Attitude towards POWs

[handtohand22]

Captured
We were taken prisoner by German Infantry at 4pm on Sunday afternoon on the 26^th May.

A Marine officer told a Sergeant to take a white flag and stand on a hill until a young German officer who was as broad as he was tall approached us. He asked us what regiment we belonged to and we refused to answer him. He then told us we were in the Royal Marines because he recognised the buttons on our tunics. He then asked us if we knew what the Germans did to Royal Marines. We replied that we did not know so he informed us that we would be shot; a rare sense of humour indeed! He had been educated in Cambridge before the war and spoke perfect English. After talking to us for a while he returned to the German lines.

I spent six years in different German Prisoner of War camps. I was seventeen years old when I was captured and twenty-two years old when I was released so I lost my youth.

One lone Spitfire came over our location just after we were captured and was shot down. As the parachute drifted down onto the beach the attacking German aircraft shot at the airman. The parachute only was damaged and the pilot came down safely and landed on the beach and came to our position as a prisoner. The Germans shifted him away but he gave some of the men a Sunday paper that he had used to wrap some fish and chips, as he did not have time to eat his meal before he was sent on that last mission.

[Owen]

Ronnie,
Please tell us more about your Veteran.
Quite a few of us here are very interested in the 1940 campaign.
Send him our regards.

[handtohand22]

I will pass on your regards.

Ex-Royal Marine Bill Balmer has given me 6 interviews so far. I still have to research the Royal Marines history before I do some serious writing. So far I have 40 (A4) pages of organised notes covering 1939 to the present including WWII and Malaysia with 45 Cdo.

I will start a web site similar to The Coleraine Battery on Bill's story with photos as soon as I finish another project I'm at in December this year.

After Chatham - Boulogne

We were introduced to the war very quickly after the Chatham training. I was standing in Boulogne before I realised it. A Royal Marines demolitions team were sent to Boulogne by RN destroyer to sabotage the harbour installations. When we got there we found that the Germans had already done that. All the demolitions team had to do was check the area for bombs and extinguish any fires.


Fear

We were a bit afraid the first time we went into action with bombs dropping around the destroyer and Germans firing at us. But we soon got over that. It was amazing how quickly we got over that but if any man ever told me he was never scared while going into action I would tell him he was a liar. You were scared but you got over it. There was no man who did not go into action a bit scared, you had seen men die but you got hardened to it.
It was the same when you were taken prisoner. You would say into yourself, “Is it worth it. Is it worth going on?” But then you thought about your mother and father back home, got your head down and kept going. That’s how you did it.

Calais - Sunday 26 May 1940

We were landed to destroy harbour installations and got caught up in defence of Calais. The Royal Marines were supposed to meet up with French Marines but we never met them. When we eventually found them at the railway station, they were all drunk with their weapons piled up.

I myself had a Vickers machine gun and had a very busy 72 hours at Calais before we surrendered to the Germans. No sleep, hardly anything to eat or drink. There were many horrible sights, of men being blown to bits by Stuka bombs artillery fire, and also mortar fire. The worst scene I saw was when No.2 machine gun crew and a rifle platoon were blown to bits by a Stuka bomb; twelve young men or should I say boys.

There were German snipers infiltrated in close to our positions so I had been tasked to go to the railway station and locate Sergeant Mitchell who was in charge of a rifle section. When we relayed the message that he was to use his rifle section to search the ground before the Machine gun teams moved forward. Sgt Mitchell said, “I want the organ grinder not the monkeys”. We had a few choice words with him and returned to the officer with the message.
Sergeant Mitchell shifted his position and we never met up with him again to re-task him. He was later observed helping people to get on board the hospital ship. He escaped and we were captured.

At one time on the railway platform we watched two soldiers coming along the track towards us. Then we heard mortar shell being fired in our direction. We flattened ourselves to the platform and when we looked up the two soldiers were gone, just bits of uniform lying where they had been.
Later on two stretcher-bearers came to us and asked us to identify a dead Marine officer. We went with them and identified the officer, took his dog tags and pay book and then returned to the Sergeant of our section.
But the officer was not dead. The German stretcher-bearers came across him later on and got him into hospital where he recovered. In 1943 he came into our POW camp but we did not get a chance to talk to him. He was part of a travelling show that visited the POW camps.

The last stand by the Marines was on a sand hill overlooking the town. We had moved from our gun positions up close to the beach at Dunkirk. Across the channel was the town of Dover; freedom so near and yet so far. We had nothing but a very uncertain future, not really comprehending what lay ahead.

[handtohand22]

OK I have done 12 interviews so far and I have put the lot on a web site at

My Service Life

I will take time out now to do some research into the 1939/40 period and everything else Bill has commented on. I will then get back to Bill for another set of interviews.

Any comments or observations most welcome.

[Slipdigit]

I've enjoyed reading the stories, he certainly endured a great deal.

I couldn't see the pics, they would not render.

[Owen]

Thanks for the email Ronnie.
Just been reading through it.
I like the bit in basic when the Sergeant has to apologise for calling him an "Irish ******" in front of the whole platoon on the parade square.
A bigger man than the Sergeant he met at the ENSA show.

[handtohand22]

Thanks for all that.

[debra]

Wow, what a shame. It takes all kinds....