I was not welcome to sit on a train with the “super race”

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Craig Scott, of Makeney, has created a website to preserve the wartime diary of his late father David Scott, below left wiht his wife Jean, a flight engineer from Derby who became a PoW in Nazi Germany. Here is the latest extract from the diary.

I awoke about 9am in great pain. After a struggle I managed to sit up and pull the parachute over myself, and sank back again. I must have fainted for, when I next awoke, the sun was quite high and I felt much easier.

I found I was lying in a wheat field under an electric pylon, which I must have first hit. It was easily 25 ft high and how I had survived without broken bones I cannot understand; the wheat must have broken my fall. It was a high tension pylon, so I could also have been electrocuted had I touched the ground with the ’chute still in the wires.

The first thing I did was have a cigarette. Then I tore strips off the ’chute to bind my feet as I had lost my boots. I thought about the chances of walking out of Germany, though, as I was roughly 30 miles north-east of Hamburg, there was little hope. I got out my escape maps and compass and tried to work out my position. I heard road traffic along a road nearby and also railway trains. I stood up cautiously and heard a shout. There was a farmer 10 yards away, so there was no alternative but to give myself up.

The plane which David had to bale out of

A procession formed to take me to the local police station, mostly children, of course. I tried to find out the name of the village but could not make them understand at all. On the way, we stopped at a house and the crowd shouted for the housewife. Apparently, she had been to America and could speak English.

I should have liked to have asked if she had seen any others but there was no time.

We reached the police station and the policeman was exceptionally surly. He immediately led me off for a further two miles or so at a hot pace. My feet were in a mess, walking on the loose gravel and I was bent over with back pain. I did gather there was a wounded man in the village but that was all I could find out. The villagers also said a plane had crashed with dead men on board.

I walked with my eyes on the ground. A very pretty blonde girl came past on a bicycle at one point. I looked up at her in my misery and she flattened me with the remark, in perfect English: “Serves you right!”

I was searched on arriving at the district police station. My possessions were placed in a bag and I was sent off with a new escort.

He was a fat old soldier of the Wehrmacht and spoke a little English. He was not a bad sort, though, and instead of taking me straight to the railway station, he first stopped at the local barracks where some Yugoslav prisoners produced a steaming mug of black coffee, stiff with sugar. I guess their complete ration had gone into it.

They communicated by rolling their eyes and slapping me on the back when their minders were not watching.

We then went to the station. He told me my destination was Stade Luftwaffe station.

On a rare day off between bombing raids, David, (centre) relaxes with other members of the Lancaster crew

When the train pulled into the station, my guard tried to enter the third class compartments. However, we were met with such a storm of abuse, we were obliged to get out again and walk to a cattle truck at the rear of the train.

Apparently, the German people objected to me travelling in the same carriage as the super-race! As if to make up for this, the guard gave me back my cigarettes, so I smoked the lot before I had them taken off me again.

At Stade railway station, I bade farewell to the friendly old soldier and was handed over to the Luftwaffe.

I was again searched and placed into a cell, pronto. It was dark by this time and, although tired and hungry, I just could not sleep. I wondered what had happened to the rest of the crew.

The friendly Wehrmacht guard said my friends were all killed but later I gathered that many aircraft had been shot down, so I hoped that Don and the rest of the boys had managed to win clear.

The next morning, in this bare cell, I made my first acquaintance with black bread. Although hungry, I could not eat it. At 6pm, we were put on a train for Hamburg. The following morning, we got black bread and sausage. This time, I had no trouble eating the bread; I was so hungry I could have eaten anything. And, as my stay in Germany continued, I later acquired quite a taste for it.

Previous extracts:

Prisoner of war tells his story through diary which helped him stay alive

I felt hot flames around my ears and saw burning petrol

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