Paddy let out a yell of greeting and we all jumped on him. Whether or not we were important prisoners – and of course we were not – it was likely that the cell had been bugged and that we should in no way give the Germans the slightest bit of information about ourselves, even that we were members of the same crew. So we confined our reunion jollifications to quiet murmurs about the whereabouts of Jack Frost and Alf Green. I had decided that I was not going to berate Paddy for his dereliction of duty in those last few moments before we left the Halifax. We had all lived for months under the threat of some sort of disaster and it was not the time to bear grudges. It was enough that we had all survived.


It was not too long before we were summoned above ground and found ourselves in a truck which bore us off to whatever was the nearest railway station. The boys had not been interrogated, but from some source or the other we now learned that our destination was to be the notorious Dulag Luft interrogation centre further south, where, rumour had it, we would be lucky to be left with all our fingernails.


* * * * * O


ur train journey, with ourselves, two German Wehrmacht guards and a few other prisoners, took us to Frankfurt by that evening. We came out of the main railway station there just in time to hear the German sirens announcing an air raid and, somewhat fearful of the attitude of the civilians around us, crowded with them back down the station steps to the comparative safety of a platform below street level. There was no unpleasantness, although we were wearing the uniforms of the Service which was at that moment wrecking part of the city. But it was uncomfortable and we were glad to find ourselves in some form of road transport and on our way out of the city in a direction which proved to be north.


I say ‘some form of road transport’ because, at this stage, I must confess that my recollection of the weeks ahead is less than crystal clear. Once again do I regret that I failed even to try to keep the most scribbled note of events, far less anything resembling a diary. Single events themselves are well etched on my memory, but their chronology is forgotten. I might have been able to consult Jimmy Ward about some of the missing memories, for we were together throughout our time as PoWs, but he died of a massive heart attack just before Christmas 1985.


Just a note about Jimmy Ward. He had been a Plymouth Grammar School boy at the beginning of the War, had volunteered as aircrew, and was now in 1945 in his early twenties. He was keen to continue his education when the War finally ended, and I know he was much influenced by my chatting about Oxford. When he was eventually released, and after getting over something of


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