With normal German efficiency, we were marched out of the camp to the waiting cattle wagons. These wagons were from the French railways, for painted on the side of each were the words "40 hommes, 8 vaches" - 40 men, eight cows. In less than an hour the train was moving off, and late in the afternoon, we were sliding into Verona.

On the six-hour journey, all of us in the wagon had just sat on the floor, hardly a word had been spoken. We all felt that this bloody war would never end. A week ago, all thought that the war had almost ended and that soon we should be home again. I had thought of my fiancée Dorothy, now in the WAAF. How was she feeling, would she be very disappointed when she knew that I would not be coming home yet?

Or perhaps I was now out of her mind. It had been months since I had heard from her, and in the last letter, she had said that she was having a grand time with the boys. As a matter of fact, her mother had written more than she.

Thinking of Dorothy during  that journey, I became depressed, and was reminded of Doubting Thomas who had said to the disciples: "Unless I can see and feel the wounds in the hands and side of Jesus, I cannot believe". I felt now that unless I could see Dorothy soon, I should lose her. How could folks at home really appreciate our position as prisoners? For instance, how could I appreciate the feelings of the slaves who had built the pyramids, the galley slaves of the Roman empire, the poverty of India?

Nothing can be appreciated except by experience. My experience so far had taught me that the best things in life are free, and my hope for the world of our future was that all would know freedom from want. That in our time we would experience the brotherhood of man. To see the world in perfect unity. Utopia. What a dream!

Here we were in the sidings of the station of Verona. Time did not matter. Time was to go on. Time, like a vapour, quickly vanishes; here one moment, gone the next. Time meant little to us, but to the Hun, it meant everything.

The train had stopped. Several of the lads stood looking out of the grille to the world outside. We were in the marshalling yards of Verona. There were several trains in the sidings, loaded with human cargo like ourselves. We were soldiers, but the other trains were loaded with civilians. Yes, even women and children, many babes-in-arms. It was tragic to hear the children crying and the women calling for water. These pitiful beings were off to Germany as slave labour. Surely Wilberforce was turning in his grave. Slaves in this day and age.

A certain amount of apprehension reigned in our wagon. What was the next move? The answer soon came. All the wagon doors were unlocked and we were all told to get out. None needed a second telling. In threes, we lined up on the railway line at the side of the wagon. "What's the bleeding Jerries up to now?"says Johnny Mason. "Surely 'e don't fink anybody's slid froo the flipping floorboards and got away."

Three Germans and an Englishman, a man who had acted as an interpreter at our last camp was questioning the men in the wagon in front of us. They reached our group. Casually, the interpreter walked up to me as the Germans counted the number of men on parade.

"Hello, Sarge. What was your job in Civvy Street?" "Why?" I ask. "Well," he said, "the Germans are looking for men who were barbers, clerks and painters. They are to be taken off and send to Germany later."

"That lets me out," I said. "I am a telephone engineer." With that, he walked over to the Germans, who had now completed the count; spoke to them, and the next thing I knew was that the German officer was calling to me to get my possessions from the train and report to them. Yes, I had been trapped into this by  this so-called Englishman.

I collected my few belongings from the wagon and said my farewells to my pals of the last year. Dear old Des Hazelton of the Coldstreams. 'Blondie' Thrower, the RAF pilot. Folks often told him that he was no more of a pilot than Pontious was!

While saying my goodbyes, the lads were ordered back to the train. They were furious, for I had been the only one he had spoken to. it looked as though the Germans were satisfied if they got one man from each wagon to work for them. Of course, they had not got me working yet, and as I walked away from the train, all the lads were shouting for the blood of the interpreter. I saw him and asked him what the idea was. He grinned and said: "I like to eat well!" So now he was working for the Germans as he had worked for the Italians. I was furious, and raised my fist to smash it into his face. It did not connect, for a German guard held my arm behind me in a half-nelson and pushed me to a group of about 40  who had also been taken off the train.

It appeared that this sorting out went on with every PoW train that came into Verona. All those taken off were put into the Italian barracks, and kept there until 400 had been collected for transportation to Germany. To work for the Reich and the Fuhrer. Ha, ha, ha!!

1943 - part two

It is now September, and most of us are looking fit and brown as berries. The camp is well organised, a drama group has been formed and has performed several plays including Pygmalion and The Barratts of Wimpole Street. The Red Cross have sent musical instruments and daily, a camp orchestra play in the open air for the men. So among varied pastimes, the chaps can plan a daily programme of activities.

The food does not improve and the supply of parcels from the Red Cross are not being delivered very often due to the continued Allied bombing of the railways and the lines being used for the passage of troops to the front.

It is now one morning in September 1943 and all of us are on the morning roll call. We have been told to expect an important item of news, so naturally much speculation is going on, with many believing the war is near an end.

"Parade, attention!" roars the Sergeant Major across the parade ground, and as one man, all spring to attention. It is years since I saw the men drill like that. The S.S. states that the Italian commandant has a statement to make. The air is electric with apprehension. The rotund Italian waddles onto the scene and through an interpreter, states that at mid-day, an Italian Royalist General would sign an Armistice with the British High Command in Italy and that from mid-day tomorrow, the gates of the camp would be open and all would be allowed out daily until the arrival of the relieving British force. He went on to say that the Royalists had taken over, and that Mussolini was now their prisoner. All the men were requested to be calm, and behave as gentlemen when the gates were open.

Never in my life had I heard such cheering; few of us realised that our present joy was to be so short-lived.

Two days later, we made grand trips into the local villages and walked along country lanes as free men. How we had dreamed of the day when it would be possible to walk along without an armed escord ad here we were this morning, on parade for roll call.

Early on that Thursday morning, news had been brought in that German paratroops had been dropped a few miles away, and they were marching in the direction of the camp here at Monturano. At the moment, the news was not authentic and we were all told that no man must go more than two miles from camp for the next day or so. Day or so! Hardly had these words been uttered when a burst of machine gun fire was heard outside the camp. Minutes later, German paratroops were standing guard in sentry boxes that had recently housed the Italian sentries.

All of us were ordered to our billets, and told to await further instructions. Within an hour, we were on parade again, but with a difference - the Germans were now in command. The German major said life would carry on as it did under the Italians, and that within a week, all of us would be moved to camps in Germany. The war had not ended and would go on until the Germans had defeated us on all fronts.

And it was so within a week we were told to start packing and get ready for the move to Germany.  Little did I know what was ahead for me. Tomorrow is my birthday - 23 years old - and within a week I am to jump from a train 20 miles north of Verona. Nothing is further from my mind at present, but it is to be.

My group move on my birthday, and all of us are given a small parcel of salami sandwiches for our trip.