The journey from Frankfurt railway station to the interrogation centre was made, surprisingly, by tramcar but, with us prisoners as the only passengers, our guards had full control. On the way we could see that the bomb damage inflicted by the Allies was dreadful. It was quite extraordinary by comparison to what I had seen during the earlier days of the London Blitz, and more recently, in Berlin. Whole areas, not individual buildings, had been flattened by the United States Air Force’s method of carpet bombing.
Our party arrived, thankfully without further civilian interference, and we were quickly escorted into what must have been the main entrance of Dulag Luft. Here we were immediately subjected to the first instance of Applied Psychology.
A pane of glass had been deliberately broken in one of the windows and the hole stuffed-up with a bunch of the aluminium foil strips that were being dropped by our bombers, in certain areas, to foil the enemy radar. It was known to us by the code name Window (it was later referred to as Chaff). The implication here, of course, was, ‘We know what you call this stuff and you thought it was a well-guarded secret, didn’t you?’. Childish, but it did have some effect on me; as it was meant to do so.
We were immediately singled off and I was led into a room staffed by three or four very arrogant Luftwaffe airmen. I was ordered to strip everything off. With no consideration given to any of my injuries, I was then forced to stand on one side of the room while my clothes were thoroughly searched by two of the airmen. I could sense that their objective was partly to ridicule me as much as possible and make me feel totally humiliated. They made a great show of letting me see they knew exactly where to look for the passport-type photograph, that was sewn into the waistband of my battledress, and another great exhibition was made of cutting off one of the buttons that would also serve as a compass. The passport photograph and the buttons were designed to enable us to forge documents and enable us to escape should the opportunity arise. They then made a great act of gloatingly producing a cigarette, lighting it, then blowing the smoke in my face. ‘We Germans have everything, you see,’ they might as well have said. They were certainly well trained to do this job, unless this was their natural behaviour.
When they had finished thoroughly searching my clothes, they threw them back at me and then, showing their ignorance, made fun of my fine silk and wool long johns that had recently been issued to counteract the cold during flying duties. ‘We modern Germans stopped wearing these old-fashioned things years ago,’ was what they implied here. (Actually, they were a great comfort at all times during a cold winter on a north Lincolnshire airfield.)
Then the door was opened by two armed guards and I was marched off along what seemed to be endless corridors, to what was to be my cell for the next nine days. I had barely got inside when the door was slammed shut and locked. It was the start of the most miserable, lonely and anxious time of my life.
The cell was only just big enough to accommodate a narrow bed and to leave just enough room at the side to allow access to it. At the far end of the cell, high up in the wall, was a small barred window. On the bed, in a heap, were two or three dirty looking blankets and a rough pillow. I was to learn during my stay as a prisoner of war that no blankets issued to prisoners of the Germans gave much protection from the cold. There was a book on the bed and although it was in English I never felt that I wanted to read it. I got onto the bed, because there was nowhere else to be, and lay down. There was no sound of any description from the adjoining cells and I knew I was utterly alone.
I remained isolated in my misery for perhaps two hours before hearing the noise of some activity in the corridor. Then someone unlocked the door and passed in a small enamel vessel, containing what I could by now identify by its smell as Ersatzkaffee, an inferior grain coffee, and two thin slices of the very dark, sour tasting bread that I never thought I would ever consider eating, let alone crave, as I was to do during the very hungry days I was to endure as a prisoner of war.
Since being blown out of the aircraft I had remained in a state where I think I had never fully regained consciousness. For some days, if someone spoke to me, the voice appeared to come from an unexpected direction. I suppose it was caused by the shock or concussion, or perhaps both. Even so, I remained conscious of the fact that I was unbelievably lucky to have escaped with my life and to be so lightly injured. I kept thinking of the crew. I knew that David the engineer was OK and thought Bob, the mid-upper gunner, would have stood a very good chance of getting out. Sadly, I had seen no sign of Dick, the rear gunner, reaching back into the fuselage to get his parachute, as he would have done had he been able to do so. His turret would almost certainly have been the prime target of the attacking fighters.
Our pilot, navigator and bomb aimer, trapped down in the nose, would have stood little chance of being blown clear, as David and I were. I thought about them continuously as I lay in my cell, but knew better than to enquire about them now, as this would have almost certainly connected me to an aircraft and to a squadron, which might have been information of which my interrogators would make use.
I must have slept for some time before being awakened by the noise in the corridor when two more thin slices of the black bread were passed to me. I was to learn that I had now received two thirds of the daily standard food ration for POWs in Germany. The remaining part was at midday, consisting of a bowl of swede soup which was no more than boiled swede and three small potatoes. This inadequate ration alone would have resulted in slow starvation, unless, before that, because of weakness, prisoners would have succumbed to disease.
We were kept alive by International Red Cross food parcels. I will never cease to be grateful for them. They came from Britain (jointly with The Order of St John) Canada and the USA. Especially appreciated was an occasional bulk consignment of food sent by the British Farmers of the Argentine. They were largely Welsh settlers there, I was to learn many years later.
Shortly after my first full day in the cell I became aware of a large radiator, running for almost the full length of the bed on the opposite wall, because it was throwing out far more heat than was necessary for comfort and there was no way of controlling it. As the day went on the heat became almost unbearable. This continued until late in the afternoon when it stopped, and the cell became cold, very cold. This happened every day and night for the rest of my stay. It must have been another form of psychology applied to make life even more uncomfortable. I learned to get some relief from this in the day by lying on the floor beside the bed, with my head at the door. This allowed me to breathe in the cold air that streamed beneath it.
There was still no sign, as the hours went by on that first day, of anyone occupying the cells on either side of me. The only sound of activity was made by, what I guessed to be, the guards marching along the corridor in their heavy boots. Then, at about midday, the heavy boots halted, in full military fashion, right outside. The door was flung open to reveal two armed guards. One of them ordered, ‘Out,’ and I was marched off to face my first interrogation.
I was led into a large room and the guards withdrew. I was kept waiting while a smartly dressed Luftwaffe officer sat at a desk, appearing to study some papers. Obviously, as I see it now in my comparatively old aged wisdom, he was applying more psychology. After what seemed an age he motioned me to sit down opposite him. More time was allowed to tick away before he played his master card.