Walter,
Another absorbing chapter in your
via dolorsa as a POW in Germany; those of who escaped that fate think: "there but for the grace of God....". And at that, they were better off than the Japanese captives. (Pilots were sometimes beheaded with the sword, the Japs seem to have had a particular dislike to us - but in any case the victims might find this preferable to being starved and worked to death).
Congratulations on keeping your Identity card all this time. How meticulous they were !
Strange to see your height given as "5.9", but the weight in Kg. But then, I recall going into a hardware shop once with careful measurements in mm for a tap adaptor. Chap in brown dust coat looked at this scornfully. "Drei vertel zoll " ("3/4 in"), he said, and reached down the bit I wanted fom the shelf. Seems imperial measures alive and well there in 1960, perhaps the same held good in your case.
And they recorded the shape of your skull and nose. You were pale faced (no wonder). And was the wound on your right leg from your ditching ?
...those who had to shave (I was not one, fortunately)...
That stopped me in my tracks ! A battle-hardened Beaufighter pilot - and he doesn't have to shave yet ! People today just wouldn't believe it. (of course, it only meant you'd decided to grow a beard).
Might not need to shave, but could do with haircut ! (mugshot). Fredghh (RIP) said that they "sheared him to the bone" and then billed him for it !
...I had a top bunk, very deficient in bed boards..
.
Might've been for fuel, more probably the shoring-up of a tunnel (seen too many POW films !)
...and for washing clothes. The latter was a most difficult task, using "ersatz" (artificial) soap...
Probably the same as the sea-water soap they gave me on the troopship. Useless.
...artificially made coal blocks...
We had the same sort of things at home (slack and coal dust compressed in to small blocks - "Coalite" ?
...before I was off from the camp in my bid to escape...
Now don't wait too long before telling us all about it". Fred told us that he'd "been on the run from the Gestapo for six weeks" - then, sadly, left us before he could tell the story.
Keep the ball rolling, Walter !
Danny.