Old Comrades
I was interrogated twice by an officer who threatened to have me shot if I didn’t disclose information, but I reminded him of my obligation to give him only my name rank and RAF number, and he replied by telling me all about 603 Squadron with names to match. His knowledge surprised me, but I kept my mouth shut. and gave away nothing.
One R.A.F. prisoner in the house managed to whisper hurriedly to me one day, that he had managed to loosen the window fastenings in his room next door, that he was being taken away, and that I should continue to work on the fastenings if I was moved into that room.
Only a couple of hours later I was transferred from the kitchen to the room in question. Fixed timber shuttering was outside the window, that could be opened inwards. The metal window sash had been prised away from its seating by the previous occupant but could be replaced to look as though it was fixed. He had then used the sash through the venetian-style shuttering, to force away the horizontal wooden bar forming a temporary lock on the shutters. A little more work, and the bar would fall away from the shutters which could then be opened.
I waited anxiously for the night. I listened carefully for the sound of the patrolling guard, who walked right around the outside of the house very regularly. I felt very unwell, and guessed I was suffering another bout of malaria, which had happened to me a couple of times since my illness in the Sudan. About midnight I began to work on the shutter, and had got it partly open, when the guard made a very hurried exit from the front of the house and dashed around the back, where my room was. He rushed back to the front and I heard him speaking excitedly to the Corporal in charge. I closed the shutter and window carefully, and was thankful to sink into bed, feeling very shaky.
Nothing happened until two days later, when a senior N.C.O (Feldwebel) came into my room suddenly, walked straight to the window and tested it. By that time I had shut it quite firmly. He muttered something to me in German that I took to mean that he was told the window had been opened, and then left after I played dumb. All very strange, I thought, and I wasn’t very happy about the outcome.
The next day during my exercise period under supervision, I managed to get to the side of the house and was able to look directly across some vacant land behind my prison room. There was another house facing the back of ours, with a large verandah facing towards us. On it, apparently pointing at my window, was a machine gun mounted on a tripod!
After ten days Bob and I were two of six prisoners taken to the local railway station. I then found that as well as we two, there had been two Greek airmen and two Americans in the house. One Yank was incapable of moving, having a broken leg. He was kept on a stretcher throughout our journey to Germany. The other, a Lieutenant pilot,introduced himself to me with a Southern drawl, saying, “Ah come from Chattanooga”. “Well blimey,” I said in my best London accent, “I always thought Chattanooga was a mythical place in a song.”