CRETE TO KARLSBAD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 213, 8 September 1945, Page 4

CRETE TO KARLSBAD

GERMAN PRISON CAMPS WANGANUI SOLDIER’S STORY COAL MINING IN SILESIA Typical of many of the stories of Wanganui repatriated prisoners of war, who have returned to their homes lately, looking very lit and well, and bearing little indication of the ordeals which they laced, is that of Driver M. B. Wallace, son of Mr. and Mrs. F. O. Wallace, Pitt Street. He was taken prisoner on Crete on June 1, 1940, and reached the American lines at Karlsbad, in Germany, in the middle of 1945, after participating In an 1100 kilometre forced march and a later “free lance” inarch of 90 kilometres from the camp he was in to safety. He said little of the forced march—that was a story of its owm—but spoke of the general conditions prevailing at various camps and stages of his term as a prisoner in German hands. DEFENCE OF CRETE. Driver Wallace, of the Army Service Corps, formed one of a composite battalion which was established to defend Crete in 1941. They fought and retreated. He belonged to a patrol company, and was one of a number who arrived too late on shore to connect with boats leaving for Egypt, and so took to the Crctian hills. He and a Wellington soldier, Private Rex. Hill, stuck it out in the hills for a time being aided by the Cretians, who wereloyal even enough to die rather than give the British away. “We lived in the hills by day, and came down into the villages at night,” said Driver Woliace, “and the help we got from the people of that island was simpjly marvellous Some of them were shot in cold blood for not disclosing our hiding places, and the Germans wiped out whole villages, every man, woman and child, so frustrated were they at tne determination of the Cretians.”

A bad attack of joundice made Driver Wallace decide to give himself up. In January, 1942, he was taken to Greece in an Italian transport convoyed by Italian torpedo boats. *Tt was there,” he said, “that we first met up with the Red Cross. What a wonderful job that body did with its patriotic parcels. Many of Us would not have lived had it not been for the Red Cross. Everything we got in Piraeus was from the Red Cross—food, clothing a;id all, even blankets.

“We were a bit unfortunate, however as four Australians escaped when we were in Piraeus and Red Cross issues were stopped.” From Athens he was shifted to Salonika on a Bulgarian ship. The ration for the 11 days’ trip was one keg of salty, very salty, herrings for 164 men and one loaf of bread per man. The ship moved in mortal terror of British and Greek submarines. The officers and crew, and the guards, wore lifebelts, but the prisoners were not allowed any. Officers moved about threatening the prisoners at the revolver point. German Marines were the guards. FIGS “FORAGED.” Indicative of the “foraging” qualities of New Zealand soldiers, Driver Wallace told of the discovery that what they were led to believe was a cargo of ammunition was, in fact, a cargo of figs. “It was not long before the boys ripped away a plank or two, and pulled up 30 sacks of these figs,” he said, “and they made us pretty sick. But we were lucky in getting them, because most of those ships the boys were herded in were hell ships in every sense of the word. Ours was a good ship by comparison.’’ During four to live weeks in a transit camp, where living conditions were very poor jjideed. the men caught, cooked and ate stray wild cats. Ben beri became rampant because of malnutrition, and the Germans took away one of two Red Cross blankets that had been given to the men. They were then entrained, 48 men to a cattle truck and began a 17-day journey across Yugoslavia, Austria and into Upper Silesia, to Stalag 88, in Lamsdon, where there were some 25,000 prisoners. Many died from exposure during the trip. It was deep in the winter (February) when that train trip was made and no Red Cross parcels were received in Damsdorf for the first 10 days. The general opinion there was that if men got into working parties they were better treated. So, when a call was made for 110 volunteers for a “timber” job, Driver Wallace and othcers stepped out. “We were taken to Knurow, eight kilometres from Gorlitz, in Upper Silesia,” Driver Wallace continued, “and there we found that the ‘timber’ job we had volunteered for was a coal mine, the Hermann Goering Coal Mine. We worked on the surface for a week and then were sent underground. My first experience of underground work in a mine was on a coat face two feet high. You had to lie on your side and throw the coal back over your head. The amount o F coal you had to shift each day was 25 tons, per man. You stayed on until you shifted that amount. You shovelled only. Civilian internees, mainly Poles, did the blasting and the timbering in the mine. There were no Red Cross parcels there, and men were continually dropping out through malnutrition. It was a very modern mine, fitted with conveyor belts and all sorts of conveniences but that did not alter the fact that a man’s job each day was to shovel 25 tons. SPORTS GROUND BARGAIN. “There was a sports ground nearby and the Germans allowed the prisoners the use of it. Though few did use it because of need for rest in their off hours, that ground became a bargining medium. Because the coal mine heads deemed that we were not putting out enough coal, they cancelled pur privilege to use the ground. That put the boys into a determined mood. We had a central camp committee. I There was a meeting and we decided on a ‘go-slow’ policy. All through the mine appeared chalk signs, ‘go slow,’ and not a man ratted on that decision. It was not. long before the heads measured the position up and we got the ground back again, but the ooys considered that in their ‘go-slow’ effort they had arrived at a standard rate of output, and that continued for some time. One section’s output fell from 700 to 400 tons a shift.

“There was a splendid English doctor in that camp, Captain Lacy, and his marked ability as a surgeon and physician was availed of by the Germans. He was a great friend to all the British and Dominion chaps, and it. was not long before he had us on staff jobs—driving winches, and other tasks about the mine.” Driver Wallace said that those conditions prevailed until, because the British had put prisoners of war into separate camps according to nationality, the Germans did the same. The New Zealanders wore all sent, to Sosnowitz, in Central Poland. There were. 600 New Zealanders there and conditions were appalling. This was a poorly equipped mine, and the foremen gave their orders at the revolver point.’ Poles about the place were a misery to see. They were well and truly downtrodden, anti in their sorry plight blamed the British prisoners for everything that went wrong. “We didn’t mind taking the blame,’ said Driver Wallace, “because, for us it meant usually a severe telling off,

perhaps a beating up, or a time in th© ‘cooler,’ but for Poles it meant the concentration camp.” LITTLE BIT OF WANGANUI. There was a little bit of Wanganui in that camp—Privates Pat Earle, Mel Ross and Driver Wallace, all Technical College old boys. They, with Private Gallichan, of Palmerston North, produced a paper, the “Tiki Times,” original copies of which Gallichan carried across Europe in his forced march and brought safely to England. The “troubles of a dawning victory” descended upon this camp about January 17, when the Russians broke through at Cracow. The prisoners marched through Poland to Eastern Sudctenland across portion of Czechoslovakia, bordering Prague to Western Sudetenland, to a place called Brux, where there were 36,000 prisoners working in one of Germany’s greatest synthetic oil plants. It was a journey of 1100 kilometres, best forgotten. At Brux they had two worries —food and bombing. The men lived on dandelion tops, boiled, and potatoes equivalent to the s’ze of pig potatoes in New Zealand. a*out four each meal. There were boiled dandelion tops, three to four potatoes and 200 grammes of broad a day. Driver Wallace worked 12-hour shifts, sement mixing. MAJOR AIR T.ARGET. Their camp was near a major target for the mounting Allied air ffensive, an 800 to 1000-plane target. There was roughly a total of 45,000 forced labourers pt work in and around the area. In all 13 major raids took place on that centre and 160 British prisoners were killed, 38 on Christmas Day, 1944. The whole of a oamp housing French prisoners was wiped out. There were no air raid shelters and the Germans opened the gates and let the prisoners into the fields to get away. Some 3600 civilians were killed in the first raid, and for 12 months that factory failed to produce one gallon of henzine. All the work was directed to repairing it. One night the guards at that camp disappeared and the prisoners in it burnt it down. Driver Wallace then made his own way out and reached the American lines'at Kalsbad. where he was armed, got hold of a car. and made his way out lo the planes which flew him to England. It was like coming out of ze darkness into dawnl