Tom Brown was a member of one of the largest Glemsford families. He was taken prisoner during the North Africa campaign in
1942; he remained a prisoner until the end of the war in Europe, firstly in North Africa, then in Italy, and then finally in
Germany, very close to the city of Dresden.
Tom died on 5 July 2002.
These are extracts from an unpublished text. Tom gave me written permission to publish them here, but any further reproduction, other than for research or personal interest purposes, is forbidden without permission. I would, in any case, be grateful to be told of any use to which these extracts are put.
Our party consisted of 100 men. We were put into two trucks and headed south. The country was again very pretty and interesting, very much resembling the English countryside. The villages seemed to be more compact and modern, the thatched cottages were missing. Everything looked new, neat and tidy but no signs of life. We travelled all day, the line passing through the centre of some villages but they all appeared to be deserted and I couldn't understand it. No road traffic about, but the railways were overflowing, all of it military traffic. We travelled through that gem-studded countryside, as yet undamaged by bombing, until we reached Dresden.
We stayed there for some time, but we were not allowed out of the trucks, we could only get a glimpse of it through the truck ventilators, so I saw nothing of the famous Dresden shepherdesses which 1 believe are a feature of their beautiful chinaware.
A few miles further on, then out of the train and on to a narrow gauge line. It was then 3am. After 24 hours in that wretched truck we were all getting a bit fed up. The change-over point was badly lit and being tired, hungry and thirsty we stumbled across to the tiny carriages and just fell into them. Off we set once more and finally reached a little place called Naundorf about 20 miles from Dresden where we detrained.
It was a little country station. It was 5 a.m. when we got there with only a single line and a set of points running into a siding, and a house for the station master. Out of the station with our armed escort, on to the road, and after five minutes stumbling and lurching along like drunken men we came to a ramshackle, rambling old house which had at one time been used as a wood factory. We found evidence of that later when during cleaning up operations we came across woodcuts and other decorative items, obviously a peacetime occupation there. It had been converted into a lager, or prison camp, with a wire fence surrounding it. The lager was numbered 11701.
We were admitted through the wire, and shown into a large room containing 100 beds, wooden two-tier affairs equipped with straw palliasses. I have seen the same set-up in private houses in Germany. They were quite common with the working class who were very cramped in their small cottages. They were quite comfortable. Also in the bunks were two blankets. The unter-offizier, a corporal, said as we had been travelling so long, and seemed to be pretty well-exhausted we could select a bunk and have a few hours sleep, then we would be awoken for a meal. We found ourselves beds as close to our particular pals as we could and tumbled in and slept.
Before I proceed, a few words about the village, although I was not able to observe it until later. The village was just a tiny hamlet of not more than twenty houses, in a lovely valley surrounded by pine forests stretching with an occasional break as far as the eye could see. The lager itself was an old house adjoining the burgomeister's, or mayor's, and fifty yards away in the front was the road leading to the nearest big town of Dresden, 28 kilometres or 17 miles away. Crossing a thirty yard stretch of grass coming towards the lager was a small stream, then just at the back of us ran the narrow gauge railway. It was on the top of a bank and the line was level with the top of the house.
Looking from my window I could see in the background belts of black forbidding looking forests of pines, very black when the sky was clouded. My eyes wandered around a bit and coming closer to home I saw in the spring and autumn beautiful silver birch, lovely copper beech, hazel trees bursting into bud and my eyes rested while I absorbed and drank in the marvels and the luxurious greens, golds and the indescribable beauties of nature. In autumn the streets were avenues of delightfully perfumed lilac trees. Coming home from the night shift, the air with the dew making the grass sparkle, was heavy with that intoxicating scent with which was intermingled the sharper smell of the linden (lime) tree.
Apples, pears and cherry trees lined the streets and my mouth watered when they were bearing their luscious fruits. However the small boys of Germany could resist the temptation of a little stolen fruit was a marvel to us all. 1 was sure that those small notices affixed to the trees forbidding unauthorised picking would only have served as an added incentive to English boys whose chief joy in life was scrumping and orchard raiding. At least it was when I was a boy. I never did know who had that fruit, but it was certainly immune from pilfering.
We passed through all that and a quarter of an hour's walk brought us into the village of Schmiedeburg, although I believe the Germans classed it as a small town. It contained a cinema, quite a good-looking place from the outside but barren and old-fashioned inside. We were taken to see a film at the cinema once. The film was called something like "The Roses of the Tyrol". It was set in the Austrian Tyrol and, to our surprise was not a propaganda film. The town had a few Gasthofs (guesthouses), jager-houses (coffee houses) and other refreshment places but they were mostly closed, a Post Office, a few shops which had pretty well nothing to sell. It had a church used not so much for worship we were told but almost exclusively for weddings, funerals and christenings, and although I never saw it, the town was supposed to have a swimming pool. The whole set-up and location was idyllic and if only circumstances had been different, I could thoroughly have enjoyed myself there.
About mid-day a shout went up and we all trooped downstairs, were guided into a large room set with tables and chairs and told this was our mess hall. Never had I known that term to be more appropriate, for dinner came in and was just plain boiled cabbage flavoured with a few caraway seeds. It was dumped into bowls, the same as we used in England to wash our hands in, small enamel basins full of cabbage and water and it certainly looked a mess.
As we had had no food for two days and were so hungry we just waded in and ate it. Just as we had finished, the cooks - some of our own boys - brought in a crate of huge enamel mugs each capable of holding two pints, and a big pot of coffee which they dished out between us. It was ersatz with no sugar or milk, pretty rough on the palate, but once again it was that or nothing, so down it went.
Next entered a civilian who could speak a little English who had come, he said, to tell us something about the work we would have to do. He said he was our boss, or as he termed himself, "The Chef" and an engineer. He managed a small ore-mine which was in the course of development. He then asked us about any trades we might have and after taking all that into account allocated us to the various jobs. He hoped we should get on all right together. We were all given a Works number.
I would henceforth be known as "Kriegsgefanegner Zwei und Dreizig", prisoner of war number 32. Then we were left alone for the rest of the day to settle in.