Found this little story of Arthur Edward Walker of Goole. Taken from Goole At War by Mike Marsh Volume 3 "Bare Feet and Splinters" Arthur Walker escaped from his captors in Italy by running off in his bare feet during the bomb-blast horror of an air raid. Arthur Edward Walker was the only son of Mrs F Owen, who lived in Malvern Road, Goole. As a boy he attended Old Goole Council School. Called up for Army service in February 1942, he joined the Reconnaissance Corps. For a time from January 1943, Trooper Walker saw action in the fighting around Tunis in North Africa. Then he fought in Sicily before taking part in the Allied landings on the Italian mainland at Salerno. Towards the end of 1943, near Cassino, Walker was in a patrol of 21 soldiers sent out on a night patrol to pinpoint enemy forces and their strong points. In the darkness the patrol ran into German troops and were pinned down by machine-gun fire. Two of Walker's colleagues were killed, a third was fatally wounded. When they found themselves surrounded and heavily outnumbered, surviving members of the patrol surrendered. So Arthur Walker became a prisoner of war a few days before Christmas. Under armed guard he and his pals were compelled to cross the Garigliano River and march 12 miles. Then they were interrogated and moved to a prison camp. At her home in Goole, Walker's mother was informed in January 1944 that her son was missing. Then she had no further information for several months. Meanwhile, in his Italian prison camp, Walker was put to work in the cookhouse. "That meant I was lucky", he would recall. "The food at the camp was terrible and there was never enough, but those of us in the cookhouse were a little more fortunate than the rest. Most of the older Germans behaved all right towards the prisoners. It was the younger German soldiers who gave us trouble". Eventually Walker was moved to another camp. Then he and hundreds of other prisoners were loaded on to a train of cattle trucks. With 32 prisoners in every truck, they were bound for prison camps in Germany. But in Northern Italy the train was attacked by a group of American bombers: "The first lot of bombs they dropped stopped the train. Then they dropped a lot more and blew the train to pieces". Seeking a little comfort in his crowded truck just before the American air attack began, Trooper Walker had removed his boots. As the bombs blasted the train, like everone else-German guards included-he made a run for it. Amid scenes of terror and chaos there was no time to put on his boots. "At first I was only concerned with getting out of the train. That's how I came to forget about not having boots. I ran as far as I could in bare feet. The German guards ran as fast as anyone else". Precisely when Trooper Walker felt safe enough to stop and put his boots on he did not make clear, "..but when I'd got well away from the train and the guards I decided to try and reach the Allied lines". So began a trek similar to that made by numerous Allied escapers, all of them on the run in Italy, all of them seeking to evade capture. Like the rest Arthur Walker knew that recapture would inevitably result in a journey to a prison camp in Germany. Keeping to high ground as much as possible, he moved with extreme caution, constantly on the look-out for patrolling German soldiers and ever-alert also for Italian Fascists, who, he said later, "were worse than the Germans". Deciding that it would be hopeless to attempt to make his way through the German lines, he remained in the mountains and kept on the move as much as he could. Day after day his priority was to avoid capture. Day after day he waited and hoped for advancing Allied forces to bring safety and freedom a little nearer. At night he slept wherever he could find shelter. When no shelter was found, in his own words, he "made the best of it outdoors". Hunger was a constant problem. He ate whatever he could find-anything which he thought would help to keep him alive. Then, high in the mountains, bad weather made Arthur Walker's ordeal far worse. Growing weaker and wearing only basic clothing, he struggled to keep warm in bitter cold. For a time he battled through snow two feet deep. By now lice were a problem too. But when the cold was at its worst he convinced himself that the lice were helping to keep him warm-a notion he would laugh about afterwards. In the end Walker's hunger became desperate and forced him to kill and eat sparrows. Yet his will to evade the enemy survived. Then, finally, German forces moved out of his area as they withdrew further north. Not long after that he made contact with advancing Allied troops. So his ordeal came to an end and another escaping prisoner completed the road to freedom. In Arthur Walker's case that long, long road led back to Goole. Does anyone know of this man? I would be interested to know which Recce unit he was in.
Hi Lesley he was 46 Recce. Walker A 14205935 Tpr 46 Recce Regiment Recce Corps Captured Garigliano. Reported to Committee in UK 4/10/44. See this link http://bombedpowtrain.weebly.com/index.html Cheers Paul
Hi Paul-I thought you would come up with something What a great find, thank you very much. Lovely to see a bit of background to the story. Lesley
Have looked up some POW records and the only Recce soldiers with the name ‘A Walker’ I can find details for are:- Trooper A. Walker, RAC Service No: 421179 Camp No: 11B PoW No: 139292 Camp Type: STALAG Camp Location: Fallingbostel Trooper A. Walker, RAC Service No: 7899242 Camp No: 18B PoW No: 8203 Obviously neither of these are the one in Lesley’s post. However following Paul’s link to the incident at Allerona the following Recce are mentioned:- Trooper R. W. Calvey, RAC Service No: 14208810 Camp No: 11A PoW No: 278637 Camp Type: STALAG Camp Location: Altengrabow Corporal A. D. T. Handy RAC Service No: 10600221 Camp No: 7A PoW No: 127490 Camp Type: STALAG Camp Location: Moosburg (Isar) Trooper A. Stein, RAC Service No: 10602810 Camp No: 11A PoW No: 279859 Camp Type: STALAG Camp Location: Altengrabow Trooper T. M. Cairns RAC Service No: 10602685 Camp No: 4A PoW No: 275180 Camp Type: STALAG Camp Location: Hohenstein Trooper B. A. Beard RAC Service No: 6472466 Camp No: 4F PoW No: 274557 Camp Type: STALAG Camp Location: Hartmansdorf Chemnitz Trooper E. E. Wells RAC Service No: 7907089 Camp No: 344 PoW No: 132964 Camp Type: STALAG Camp Location: Lamsdorf Trooper J. Murphy RAC Service No: 14518570 Camp No: 7A Camp Type: STALAG Camp Location: Moosburg (Isar)
