Seventy years ago, we were at war. But it was still the phoney war, or what the French called the drôle de guerre. Months would pass before the fall of Paris, of France. And victory was years away. Jeremy Robson*, an occasional contributor to Salut! and Salut! Sunderland (he would qualify for the moribund Salut! North, too, though not Salut! Live), has been yearning to tell the story of how the war ended for his father. Here, in a week in which Salut! will devote some space to human aspects of the Second World War, is the first part of his story ...
In early March, 1945 the end of the World War Two was close. At the time no one was really aware of how close; people scarcely dared dream that the hostilities that had blighted Europe for five or six years would soon be at an end.
My father Leslie Robson (third from left in the grainy picture of his crew) was a navigator and bomb aimer on a Halifax bomber, in 197 Squadron, Special Duties, Undergroup attached to Bomber Command.
The air force had tried to train him as a pilot and he was able to fly the plane as well as the rest of them, but he just couldn’t get the hang of landing it. So that was how he came to be a navigator.
He had just completed his tour of duty on March 9 1945 when he and the rest of the crew volunteered for a additional mission to drop a Special Operator by parachute into Germany. This was only one part of this mission. The significant other part was a bombing run over Kassel of which 90 per cent was obliterated in bombing raids during the war. Kassel was the location of a sub camp of the infamous Dachau concentration camp which provided forced labour for the Nazi war effort.
There was no formal introduction for the crew to the Special Operator in civilian clothes. The crew had their business to attend to and he had his. Their job was to get him to the correct locale, where he would parachute out.
The crew on bombers of that time included a mid upper gunner and tail gunner. The tail gunner had the most dangerous job of all. There was nothing but the wit and skill of the gunner and the plastic bubble in which he sat to protect himself and crew from the approaching Luftwaffe.
It’s hard to imagine the degree of difficulty in identifying an enemy fighter from allied aircraft in the pitch black night using eyesight alone.
At some point over Germany the Halifax was approached by a fighter which was immediately identified by the tail gunner as friendly. “It’s one of ours Skip!” he said.
Barely had the words been uttered when a fusillade of shells ripped into the Halifax, setting fire to the plane. Shrapnel badly wounded my father who bled profusely from the serious injuries to his legs. At this point, there was no way of knowing if any bones had been broken.
Details were a little confused but at some point shortly thereafter the pilot issued the order to evacuate. Despite his injuries my father managed to get out, jumping into the seemingly endless blackness of the enemy skies, punctuated only by the flash of anti-aircraft artillery batteries from the fast approaching ground beneath.
It must have been very difficult to control the flight of the chute, even if he could see anything in the blackness.
Already badly injured his condition was worsened by colliding with a tree. It was a cold night, and he was able to wrap himself in his parachute to preserve what little body heat he had. He was drifting in and out of consciousness during the course of the night.
Flyers were always equipped with a whistle. During moments of consciousness he would blow his whistle in the hope that someone would come to his aid. Several hours of darkness passed, and no one came. During moments of clarity, however fleeting he must have wondered whether a worse fate than he had already suffered possibly lay ahead as dawn crept closer.
When daylight eventually arrived he realised he was in a field in a fairly rural area. Shortly after dawn, some people arrived from Kulte, a nearby farming hamlet which lies just over 100km east of Hamm. They were from a farm and among them was a young nurse, who cleaned and bandaged his wounds with what few materials they had.
The people from the farm put him carefully on a barrow and wheeled him to their house, a few hundred metres away. Once inside, they laid him out on a sofa in the kitchen close to the fire, trying to keep him warm. They wrapped his wounds in toilet paper as this was all they had, and gave him food and water.
Some time shortly after, they moved him away from the fire and put him down on the floor. My father realised that this probably pre-empted the arrival of the local police or worse. Almost on cue several “police” arrived to take responsibility for the “prisoner”.
Rather unceremoniously and in stark contrast to the humanity shown by the people from the village he was taken on the back of a cart to a “hospital’ of sorts in nearby Arolsen. I guessed from odd comments he made that this was not a particularly pleasant journey.
By the time he arrived at the hospital he had lost even more blood and his moments of consciousness were growing shorter and less frequent.
The wounds to his legs and his left knee in particular were so bad that the German medics were preparing to amputate his lower left leg. Fortunately he was able to make it clear that this wasn’t an option as far as he was concerned.
The Gestapo arrived. They told him in no uncertain terms that they were aware of the mission that he’d been on. He was informed that the Special Operator had been captured and killed by civilians very shortly after he had parachuted out. Two people parachuting from a place almost at the same time can end up miles apart by the time they touch down, but even so my father must have considered himself the lucky one on this occasion.
All my father was prepared to tell the Gestapo was his name, rank and serial number. The Gestapo demanded that he tell them the purpose of the Special Operator’s mission, threatening to kill him if he didn’t.
He admitted to me when I was very young that at that point he hadn’t really cared if they had killed him or not. In the midst of all this there was an oddly amusing incident. He was always a keen (and relatively accomplished) darts player, my Dad, and for some reason was carrying his darts in the small black leather pouch, which would be immediately recognisable in the pubs and clubs of North-eastern England.
The Gestapo found his darts and demanded to know what they were. They took out the shafts and flights, and stems and demanded to be shown how these strange objects worked. My father then scewed a dart together and immediately lauched it into the back of the nearest door.
Almost in unison these Gestapo officers fell to the floor looking rather foolish, in the expectation that this was some sort of explosive device or grenade. Dad recalled that despite the circumstances he wanted to laugh, but didn’t dare as this would have probably been the end of him.
He was at this “hospital’ in Arolsen for several weeks. During this period he was befriended by a Parisian by the name of Edouard Hullman, who remarkably had been a prisoner of war during WW1.
As the weeks passed Edouard, who seemed to have the run of the place, kept my him informed of how the war was progressing. Several weeks passed. One day, out of the blue he was moved from the attic, down to the main floor.
Prisoners were kept in the attic, presumably on the premise that any allied bombs falling on the hospital would kill their own first.
Following the move away from the attic, Edouard told my Dad that the US Army was approaching and that they would arrive any day now.
He said he would find a way some how get word to them about the a wounded British airman in the hospital. Edouard was as good as his word. The sound of the artillery had started as a rumble a few days ago, but was growing louder, first daily and then by the hour.
Suddenly, an American soldier stormed into the room shouting “Where’s this godamned Limey bastard?” to which my Dad replied “Over here!”
The soldier’s immediate response was to ask: “Are there any of these bastards you want bumpin’ off bud?”
My Dad told him to leave the people in the hospital alone, but suggested that there was a policeman in nearby Volkmarsen that they might deal with should they come across him. He never told me exactly what had happened with the aforementioned policeman, remembered from the journey with the cart from Kulte to the hospital. I can but imagine.
Within the next few days he was repatriated. The Americans were very generous with food and drink and chocolate in particular, and though he was put on to a plane to the UK without his trousers. He couldn’t care less!
Presumably as a result of his wounds and inadequate (if any) medical attention he contracted tuberculosis. At that time, this was potentially life threatening. Once back I the UK he was hospitalised for another 12 months in Scarborough to convalesce..
He could have remained with the Royal Air Force following convalescence, but opted to return to the North East to complete his apprenticeship and become an electrician with Seaham district council. Decades later that seems a strange choice, passing on what would have probably been a rewarding peace time career in the armed forces for the comparatively mundane existence of local authority work.
But remember that all these events occurred when he was 22 and 23. Maybe there is a strong appeal in the mundane when so much happens so young and you realise how tenuous life is.
Continued at http://www.francesalut.com/2009/10/war-danger-and-decency-1.html
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