Bengasi camp was situated two miles outside the town, at the side of vast salt flats, and to escape meant traversing these on one side, the open desert and to the West, the sea to the North and the barracks to the East.

Betweeen July and September '42, that camp; had about 30,000 prisoners behind the wire. Men from Tobruk, Gasala, Knightbridge Mersah Matru and El Alamein. The men captured in Tobruk felt they had been betrayed for '30 pieces of silver'! A percentage of the men were fortunate and had small bivouacs - made out of Italian groundsheets - and although no good against the cold nights and rain (if any) were indeed an asset against the hot desert sun.

Life in camp was indeed grim, for hunger, malaria, dysentery and malnutrition were not taking their toll on the men. As aforementioned, we were in groups of 50 for the purpose of ration issue and daily roll-call. Every day at noon, the senior NCO went, usually with two OR's from each group, outside the wire under escort to the Italian food stores across the road to collect the daily ration. This was one hard biscuit, 4" square and half an inch thick, a small tin of bully beef, which was in actual fact, horse flesh; a cigarette ration of two per man. Water was issued late in the afternoon at the rate of one pint per person which was to be used for washing and drinking. The water cart often forgot to deliver, so the lads just had to go without.

Once a week, we were issued with a hot mash of lentils and later had black bread issued instead of the biscuit; although weighing only 150g and tasting of sawdust, it was a change from hard tack.

Sanitation was terrible, and in due course was responsible for most of the sickness in the camp. It was so crowded that many men slept along the side of the latrines - if they could be called that! Long trenches 15 feet long and about six feet deep were dug alongside the wire. No seating accommodation provided, no privacy! So many of us were suffering from dysentery that it was not long before another pit had to be dug, and as it was impossible to fill in the old trenches, the horrible stench attracted flies by the million and spread the disease. It became a common sight to find a man dead at the side of these pits, and indeed, sometimes in the pit.

Daily at 10am, an English officer, a POW like ourselves, called at the camp to give medical attention. He and his orderly worked for hours in the sweltering head. The queue for treatment appeared to be endless, and sometimes the officer had to call it a day when the issue of aspirin, Epsom salts and quinine had been used up. It took me three days of queuing to get my leg attended to, and when the orderly saw my leg, stated that he had nothing to put on it, so I must just try to keep it clean.

At one period in the camp, statistics of death were as high as 20 men per day. After weeks of the camp diet, most of us looked like skeletons covered with a thin layer of skin, and so weak that each time we attempted to stand up, we inevitably fell down again due to blackouts and giddiness.

It now became necessary to obtain more food, or slowly starve to death. The Italian guards wanted Egyptian pounds as they thought they would be spending their next leave in Cairo or Alexandra. Our predicament was a golden opportunity to get the money. So they started offering loaves of bread, the same loaf which was our daily issue. No wonder the ration was short every day. The ration had been cut recently to 4 loaves between 5 men. At first, these guards charged £1 per loaf - later the price went up to £5 a loaf because of the demand. Twenty cigarettes cost anything from £1 - 5 - 0 to £3, and as money was expended, men sold wedding rings, watches, fountain pens and even their boots for bread. How the Italians gloated over our misfortunes cannot be expressed!

I saw men sell wedding rings, eat the bread of exchange, and then cry like a child, full of remorse.

A colleague of mine wanted a smoke. I had money but he had not, thus he offered me his overcoat for £3. I haggled and said it was more important for him to be warm than have a smoke, but of no avail, he just had to smoke, and with tears running down his face, he said he would kill himself if I did not make the exchange. I took the coat, he the £3 - he was satisfied. So was I, for I could now sleep at night.