the countryside again, once more headed almost due south on the road to Augsburg. We crossed the Danube at Donauworth and then, when we eventually reach Augsburg itself, the River Lech as we turned east to aim for our next port of call, which was to be Munich. At Augsburg, we found a piece of incendiary bomb on a devastated site just over the river bridge and tried to use it to cook some food. It blew up in our faces, fortunately damaging no-one. A day or two later, we fetched up in the early hours of the morning on the outskirts of Munich and stood, cold and very hungry, just outside the gates of the Munich Zoo, right by a tramway terminus which was the end of the line for trams to and from the city centre. As we stamped our feet and flapped our arms to try to get warm, a group of ill-dressed men appeared on the scene, evidently arriving to catch the first tram of the early morning to take them to their work, whatever that might be. Some of the boys got into conversation with them, unopposed by the guards who were equally occupied in trying to keep themselves warm. It appeared that these were French hostages, set to work by the Germans in conditions somewhat better than those enjoyed, if that is the word, by the captive slaves we had seen at Mucke. They were off to factories in Munich. What followed next did wonders to cheer up our small contingent of a dozen RAF types, subdued as we had been for nearly three weeks by the superior numbers of American servicemen. The Americans were chatting to the Frenchmen, undisturbed by our guards, and were talking about bombing raids. One of them asked, in a voice loud enough for all to hear: ‘Tell us, who do you prefer to bomb you, the British or theAmericans?’ ‘Oh,’ was the swift reply, ‘It’s far safer to be bombed by the British.’ ‘Tell us why!’ chorused the Americans, unable to conceal their amusement and delight. ‘Well,’ replied one of the Frenchmen, ‘It’s like this. When the British drop a bomb, that’s where the rest of their bombs fall. We know where the raid is. When the Americans drop their bombs, they drop them anywhere, and we never know where the next one will land!’ The smiles on the faces of our gallant allies disappeared as if by magic. We bade farewell to the French hostages when their tram arrived to take them into the city, and turned north-east for the last hours of our long trek with a final ‘Let’s go, men!’ from our somewhat subdued Major. The venue now was the prison camp near Landshut, on the edge of the township of Moosberg. How good it would be to get inside a palisade – safety and perhaps some decent food. And a change of company. We had got to know each other reasonably well and had got on reasonably well on the journey, but new faces would be interesting. There had been no contact with the German civilian population except for one or two brief encounters. Our sleeping quarters had varied from railway carriages to vacated military establishments, village halls and barns. When we were holed up overnight in


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