Dachau to Dolomites. Tom Wall
of the room’.28 A further assault followed before the subdued Spence had his lance corporal’s insignia torn from his tunic. According to Churchill, Spence promised to conform, but later complained to Keindl that he had been assaulted. Churchill was shown a copy of the complaint by a friendly SS guard. In retribution, the Englishman ordered that there was to be no social contact with any of the other prisoners. After three weeks, Spence, again according to Churchill, was remorseful and sought an interview. He was ordered, as a penalty, to surrender his next Red Cross parcel to the Russians, and, more ominously for him, sign a confession drawn up by Churchill. This document dealt with his German propaganda work, his snooping on fellow prisoners and, most damning of all, it contained an admittance that he was ‘instrumental in the apprehension of over a dozen Jews, who in all probability have been murdered in the Extermination Camps to which I knew they would be sent’.29 Churchill promised him that, in the event of Spence behaving properly during the remainder of the war, he would destroy the papers. Spence apparently signed the document and Cushing, Walsh and a recently arrived Free-French RAF captain, Ray Van Wymeersch, witnessed it.
It is difficult to believe that anyone would confess to treason and complicity in murder on the basis of no more pressure than that of social isolation. In his book, Churchill portrays Spence as having rowed with everyone in the camp before his (Churchill’s) arrival, with the result that ‘no one would have him as a room-mate’.30 Isolation, therefore, was nothing new to him. A greater level of ‘persuasion’ would surely have had to have been applied. And, if Churchill really believed Spence was implicated in such a heinous crime, why would he (Churchill) conditionally promise not to mention it after the war was over? Churchill clearly over-egged the story for his book, for although he would have known about the ‘extermination camps’ when wrote his story, he was unlikely to have knowledge of them as a prisoner in 1944.
Soon after these events, Peter Churchill was joined by other British officers, four of them survivors of The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III POW camp at Sagan. The first to arrive was Wing Commander Harry Day, generally known as ‘Wings’. He had been captured after being shot down while leading a squadron on a reconnaissance mission over western Germany only a few weeks into the war. He was badly burned and was the only member of his crew to survive. Middle-aged, tall and slim, he was respected and liked by fellow inmates in the various camps he was placed in, despite having a tendency to be abrupt at times.31 Immensely brave, he had been decorated when, as a young marine officer during the First World War, he repeatedly went below the deck of his torpedoed ship to rescue two trapped and injured crewmen. He made light of his gallantry by claiming he had only gone below to retrieve the ship’s store of liquor.32 The other early arrival was the previously mentioned Major Johnnie Dodge. The American-born Dodge, from a privileged background, was the only one among a British contingent that subsequently came to include two Churchills who was actually a relation of Winston Churchill: the connection was through his mother’s second marriage. Like Day, he was a decorated veteran of the First World War. The next to arrive was Flight Lieutenant Bertram James, usually called ‘Jimmy’. A handsome man, he had been shot down while flying his Wellington Bomber over the Netherlands in June 1940. After being greeted on entry into the camp by Day, James asked who else was in the Sonderlager. Day replied: ‘Well, there are a few renegade Irishmen who played the part of collaborators for a while – we’re still not sure which of them can be trusted.’33
James was, according to Dowse, with whom he was to share a room in the compound, ‘reserved, shy and quite’.34 Flight Lieutenant Sydney Dowse, a fellow escaper from Stalag Luft III, arrived soon after James. Blond, tall and handsome, and known as the ‘Laughing Boy’ for his cheerful good humour,35 his Spitfire had been shot down while on a reconnaissance mission over the French coast near Brest in August 1941. He had managed to ditch his plane in the sea and swim ashore without attracting attention, but must have been charmed and dismayed in equal measure to find a group of young French women waiting to greet him on the beach calling out excitedly ‘l’Aviator Anglais.’36
These four, plus the previously mentioned Frenchman, Van Wymeersch, were among the seventy-six prisoners who escaped from Stalag Luft III on 24 March 1944. All but three of the escapees were recaptured and fifty of these were murdered by the Nazis. The Frenchman was almost certainly destined to be among the victims, but through good luck and ingenuity he managed to evade execution. While awaiting transport from a prison in Berlin after his recapture, he observed a group of civilian prisoners being marched elsewhere and joined up with them without being noticed. He ended up in Buchenwald before the resulting confusion led to his transfer to Sachsenhausen.37 At the time of their arrival in Sachsenhausen, none of the Sagan escapees knew about the murder of their colleagues. They only learned about it when they read a report in Deutsche Allgemeine Zietung which they were regularly supplied with. The newspaper did not refer directly to the crime, but it was evident from a comment that mocked a statement by Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, condemning the killings.
Day was especially shaken by the news. Although he wouldn’t then have known the list of victims, he would have assumed they included some close friends. Roger Bushell, with whom Day had planned the Sagan escape, was one. Day’s escape partner, the Polish RAF officer Pavel Tobolski, was also among those murdered. So was his close friend Mike Casey. He had first known the Irishman Casey from 57 Squadron which Day commanded and they had met again in captivity.38 They had a lot in common; both were sons of the Empire. Day, whose father was a senior administrator, was born in Sarawak in Borneo, while Casey had been born in India where his father was a high-ranking officer in the Indian police force. They were both shipped home as children to be educated. Day went to Haileybury, a public school in Hertford in England, while Casey was sent to Clongowes Wood in Ireland before moving to Stonyhurst in Lancashire.39
For Dowse, the terrible news would have reminded him of the harrowing scene that occurred when he and his escape partner Stanislaw Krol, a Polish RAF Officer, were being separated after their recapture. Krol had appealed to Dowse ‘Don’t leave me! I’ve had it if you leave me! I’m finished!’40 Dowse had no choice in the matter; he was being escorted to Berlin for Gestapo interrogation. He tried to reassure Krol, telling him they would take him back to Sagan, believing at the time that that was likely. Dowse, after reading the report, would have guessed that Krol’s worst fears were borne out. He was, in fact, shot shortly after Dowse’s departure.
A sixth British officer, the last to arrive in Sonderlager ‘A’, and by far the most eccentric, was Lieutenant Colonel Jack Churchill. Although from Surrey with no obvious Scottish connections, he had assumed a Scottish identity and included in his battle kit a Scottish claymore sword, bagpipes, a longbow and set of arrows. A commando officer, he was the stuff of comic strip legend. He is said to have been the last British soldier to kill an enemy with an arrow; his son claims he killed a German soldier with an arrow near the village of L’Epinette, east of Paris in 1940.41 It would not have been beyond his capabilities for he had previously represented Britain in pre-war archery competitions. He led commando actions in Norway, France, Sicily and Yugoslavia for which he would be awarded the Military Cross. He would sometimes lead troops into battle playing Scottish martial airs on his bagpipes. The Claymore sword was not just for show either; in the Sicily landings he led an assault with his sword drawn using it to subdue a platoon of German soldiers. He was captured after being rendered unconscious by a grenade explosion while leading a group of Titoist partisans and a platoon of British commandos in battle on an Island off the Croatian coast.42 Like Peter Churchill, the Germans assumed him to be a relative of Winston Churchill, although, in his case, he never pretended to be so.
Life in the Sonderlager was not unpleasant most of the time. The prisoners were reasonably well fed. They were on SS rations, being provided with the same quality and quantity of food as their gaolers. They did better when Red Cross parcels arrived. Occasionally, the two Italian orderlies, Bartoli and Ameche, who shared their accommodation – Ameche was a cousin and look-alike of the then famous Hollywood actor Don Ameche – would prepare a communal meal using the contents of the parcels. The Russians were sometimes invited. Bessonov would wolf down his food, spitting out whatever bits he found disagreeable, much to the silent disapproval of his fellow Russians.43 During the day, the occupants could wander about within their compound. There were German newspapers and books to read. German language lessons were provided by Peter Churchill. Card and board games were played and