from:John St. Furlong Lane, Burslem, Stoke on Trent
My father, John Andrew, joined the Army in October 1939 for the duration of the war with the Royal Engineers as a Sapper, at the Drill Hall, Stoke On Trent. He was 19 years and 11 months old.
He was told to go to Plymouth by the Sergeant, and he went with his friend Albert who was from Fenton Stoke on Trent. They then moved from Plymouth to Dovercourt and on the 1st of December 1939 the company sailed to France and docked at Cherbourg, they stayed there for a short while then went to Boulogne, where they all slept in a fish market. They all moved out of the fish market, just as they had left there the Germans bombed the fish market. They all went into the army trucks and moved to Camiers then to Etaples then back to Boulogne. They were all surrounded by German snipers at the docks in Boulogne and all had to make a run for it to the railway station and they got there The Welsh Guards were already there. The Royal Engineers and The Welsh Guards had run out of ammunition. and were surrounded by the Germans. One of the German soldiers had his finger on the trigger and he was laughing when he said, well lads the war is over for you. They were all now prisoners of war.
They all left Boulogne on the 25th of May 1940 and had to march into Germany, which took three weeks, sleeping in open fields in all sorts of weather. Then they marched into Poland to a big city called Poznan. To an underground fort which had big metal doors. They were at the fort for 11 months.
Then they left Poland by rail into railway wagons which had sliding doors, they were pushed like cattle and taken to a prisoner of war camp which was Stalag 344. They worked at a grave stone factory and the other half at a paper mill. Some of the prisoners were moved to Stalag v111B at Lamsdorf. My Dad was one of those people, he worked in the salt mines but he started to cough up blood and was moved to working in the Black Forest sawing down trees.
When Dad was in Stalag V111B he met Commander Douglas Bader, who was known for trying to escape. My Dad was interested in music, so were some other soldiers that dad knew. Dad played the harmonica; one played the banjo, the accordion also the guitar. Dad had been playing the harmonica since the age of three. An English Officer asked my Dad if he would play his harmonica in the concert Dad said that he was nervous in front of a lot of people. The Officer told him to close his eyes so he wouldn’t see anybody. So Dad agreed to play his harmonica in the concert. This was 1944. The Americans and the Russians joined forces with England and the prisoners heard that there was going to be an invasion which did happen in June 1944.
The prisoners of war woke up one morning just after Christmas 1945, and found that all the guards had left the camp. The prisoners of war got into the army trucks that had been left and went their separate ways. Dad was helped by some Russian soldiers who gave him some food. Dad then reached the American lines and was deloused and taken by plane with some other prisoners of war and to England. My Dad didn’t go home straight away he was taken to Bournemouth Hospital until he could go home.
