Peter Balson
 

"I was taken to Nijmegen and spent the night in a barracks there and on the following day was transferred to Amsterdam to the Wilhelmina Hospital where an upper ward of eight beds was a casualty clearing centre for Allied aircrew.

A guard sat outside the ward door, and was a veteran of the Eastern Front, his only contribution towards the English language being swear words!

 
The food was a variety of traditional Dutch, presented by civilian contractor ladies who were all jolly, fat, and generous. The medical staff however were Luftwaffe and the chief surgeon declared that I had a second degree "Potts" fracture of my right foot, so into plaster it went, accompanied by a series of weights, pulleys and pins for adjustment.
 
When the chief surgeon was of the opinion that it was as good as he could get it, it was replastered and I was able to walk with the aid of crutches which enabled me to attend to toiletries, showering and helping with the bedridden, the injuries of whom were many and varied, and in many cases very emotional.
 

At the end of August, I traveled up the Rhine Valley to Frankfurt, where I spent a week in solitary in an ancient monastery overlooking the city, and where I was interrogated by a man who seemed to know our home airfield of Graveley better than I did!!

Leaving there, I was sent to a Repatriation Hospital at Obermassfeld, which was totally operated by Australian and New Zealand doctors captured by the Germans in Crete.

 At that time, the Germans were assembling a group of badly disabled for exchange via Switzerland. Amongst these were several pitiful cases who were moved out to a satellite compound at Heine, near Kassel.

Then, without warning I started life as a true prisoner of war, traveling by cattle truck to Heydekrug in Lithuania, encountering the first snow flurry at Koenigsberg. The lager layout was designed for efficiency and control complaint with the convention.  The straw paillasse on bed boards on two tier bunks, brick stoves for heating and cooking, water from a tap stand outside. 

 

  Manitoba, Canada: Balson (r) playing ice hockey
 

Food, potatos, swededs, and an occasional issue of saurkraut, margerine, bread with potatomeal and sawdust.  It was all quite acceptable and sustaining.  Of course the winner was the Red Cross parcel. 

 
Somewhere about mid 44 under Russian pressure, we were moved west to Torun, and again after the fall of Warsaw to Fallingbostel, west of Hannover. 

By that time our hosts were becoming friendly.  The sky day and night was buzzing with Langs, Libs, Bits and then Mustangs and even Spitfires then Tornados as support and mopping up.  Anyting that moved was promptly bombed or strafed transport was finished.  Hence, no food, our ribs had started to show. 

The Germans thought it would be a good idea if we moved north east to avoid a possible battle

 

So we moved off in a gaggle, acarrying as little as possible.  The area of conflict closing.  We were accompanied by a handful of whermacht.  The situation was fraught with hazard, the Tornados were hunting in packs, with spitfire protecting their tail.  The whole group was sitting quietly along a ditch enjoying the sunshine when the inevitable exploded.  A group of six Tornados was circling around and one by one lined up on their strafing run letting their rockets go at 1500 feet andd fishtailing with cannons small bore.  Right where I was sitting was most unhealthy, so in the break between No1 and No2, I scooted off across a ploughed field at right angles tot the line of fire, dropping into a furrow when the rockets let go.  I was once told that of 13 aircrew posted missing, only one survivied.  This must have been my lucky day. 

After the fireworks finished, absolute carnaga and devistation was the scene.  Our guards moved us onto a large farmhouse.  "Krieg ist Krieg" the farmer consoled us, we moved into his hay loft.  The Krieg is finished farmer claimed.  Apparently a British army column had moved in from the Netherlands
 

The next morning an armoured car arrived with a young officerstanding in the turret, her ordered the guards to stack their rifles in the corner of the yard and directed us to the east-west highway, it seemed the main exodous from the east.  They begged us to take them across the river (Weser)  The army had assembled a bailey to replace the real bridge laying in the river.  We were welcomed by a committee spraying us with D.D.T. then off we went to Rheine air base, and back to England."

Contribution Peter Balson, Wireless operator