On a Bright Summer’s Day (5)

The following day I drew emergency rations from the British Help Committee. These consisted of a little cheese, tea, bully beef dripping and biscuits. I never appreciated food before as I did then, or since. In this camp, besides a library, we were fortunate in having two billiard tables as well as a little theatre and church on Sunday. It was through this camp that all British officers passed before proceeding to a permanent camp. During my stay here I met quite a number of friends, besides making new ones. The German rations were insufficient to feed one, but with the emergency rations from the Red Cross we were able to exist quite comfortably. I used to save my potatoes and carrots when I got them and mix them up with Bully Beef, make a pie crust of crumbled biscuits and send it to the cook house. In this way I usually had three meat pies a week. We had two roll calls, one at 11am and one at 9pm. During the day we had lots of time at our disposal. About half the camp consisted of about 150 British officers. The rest were French and Italian. While at Karlsruhe I met a French officer who was kind enough to give me lessons in his language. Each day we put in an hour together. I was getting on quite well when the time came for me to be moving on to another camp.

On many different occasions while I was there, Karlsruhe was visited by our machines. Long before they reached us, the sirens gave the warning of the air raid. You could hear the people in the streets running for shelter and shouting "Flieger come, flieger come". Then for about an hour all would be quiet. Trams and all traffic would be stopped. One afternoon we counted nine machines right over our heads at a height of about 12,000 feet. We also saw German machines going after them, but they always managed to stay a safe distance from them. During raids the German officers always made us go inside. It was not for our safety, but for fear of our cheering, which we did at every opportunity.

I remained at Karlsruhe from August 16th until Sept 17th when thirty flying officers, including myself, were marched to the Station under an armed escort, taking the train for Landshut in Bavaria. During the trip I was fortunate enough to travel in a second class carriage, the first time since my capture. We had an uneventful trip, but the morning of the 18th, while still en-route, we were at one point able to see quite clearly the peaks of the Alps in Switzerland. The distance we did not know, but we all felt that given the least chance for escape, we would do our best to get to Switzerland and freedom. At about 3pm we pulled into Munich, the capital of Bavaria. Here we left the train and had some refreshment, consisting of the usual Hun stuff, although it was a little better than we usually got. We left Munich about 5pm arriving at Landshut about nine o’clock Here we were formed in fours, counted at least ten times, and marched off to the camp. During our journey we were led to believe we were going to a permanent camp. Imagine our disappointment when we arrived there to find nothing but a collection of small huts. Surrounded by barbed wire with sentries on every side with fixed bayonets and loaded rifles. We were all huddled into one of these huts like so many sheep

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