Before leaving the site I did a quick check on the truck and was lucky to find a couple of army rifles in the cab, but there was nothing else of use to me, not even a map. Grateful for small mercies, I took one of the rifles and started on my way.
As a result of my gruesome discovery, I decided to alter my plans slightly. More vigilance was now called for and, since dusk was not much more than an hour away, I decided to look for a spot that gave me a good view into the distance and to lie low until it got dark. After that I would walk on again and make plans as I went along. Since the terrain was not hilly I soon found what I wanted and settled down in good cover where I was able to rest and keep a look out. The sound of gun-fire in the distance had now decreased considerably, but I could see plenty of Russian troop movements to the east of me, and heading in a north-westerly direction. I would just concentrate on heading westwards.
The first pangs of hunger began. I had only one slice of bread in my food-bag and a small amount of coffee in my flask, but I wanted to save these until I really needed them. All I allowed myself was some snow that I melted in my mouth, but it did nothing to alleviate my hunger, even though I felt somewhat refreshed.
When it got dark I set off, but I really had only a very vague target in mind and began to think that the chance of meeting German units before the Russians got me looked very slim indeed. Fortunately, the night was not cloudy, and stars were visible most of the time, so I was able to check my direction. I thought I was making good progress when I ran into trouble trying to cross some fields. A flash of light from powerful searchlights suddenly lit up the landscape and I had to drop to the ground to avoid being caught by one of the beams as it swept across the open spaces. Since it was obvious that it was not Germans who were operating the searchlights, I had to beat a hasty retreat during the dark spells and do a very unwelcome detour of my projected route.
My progress was generally quite good, aided by the flat Polish landscape. In Poland I seldom came across ditches or hedges between fields. Occasionally there were just a few strands of wire supported by stakes and it was no problem to step over these. There were also no ditches beside the roads which were often tree-lined and at the same level as the adjoining fields. Strangely enough, I have no recollection of ever having had a problem crossing rivers or streams. It must have been a matter of pure luck that I always found a bridge across, or that I did not happen to run into such obstacles.
It was approaching midnight when I decided to take a break. I had been walking for over four hours since seeing the dead soldiers, but unless I knew exactly what I was doing, I thought it would be better to wait until daylight and then look out for signs of German units. It was going to be a long night, so I set about getting myself some shelter from the cold by constructing a sort of mini-igloo as was recommended in such situations. First, I selected a bit of a hollow in the ground and broke off some small fir-tree branches which I stuck into the snow. I then wedged others across them to produce a box-shaped framework with an opening on the down-wind side. Finally, I threw loose snow onto this and, by patting it from the inside and the outside and throwing on more snow, I was able to form a shell looking a bit like a lop-sided sphere that was open on one side. I now had a small, but quite, snug shelter for the night that was surprisingly warm and proved that Eskimos have the right idea.
As I settled in and began to relax, it suddenly struck me that I had not removed the identity discs of the dead men I had found. It was pure shock that had made me forget this guideline. Since the men were obviously dead, I had had a natural aversion to going any nearer, which in turn would have probably jogged my memory. However, I have always felt remorse for my lapse and that I left behind confirmation of the death of men on whose return family members must have pinned their hopes for many years to come.
The next seven hours to daybreak passed comfortably enough for me and I managed to get a restful sleep before I awoke as dawn was breaking. After my breakfast of melted snow, I cautiously started off again, keeping well inside the edge of a wood. A short while later I saw a small group of soldiers crossing my path ahead of me. To my great relief they were German. Almost as soon as I noticed them they had seen me and identified me as a compatriot of theirs. It was an undramatic ending to what had started with a very dramatic beginning less than twenty-four hours ago.
My new mates were Panzer-Grenadiers in the Panzer-Corps Grossdeutschland and were well-equipped with rifles, two machine-guns, a map and a compass. They were heading for an assembly point and invited me to join them because it was most likely that there I would meet up with other soldiers of my division. After a fast march of several hours we came across more stragglers, some of whom joined us and it was not long before I saw the familiar blue-grey uniforms of the Division Göring. Although the colour did not stand out from a distance, it was easily distinguishable at shorter range from the dull grey of other army uniforms. I might also mention here that the Division Göring had an excellent identification system for its vehicles, whereby they had a clearly recognisable symbol representing each main- and sub-unit prominently painted on the front and the rear. A colour code was used and the symbol sometimes incorporated a pointer like the hour hand of a clock to denote numbers, all of which was a big help towards instant identification.
When we got to the assembly point, the time had come for me to part from the grenadiers and to approach an officer of my division for further instructions. This I duly did and now found myself to be part of a mini “wandering pocket,” only this time I was no longer privileged and had to walk. The cross-country marching was tiring, but at least it gave me warm feet and I was not frozen stiff as I would have been on a self-propelled gun. The route took us in a southerly direction and our destination was the town of Lauban about two marching days away.
I was now in a column of some 200 soldiers and we were accompanied by a few armoured cars. Sometimes the sound of gunfire came nearer and other times it receded, but we did not become involved in any fighting with the Russians. Frequently altering our direction, we marched with hardly a break till well after dark when, to my great relief, we were housed for the night in a group of abandoned buildings. In next to no time stoves were lit and an official search party was set up to look for food, which was then distributed among us. The thick stew of potatoes, meat and vegetables that we cooked for ourselves was one of the most delicious meals I remember having in my life. Since we were such a large group of men, lots were drawn for guard duty. Only six men were needed per stint and I turned out to be one of the lucky ones to get an unbroken night’s sleep.
While I was asleep, and dead to the world, one of the greatest tragedies of the Second World War was taking place less than eighty miles away, the bombing of Dresden. The war had almost reached its end and it was thought that Dresden had been spared because its art treasures were of international importance and it was not an industrial city. During the night of 13/14 February, 1945, Dresden was to become the German city to suffer most under the “fire-storm” bombing technique. Seas of flames created hurricane force winds that made fires spread faster than people could run. Those who were not burnt alive suffocated from lack of oxygen. In less than fourteen hours the city was almost wiped off the face of the earth. 202,040 corpses were collected after the raid and it was estimated that the actual total of dead was nearer to a quarter of a million. Contrary to popular belief, Air Marshal Harris was not the inventor of the “fire-storm” technique, just the executor. When Churchill received Royal Sanction to appoint the civilian Arthur T. Harris as Air-Marshal in 1942, the basic design of the new bombing warfare had already been completed, but not yet put into practice.