Plea for recognition for March to Freedom PoWs

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Leonard Perkins was a PoW for four years during the Second World War, miraculously surviving the notorious 1,000-mile March to Freedom from Poland to Germany in 1945 as the Russians advanced. His daughter, Chris Knighton, of Quarndon, has been piecing together his story.

Stalag VIIA at Mooseberg, where Leonard Perkins was initially kept prisoner in 1941. Inset: Leonard, aged 20, in 1940

My father, Leonard Perkins, was a prisoner-of-war during the Second World War.

He was captured on Crete in 1941 and kept prisoner first in Stalag VIIA in Mooseburg, then at Stalag VIIIB Lamsdorf and, finally, in a work camp at Sosnowiec in Poland, where he worked down the mines.

Each day the men were marched to the mines and as most of the men were inexperienced in this area of work, there were many accidents. The men worked very long shifts, both day and night.

After his death, in 1995, I was able to piece together his wartime story by placing an advertisement in the British Legion Magazine, to which I received many replies.

One, in particular, was invaluable as it came from a pal of my father who spent the whole four years of his capture with him and who even had photos and a letter from him.

I was particularly interested in the marches that the PoWs made at the end of the war when the Russians were advancing from the east and the Germans emptied the camps and marched all the PoWs west.

Some of the marches were, I understand, around 1,000 miles and took more than three months in one of the worst winters on record. From Poland, they walked up to 20 miles a day to Czechoslovakia, through Austria and finally to Germany, often through deep snow. The food they were given was extremely poor and they spent most nights in barns. A regular occurrence was to find boots frozen to their feet.

The men who took their boots off found they were unable to get them back on again. Along the way they saw many sad sights and many men did not complete the journey.

The march ended in Regenburg in April 1945 but even there, after walking all that way, the men were put to work, filling in bomb holes and some, unfortunately, were killed by friendly fire!

With help received from ex PoWs, I have been able to put together an account of my father’s experiences, which is now on the BBC’s website, People’s War, under the heading March to Freedom.

My reason for writing is that recently I went to the National Arboretum at Alrewas, where I found a monument to ex-PoWs, consisting of two large open gates set in a wall.

After my visit, I contacted the National Ex-PoWs’ Association and asked if they had any future plans with regard to the area around the monument. I was told that later this year, they will be putting a plinth in place that will bear an image of the March to Freedom and will be to the memory of Middle East and European PoWs who never returned.

I understand that the National PoWs’ Association relies on donations to fund these projects and I can’t help but feel that if we, the descendants of PoWs, pulled together, maybe we could help the association fund future projects. Personally, I would like to see something on the lines of the Far East PoW building, which is also at Alrewas.

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