My Grandad's Story. |
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My Nana and Grandad had a special licence to marry because my Grandad was in the army and was soon going off to war. He left his wife who was by now pregnant to go off to fight in France. My Grandad – John Jeffers was one of the unfortunate ones who was caught by the Germans. He was sent to Stalag VIIIB which was later replaced by Stalag 344 (see the map below) |
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| His number was 13331, as you can see below on the piece of paper which was sent with the letters my grandparents wrote to each other. | ||
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My
Grandad was in a prisoner of war camp for five years. While
he was there, if he was lucky he would get labouring work, the men who got
labouring work considered themselves lucky because that saved them
from the boredom. But he was court marshalled twice and after that my
Grandad
didn't have much labouring work. (See the document below)
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| Roughly
it says here that my Grandad was not obeying the order of the civilian
guard not to smoke in the camp, and also for attacking the civilian guard.
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| To entertain themselves they did all sorts off things, my Grandad was part of a band, playing the saxophone (see the picture below). This band was transported to Berlin in order to entertain the German Soldiers but that is another story. (which will hopefully be added to the website before long) | ||
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| A picture
of the band. The man circled in red is my Grandad.
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| Other forms of
entertainment in the camp.
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| A picture of my
Grandad and the rest of the prisoners in the same hut as him. Again the one circled in red is my
Grandad.
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| My Grandad was a member of the Catholic church, he came from a strong catholic background. You see below a prayer card that he kept in his pocket during the war. | ||
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Lamsdorff Death March, The Escape and Returning Home. |
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| In January
1945,the prisoners of war were being evacuated and marched further into
Germany because the Russian front line were approaching. Stalag 344 was
one of the first camps to be evacuated. Before leaving the camps the prisoners wore everything they owned because it was in the middle of winter and the weather was harsh. Most of the prisoners were weak before embarking on the death march because it was nearing the end of the war , and the Germans could not afford to feed them. Thousands of soldiers marched out of the camp, no one was sure what was going to happen to them, some thought they were going to be shot or be forced to walk until they died. But many, including my Grandad had reached a point where they didn't care, there was no fear of dying, because to them it wasn't a matter of if, it was when. Many died on the march because they were so weak, but when the American soldiers arrived in April the prisoners were set free. By this time my Grandad was back in Britain in a hospital because he was so weak. Within
a day of marching my Grandad escaped with some friends, most of the
prisoners that did this died. He walked from Lamsdorff which is today part of Poland to Odessa in the Ukraine. While he was travelling he was caught by the Russian's. He had to prove that he was a British soldier and not a German spy. He had to prove this by taking part in a firing squad therefore kill a German. This German's last words were “Make
it quick.” Somehow he knew that there was a ship bringing Russian prisoners of war who had fled to Britain to Odessa and were going to exchange them for British prisoners of war. The Russian prisoners of war were all shot by the Russians themselves because they had been "contaminated" by non-communist ideology. The ship stopped in Egypt on its way back to Southampton in Britain. (See the map below showing roughly my Grandad's journey.) |
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You must remember that every person who was a passenger on the ship had been in prison for years, and for years - living without knowing when or even if the next meal would come, so when it came time to eat the soldiers would eat so much they would be ill, they also hid food all over the place. The captain of the boat noticed that this was a problem, so he made sure that the canteen was open twenty-four hours a day, so that the soldiers could eat when they needed food and also to try and get them used to normal everyday life again. When my Grandad finally returned to Britain he weighed 6 stone. Because he was so weak and ill he had to spend time in a hospital to get better. He reached his home in Pensarn in the summer (his wife and child had been evacuated to North Wales after their house in Liverpool had been bombed). He saw his daughter in the flesh for the first time when she was five years old. Many believe that it was the pictures sent to him of his wife Elizabeth and his daughter Lilly that gave him the will to carry on. |
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| Some of the pictures
sent to him of his daughter during his time at Stalag 8b/344.
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His wife and her neighbours had hung flags over the street to welcome my Grandad to his new home. (even though during the night there were strong winds that blew the flags down.) I asked my Auntie Lilly to recite the story of when her father arrived home for the first time. She said she was awoken by footsteps on the stairs, she saw a man in an army uniform open the door to her room, she asked him: “Are you my Daddy?” He
answered
“Yes” He always diluted foods (soup, baked beans) to make it last longer so my Nana or whoever was cooking at the time had to make sure that they did not turn their backs on the food that was being prepared. He was also quite strict with his children especially early on after returning home, he would always use military terms when he punished his children eg. "confined barracks" for when they were grounded. |
