Blitz Kids (58 page)

His question was valid, after all this war had started when he was a schoolboy, one who was excited to be armed with a whistle to give the alert during air raids. Five years on he was a veteran soldier and a witness to the greatest crime the world had known.

In the final weeks of war Eric Davies once again came face to face with his old foes of the SS. He had told the new recruits about the dangers of revealing themselves on the battlefield, but with the war just days from its end, a group from his regiment rushed forward to accept the surrender of a group of German soldiers. With the British soldiers exposed the Germans dropped to the floor and SS machine-gunners opened fire from behind them. To the horror of Eric and his fellow veterans, seven of their comrades were cut down by the bullets. Once again, Eric knew there would be no SS men taken prisoner in the days ahead.

Just days later he found himself in the village of Vahrendorf outside Hamburg. In a day of vicious fighting, the 1/5th Queen’s and the 2nd Battalion, The Devonshire Regiment took control of the village against heavy counterattacks by the SS, German marines and Hitler Youth. At the end of the battle a group of around forty surrendered Germans, mainly Hitler Youth, were executed by the British soldiers. Later estimates suggested the average age of the German dead was just seventeen – exactly the same age Sergeant Eric Davies had been when he joined the British Army two years earlier. It was an indication of the terrible price paid by both sides – youths who had been schoolboys in 1939 had grown up to massacre each other in the final days of war.

In the final weeks of the war, the advancing Allied armies finally approached Milag, the camp for interned merchant seamen. With the sound of fighting getting ever nearer, John Brantom – who had spent the years between the ages of fifteen and nineteen as a prisoner of war – decided to escape from captivity. Using a homemade ladder to cross the barbed wire, John and a group of other men escaped from the camp. However, the youngster ripped open his arm on the barbed wire. Whilst the others made their getaway, he remained in the forest before taking refuge with a local couple on whose farm he had worked whilst a prisoner. Using a ‘liberated’ motorcycle, he made his way towards the front line where he eventually found a British regiment. Within days he was home in Swansea.

For those who remained in the camp there was an overwhelming sense of uncertainty. Large numbers of RAF prisoners, transferred from other camps, had arrived at Westertimke. To make room for them in Marlag, the camp for captured Royal Navy personnel, around 700 naval ratings were transferred to Milag, soon crowding out the facilities. Despite the overcrowding, the prisoners were able to sustain themselves on the knowledge that they would soon be liberated. That long-awaited moment came on 28 April 1945. With the Guards Armoured Division advancing in the area, the Germans dug in around the camp. On 26 April the Germans had requested a truce to allow the prisoners to leave the area. However, events moved too quickly and the British quickly closed on the camp. As the prisoners did their best to dig slit trenches to protect themselves from the developing battle, the British laid a smokescreen and advanced on the German positions, destroying their heavy guns and opening the route for the tanks of the Scots Guards. The prisoners sheltered as German mortar bombs flew over their heads in one direction and machine-gun bullets whistled above their trenches from the British positions.

With the British finally in control of the area, the gates to the camp were opened and the relieved seamen were free to head out into the countryside. Leslie McDermott-Brown was sleeping and awoke to find that, after more than four years in captivity, he was finally free: ‘I rushed outside to see troops around the wire with real British helmets on. Everyone was talking, trying to find some soldier who came from the same town as himself.’ He recorded the emotions in his diary:

Whilst they all had reason to celebrate and make up for lost time, some rougher elements among the seamen were reported to have abused their new-found freedom. There were chaotic scenes as they entered villages in search of food, alcohol and loot. All manner of transport was ‘liberated’ – cars, bikes, horses – as they armed themselves and then
roamed through the countryside collecting whatever they wanted, safe in the knowledge that the local population could not resist. A few among them broke into German homes and abused the population, beating up German civilians. As a result of the excesses, a ‘riot squad’ was formed from Royal Navy personnel to deal with major incidents.

One boy who had much to celebrate was John Hipkin. The day of liberation was the eve of his nineteenth birthday. Once outside the camp, the first thing he did was to approach a foxhole. Inside was a dead German; hardened by his time in the camp, John took the man’s water bottle and mess tin, knowing he might need them in the days before he got home.

Yet the experience of war – complete with all the horrors of those final weeks – had not hardened everyone’s hearts beyond repair. In the final days of war, No. 3 Commando entered a German town alongside an American unit. Stan Scott was searching a German home when he heard a whimpering noise. He looked into the room and was shocked by the scene:

He wasn’t joking and the American knew it. Two commandos arrived and dragged the American away, while the girl got dressed and ran away to safety. Just days later, the war in Europe was over. When Stan Scott heard the news, he sat down, smoked a cigarette, drank a cup of tea and had a well-deserved sleep.

Elsewhere in Germany, there were mixed emotions. Many soldiers were simply too exhausted or too emotionally drained to celebrate. Instead, they simply wanted to relax, finally allowing themselves a night of deep sleep. On the other hand, some men did celebrate their survival. In this group was Geoff Pulzer. Five years earlier he had been a teenage Home Guard volunteer, whose military career had started with little more than an armband as a uniform. In the intervening years he had watched tanks exploding, seeing their crews emerge in flames,
realizing his friends were dying around him. He had endured the sweet stench of death at Falaise, where his tank had rolled along roads lined with the corpses of men and animals. Now he was a veteran able to exact revenge for the interruption the war had brought to his life:

It was not just the end of the war that was celebrated across Britain. In thousands of households, the end of war did not have the same impact as the return of a son, especially those who had been prisoners of war. One such returning prisoner was John Norman, who had been captured in 1940 aged just sixteen. Just after arriving back in England he met his future wife Sylvia Bowman, a seventeen-year-old girl living in his street. They met at a street party held in honour of his return. Like so many of the returning prisoners of war, John appeared extremely shy. The experience of so many years living in isolation made them uncomfortable, particularly with the opposite sex. A few days later he visited her home and asked her father’s permission to take her out. He was surprised by the young man’s quiet and polite manner and agreed. John later told her he wanted a girlfriend who lived nearby since, after his experiences on the long POW march, he didn’t want to have to go too far to walk a girlfriend home. Regardless of his shyness, John and Sylvia fell in love, married and went to live in Germany where John – still a serving soldier – was based. Shortly after returning to England, John had a medical and discovered that he had, at some point, suffered from tuberculosis whilst in the prisoner-of-war camp. He was told he was healed but within four years the disease re-emerged, resulting in him spending four years in hospital and a sanatorium.

Another who had left home as a boy and returned as a man was John Hipkin. He had spent most of his teenage years in a prisoner-of-war camp and was desperate to get home to Newcastle. He was flown home, spent twelve hours getting to Newcastle, arrived home at 2 a.m.,
had a cup of tea with his mother, then went to bed. He awoke the following morning to the sounds to celebrations: he was nineteen years old, he had been away for four years, now he was free. It was VE Day.

The familiar images of the VE Day celebrations – vast crowds, dancing and drinking, flag-waving, surging through the streets – masked the reality of the overt sexuality on display in some areas. As one youngster recalled: ‘People were shagging one another all over the place on VE Day. It was a complete letting down of hair – and trousers! Pretty much any girl who was around must have lost her virginity – if she still had it.’ But for many, the reality was that they had no cause to celebrate the end of an event that had caused so much pain and heartache. Parents who had lost children had little to be excited about. Those orphaned by war felt similar emotions. Those with family members still fighting in the Far East felt aggrieved that such celebrations should erupt whilst their loved ones were still fighting and dying. Some youths felt cheated that war had come to an end before they had a chance to join in. Others had little to celebrate since they knew they would soon be called up for National Service.

For many it was simply a time of confusion. War had become their normality and its end bred uncertainty. In London, seventeen-year-old John Sweetland watched the VE Day celebrations with a friend. His words encapsulated the feelings of many of his generation:

In east London there were large parties to celebrate the end of the war, but not everybody was able to enjoy them. As a fifteen year old, Reg Baker felt left out: ‘I remember dancing with some girls but I spent the night sitting on the allotment behind the house. I was too old for the kids’ parties but too young for the adult ones. Some people were out
celebrating, but it was mainly for the little ones.’ Conversely, another fifteen year old, Roy Bartlett, found the experience was improved by being a teenager. In the daytime he hung around on the fringes of a street party for children, making himself look pathetic and being given food by sympathetic mothers. At night he did the same at the adults’ party, hanging around so that men passed him glasses of beer. As he later recalled: ‘I only have a vague recollection of the evening, so I must have had one beer too many.’

Of course, there were thousands of men and boys who were in no position to relax. The Merchant Navy – the service that had suffered so many casualties – was not able to stop and celebrate. Their war was over but they were now back at work. However, the boys of the Merchant Navy could finally relax, safe in the knowledge that there were no more submarines prowling the deep in search of their quarry. For John Chinnery, it was the end of a long, eventful and dangerous war – one that had taken him to the edge of a psychological precipice. He had served throughout the conflict, been sunk by submarines in the Atlantic, taken convoys through the Mediterranean and endured frostbite on the Arctic convoys. Yet as war came to an end he was just eighteen years old. Having been through six years of danger, he was just old enough to buy a beer and be called up for National Service.

After spending the entire war at sea, Christian Immelman – who had started the war as an apprentice and the youngest member of his crew, and finished the war as a third mate – felt something was missing. He was mid-voyage when the news came through that the war in Europe was over: ‘Not being able to join in the end-of-war celebrations in London was the second biggest disappointment of my war service, the first was my not getting home to see the family after my first trip.’

For some, the announcement meant that, as the youngest and most inexperienced crew members, it was time to face practical jokes, as seventeen-year-old Norval Young remembered:

For other young seamen, the war’s end was celebrated not with pranks but with victimization. Sixteen-year-old Tony Sprigings was onboard his second ship, heading out to the Far East ready for the invasion of Japan when news arrived that the war was over. However, the news did not reach him for days: