Well, I’m going to hurray home back to Australia because we want to hear a bit about that. Yeah. Right yeah. Um, what was the effect of the War on your life after that? How long did you stay in the Army? Got out almost straight away, I wanted to get married you see. Right. We’d made arrangements, I’d met my wife to be, and her twin sister arranged for a double wedding. Right. And she’d made all the arrangements, and real busy body she is. So then, what work did you take up? Oh I went back to my trade as a baker. For awhile. Now, did you have any kind of physical or emotional problems, as a result of being, a POW? Were you physically well, when you came back to Australia? I had to go and see a Doctor … .. What did I go to see him about? Did you have any of the problems that come from constant dysentery or constant constipation those sort of difficulties. No. Heart problems, lung problems? you didn’t get TB or anything like that? I got TB later. That was later. Well there were 3 men in that camp. I slept there, and another bloke there and a bloke over there and he got, TB. And the bloke in the top bunk above, him, he got TB too. That’s all of the ones that who were working in this, particular place where they had the fibres floating in the air. Yeah, yeah, and the Doctors always argued against this, Veterans Affairs always argued against this, you know. I met a Doctor, he said "I reckon you had an open and shut case", he said, "They realise now that TB can lay dormant for years, and something will just trigger it off". Right OK. What about emotional problems, could you sleep properly, could you relate to other people easily? In one of those tapes I mention, a plane went screaming over our roof - acting the goat you know, training flight or something - I went down under the table. When you hear screaming coming towards you it means business. For that split second I forgot I was home. Right, did that happen often? Not a great lot no. What about sleeping? I’m still nervous, even now I’m still nervous to hear planes go over sometimes. Right. You sleep, slept OK when you got home? Sleep through a night? I think I did, I hope I did. Think I did. Right. Um, did you join the Returned Service Organisations and March at ANZAC Day and those sorts of things? I only ever went to one, one March. I went to 2 actually, the first one I went to look at it. And in the front rank of our Unit, marching was a bloke was a deserter - he walked out and left us when we were in trouble, you know, I told them I’m not going to march with that mongrel, I wouldn’t be in it. OK I, I wouldn’t be in it and And when was that, was that ANZAC Day March 1946 or 㤷? 㤶 or 㤷 something like that, yeah. Right. OK Apart from that I’ve got no time for the RSL. Did you join, there is a POW’s Association too, isn’t there? Did you join that? Yeah, I did yeah, for awhile but I gave them away too. Because as we’ve discovered all they’re interested in is Japanese Prisoners. Oh. I went to a function up in NSW, in Ballina - one of my mates was a prisoner with me, he lives at Ballina. And he said, "Do you want to come up for this big of POW show we’re having at the RSL here?" Certain time, another little mate and I, this other little mate is dead now but... We went up there and we were forming up there, there were quite a few - 8 or 10 - German Prisoners and the rest they were all Japanese Prisoners. And there was a Sergeant-Major standing, got up, "Right-ho," he said, "All the Japanese Prisoners fall in". My mate says, "What about the bloody Hitler mob?" "Oh yeah, you blokes too," he said. We, we don’t differentiate, we realise the Japanese Prisoners had a lot worse than what we did, but they didn’t have to put up with the bombing, and the shockin’ cold that we had to deal with. Everybody … Everybody’s experience is different, isn’t it? Yeah, my brother he said, he was a Jap Prisoner, my brother. He’s still on a lousy 100% pension, you know, he should be getting the bloody lot. He won’t do anything, he’s religion, he’s got a religion, you know. He won’t fight. So did you get a pension? Yeah, yeah. Do you feel that you have been adequately supported by the, by the Australian people, by the Government and.. No, no, no. I don’t. I’ve never. I took my file, I got it from Veterans Affairs once , under this Freedom of Information. I was going to have a go at the AAT for a claim. I took it to a Lawyer first, local Lawyer - a bloke I didn’t even know him, in Yarrawonga - and I said "I’d like you to have a look at that." He says, "Right-ho, I’ll do that." He looks through it, he looks at me and he says, "Why aren’t you getting the TPI pension?" I says, "That’s why I've come to see you about it. Why?" He says, "I know blokes walking around this town, they haven’t got the problems that you’ve got, but … " he said, "They’re all getting TPI pensions." Now I’ve met 2 TPI blokes in Heidelberg Hospital, I was in there in recent years. They were 2 TPI blokes, and they told me, "You know why it’s so hard for you to get a TPI pension now?" I said, "I don’t know, don’t know". He said, "At a certain stage most of the Veteran’s Affairs staff were ex Service people, doctors and senior officials and that", he said, "They all got to the retiring age, and all them retired around that same time". He said, "And they got the bright idea, nominate themselves for TPI pensions, in fact they made such a welter of it", he said, "It’s hard for anybody else to get the same pension now". I get what they call an EDA pension but I had to battle to get that even. While you were in camp, I assume you pay was mounting up, did you get all that when you got home? Yeah, I got Army pay. You got all your Army deferred pay, and all the time you had been as a Prisoner? Yeah, yeah, yeah.   Was that a good nest egg, to be able to do things with when you got married? Oh yeah, that was a good start in those days, I just forget how much it was, now. But it was, it was handy for a deposit on a house. Where did you go to live? Box Hill, first.   Um, how do you feel about ANZAC Day, now? Do you think its changing, do you, are you, have you noticed changes in ANZAC Day? There’s too much … the RSL has too much say in what … they can’t see any further that tomorrow, than today, look forward to tomorrow. When we’re all gone who’s going to keep it going? The kids. And the kids are becoming schooled and they’re interested in it - look how they go to Gallipoli and that, parties of young ones and that. But the RSL do everything do discourage, they don’t want them, don’t they want them in the March. So you would, would support the children marching? Yes, always, yes. OK, Um, do you ever watch films and television programmes about the War and … Yeah, all the time. Do you feel there representing your experience or not? Have you ever seen a film that made you feel ooh, that was just like it was? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You have sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you remember which ones? I got so many, I tape all that sort of stuff. Especially, about Germany, about Hitler. That should be compulsory viewing in our schools here. Hitler's children - have you seen that one? Yes. Yes. I’ve got those all on tape. So it sounds as though you’re pretty keen for there not to be another War. No, I don’t want another War, no. Was it a good thing in your life, in the end or a bad thing? It’s hard to say. I … mateship is the main … everybody will tell you the same thing. Mateship, mates you made. And you’ve still kept those friends? Yeah, yeah, but most of them are dead now. Most of my friends are dead. Only one’s still living that was with me, he lives down at Ararat. What do you talk about when you talk to him. Do you talk about the War or other things? I talk about, what we hope we get out of this scam, they have got the RSL has got, the RSL’s supposed to be hammering the Government about TPI pensions for all Prisoners of War. Oh, right. That would be, that would be just, that would even the score a little bit if they were to do that. So, we were, we were always sore about the way we were sold out. We weren’t given a fighting chance. So when they told us that day, "You’ve got to surrender," we thought about the blokes that had died, or been wounded during that, and the blokes we’d seen not even in our own unit, Greeks, other units and that. And you ask yourself, "What for? What was it all for?"
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Victorians at War - Oral History Project