P.O.W. writes war story

Press, 17 April 1978, Page 7

P.O.W. writes war story

Almost every day of his four-and-a-ha!f years as a , prisoner of war and part- ; time escaper, Fred Stuckey I took notes on scraps of [paper and stored these in ibis money belt. , [ Now a retired farmer, he I has written a book called i “Sometimes Free — My; . Escapes from German [ ! P.O.W. Camps,” recording j the exploits noted on bis paper scraps. He still has the pages written in minute, precise j handwriting, and the money • belt. At one stage he lost his ! diary after he had given it jto a fellow prisone for safe-; | keeping. The Germans con-1 'fiscated it but when he wgsi eventually caught after one of his four escapes and; [thrown into a Russian! P.O.W. camp, his interpreter; told him that they had his! [diary. Mr Stuckey had first en-

• trusted the diary to Mr Cyril Donnell, whom he saw [for the first time since the •war in Greymouth last Tuesday. The author made six i escape attempts altogether. [Two were unsuccessful but [after one bid he was free for i three weeks and after another covered about 900 km. He received no help from the local people. “You carried a bit of tucker. It’s amazing how little food you need if you steel yourself,” he said. At one stage his normal weight of about 86kg plummeted to 57kg (9st). However, he said he was not treated excessively harshly in camps. "1 was one of the lucky ones,” he said. He, believes that the “Red Cross parcels” jointly prod’i >d by the Red Cross and the St. John Ambulance Association saved thousands of lives. “There were months when we didn’t get any bir thousands of Allied P.O.W.s] would not have come out; without the generosity ' of these two organisations,” he'

i said. He had dedicated his [book to both organisations. I Many of the Russians, [who had no food parcels • died and their bodies were [wheeled out of the camps by (the cart-load, he said. j He vividly remembers the monotony of prison life and j being starved at times by i the Germans. In a letter [home to his mother, written |in September, 1944, he also i says: “I have always preferred the quiet and solitude I of nature to the company of j babbling men which is one 'of the aspects of this life I [long to forget.” I His thoughts always [turned to escape. “I never went overseas to be a [P.O.W. I went to help the Allies. It was the last thing I wanted to be,” he said. His hatred of confinement [is obvious. He writes: “1 felt • the agony of being behind barbed-wire very severely all i day. The thought of being a prisoner hung over me like iron bands. Longed for another chance to make an-i other escape. Slept on my' bunk most of the day in • order to forget that gnawing' thought.”

I There was plenty of time! ;to mull over these thoughts i for he spent a total of 120 ' days in solitary confinement he said. While awaiting his passage home after the Second World War, he went to Scotland to write up his notes of prison life. The trip cost him two stripes and £l6 after a court martial for being absent without leave. When he was back home again, his wife Edith typed [up the diary and after" re- [ ceiving flattering comments I from friends over the years, I Mr Stuckey recently decided to write a book. Taking about 18 months I ; to write, it was completed in! I July, 1977, and has just appeared in Christchurch book; ishops retailing at $13.50. [ i “It was a retirement! : hobby," he said. He has also [ supervised and paid for the printing of the book himself. A fellow prisoner of war, Mr Jim Welch, who is now art master at a Masterton College, drew the cartoons for the the book while he was a prisoner in the Ger-I man P.O.W. camps.