Chelsea Pensioner John Humphreys recalls his extraordinary story of escape, not once but twice, from POW camps during World War Two.
When the Second World War broke out, 18 year old John Humphreys was raring to be sent out to France into a Field Company, but with the retreat of Dunkirk his hopes were dashed. He was posted to Africa instead.
“I was in the Western Desert until 1942”, he explains. “The last six months I was in Tobruk which was eventually overrun by the Germans. It was bombed three times a day every day. When the Germans broke through, I got injured and woke up surrounded by a couple of them who looked down on me and said: ‘For you Tommy the war is over.’ I can still see them now if I close my eyes, two big fellas, looking down on me. They were very good to me and sent me to hospital, but once I was out, I was a Prisoner of War and they sent me to Italy.
“The camp in Italy was a soul destroying experience. You didn’t know when the war was going to end. You lived on a quarter pint of soup, and small pieces of bread and cheese. That was your daily ration. When it was gone you were starving. I stuck it for so long and decided that I was going to escape somehow….” I got hold of a Hugo’s Italian Grammar book and I studied it until I had a large vocabulary. I realised I would have to practice so I found a sentry. I think he was bored stiff in his box all day. He was quite happy talking to me. We talked on and on and after about three months I acquired his accent. I didn’t know it at the time but he had what we would call an ‘Oxford accent’. He obviously came from a wealthy family who had kept him out of the war by getting him a job as a sentry. Once I was fluent I decided to make a break. When I had been taken prisoner I was wearing shorts and a shirt – tropical uniform. In the winter the Red Cross gave me a Greek army uniform, which looked very much like an Italian uniform. With a little bit of alteration – I looked like an Italian soldier.
"I had two very good friends in the camp and I said to them: ‘I’m gonna make a break for it do you wanna come?’ One day after roll call in the evening, I marched my friends in front of me, up to the corner and said to the sentry in the box: ‘I’m taking these two up for punishment.’ He waved us forward and we made it through the wicker gate and on. We went up to the Italian army barracks and scrambled under the buildings and lay there until it was dark. We then made our way to the wall and climbed over and that was it - we were out! We survived by dodging the Germans and the Italians and living off the land. It was tough but we were free and quite happy.” John found his way back to Allied Forces where he reported in and was debriefed. He went back into the Army and his story continues after four days of intense fighting for the Rhine Bridge in 1944.
“The battle raged from Sunday evening until Wednesday. By the end we had no ammo and had to surrender. We were sat outside in the ruins and the school was on fire. I didn’t want to be a POW again so I said to what was left of my stick: ‘Shall we make a run for it?’ They all agreed. We crossed the road, dived into the cellars of a house and then proceeded to go over different garden walls. One bloke got stuck on some barbed wire on top of a wall. He shouted ‘John help me I’m stuck’. I put my hands on his equipment and pulled him towards me. There was a burst of machine gun fire. I pushed him back and carried on. Eventually, I we ended up in a tram depo. I remember thinking – ‘all I need to do is jump this wall and I we will be on the Rhine.’ The tram depo was full of German soldiers. We all ended up hiding under a tram. A soldier came over and said in perfect English: ‘If you don’t come out I will blow you out.’ So we crawled out.
"All Royal Engineers carried a big Jack knife on them, and I quickly dropped mine down my trousers. They were very good to us considering we had killed so many of their friends. By the next day we were in Germany somewhere and taken to a small POW camp. I had been a POW once and I didn’t want to be again, so my main concern was; how do I escape? I saw in the distance a small brick building, so I went over to investigate. It turned out to be a cookhouse. The best thing of all was there was a window with five bars in. I jammed the door shut and picked all the cement out underneath the bars with my Jack Knife. Then I went to the stove and mixed some ash with water and smeared a paste over my handiwork. Later that evening I told my friend I was going to make a break for it. I asked him if he wanted to come with me and he said no. Morale had gone down. In the end I recruited two officers and two soldiers.
"We escaped through the cookhouse window. We then walked through the night until we were close to the Rhine. As soon as it was dark again we were on the barge looking for what we could find. There was a rowboat, we jumped in and shoved off and let the current take us down. We spent at least 12 hours in the boat and finished up in Nienhagen. The British forces were there and so we were home and dry again.
