220963 Pte. Thomas Luther Horton British Army 5th Btn. Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry from:44 Trelawney Rd., Falmouth My father, Lew Horton was captured at Hill 112 and was injured by shrapnel when being transported by train with red crosses on top from British and American planes. The third time the planes straffed the train, my father was hit.
The train stopped, and the German guards ordered everyone off the train.
A colleague of my father, Jack Foster, said as he saw my father being helped off the train, he didn't think he would survive it. A German officer started walking towards my father and got his pistol out of the holster ready to shoot him dead. Apparently, he was greatly distressed as his wife had been killed on the train. Fortunately, another German officer came over and put his arm around the distressed fellow officer,and guided him away. The German people had not much food themselves. They lived on a diet of cabbage soup, potatoes and black bread. Some of the younger German guards were a bit sadistic and would knock crutches away from injured English.
My father was blonde and blue-eyed, and with a name like Luther we felt it must have helped him.
My father was freed in May 1945 when I was 8 months old.
He always said that he thought the Germans did what they could for him, even though his Achilles tendon was cut in an operation.
He never talked about it much, but he was captured when laying communication lines in the 5th Battalion 43rd Wessex Division, in Hoven Woods, and were surrounded by Panzers.
He died in 1990 aged 69, bits of shrapnel having surfaced from time to time, some lodged in his stomach.
The old comrades association kept him and his comrades in touch all through his life, which was a great joy.
|