Old Comrades
After a good sleep I walked around and met Lieutenant Grayber, a very cheerful young man who drove me about in his jeep on various visits and finally took me to lunch at his Mess. Meat and vegetables, fried potatoes and bread that was too white to be true, and tasted like cake.
Mr. Mackintosh, a Red Cross man, fixed things for me to send a cable home, informing my family that I was safe and well. Grayber said he thought we may have to stay a couple of days, but after another hour or two spent in looking at the German prisoners, now so humble and submissive, he suddenly announced that he thought he could get us away. Half an hour later we were in trucks again, bound for the city of Halle.
When we arrived we were taken to a large barracks and registered as ex-PoWs, shown a block of rooms and told to pick our own. These were in a shocking state and looked as though they had contained a horde of wild pigs. By this time there was only "Flash" Gordon left with me.
We cleaned up as best we could, and were then taken once again for delousing and had our clothes "cooked". We were issued with tickets to obtain our tea and were very surprised when issued with 500 grms. of bread, nearly twice as much as we had been getting per day with the Germans. It was the same at breakfast and lunch the next day, far more than our poor stomachs could take at that time.
Bye-bye Yanks!
I found a job with the office staff typing out lists of names and military details of new arrivals. After 5 days I began to suspect we were getting no closer to our desire to get out of Germany. The fact was that we were actually being held prisoners by the Americans, on the grounds that the Allies didn't want unidentified refugees and ex- prisoners like us wandering over the countryside still at war. Perfectly reasonable of course. The result was that we were not allowed out of the barracks, and there were armed guards on all the exits.
After prowling around the large building we discovered basement rooms or offices, all with barred windows, giving access to the street on the "quiet" side of the barracks. I don't remember what instruments we used for the purpose, but with determination we were able to prise apart the bars of one window, large enough for us to climb out, up the side of the concreted, moat-like surround and merge with some passers-by in the street. We were then soon on our way westwards.
We left Halle on the Saturday, stayed with some American Military Policemen for the night at Sangerhausen and reached Nordhausen on Sunday. We were "screened" by the Military Government and taken to the airport. We met a Captain who was a medical officer and he assured us that there was no hope of a flight from Nordhausen airfield. Back at Nordhausen town we were accommodated by American troops who, in spite of our protests, gave us their beds in a commandeered German home and took us to their Mess for dinner, a really wonderful meal.
In Nordhausen was a factory where the V1 and V2 bombs were made. There were some terrible stories about the place. When the Americans arrived they found, in the concentration camp attached to the factories, hundreds of bodies of prisoners, men, women and children, who had been literally starved and overworked to death. The Germans had been bringing 1,000 new civilian labourers of foreign nationality to the town every week. They were worked and starved to death, then a fresh batch arrived.
On Monday we were given credentials asking American forces to do everything possible to expedite our return west by road or air. Captain MacFarlane, who was in charge of the airport, told us that he would definitely get us away, although we would have to wait until the hospital patients were evacuated. We waited on the aerodrome until 4p.m., then decided to go back to town once more. We stayed in the same house and had another good night's sleep in a wonderful bed. Those Yankee boys certainly treated us well. We had an orange, cereal with milk, eggs, bacon, white bread and butter and coffee for breakfast. A prisoner's dream of home! We then went to the aerodrome again together with 3 American soldiers, but nothing came in by 2pm so we got onto the road for Kassel and made our way west, as advised by the Military Government.
We left Nordhausen by jeep with another American Leutenant and got as far as Warburg, which is 20 miles west of Kassel. Here we were persuaded by an American Major to leave the jeep, in which it was our intention to proceed as far as Brussels in Belgium, since he said we could be flown away immediately if we would allow him to send us to an aerodrome nearby. We were taken to Paderborn where we met a British officer, Major Bell. He passed us on to another American, Major Rand, at the next village and we finished up by being taken under the wing of a Colonel Eastree. We were accommodated for the night and the Colonel promised us that we would be on our way home the next day.
At 9a.m. on Wednesday, we were again driven over the countryside and arrived at Hildesheim, 100 kilometres north-east of Warburg. Here we were disinfected (oh Gawd) once again and registered, being group No. 145. At 2p.m. we were overjoyed to hear the shout, "All British and Americans down to the hangars." We were loaded into American Dakota C47s, (called DC3's by the British) and at 5.30p.m. found ourselves at Brussels. We were greeted by a Royal Air Force film unit. One of its members looked at me curiously, eyes fixed on my self-made shoulder epaulettes on my shirt. "What's your rank?" he said. Giving him a short explanation, I said, "I'm a Flying Officer." "Blimey", he replied, "you nearly made yourself an Air Commodore, didn’t you?"
There was a contingent of the Red Cross, who supplied us with tea, biscuits, chocolate, cigarettes etc. We were taken to a barracks in town, de-fumigated for the umpteenth time, fed, registered, interrogated etc. At 9p.m. Flash and I took a tramcar ride to see the city, which was very lively. We missed the last tram back, and had to walk all the way.