234849 Pte. William Robert Enever British Army Royal Signals from:Canning Town, London "Once you've been starved, you're never hungry again" - my father, Bob Enever told me, his daughter, memories of his war experience, as a prisoner for four and a half years. He was cattle trucked, marched and dragged to Marburg, from Kalamata in Greece where he was captured (failed and dreadful strategic Battle of Kalamata).
He recounted Greek women being shot trying to give him bread, a child shot in front of him, comrades all around him killed, some dying in the cattle trucks and on the marches. He told of drinking from puddles, eating maggots, being covered in lice.
In the camp at Marburg, he went to work on farms in the hope of stealing food. The Red Cross saved their lives by dropping parcels. He spent a week in solitary confinement for 'insulting the Fuhrer' and barely survived on bread and water rations.
The camp was evacuated by the Germans, all prisoners becoming hostages, marched across into Italy where they were liberated by Americans and British. My father could barely walk (some had clogs, others rags for shoes).
When he returned to England, his father didn't recognise him - he was changed, too thin and gaunt. His experience had a profound effect on all of us, my mother (he married within weeks of returning), and my brother, and myself. He was prone to raging, nervous temper outbursts and worry that sometimes left him with a throat and mouth full of ulcers. He had grooves in his shoulders where the pack he was forced to carry had damaged his starved bones.
He never really enjoyed food. He failed to put on any weight beyond his initial recovery period after the war. Some of his friends died from eating too much when they were liberated.
The only happy tale he told was that all British prisoners used to laugh at the German propaganda, relayed over a tannoy system, intended to demoralise them. The Germans never understood the laughter!
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