A CAPTIVE FREED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 64, Issue 9, 21 October 1943, Page 3

A CAPTIVE FREED.

THREE YEARS IN GERMANY. ADVENTURES OF A DECK BOY. LONDON. Jack King, of Watford, Herts, an 18-year-old deck boy on the steamship Afric Star, which was sunk in the Atlantic early in the war, has now returned to this' country to describe his experiences as a prisoner on board an enemy raider and in a German camp.

The Afric Star was homeward bound from Buenos Ayres when one morning a big steamer flying the Russian flag was sighted. She opened fire. The first shot tore half the bridge away and more shells stopped the engines. The crew took to the boats and 74, including the captain and two women passengers, crossed to the German raider. They were

herded into the forecastle, where there were about 70 men, crews of a British and a Greek ship. After 11 days they were taken on deck and found that the raider had made a rendezvous with two ships. One was a tanker flying the United States flag with “Dixie, San Pedro, Califoniia,” on her stern. Alongside her we saw the British ship Duquesa, captured by the Admiral Scheer.

The British seamen were transferred to the Dixie and were sent down into the ship’s tanks, where they found another 150 seamen, mostly British. They were packed tightly together with no ventilation, and the place became like an oven. The men were allowed on deck for exercise nearly all day, though there were ai’med guards all over the ship. Another German raider appeared, and with about 300 others King was transferred to her. Eventually the ship arrived at Bordeaux and later the men were put on a train for Gei’many, from which one night about 40 managed to jump and run for it. At a prisoner of war camp at Sandbostel the men were forced to dig on a moor from early morning until sunset. Some of the prisoners took up the floor-boards and, working at night,' tunnelled under the barbed wire and beyond the camp, and nine men escaped. Unfortunately, the tunnel was discovered soon afterwards by a dog scratching at the floor-boards.

Discipline was rigorous and King, who was caught stealing potatoes, was sentenced to a month’s solitary confinement in the civil prison in Sesermunde. He was allowed only half an hour’s exercise each day. Food consisted of two slices of bread, a bowl of soup, and a mug of undrinkable coffee.

In his third year of imprisonment 25 of the captives were told they were going to England. They travelled to Munich, through Austria, and over the Alps to Bari, in southeast Italy, where an Italian hospital ship took them to Turkey.