Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind Part 7

There are few fully coherent accounts of what happened in those bitter days. Few troubled to keep record of their progress. Some made scribbled notes recording the names of the towns they pa.s.sed through, a handful even recorded the distances they marched, courtesy of the road signs they saw as they trudged from town to town. Even those who had the energy to record such basic details had little inclination to record anything else. Most were too tired and hungry. All that mattered was whether there would be food at the end of the day.

The att.i.tude of the victorious army as they marched their captives into Germany was summed up by what was overheard by Arthur Fleischmann, a Czech soldier captured while fighting in France. Listening to his guards, he heard one say: 'The English bear the blame for all evil and must be destroyed.'2 It was a fitting start to what was to be a h.e.l.lish period for the British captives.

However, for many the marches started as relatively easy. Large numbers reported that their original captors the front-line infantrymen of the Wehrmacht spearhead had treated them with sympathy. Tommy Arnott, captured at St Valery, was among a group who received unusual gifts from the enemy troops: 'On the first day after we were captured we walked a good distance. It rained all day and the Germans gave many of us umbrellas not normally part of soldiers' equipment even if it was wet.' Yet this generosity was short lived. What soon followed was a bitter indication of what was to come: 'We had to run up hill shouting "Chamberlain!" in memory of our Prime Minister. A German wagon was filming this performance for propaganda as well as trying to humiliate us.' That night two men were shot attempting to escape.

In the initial confusion of defeat, it took time for the newly captive men to comprehend their situation. Many, though expecting to be executed in the immediate aftermath of battle, had been fairly well treated. There were some executions some notorious as at Le Paradis or Wormhoudt, others less so, like the executions in the Foret de Nieppe but thousands of prisoners went safely into captivity. As many found, it was only after they came under the control of soldiers from the rear echelons that they really began to suffer. Having been captured by a perfectly polite, Oxford-educated SS officer, Eric Reeves noticed the changing nature of the guards: 'Along came the B-echelon troops. They were shoving us in the back and shouting "Raus! Raus!" at that time we didn't know what it meant. We spent our first night in cattle pens. The next day we marched for six hours to a farm then for the rest of the time we always slept in open fields.'

One of the first observations made by Norman Barnett after he was sent back to the rear of the German lines was just how different everything seemed there. The German spearhead had been 'a crust' beneath which a very different world existed. Gone were the lines of modern trucks, the roaring columns of heavily armoured motorcycle combinations, the column after column of heavily armed and vicious-looking young soldiers. In their place came horse-drawn wagons, guards on bicycles and soldiers who seemed much older than those doing the fighting.

To many prisoners, it was the age of the guards that seemed to make the real difference in treatment they received. The younger soldiers, those on the battlefield, may have been more dedicated to their duty and convinced of their cause but they were enthusiastic in their pursuit of war. Once the battle was won they were, in the main, happy to move on to the next battlefield. The older men, many veterans of the Great War, seemed less than happy to have been recalled to the army. They felt they were too old to have been disturbed by this new conflict. They wanted to be at home with their families, not guarding the vast columns of prisoners who were heading to Germany. And it was the prisoners who paid the price for the obvious frustration of the guards.

As the marchers raised themselves from the fields and town squares in which they had been gathered following capture, all felt uncertain. Would they be put into trucks or be sent by rail? Would the defeat signal the end of the war or would they be held as captives for years? And, most importantly, when would they get food? In a field outside St Valery, David Mowatt soon received the answer to some of these questions: 'We were already on our knees, we were exhausted. We formed up and marched off. We couldn't believe it there were thousands of us. There was a van with us, with a loudspeaker. As we pa.s.sed through a village a voice came over the tannoy: "You are not to accept any food or water from the locals." So we had nothing to eat or drink.'

Apart from food and drink, there was another important issue. Would they be able to maintain any form of military discipline now that they were prisoners? The issue of discipline was important. The role of their officers in enforcing order and controlling the men was vital. Yet, right from the beginning, the Germans took the definite step of ensuring officers and other ranks would be kept separate for as long as possible.

The prisoners leaving Calais were kept together at the start of the march, being divided up only once they reached the town of Marquise. Here the officers were taken away and then driven on to a barn. The next day saw them driven to the town of Desvres where they were put into a recreation ground surrounded by a high wall. The officers were put into a pavilion where they sheltered to await the arrival of the main body of marchers. Later that day the other ranks arrived and slumped down to relax, having marched through the night. Forbidden to use the tap, the thirsty soldiers had to wait for their officers to bring them water from the pavilion.

The next day both the officers and men were back out on the road. As they marched, they witnessed long columns of lorried infantry, all heading towards the front line. As they pa.s.sed, the Germans jeered at the marching prisoners and took photographs to capture the misery of their defeat.

Having been soaked during a violent thunderstorm, the column eventually reached the hill-top town of Montreuil. Those still carrying their waterbottles rushed to fill them from the overflowing guttering of nearby houses. Again the officers were given preferential treatment, being sent to shelter in the appropriately named Cafe Anglais, while the other ranks were shepherded into a barbed-wire enclosure in the town's market square. With the rain continuing through the night, some were able to take shelter in the local cinema while the rest were condemned to a night sleeping on the wet cobblestones. The following morning the officers were loaded into lorries, then driven to the town of Hesdin. As they waited for the marching column to catch up with them they were fed on bread and high horsemeat. Despite the smell of the meat the ravenous officers consumed it enthusiastically, knowing it might be days until the next meal arrived.

And so the officers' journey continued. Some days spent marching, on others they were carried in lorries. Some nights were pa.s.sed herded into the shelter of factories or schools, others spent out in the open. One night was spent in a ditch formerly used as a latrine over which the officers built a shelter of sticks gathered from the surrounding countryside. Their misery continued as they approached the Belgian frontier. At Bapaume they were searched by screaming German officers who brandished pistols and took away their razors, pens, walking sticks, steel helmets and money. That night they were herded into a barn while the Belgian troops in the same column were left outside. The officers within had to barricade the doors to prevent a Belgian mob forcing their way inside.

There was an official reason for keeping the officers and their men separate the Germans were obliged to do so under the Geneva Convention. However, there was another logic behind their actions. Although officers could help instil discipline into the ma.s.sed ranks, they could also act as a focus for defiance. One of those officers who posed this risk was Captain Ernest Hart of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. Hart was the senior officer in a group of twenty-six men captured while holding a ca.n.a.l at St Omer. On the first day of their march a car drew up alongside the column, stopping beside a group of British prisoners. As the German officer left his car he launched a violent a.s.sault on the prisoners nearest him, kicking them as if to hurry them along the road. Seeing the a.s.sault, Captain Hart intervened, telling the officer he should treat the men as prisoners of war and show them respect. The German's response was immediate. He drew his pistol and fired three shots into the remonstrating captain. Hart fell dead on the roadside, where his body was left as the column trudged on.

The daily marches varied in length. One man recorded how his group had marched from Boulogne to Hesdin, via Montreuil, a total of thirty-six miles (fifty-eight kilometres). They were given just one hour's break during the entire march. The Geneva Convention stated the maximum daily distance for any march should be twelve miles (twenty kilometres). As one soldier recalled, whenever he asked the guards how much further they had to go the answer was always the same 'Three kilometres'. That became the terrible reality for the marchers it always seemed that rest was somewhere in the distance, just over the next hill, in the next village, another mile, another hour, another day.

A group whose march began in Calais found themselves forced to march even further. They were on the road for an entire twenty-four-hour period, with breaks of just twenty minutes every three or four hours. At the end of their twenty-four-hour march they were given one hour's rest, then sent out on to the road for another twenty-four hours. During the entire period they were given no food. Those who fell out from the column were shot. This almost constant marching continued for six days. When the British government attempted to complain about the treatment given to the men in the columns they were brushed off by the Germans. Replying via Switzerland, the Germans stated they had 'no information regarding charges of bad transport conditions of British prisoners of war between places of capture and prison camps but will investigate further, if the British government can give information as to the date and place of alleged offences'.3 Some groups found themselves marching in circles. Suddenly, after miles of marching, they found themselves back in a village they had already pa.s.sed through. It soon appeared this was a deliberate policy. They were being paraded through as many villages as possible to show off the fruits of the German triumph and reinforce the notion that the Allies had been hopelessly crushed. One of the circuits, taking in the towns of Douai, Cambrai, Valenciennes, Mons and Hal, lasted a total of fourteen days. A United Nations report later summarized the situation: 'It shows the state of the German mind in regard to this barbarous practice long since discarded by civilized nations.'4 Overnight stops were made in all manner of locations, a waterlogged field, a dung-covered farmyard, a dry weed-infested castle moat, or a sports stadium, depending on circ.u.mstances. In the main, the prisoners had to make do with sleeping outdoors, curled up on the bare earth, hoping and praying it wouldn't rain during the night. As one witness reported back to London: 'Men are kept in pens without any protection from the weather.'5 It was not always the rain that proved a problem for the prisoners. At Jemelles 4,0005,000 British and French prisoners were held in the open air. Under a.s.sault from the summer sun, they were forced to sc.r.a.pe holes into the hillside in order to escape its rays.

During the breaks in the march many prisoners began to regret the loss of their kit. Many had lost everything apart from the clothes they stood up in when they were captured. As Les Allan marched, mostly surrounded by Frenchmen, he could not help but notice some men far worse off than himself. He may have been wounded in the neck, and have lost all his kit, his papers and his battledress jacket but, compared with some of the British gunners he saw on the march, he was well prepared. They had been manning their guns under the hot summer sun dressed in little more than boots, vests and shorts when they had been captured. A few were even topless. Yet they too, like everyone else, just had to keep marching, desperately hoping they might soon find some abandoned clothing to cover their exposed flesh.

The story was the same everywhere. Some had their steel helmets, but many did not. A lucky few had greatcoats that were a burden in daytime, but made for a comfortable blanket at night. Others blessed the groundsheets and gas capes they had saved to shelter them from the rain. But they were the minority. Those who had not lost their kit in battle had lost it when their captors had searched them.

As a result the soldiers picked up whatever they could find to make their lives more comfortable. For as long as they had the strength to carry kit, many broke into homes in the villages they pa.s.sed through, taking whatever they needed. Some tied blankets and eiderdowns around their bodies with string, others slung pots and kettles over their shoulders so they might have something to cook food in if they were lucky enough to find any. One officer, desperate for something to cover himself with in the cold of night, found a discarded greatcoat. This was surely the answer to his prayers. Then he noticed it was heavily stained with the blood of its former owner. He preferred to remain cold rather than be wrapped in something a man had died in and soon abandoned the coat. Days later, the same officer watched as his comrades began to abandon their own coats as they became too tired to carry them any longer. One officer abandoned an almost new sheepskin-lined coat that had cost 10. However, despite the obvious value and use of such an item, no one had the strength to pick it up and carry it.

Weighed down by whatever little they were carrying, the troops craved nothing more than the short breaks and overnight stops that allowed them to rest their aching limbs if only for a few minutes. Many soon realized there was a trick to ensuring they maximized the time spent resting. As Ken Willats remembered: 'The column was just one long trail of men shuffling into captivity. The trick was not to be at the back of the column. Because if you are at the back, when it gets to a rest stop you get there last. Consequently those at the back are only just arriving when the front of the column is told it's time to get moving again.'

The scenes of misery were spread across the region. One witness sent word via Switzerland of starving men clothed in rags held in cattle pens near Antwerp. His report also noted it was clear that the British soldiers were being discriminated against, and the French and Belgian troops were receiving favourable treatment. When the local Red Cross attempted to intervene they were told that if they wished to feed the British they would also have to feed the guards. Elsewhere there were reports of prisoners pushing wounded men in wheelbarrows.

Deliberate attempts to humiliate the British prisoners were also reported by the American naval attache, who reported seeing British prisoners in the town of Cambrai. Many had had their boots taken away, others were dressed in a bizarre manner including: 'old bowlers crammed down, women's hats and articles taken from fancy shops in order to make them look ridiculous'.6 It was little wonder the American emba.s.sy soon reported they were forbidden to visit the prisoners despite their position of being the protecting power.

Each night, as they fell to the bare earth to sleep for a few short hours, it seemed as if an awful burden had been lifted from their shoulders. Yet there was a down side to the experience. Though they craved nothing except maybe food more than sleep, they had to endure the terrible realization that the night would soon be over. Then they would rise once more and begin to march for another day. As the days pa.s.sed this became something that weighed more and more heavily on them. The more exhausted they became, the longer it took to recover what little strength they retained, making it increasingly painful to rise from the cold earth and loosen their tight muscles each morning.

The nightly halts were seldom an opportunity for the prisoners to fully relax. Private Watt, marching from St Valery, later recorded: 'A lot of thieving took place in these camps. Coats were taken off sleeping figures, also boots. Haversacks were being stolen at every opportunity, just in case they happened to contain any food. We always had to have someone to look after our meagre belongings while the rest were on the eternal search for food.'7 There was something increasingly primeval about the behaviour of the prisoners as the marches progressed. In sandy soil, the prisoners were able to scratch small hollows to lower themselves into. When sleeping among trees they pulled small branches down to construct nests. In some places prisoners were forced into partially flooded fields. Here men fought each other for the right to rest at the top of the slope the area that remained relatively dry. It was a bitter experience for those unable to fight their way to the top but all now realized what counted from now on was the survival of the fittest.

The prison in the French town of Doullens was one location used for overnight stops. RAMC prisoner Norman Barnett had the misfortune of spending his twentieth birthday there. He arrived to find the prison had already been used by numerous men. As a result it was filthy and there was little food or water: 'It was a big compound. We were mixed up with these Senegalese troops. They must have been there some time 'cause they were well established, they'd even got food from somewhere. We only got water though. But they were dirty b.a.s.t.a.r.ds there was s.h.i.t everywhere. And you were lucky to get somewhere to sit down. Luckily we were only there one night I preferred sleeping out in the fields than staying there. I was glad to get away.'

As another column entered the prison, the new arrivals were greeted by the sight of German guards scattering biscuits to them from the back of a lorry. There were only enough for the early arrivals and those at the rear of the column went hungry. Arriving at the prison, some witnessed the Germans executing a sergeant who dared to remonstrate with guards for beating one of the men trailing at the end of the column.

Graham King, the medic who had been captured before he and his comrades had been able to establish their casualty clearing station, was among the men who spent a night in the dubious shelter of Doullens prison: 'By the time our group arrived the building was packed and we had to rest on the stony ground where we soon fell asleep. In the middle of the night a huge storm broke over us and in no time we were wet through. I thought of my mother and the way she would panic if any of us got wet. I was glad she wasn't able to see her youngest son completely drenched, no hot mustard bath, no dry clothing. He was on his own.'

Not every overnight stop was so fraught with danger. At Frevent marchers recalled arriving at a factory to be greeted by the sight of a perfectly attired sergeant major of the Welsh Guards, complete with clean-shaven chin, who was holding a steaming cup of tea. It was a bizarre sight for men who had not had a hot meal or drink for over four days.

Of all the things experienced on the march into Germany, one thing made the greatest impression upon the prisoners. What mattered more than anything was the shortage of food. The marching may have blistered their feet and left their legs aching, but nothing was more important than the fact they often had almost nothing with which to sustain themselves. As a result, they relied on their meagre reserves of fat, something that was soon used up as they marched mile upon mile towards Germany.

The men captured at Calais were among the first to join the marching hordes. Their spirited defence of the port, against all odds, may have won time for the remainder of the BEF to escape. But all it had earned the defenders of Calais were bitter memories, exhaustion and hunger. Yet as they began to march there was little chance to satisfy their aching bellies. In such circ.u.mstances, even a single egg was manna from heaven. When Lt-Colonel Ellison-MacArtney found one, he offered it to all his men in turn. Yet all refused, insisting their CO deserved that rare treat. On the sixth day of the march they each received a ration of thin barley soup with half an ounce of sausage. The next morning they received green and mildewed loaves that had to be shared one between ten. One soldier described his soup ration as 'nothing more than dirty water cooked in a pig-trough'.8 The story was the same everywhere. It was the beginning of the process in which the hungry prisoners discovered that an empty belly was the one thing guaranteed to stop a soldier thinking of women. It was a bitter experience that would follow them for the next five years.

Those who eventually managed to pa.s.s reports of their ill-treatment back to the UK highlighted the poor food. For many, it was not just the question of rations being issued. As the almost inevitable soup was ladled out there were many who had nothing to collect it in. Having lost so much of their kit, they had no mess tins to hold out. Discarded rusting cans were pounced on at the roadside. Some improvised, holding out their steel helmets. One desperate man even took off his boot and held that out to receive his soup ration. When Fred Gilbert, already weakened by three bullet wounds and long days of marching, found himself in a food queue without a receptacle, he did the only thing possible, he stretched out his cupped hands and accepted a handful of soup. That was his entire ration for the day.

The men craved the taste of the nicotine that had always previously helped to suppress hunger, yet only the luckiest among them still had any tobacco. The pipe-smokers fared best. They crammed their pipes into the corners of their mouths and marched onwards, as Eric Reeves remembered: 'I didn't have any tobacco but I had my pipe. You can still suck on an empty pipe and get a lot of enjoyment, you get the taste and smell of nicotine.'

The last substantial group to join the eastward march were the men of the 51st Highland Division. Three weeks after the first prisoners had started marching, the Jocks rose from their barbed-wire enclosure on the cliffs above St Valery. After a night in the open, one group of prisoners were fed raw salted herring and black bread. Such was the foul taste of the fish that most immediately threw it away. It would be the last time they would reject food, however sickening. The next morning the same men were given a cup of coffee and two British Army hard tack biscuits. Another group watched as a German lorry drew up. Stopping beside the fence surrounding the prisoners, the Germans on board began to throw loaves of bread to the famished men. As the men fought over the loaves, scrabbling in the rain-soaked gra.s.s for a handful of crumbs, the purpose of their visit was revealed. As the Germans shouted, 'England kaput!' to their prisoners, the men looked up to see a film crew recording their desperate fights for the consumption of audiences eager to witness the German mastery over their British enemies.

The humiliation was just the start of their misery. In the course of their ten-day march, some remnants of the Highland Division did get the occasional food issue. During one stop a soup ration appeared but it was insufficient to feed everyone in the column. An officer made an announcement that the NCOs should divide the men into groups by their units and then draw lots for who would get the soup. The plan was that they would be ineligible for the next ration. Some men recorded receiving a pack of hard tack biscuits to share between three men each day and, as one man recalled, a cup of black liquid 'said to be coffee'.9 Others, like Jim Pearce, received nothing more than a lump of bread, green with mould: 'So we lost weight rapidly.'

One group was offered rations by their guards on the proviso that they dug latrines for the column. Despite the lure of food they were simply too weak to break the shovels through the soil. Another were pleased to find they had stopped beside a duck pond. As many as possible pulled off their boots and wallowed in the murky waters, revelling in the relief it brought to their aching feet and filthy bodies.

For those who retained some strength the nightly breaks meant an opportunity to beg, steal or scrounge whatever food was available. Dandelions, dock leaves, daisies and any other roadside weeds became a regular part of their diets. One man recalled boiling nettles in his tin helmet to make what pa.s.sed for nettle soup. On another occasion the same man paid 50 francs to French colonial troops who had slaughtered a cow. His share of the kill was the unwashed tripe. Another soldier reported that his best night on the march was the one when he somehow managed to find a chicken. The chicken was soon killed, plucked and boiled in a discarded French helmet. Such fare was a luxury. One group of men marching from St Valery caught a dog and stewed it. However, the food carried by a group of French Moroccans was too extreme for even the most desperate British prisoners. The soldiers were aware that whatever the men were carrying was giving off a foul smell. When a German soldier made them open the sack, its contents were revealed. A rotten horse's head fell to the floor, alive with maggots.

The prisoners dizzy from the effects of the encroaching starvation consumed anything and everything that was vaguely edible. As they marched they cut through the landscape like a cloud of khaki locusts. Fields and farms next to the roads they marched along became the scenes of vast foraging sweeps as the men desperately searched for anything edible. As Eric Reeves remembered: 'The only thing that saved me from starvation were the clamps of mangel-wurzels. You'd wait until the guards on their bikes were out of sight then you'd jump in and get as many as you can carry. Then you'd get back in the column and share them out with guys you'd never even seen before. So we ate them raw and unwashed.' For Fred Coster the experience was one that could never be forgotten: 'Eating these d.a.m.n raw potatoes, most of the chaps got diarrhoea. They were dropping out of the column to go to the toilet all the time. It was very debilitating and disgusting. But that was how you had to live or you'd go under.'

Gangs surged towards clamps of vegetables stored by the local farmers. Swedes, potatoes and sugar beet were pulled from clamps, the dirt brushed from them, then stuffed hungrily into the mouths of the marching men. It didn't matter that they needed to be cooked before consumption few men had any way of cooking them, nor any matches to light a fire. Instead the foul-tasting raw vegetables were chewed and swallowed as enthusiastically as a gourmet meal.

As the columns pa.s.sed through the countryside, whole piles of vegetables disappeared into the bellies of the marchers. Yet for many the appearance of the piles was as much a frustration as it was a relief, as d.i.c.k Taylor remembered: 'You'd see a clamp of vegetables in the distance, but by the time you got there it had all gone.' Even the condition of vegetables was of little interest, with some men recalling eating rotten onions taken from a roadside pile. Desperate for sustenance, David Mowatt joined the gangs that descended on to the vegetable piles: 'We reached this pile of turnips all covered in soil that heap had a life of its own, it just moved. It disappeared as we went past. We also got blighted potatoes. But they nearly killed us. I was very ill, we got diarrhoea.' As a trained chef, Ken Willats knew more about food than the majority of his comrades. Yet, just like the rest of them, there was nothing he could do but join the scavenging hordes: 'One time I picked up some crushed rhubarb from the road. I thought "I'll have that!" That was the length you were prepared to go to get something to eat. Rhubarb's not very nice uncooked, but when you are starving it's like nectar!' While large numbers were hit by stomach upsets as a result of the poor food, there was another side effect suffered by those who had been forced to eat the most basic of roadside produce. As RAMC man Ernie Grainger remembered: 'Food! We ate gra.s.s. As a result, when you pa.s.sed water it was green because of the chlorophyll!'

Even the homes they marched past became fair game for the increasingly hungry soldiers. In one village Tommy Arnott and his mate ran to a house: 'There was an Alsatian chained to the wall so we went round the back and opened the door. The lady in the house had been baking bread it was on a tray big square loaves. She was going to put the dog on us but, by the time she got the dog, we ran off to the column clutching two loaves. Poor soul, we pinched her bread, but that's what starvation does to you.'

Driven to desperation by the lack of food, some men tried to get help. There were those who feigned sickness, hoping it might lead to better treatment. In one instance a soldier who found himself amid a large group of French prisoners discovered they had facilities for treating the sick. So he feigned a seizure, was carried to some farm buildings used as an aid post, then kept visiting the latrines to suggest he had dysentery. The ruse worked and he was able to get food from the French and a few days of desperately needed rest. After a few days' rest he moved on, before trying the same ruse of a feigned seizure and finding himself put on to a truck carrying the sick.

One of those who wasn't feigning when he collapsed amid the marching hordes was Eric Reeves. He was one of the men who was 'travelling light' he had no greatcoat, no groundsheet, no mess tin and no waterbottle. All he had was an empty gas mask case and a small haversack. Everything else had been lost when he was captured. There was something else he was not carrying. Reeves was a small man, just over five foot tall with hardly any reserves of fat to sustain him as he marched day after day without food.

After four or five days I was exhausted I'd lost all my mates by this time and we'd stopped for the night in a field. It was freezing that night and we were wet through. The next morning you could see steam coming off the blokes' uniforms as they eventually dried out. I'd had very little sleep and as I got up I just collapsed. I sank down to my knees. I heard a bloke say, 'Quick grab him' and half a dozen of them picked me up. At this point there was an issue of soup going on to the Froggies. So they carried me shoulder high down the hill. The French and Germans were pushing us but the blokes said, 'No he's sick he's wounded' and they carried me right through the crowd. So we all got some soup.

It was a genuine relief for Reeves, who might otherwise had been left behind to face execution by the guards. Realizing there was at least some concern among both the French prisoners and the German cooks, Reeves and his new-found mates decided it was worth repeating: 'We did it three times! One bloke would say, "Hey, little-un, pa.s.s out, we're going to get something to eat." I never knew the blokes who were carrying me but they kept me alive. Helped me keep going for twenty-one days of marching.'

He was not alone in his increasing weakness. As the hunger and sickness began to bite, some men were forced to link arms to support each other as they marched. R.P. Evans, a private in the Gloucestershire Regiment, recalled offering a.s.sistance to one of the weaker men: 'A man walking just in front of me collapsed and a German officer was screaming at him and waving his pistol, so I put an arm around the man's waist and his arm over my shoulders and somehow coaxed him along for two or three miles, until a lorry came along picking up the stragglers. I often wondered what happened to that chap afterwards.'10 He went on to describe the condition of his fellow marchers: 'The men's condition was indescribable, and with ten days' growth of beard, and their faces caked with dust, seamed through with rivulets of sweat, they looked like beings from another world.'11 This result of using up their reserves of fat became a very noticeable side effect of the long days of arduous marching. In a letter that eventually reached the War Office, one prisoner summed up the misery of the period when he reported: 'You see we got nothing for the first twelve days, and had to do forced marching right through France and Belgium. I was taken prisoner after a great battle when we were surrounded for two days without water, and only gave up because of the cries of the wounded . . . the first time I had a chance to sit on a hard seat I found I had been living on my hips, then I noticed my breast had gone as flat as a pancake. I had used up all the fat I had . . . so I'm now just gristle and bone, but as hard as iron.'12 While the physical effect of the incessant marching was shown on their bodies, the deprivations of the march also became evident in their clothing. Nights spent sleeping in the open soaked their dirt-encrusted woollen battledress with dew, covered them with mud and gra.s.s stains, and introduced the sort of creases that would have once brought any sergeant major screaming down on them. Now no one cared what they looked like. Small rips and tears became gaping holes. Even their boots that most had hardly ever expected to 'wear in' began to wear out. David Mowatt, having been issued a brand-new pair of double-soled army boots just three weeks before he was captured, found the strain of the daily slog took its toll on the boots. By the time he reached Dortmund he had worn through the soles.

One of the few positive memories for the marchers was the att.i.tude of the French, Belgian and Dutch women they encountered on their journey. While a minority of civilians attempted to exploit the prisoners, selling food at ludicrously inflated prices to men who had not eaten for days, most were genuine in their efforts to help the marching men. Every man who made the fateful journey that summer can recall the courage of the women who lined up buckets of water for the prisoners to drink from. Even to hear a heavily accented voice call out 'Good luck!' was a tonic for the troops, helping to raise their spirits for a few brief minutes. One soldier described the effect of a welcoming Belgian crowd: 'overwhelming, and it gave us a boost and it encouraged us to straighten up and see it through'.13 Such was the clamour to come out on to the streets to see and a.s.sist the men that in the towns of Bethune and Lille the Germans used mounted military policemen to keep them away from the pa.s.sing column. Elsewhere guards fired at the feet of civilians attempting to pa.s.s food to the starving men. In the pretty spa town of Forges-les-Eaux, the marchers were forced at bayonet point to run through the town at the double, preventing any contact with civilians. A man in the same column reported whips being used on soldiers who had dared to accept food from local children. It seemed there was no end to the vindictiveness of the guards. Pa.s.sing through one town, Bill Holmes watched as nuns were beaten by German soldiers for daring to throw sticks of rhubarb to the pa.s.sing soldiers. Elsewhere, British soldiers were lucky to escape with their lives when they attacked a guard who had a.s.saulted a young girl who had pa.s.sed food to them.

Despite these displays of viciousness from the guards, not all the prisoners were convinced it was entirely their fault that the prisoners were starved during their journey. As Bob Davies explained of his march from Calais to Germany: 'Initially we were well treated. I think the Germans did not expect to have so many prisoners. Therefore feeding arrangements were non-existent. So as we staggered along the road we had to pick up swedes and potatoes.' Blaming the collapse of the Allies and the enormous numbers of prisoners for the food shortages was an understandable reaction, one that may have been based in truth, but excuses were irrelevant to the thousands who were starving. The Germans may not have had enough food to provide them with a hot meal each day but it was simply cruel to deprive a man of the chance to accept alms from the villagers who lined the French roads. Every prisoner on the march witnessed women putting out water only to see a guard cycle or walk past, stick out a boot and upend the pail. Eric Reeves recalled the excuses the German guards later gave for their behaviour: 'We'd been reduced to drinking water from ditches because the Germans were kicking over the buckets. When I complained the guard told me it was because German troops weren't allowed to drink it unless they'd put purification tablets in it. I thought, that's a likely tale! The way they kicked it over it was just spiteful.'

Wracked by thirst, the soldiers were desperate for a drink. n.o.bby Barber watched in amazement as the men around him picked dead pigeons out of a trough before dunking their heads in to drink from the foul water. Fellow St Valery prisoner Jim Charters his mind numbed by exhaustion recalled pushing lilies from the surface of a pond in order to get a drink. Ken Willats explained how important water became during the long marches along dusty roads: 'Survival is a very emotive feeling. The progression of need in extreme circ.u.mstances is water, food, cigarettes, ladies in that order. Without being offensive to the ladies, they come a lot further down the list than water.' This desperate desire to find something to drink even led some prisoners to confront the guards. Jim Pearce looked on, astounded, as one group of prisoners surged towards a well to pull up a bucket of water. When a guard intervened the frustrated prisoners simply pushed him down the well.

Despite this desperate thirst, some prisoners tried to discourage their mates from drinking stagnant water. Fred Coster was one of them. He had been fortunate enough to begin the march still carrying his emergency ration, which was soon consumed 'After all,' as he pointed out 'this was an emergency.' Despite his exhaustion, Coster still remembered some of his training: 'After 20 or 30kms we'd reach a village with a water b.u.t.t. After that distance we were all terribly thirsty and the boys would rush to the water b.u.t.ts. I tried to stop them because of my medical training. I told them they'd all get dire diseases. They didn't listen. But of course they didn't suffer anything and I missed out because I didn't get a drink.'

For those who wouldn't drink stagnant water, the only relief came from the rain. It may have soaked their already weakened bodies, run down and seeped into their boots, and softened the bare earth they would be sleeping on, but it brought relief to their throats. Marching men lifted their heads upwards, allowing the water to fill their mouths. They cupped their hands in front of their bodies and caught the falling rain, drinking it greedily from their filthy palms. Others dropped to the ground and lowered their faces into puddles, eager to drive away the dry taste of the dust that filled their mouths. Their throats relieved, the soldiers raised their soaking hands and rubbed their faces, washing away the grime acquired in days of marching. As the rain soaked their hair, they ran their fingers through it, rubbing the water into their sweat-stained scalps.

Among the marching men were some for whom food was more vital than water. Those nursing wounds needed to sustain themselves not just for marching but to ensure their wounds could recover. Without food, open wounds would take longer to heal. Cyril Holness, whose dressings on wounds he thought would get him sent home had been torn off by Germans who had appeared in the field dressing station, was one of those who had no choice but to find food wherever he could: It was a tough old business, but you could still see the funny side sometimes. I was wearing a French jacket and trousers that I'd been given after leaving the aid post. As we went through Lille the women were raiding the pubs and cafes. We were calling out 'Du pain! Du pain!' One woman came out with one of those long loaves, she undone my trousers and stuck the bread down my legs. They were telling us they'd rather we had it than the Germans get it. And there was a Scots bloke, he was as high as a kite drunk on what they'd given him. Then these nuns Sisters of Mercy gave us socks and boots and cleaned our feet.

On the occasions that the local population were able to pa.s.s food to the prisoners their desperation was such that the prisoners often fought to guarantee a share for themselves. Bill Bampton, a soldier serving with the East Surrey Regiment, recorded how his mate received a package from a civilian: 'Suddenly he disappeared under the weight of other marchers all intent on having a part of the package. Charlie eventually reappeared, still clutching a handful of crumbs and a sc.r.a.p of a paper bag.'14 For Jim Charters and his brother Jack, the a.s.sistance of one woman would bring far greater relief than they would realize for some time. Pa.s.sing though one French village they handed over a hastily scribbled note to one of the women waiting by the roadside. On a page torn from a paybook, they had written their names and the address of their parents back in Ashington, Northumberland. It was dangerous for the women to have any contact with the prisoners; indeed some men later recalled seeing civilians forced to join the marching columns for having dared to feed or talk to the prisoners. For Jim Charters, the bravery of such women helped revise his thoughts about their French hosts. As he watched them being pushed, kicked and hit with rifle-b.u.t.ts he could not but admire the fact that they still tried to a.s.sist the prisoners. As Norman Barnett remembered it: 'The Frenchwomen had guts not like their menfolk!'

Of course, not all of the French civilians were charitable to the British prisoners. d.i.c.k Taylor, marching away from St Valery, remembered: 'In some places French farmers stood there with shotguns to make sure their potato and turnip piles weren't pillaged.' The sight of farmers with shotguns was enough to deter even the most desperate of men. Yet in some cases opposition from the locals made little difference. Pa.s.sing through a French village, Gordon Barber, who was no stranger to using his fists when necessary, found a butcher's shop: 'I had a few francs so I went in this little shop and saw this piece of meat hanging on a hook. I said, "How much?" He said, "No, no, no." So I slapped the coin on the counter, ripped the meat off the hook, right handed him smacked him out of the way a bit sharpish but he didn't go down. And I ran back into the crowd.'

The behaviour of the shotgun-wielding French farmers and defensive shopkeepers was a reflection of the relationship between many of the British prisoners and their French counterparts. There was certainly little love lost between the two factions. The efforts of the Germans to engender antagonism between the remnants of the defeated armies were helped by a mistrust that already existed among some of the troops. After a failed escape, Sergeant Stephen Houthakker was transported to Cambrai, where he was held amid hordes of French colonial troops. When he later wrote of his experiences he did not bother to conceal his contempt: 'To my sorrow found myself thrown in with some of the most degraded and filthy men it has ever been my lot to meet. French Moroccans, Senegalese, Arabs, the sc.u.m of the world, members of the infamous Foreign Legion, tough men each and every one of them. Comforts of life and ordinary hygiene were as foreign to them as was fighting and honour.'15 As a professional soldier schooled in the proudest traditions of the British Army, he could not reconcile military life with what he saw before him: 'In this h.e.l.l I spent the two worst weeks of my existence. Lousy, hungry, depressed, but practising to the full the survival of the fittest theory.'16 Not all the British had such a low opinion of their allies. It was easy for both factions to blame each other the British criticizing French fighting abilities and the poor showing of the French High Command, the French cursing the British for heading back to the Channel coast and abandoning their allies to certain defeat. Yet some of the defeated armies were able to view the debcle from a wider perspective. At St Valery John Christie joined a group of drunken Frenchmen. Christie was no more impressed with the Frenchmen than he was with the antics of some of the British, such as the officers who had changed into their best uniforms ready to surrender with honour. The Frenchmen offered him cognac, which he shared: 'I was duty bound to accept a swig to help maintain the very shaky entente cordiale. Don't get me wrong, I could see things from their side, it was one thing to fight and die for "La Patrie", quite another to die covering for us so that we could get off the hook.'17 Despite Christie's thoughtful a.s.sessment of the situation, there were very real reasons for the British prisoners to feel a genuine antipathy towards their allies. As the United Nations later reported: 'The fact that French prisoners of war, in much larger numbers, were comparatively well provided with food . . . tends to prove that the virtual starvation of British prisoners of war and the inadequate arrangements for their accommodation was deliberate.'18 It was an accurate a.s.sessment of the situation. Although there were genuine moments of kindness, such as when a German guard forced French soldiers to share their wine with British soldiers, most of the time the British faced appalling discrimination. While the Germans kicked over buckets and beat back Frenchwomen attempting to feed the British, they allowed the French troops to accept gifts from the villagers. The story was replicated throughout the march. One group, who had begun their march in Calais, finished their first day's march in a stadium full of French and Belgian troops. They remained there for just one hour, then left again without being given any food. The following day, still unfed, they marched past their allies as they ate a meal of macaroni and army biscuits. It may have not been the most enticing of meals, but to the watching Britons it seemed like a feast one to which they had not been invited. This became the pattern of treatment as experienced by the majority of marchers. The French received their rations first while the British were thrown the sc.r.a.ps.

The discrimination was noted by many among the columns. Eric Reeves was part of a group of around 5,000 British prisoners outnumbered three to one by French soldiers. Each night, as the column came to a halt, the Germans set up their horse-drawn field kitchen, allowing the famished marchers the comforting sight of its chimney smoking.

It was always soup, of a sort. Then they'd shout, 'All of the English over here Do not sit down. All of the French here. French first.' So the Froggies went off and filled their tins. Then the Germans would call us. The first blokes would get there and the lids would come down and the cooks would say, 'All finished!' They did that every day. It was psychological warfare because eventually the boys started muscling in on the French and pinching their soup. So the Froggies hated us. The first bit of French I learned was 'Poussez pas', Don't push you'd hear them all shouting out when our blokes were going for their food.

Gordon Barber decided to take matters into his own hands: 'I saw the French getting issued dripping from these big vats. I had a French overcoat I'd pinched so I could go and get my share. As I came away with mine the French spotted my British jacket and I had to run for it. This Froggie went to grab it, he kicked my arm, so I nutted him hard. So I ran like bleedin' anything and got back to my mates.'

It was not only the humiliation of being fed from the French leftovers that made life increasingly unbearable for the British troops. Reginald Collins of the Gloucestershire Regiment recorded the misery of being forced to march in a mixed column. The Frenchmen in the column were marched ahead of the British until a substantial gap had opened up. Then the Frenchmen were allowed to rest and the trailing British were made to run after them: 'To encourage us in this the German guards stood on both sides of the column swinging the b.u.t.t ends of their rifles and sticks and clubs. This treatment lasted all day, the heat was intense and many prisoners fell at the side of the road from exhaustion. Those who fell were kicked until they regained their feet. For the whole of this day we had no water.'19 This continued throughout the day with the British seldom allowed to rest; instead they were constantly marching or running.

In similar cases, British troops were made to run, then given a brief rest while marching French prisoners were allowed to catch up with them. Once the French had caught up, the British were forced to run again. One group recalled having to run to overtake French prisoners five times, all in the heat of the midday sun. Walter Kite, captured near Abbeville, later wrote of his experience of the march: 'On the march again at 0800 hours at the double. G.o.d what an experience running uphill in the sweltering sun with the young German NCOs helping us along with their bayonets. A Tommy in front of me was bayoneted in the thigh and a Poilu killed just because he didn t hurry enough.'20 The antagonistic att.i.tude of the guards heaped agony upon the misery of the marchers. As a government report later described it, the crimes inflicted upon British prisoners 'seem to indicate systematic inhumanity directed against British prisoners of war'.21 With no choice but to steal to stay alive, it was little wonder the prisoners came into conflict with their guards. Jim Reed, the Sheffield teenager who had been captured with the Seaforth Highlanders at St Valery, was prepared to take risks to ensure he was fed: The Germans liked to show you who was the master. We had no food at all we weren't given any food for about a week. So we scrounged food out of the shops. We just went in and grabbed stuff and ran out again. I saw one or two get shot. I got whipped by a German guard he was riding by on a horse, keeping us in order. I had come out of a shop and he spotted me. He rode up and cracked me once or twice with his whip until I got into the crowd and got out of his way. But I kept hold of the food, I wasn't going to let go of that! It was us against them. I'd changed from a soldier into a thief.

Some paid a higher price than a whipping. On 16 June a private of the Cameron Highlanders was shot while attempting to reach a pile of sugar beet. Others in the same column watched as a soldier bent down to pull potatoes from the earth of a roadside field: 'Suddenly there was the sound of a shot and this man rolled over and did not move again.'22 In another incident a Scots soldier with wounded feet fell out of the column to rest, only to be shot and killed by a German NCO. One soldier captured at Calais recorded that he had witnessed the murder of six men who had fallen out of the column after collapsing. As one of those who had sufficient strength to keep a diary wrote of the march between Lille and the Belgian frontier: 'Treatment bad, stragglers being shot at.'23 Another soldier later wrote of the German efforts to hurry the men at the back of his column: 'They consistently exhorted more speed and threatened us, finally shooting a few of the real stragglers. Thereafter, the speed of the column increased noticeably.'24 Fred Coster remembered: 'Some would drop out and the Germans came along shouting "Raus". They told us the sick were being picked up by lorries. But we never saw any lorries. So we got the opinion they were being popped off.'

Having trudged wearily for mile upon mile, hardly able to distinguish one day from the next, David Mowatt had seen much in the week leading up to the capture of the 51st Division, but one act of savagery was to imprint itself in his memory: We were going through this village and there was a Scots Guardsman in front of me. He was very tall, head and shoulders above me, still with his cap proudly on his head. He put his hand out to take some food from the villagers. Suddenly a guard struck out with his rifle-b.u.t.t and hit the man's hand. The Scots Guardsman turned round and landed the finest right hook I've ever seen. It sent the guard flying, landing on the ground a couple of yards away. I said, 'For G.o.d's sake get away! Take your hat off and change position! Get in another group.' He said, 'No way' and carried on marching. About half an hour after the guard came up he was right in front of me he raised his rifle and shot the Scotsman through the chest. There was no hesitation. All because the man was too proud to take his hat off. It was terrible. You expect it of the SS, but this was just an ordinary Wehrmacht soldier. He just killed this man, it was a dreadful thing to do. The body was just left at the roadside . . . He was just left there and we all had to step over him. I don't know why he hadn't tried to hide. Maybe it showed his state of mind. Perhaps he'd reached the stage where he couldn't care less about living.

Not all the marching men were witness to such acts of violence but all knew what was happening. Every day they would hear the gunfire as guards shot those attempting to escape. And every day men fell out from the columns never to be seen again. Eric Reeves recalled how the threat of violence was never far away: I didn't see any executions, but I heard about it. We came to one place where the Germans shooed us all away. We heard that one of the guards had kicked a bucket of water over and a young Welsh Guardsman had given him a right-hander. So the guard shot him in the head. Another time, it was a beautiful day, and I was sitting on the side of a dry ditch. I was absolutely shattered. Then a guard came along. He shouted, 'Get up!' and shouldered his rifle. Then a staff car drew up and this immaculate German officer got out and roared at him. The guard came to attention and then walked off. Then the officer threw three cigarettes at me and went off in his car.

Reeves was fortunate that the car had arrived just in time, allowing the officer to intervene and save him from one of the many acts of random violence that followed the marching columns.

The casual violence convinced most to keep their heads down and see the pointlessness of risking death for the sake of a raw potato. One soldier recorded how the violence and deprivations had brought the British to a state of submission: 'A single shot fired over our heads brought instant attention from hundreds.'25 It was an emotion reflected by Gordon Barber when he explained: 'You'd be surprised how resilient you are at that age. When you know that if you don't keep going you're going to die they're going to f.u.c.king shoot you.'

In this situation it was little wonder few among the marching prisoners believed there was any point in attempting escape. In the early days of the march plenty had dived into the long gra.s.s at the roadside or dived into woodland. Most were soon recaptured and sent back to join the marchers. Others were shot and killed as they attempted to evade their guards. As the men grew weaker any thought of running away became unthinkable, it was strenuous enough to keep putting one foot in front of the other hour upon hour without contemplating the idea of dashing off to find cover. Growing increasingly weary, few were concerned about anything but their own survival. They also became increasingly cynical about the fate of those who took the chance, as d.i.c.k Taylor explained: 'I had no thoughts of escape, it was too dangerous. But if anybody else broke away you'd hear the shots. You'd just think to yourself "It isn't me." That was the att.i.tude. One more dead man meant nothing, as long as it wasn't me. It was self-preservation you're not bothered about anybody else. Heroes are dead people it's better to live for your country than to die for it.'

There was a further concern. Most prisoners recognized how lucky they had been to survive the battle for France. They had seen their friends shot down or blown to pieces by high-explosive. Why then take the risk of becoming another forgotten victim of war? Bill Bampton described the emotional pull against escaping: 'If it went wrong and we were killed, our parents would never know what had happened to us.'26 For so many of the marchers, it was a lonely existence. They were surrounded by thousands of men. All were sharing the same hideous experiences, all had known the horrors of battle and seen their friends slaughtered, yet they had no emotions to share. Instead each man became wrapped up in his own small world a world that revolved around the desperate desire for food and rest.

Having witnessed the horror of a fellow prisoner being murdered just a couple of feet in front of him, and suffering the aching pains of hunger shared by every man on the march, David Mowatt began to feel the effects of all they were being forced to endure: 'I didn't have the strength to talk. We were all dragged right down. We were filthy lousy. I can't describe the despair. It was terrible. The days just blurred into each other. We didn't know how far we were going to march we were just going in circles.'

However, as he would soon discover, their ordeal was far from over.

CHAPTER NINE.

The Journey Continues Women came right up close to me and spat in my face.

Bill Holmes, captured on the Dunkirk beaches, on his arrival in Germany

I thought the war was over. We've had it. What's going to happen to us?

Jim Pearce, Middles.e.x Regiment, captured at St Valery As they approached the German border, the effects of the weeks of marching took their toll on the physically and mentally exhausted prisoners. They had been kicked, starved, beaten, humiliated and, quite often, shot at by guards who seemed to have no regard for their welfare. Quite simply, they had been treated worse than animals at least animals would have been allowed to graze each evening. About to enter Germany, they would finally be engulfed within a system that seemed h.e.l.l bent upon their destruction.

The toil of the long marches the aching muscles from days of walking, the pain caused by sleeping on cold damp ground, the empty bellies and shrinking waistlines, the blistered feet, the calluses and carbuncles caused by equipment that rubbed all created a deep sense of despair for the prisoners. Unwashed, clad in stinking, sweat-stained blouses that rubbed at their necks and heavy woollen trousers that sc.r.a.ped their crotches, leaving the skin redraw, they marched onwards. Each step, that in their minds seemed to burst another blister and took their socks closer to disintegration, was an attack on their very humanity. When they found food they stuffed it into stubble-ringed mouths, through lips parched by thirst and burned by the sun. They looked at the hands that lifted the food to their mouths and could hardly recognize the filth-encrusted digits topped by nails deep in dirt. They cursed the sun that burned their skin, then in turn cursed the rain that soaked both them and the ground that was their bed. Each intake of breath brought the sickly sweet smell of the filth ingrained on their bodies. Then they endured the stench of what remained after they had been a.s.saulted by the oppressive stomach cramps that signalled diarrhoea.

Less than two months before, Lord Gort, the commander of the BEF, had written: 'The morale of the troops is excellent and on that score I have no anxiety . . . the fears expressed in some quarters have proved groundless.'1 Yet for the hordes of prisoners as they trudged towards Germany, such words were meaningless. The army may have retained its morale before war but, in the chaotic aftermath of defeat, the morale of those who had been sacrificed on the road to Dunkirk plummeted to a previously unknown level. It was no longer a case of whether Britain could survive, it was simply a case of whether they could survive as prisoners of the Germans.

The sense of defeat was compounded by the scenes they witnessed as they trudged towards Germany. Those with enough strength to moan cursed the army, the generals, the government everyone for their lack of preparedness. Others hardly dared think of what the defeat really meant. They feared for their wives their lives picturing them as the huddled corpses of refugees that had lined the roads of France during the retreat. They thought of the crying babies left orphaned by bombing raids, of the bullet-riddled prams, then of their own families. They imagined storm-troopers kicking in their doors, sneering at their cowering parents, then lying down to rest in their beds. They pictured their streets in flames, their children as corpses their world in ruins.

Yet if the hunger, thirst, exhaustion and violence were not enough to convince the prisoners of the German victory, there were other more subtle signals. One man, feigning sickness, found himself put on to a truck heading eastwards carrying a group of middle-aged German soldiers, all of whom displayed Great War medal ribbons on their tunics. As they headed home they were drinking looted French brandy while seated on rolls of stolen silks and soft furnishings. It was a sure sign of who were masters of the battlefield. Marchers were greeted by their guards informing them that England would be next and that, while they languished in captivity, their homes would soon be occupied by the victors of the battle for France. As if to add insult to injury, they also stressed that the German soldiers would soon be 'taking their girls out'.2 As one group of marchers were told by a pa.s.sing German officer: 'You go to Berlin we go to London.'3 Each pa.s.sing lorry seemed to contain at least one English-speaking humorist who wished to heap scorn upon the dejected British soldiers. Eric Reeves listened to their depressing comments: 'A c.o.c.ky bloke would hang out and shout "Ja. You are going to 'Hang out your washing on the Siegfried Line' Yes, Tommy." So we hated that song! But it was depressing. There was silence on that march you didn't think about anything.' The situation was even worse for the Londoners among them who had to endure boasts that the Luftwaffe was already flattening the English capital.

When reports reached London of the deliberate mistreatment, the British government soon recognized the criminality of what they had endured. The War Office was certain that charges would be bought against the German High Command for their deliberate discrimination against the British soldiers. How, they reasoned, could the Germans find food for the vast numbers of French prisoners yet fail to find anything for the relatively small numbers of British? It was not just the senior German officers whose behaviour was condemned, those officers and men who had been in direct charge of the columns were recognized as contributing to the misery of the marching hordes. As one British report acknowledged: 'The actions of officers and men in immediate charge of prisoners of war was such that no pleas of superior orders, if pleaded, could be admitted to relieve them of responsibility.'4 Effectively, the entire German military machine was responsible for what had occurred: 'Blame must be apportioned between all ranks, from the officer in supreme direction of arrangements regarding prisoners of war downwards.' Furthermore: 'The ma.s.s ill-treatment of prisoners of war would be seen to be a matter of policy or system which would be laid down by the High Command.'5 Yet, for the men about to enter Germany, as prisoners of a regime that had already inflicted so much agony upon them, thoughts of war crimes and any legal framework for punishing their tormenters were far from their minds. Instead, their thoughts were full of more basic needs food, water and rest. As RAMC medic Graham King who under the rules of war should have been attending to the sick and wounded rather than trudging country lanes put it, they were 'hot, sweaty, exhausted, starving men, struggling to stay al