Private Arthur Barraclough

	This page: Sicily and captivity.
	Escape and freedom.

TO PRINT THIS ARTICLE ... ... click on print-friendly pdf which opens in a new tab/window. To open PDFs you will need Acrobat Reader. Most computers will already have the Reader but if not there is a free download here

Arthur Barraclough, Ismailia March 1943.

Arthur Barraclough was born on 11 February 1920 in Skelmanthorpe. He was called up into the Army on 27 June 1940 at Pontefract, and after basic training he was posted to the 1^st Battalion, the York and Lancaster Regiment in Northern Ireland. He returned to England with the Battalion and on 23 March 1942 they sailed to Bombay on The Windsor Castle.

Initially, Arthur was based at the Battalion Headquarters and was particularly involved with map reading, codes and ciphers. From Bombay the whole Battalion travelled by train to Ranchi, about 100 miles from Calcutta and spent some months working their way through jungle areas using maps and a compass.

From Ranchi, we made our way to Karachi via what is now Pakistan. We went up the Gulf of Oman until we got to the top at Basra, Abadan and from there we were now in Persia. Our first camp was at a place called Kermanshah, and then from there we went further north to a place called Qum. We were then taken by road transport through Baghdad, across the Trans-Jordan desert to Syria, down through Palestine as it was then known, down to Egypt. We were camped, stationed, at Ismailia, and then in early July 1943 we embarked once again from Port Said onto another troopship and we sailed across the Mediterranean under ideal holiday conditions.

Although their destination was secret, Arthur was shown a relief map of their destination and realised they were en route for Sicily.

Early in the morning of 10 July, the order was given to 'climb down' and Arthur and his comrades scrambled down rope ladders down the side of the troopship into flat-bottomed Landing Craft Assault. They headed for the beach at Cassibili.

Arthur remembers the heavy drone of the aircraft towing gliders overhead.

I suspect rather more than one of these gliders did not make it to the beach because as we were going towards the beaches and it was still quite dark - four o'clock in the morning, I heard the voices of men shouting "help", and I remember one man saying, "let's all shout together. One, two three, Help! Help!" And there they were clinging to the parts of the glider in the water. The Navy man in charge of the LCA said, " I will pick them up on the way back". Well, I know he didn't because as we were approaching the coast and by now dawn was breaking, I could hear the screech of shells. One in, across our bows, another one behind us and another over the top and each time I thought, "you have missed," and then it happened with a resounding crunch and I knew we had been hit. Water poured into the landing craft and it started sinking, but fortunately we were only about a hundred yards from the beach. Although we were up to our chests in water, we were able to make our way to the beaches.

Arthur, as an observer, was ordered by the Intelligence Officer to try and locate the enemy from the top of a water tower. Whilst at the top, he was almost hit by machine-gun fire.

Then, the whole Battalion advanced, from Cassabili to Florida and Augusta then to Catania where Germans were preparing to defend the airport.

This was an attack in the middle of the night under an artillery barrage, creeping barrage. They were firing the shells - our own people - ahead of us and lifting the range as we advanced with red tracer shells on either flank... We walked into this hail of machine-gun fire. We all dropped flat onto the ground. I remember the Adjutant firing with his revolver which immediately brought a death-dealing volley of fire from the machine gun, and that is where he finished. I saw somebody else to my left and he too, I saw him killed. The Regimental Sergeant Major and myself, we were shoulder to shoulder. They got him too and I was laid there and I thought, "this is where the end is going to be for me", when this German soldier came forward with his sub machine-gun under his arm and he looked at me. I really thought he was going to shoot me in the head... He looked at me and to my immense relief he said, "Aus hier" and I was taken back to their line which was down a banking where one could see they were quite safe.

Arthur was treated very well by his German captors. The Major and a Sergeant had also been taken prisoner and they were taken to a camp on the side of Mount Etna for a few nights. They were then taken across the Straits of Messina to the foot of Italy and then to a POW camp at Capua, just south of Naples.

Soon after his arrival, Arthur fell ill with malaria and was hospitalized. He recovered to find that Sicily had fallen. He realised they were making use of the airport at Catania as Allied air attacks were becoming more and more intense. On one occasion an ammunition train was hit at a station near the camp. The Red Cross insisted that the camp should move as the area was becoming a battle zone and they were taken to Carpi, not far from Bologna in the north of Italy.

There was, to put it mildly, a shortage of food. I remember very well seeing in this corner of the camp, a pile of rubbish and I saw a Bovril jar which I cleaned out with my finger in order to savour whatever there was in it.

Well, Italy capitulated and we were all rather optimistic and hopeful that we should be coming home, but that was not the case. A few days later, one chap came running back into this barrack room and he said, "come and have a look out here, chaps." The camp was now surrounded by Germans and the Italians who had been guarding the camp were now also POW to the Germans.

Graz Stadtpark Dec. 43

The prisoners were taken over the Brenner Pass into Austria to a camp called Wetzeldorf, about five miles outside Graz, and Red Cross food parcels began to arrive. Some of the prisoners were detailed to go on small working parties and morale improved. The work involved digging the foundation trenches for buildings to be completed by civilian contractors.

Some of the working party soon became aware that there was a period over lunchtime when they were not under such close observation. Arthur and a friend began to conceal small packages from their Red Cross parcels in preparation for an escape.

On 27 January 1944, Arthur and a friend made a dash for the woods and remained hidden until everyone had left the site. As darkness fell, they set off walking towards Graz.

We hadn't taken into consideration the time of year and the weather. I found the North Star and knowing that we wanted to go in a southerly or south-easterly direction towards Yugoslavia - remembering that General Tito and his party were fighting the Germans there, sabotaging and so on. We hoped that we might get to Yugoslavia. I looked at the stars and I said, "I think this is the road that we want". Well, just my luck! The road took us up into the mountains, and there came an awful wintry blizzard. I remember we scooped together all these little pine needles and a few pine-cones under the pine trees and we made a fire and with a little fruit tin rescued from my Red Cross food parcel, we filled it with snow and put it over the flames and as it melted we put more snow in and eventually we were able to have a drink of cocoa.

As they made their way along the mountain road, the weather worsened. Arthur slipped and sprained his ankle and his friend complained of stomach pains. After seven days they were apprehended by the Austrian equivalent of The Home Guard.

They had their rifles and they said, "Who are you, what are you doing here?" and they took us down to the nearest village at the other side of the mountain and to the police station for which myself and my friend had the wonderful blessing of spending the night in a cell which was warm and the following morning we were given some breakfast.

Arthur and his friend were escorted to Wolfsburg, Stalag XVIIIA. As escaped prisoners they were given twenty-one days solitary confinement in a small, doubly guarded barrack room. Back in the camp, Arthur met an Australian, a tough man who had been a POW since his capture in Greece the previous year. They became firm friends. They managed to join a working party and worked on a farm cutting felled trees into metre lengths, and were rationed a little more food for this work.

Stalag Bunker. Jan 44.

Stalag XVIIIA

After some months, they noticed German military units moving towards the Hungarian Border. The civilians working on the farm told them that the Russians were advancing. Soon, they actually heard shellfire and later they saw the same German units retreating.

The camp inmates did not want to be re-taken by the advancing Russians so when the camp Commandant told them he had received orders that they should be moved westwards, away from the front, they were happy to comply. The prisoners began a long march to the west.

	This page: Sicily and captivity.
	Escape and freedom.