Canadian Prisoner of War Diary

[George Wilkinson]

#19 JULY 20/44
July 20th finds me at Stalag 357 ar Torun Poland. In some aspects the journey was not as bad as expected. The Americans went off from Luft 6 first, then L Lager with A&B blocks of our A Lager. We think C&D blocks made up the last party. My pack weighed 140 lbs and to this day I don't know how I ever managed to lug it here. The first march was 6 km, about 4-1/2 miles, but I was very lucky getting one of my kit bags on the cook house wagon. When we reached Heydekrug we were put in a field surrounded by German guards, with field bbayonets. Finally we were put in cattle trucks on the train and our baggage stored in a separate car. Now to describe how we traveled. The box car was divided into two parts with a separate compartment in the center 8ft by 6 for the guards. We were placed 17 men behind a barbed wire enclosure on either side of the central entrance. That is 17 prisoners in each end with six guards in the center. We were so cramped up in our little enclosure that all the feet were on top of one another in the center where they met as we lay down, which was almost impossible to do as your back scraped up and down the board at out backs all night long. It was a fight to keep your feet and legs on top of the heap. It sure was terrible but very amusing now as I look back on it. To make matters worse, it was very hot and the place stank of sweaty bodies. However all things come to an end sometime and about 36 hrs later we arrived at Torun.
Now the worst part of the journey commences. To make matters miserable, it was raining and we had to force march 8 km and I didn't have a cook house wagon to carry one of my kit bags in. How I ever got to the camp I don't know. The 140 lbs just about paralyzed every muscle in my body, but as my kit contained food, I struggled on. I'll assure you it was more will power than strength, also the rain mixed with sweat pouring off me was very uncomfortable, however that six miles came to an end and I can lay back in my pit at Torun and laugh it off and the food from my pack is stored on a shelf next to where I write this.

[David Layne]

Originally Posted by NickFenton

George,

Which camps did James go through. It was not unusual for them to be moved around quite a lot throughout the war. My own Father was in 5 camps excluding Amsterdam interogation centre.

Nick

Like Nick's dad my father was a P.O.W. and again like Nick's dad our fathers were imprisoned in some of the same camps as Sgt. Stephenson. I'm really enjoying this thread as it is giving me further insight as to what these chaps went through.

[Owen]

spiral & spoon (any idea what this was?),

I assume as they had no eggs so must have used something else instead for the egg & spoon race, a spiral of wire maybe?

[von Poop]

Caught up on this excellent thread again.
Pinned!

Cheers,
Adam.

[George Wilkinson]

#20 April 16 1945
Today is April 16/45 and one hour ago British tanks & men took over our prison camp. Today is exactly almost to the hour 3-1/2 yrs since I was first captured. All last night artillery, machine guns & small arms fire could be heard. this camp was a bedlam of different nationalities; we have british, Dominions, American, Rissian, French, Polish, Yugoslavian and other nationalities here.

How do I feel? Well that is hard to answer; I am not as excited as I used to think I would be when this day came, but I have a very happy and contented feeling inside me although now I am very impatient to get home.
This camp was evacuated about ten days ago and the prisoners put on the march. Len, Al & I kept up a delaying action and managed to stay until the last party when we hid in the cook house. Two hours later the R.S.M. i/c sick party, which was left behind, told us we would have to work in the cook house. We have been eating well ever since.

This ends the actual diary it'self. Sgt Stephenson dictated his memories of these events to his wife in the 80's and I will follow with some of these. There are still some items to be scanned yet, so there is still more to come.

[Owen]

George,
What camp was he in when liberated?
Wonder what unit got to his camp.

[George Wilkinson]

Owen I am assuming he was still at Stalag 357. One of the newspaper articles in Jim's collection is a picture of the cheering men that were freed from 357 and it is the last camp mentioned.
He does state in his memories dictated in the 80's that they were released by the British 7th Armoured Division.

I hope this helps

[Owen]

I'll have a look into any mention of the Liberation of Stalag 357 later.
Just had a look here,
Imperial War Museum Collections Online Database

3 images you might like to see, just search for Stalag 357.
BU 3705
BU 3707

BU 3861 Another picture here. STALAG 357 AT FALLINGBOSTEL — Ablution stand for a group of over 1000 men | NZETC

[George Wilkinson]

From Sgt Stephenson's dictated memories

In Sept 1939 Canada declared war and I enlisted as a pilot in May 1940, but unklnown to me that meant (aircrew)- pilot, navigator, radio operator and gunners with wireless experience. I was chosen as a wireless gunner, the biggest disapointment of my life as I wanted to be a pilot and have a career as an Airline Pilot, if I got through the war alive-- it was a big gamble.

I went to wireless school in Montreal and was soon bored but we had some good beer bashes in the mess, one group trying to see who could drink the most. Our group usually won with my help, which seemed funny because I had hardly drank before, but it wouldn't be my last........

I went to gunnery school and passed with flying colours-- you see I had a job I enjoyed and outside of the guns jamming it wasn't bad. After getting my air gunner wings, we headed home for leave before going overseas. A very good friend Peter Emblem, stayed with us at home; he had a famous brother who acted under the stage name of Robert Donat. We got into a bit of hellery once in a while with our practical jokes and having more to drink than we should. Peter was killed later in the Middle East-- one of many good friends.........

We then left for Debert Nova Scotia and all I can remember of Debert is mud and rain, it was a horrible place, but we were not there long-- we boarded an armed merchant cruiser to take us to England. Can you imagine a ship with two small guns aft and forward escorting a great number of merchant ships loaded with ammunition and other supplies of war-- if a German sub had spotted us, the whole bunch would have been blown out of the water....
To be coninued

[George Wilkinson]

cont.

...... I was stationed at Uxbridge England. One evening I took the tube to London and it was during a very bad air raid, I got my eyes filled with what the English people were going through--- sleeping in the underground of the tube subways, little kids yelling --- it was hell. I would rather take my chances with the bombs above.
I latched on to a newspaper reporter with the paper called The Scotchman and we spent the evening together. His newspaper was in a tall building and we saw London in flames, standing on the rood of the building. After seeing this for a while we went to a London underground bar, had a few drinks and then went back to his office and slept in a couple of bunk beds.
Well-- finally off to O.T.U. ( operational training unit) where we had advanced training to prepare us for a squadron. We flew Wellington bombers and learned all kinds of air firing, air to ground -- the ocean being the ground. We had two browning machine guns in our gun turret and I had to learn how to clear jams and in fact put a gun together in a dark room, with the gun in pieces. It was a fun time, with an occational bash on the side. Mostly it was work and more work-- our guns were always jamming and in O.T.U. you didn't have the best equipment, the best equipment going to the operational squadrons. One time I had a jam and we were over the North Sea doing firing to ground exercise when a German Dories bomber appeared a few hundred feet away.-- he was probably short on fuel and our guns didn't work so we went our separate ways, but to say I wasn't scared would be a lie.
My frequency in the Sgt Mess became a nightly affair but I passed my gunnery course with about a 70 to 75 % average. Finally my future crew flew to the O.T.U. and picked me up for a raid that night, their previous rear gunner had been killed the night before on a bombing raid. Our quarters on the squadron, 75 New Zealand, were superb, two men to a room and our rooms were kept clean and the beds made by the Waafs.
My raid over Germany that night was nothing; we had to turn back because the port engine was flaming. I made my first op without any trouble ( our trip was scrubbed, but the engine fire was something new.