Cpl Geoff Steer 1/4^th KOYLI

	Service in Normandy and Holland.
	This page: prison camp and the long march.

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Geoff with his mother

We had arrived at the Marionschaft, our new prison camp. The mine where we were to work was four miles away so the Americans told us. There were 125 American POWs in all, with an additional 25 British. My thoughts were that I had joined the army to escape the mine at home, and here I was going to work down in one for the Germans, as slave labour. The workforce included about 50 civilians, along with SS Officers as bosses to make sure we got our work out every day.

We were told by the interpreter that we would have the weekend to rest and on Monday we would have to start work on the day shift. Three shifts were in operation. The twenty-five British POWs were all in the same building. Each building had a large cast iron stove which burned coal night and day, so one thing was we were warm and by working at the pit we had plenty of coal. The weekend came and went. All we did was to walk round the camp which took about five minutes flat and there was nothing to see for your effort. Monday morning we were roused by the guards at 3.30am. We washed our hands and face and we were taken to a small building. It had two set pots in and a table - that was the kitchen. The fire was lit under one and the liquid was boiling. We found out it was coffee, made from acorns, without milk or sugar. We had no pots, so we went round the back to the dustbins and found tin cans, washed them out under the tap and then were given the coffee, which tasted vile. That was breakfast over. We took the cans back into the camp to use again later. We fell in and two guards escorted us out of the camp with the warning that if we tried to escape we would be shot.

It was still dark when we arrived at the pit-head. The civilian miners were arriving by pedal cycle and on foot. We were told by the interpreter where we were working and told we would be collected by the miners at the pit bottom. We made our way to the shaft and looking around you could see apprehension on all the lads' faces. Most of them had never seen a pit never mind go down in the pit cage. At least I had been brought up in the mining area. Twenty of us were herded in the cage, the gate slammed shut and off we went down. Half-way down we thought we were coming back up. Some of the lads vomited but no-one took any notice. The cage reached the bottom, about 150 metres, I was told it was not deep according to our standards. Our miners were waiting for us, to take us to our work faces.

I was given a shovel (number 10) and a pick, along with a sledgehammer. Our lamps by the way were hand lamps. Only the civilian miners were allowed cap lamps. My first reaction was how warm it was down there, and how light the coal was. No wonder it was a number ten shovel. I was taken to a small coal face which had only been worked about a fortnight, so it was only about twenty feet from the main way. I was shown a coal tub, and where to empty it. The first thing I did was to strip down to my underpants. Then I inspected the face to see how hard it was, because we had to drill by hand about six holes for the shotfirer to blow the coal down. I was very lucky. First strike with the pick, the coal was soft and down it came. The tub was filled three times and emptied. Your quota was six tubs per nine hour shift. The penalty for not getting your quota out was another nine hours down the pit, till you did.

So the first day was over. As we made our way to the pit bottom it was getting colder and our sweaty clothes didn't make it any better. We had to wait while the civilians went up to the surface first, so by the time it was our turn we were frozen stiff. We tramped back the four miles to the camp and arrived at about 4.30 in the afternoon, to be told our meal would be ready at 7 o'clock. Meal, ha ha! Grabbing our tin cans we formed up outside the small building with the two set pots in it and a German served us with soup out of one and German coffee out of the other. If you got a piece of meat in the soup you had done well. While waiting in the line for the soup I saw a whole leg of a horse hanging up on the wall still with the hoof and horseshoe, covered in flies.

Later that week we received our first Red Cross parcel. We got one Red Cross parcel a week. If it hadn't been for them we would not have survived. Winter came with a vengeance, by the beginning of December the snow was a yard thick and frozen solid. The guards who patrolled round the camp were all over sixty-five. One especially, named Karl, he had two Army overcoats on, a fur hat with ear-muffs and his rifle was slung over his shoulder. His hands, with gloves on, were in his pockets, his feet were in large wicker baskets filled with straw, so he could not walk round, he had to shuffle round the camp.

With us not getting good food, if we got a knock in the mine the coal dust turned the wound septic and ulcers used to form on our legs and arms. One lad had two on each leg as big as cricket balls and had to be taken to the doctor on a sledge. When he returned, the doctor had lanced them and put drains in them without anaesthetic. He was allowed one day off.

Christmas came. We had three days off. Christmas day we were given a treat by the Captain, he let us walk round the camp outside the wire and wished us a Merry Christmas, then back inside. After Christmas the weather got worse, snowing and freezing fog, but we still had to go to work. My socks were worn out so I cut a piece of my blanket off to make two foot-rags to go to work in, then take them off to work. We went about a fortnight without parcels through the weather being bad and one day, coming in from work, we were told somebody had been stealing from us while we were working. A trap was set and the culprit was caught. It turned out to be one of our men - British. The Committee found him guilty of the worse crime in the Army, stealing another man's rations. It was worse in a POW camp.

He was handed over to the Captain of the camp, who gave him seven days in the cooler. The cooler as we called it was a small brick building, 6 feet by 6 feet and 7 feet high with a steel door and an opening one foot square with bars and no glass. There was a wooden bed and an earth floor. He was allowed his overcoat and one blanket, nothing else, not even shaving tackle. He had one slice of dry bread and a pint of water a day. His toilet was a five gallon drum and if he wanted to see out, he stood on the bed. After the first day he started shouting to be let out. The Jerries told him if he continued shouting he would stay in another week. The guards told us he used to scream at night with the cold but at last his sentence was over and two of the lads were told by the guards to come and collect him. We watched from the windows, so did all the camp. The guard opened the door but the lads had to carry him out, back to the living quarters where it was warm and sat him by the stove. His face, fingers and toes all had frost bite, his eyes were bloodshot and he stank like a sewer. The first job was to get his clothes off. We got him under the shower and while some of the lads sponged him down we washed his clothes and hung them up round the stove. You could dry anything in under an hour round it. After a few weeks he recovered enough to return to work but he was never the same man after that.

January 13, my birthday came and went and we noticed the guards were a little bit more friendly and started telling us what was going on at the front. At the end of February we returned back from the mine after the dayshift, had our pig swill again, but this time there seemed to be a lot of activity across at the German HQ, wagons being loaded with guns, ammo and stores etc. Looking out after dark we noticed there were no guards going round the camp but plenty of activity still over at HQ. We knew next morning what had happened, we were about to go on the march. At midday we had our belongings in whatever we could carry them and were formed up in the camp ready for the off. Our destination was unknown. Looking at the weather and the way we were dressed, if it was a long journey a lot of the lads would not make it very far. Just before we set off an American gave me a waterproof jump jacket. I never asked his name but it served me well on the six hundred mile march.

Walking to work four miles there and four back, working hard at the mine and at the Marionschaft on Sundays had, I suppose, toughened us up but could we stand the cold? On top of all that I forgot to explain that all the time we were at the mining camp we were all walking with body lice. I can remember washing a vest and leaving it out on the line all night, bringing it in stiff as a board and drying it round the stove. After an hour on my body it was again full of lice. The body lice were like woodlice, only smaller and they pierced your skin for blood. We used to watch them go red on the backs of our hands as they sucked our blood. We moved out just after midday, the opposite way from the mine and towards the village. Some of the people were out in the street looking at us sadly and sympathetically but no-one said anything.

So our journey had started. We travelled slowly all day till about five in the afternoon when we were herded into a barn. It belonged to a farmer who was told to prepare some stew for us. His wife, family and farmhands were all helping out. We got our soup at eleven and ate it in the dark. The Captain and his officers slept in the farmhouse with the farmer and his wife. We were awakened by the guards at about eight, we had a wash in the cattle troughs in the yard and pumped water from the well to drink. Meantime the farmer's wife brought out a large clothes basket full of stale brown bread and it was all eaten in less than fifteen minutes.

Looking at some of the guards, they looked worse than some of us. Four of them were over seventy years and looked fed up. We finally arrived at another farm where this time things had been organised. Soup had been cooked under a shed on mobile cookers by the Germans who had gone with the Captain in front of us in a lorry. Looking back, we estimated we walked about thirty miles a day, sometimes a little less.

Day after day we tramped on through villages where civilians tried to give us food as we marched past. They were hit by the guards' rifles for their troubles. Some of the bread we managed to catch or pick up off the road. After about a week some of the lads had dysentery very bad and were forever dropping out by the side of the road. Two of the guards would stay with them while we kept going. Some managed to catch up but one day we heard a shot ring out about a mile back. We knew now we were up against it and it would be survival of the fittest. We started to look for those who fell out and three of us who were fit would stay with them and more or less carry them back to the column and help them to recover themselves. One day we arrived at the town of Marionbad and marched through it. We could smell the bread and see sweet shops and a butcher's shop, something we had not seen for months. Plan was the next town we approached. We passed through and stopped at a large farm with a river running through the bottom of the land. Up at the main road the villagers came to bring us loaves of bread and large lumps of cheese which they threw down to us. The river at the bottom came in handy for washing, bathing and paddling. A lad and I paddled with our boots around our necks. The guards were walking among us but were getting fed up. I told this lad with me to make our way to the bridge under the road slowly. We had escaped you might say.

We carried on to the village and a door opened. A man poked his head out and beckoned for us to come in. Inside the house was a lot more people who asked us who we were. When we said English they shook us by the hand and for a while they thought they had been liberated. When we explained we were POWs on the march they were worried who was going to liberate them as we explained three nations were closing the circle round the Germans.

We were told to sit down at the table and they all got together and before long a meal was prepared for us, potatoes, lamb chops and cabbage and lovely sweet coffee with fruitcake. The smell of the food was even better than the actual meal. We ate slowly but left nothing. About fifty people must have come to the house just to have a look at us. We were asked to stay in the village and they would hide us from the Germans. This was a decision we both had to make. I had seen this happen at Rijkevorsel in Holland with the people who were hiding with us when the Germans took us prisoner. If we had stayed with the people in the village and we were found by the Germans then they could be shot and us too.

We said our goodbyes to them all and they filled a bag full of bread and fruitcake for us to take back with us. Taking our boots off, we entered the river on the other side and paddled under the bridge back to the camp. As we came out of the bridge the guard spotted us and screamed at us. As we came out of the water he got his boot in our backsides. My friend got the butt of the rifle at the back of the head which broke the skin. We had got off lightly. All in all our little escapade was successful. Believe it or not about twenty POWs escaped in about one hour using the same method. We set off out of Plan up the hills and winding roads going higher all the time till after three hours we had a rest by the side of the road.

Darkness came, and with it the cold, but on we marched. About midnight we arrived at a farm with three large barns and did not want telling to get bedded in. We packed in close together to keep warm in the straw and were soon fast asleep without food.

We had lost track of how long we had been on the road but we all smelt to high heaven. The dysentery was worse, some had scabies, and some could not keep any food down. The next day I think was the worst while on the march. The guards awakened us and it was noon before we moved off. It was teeming with rain and I wondered how many of the lads would die today. Some now were only shuffling along, not walking. One man fell out in front of me, at the side of the road, to pass his motion. The first guard passed him as he got up from crouching down. The second guard kicked him before he could get his trousers up and he fell in the ditch full of water at the side of the road. He never moved again. We protested but were told to move on or we would get the same treatment as he did.

After about an hour we came to a small village where a number of people were gathered with food for us. But also waiting for our column were those I had heard about but never seen before, women SS Corps, all of them hand-picked, equipped with jack boots, full-length overcoats, steel helmets and sub-machine guns slung across their chests. Our hearts sank into our boots. They speeded the column up and turned and fired at the villagers with the food, who scattered to the four winds. Increasing the movement of the column took its toll on the lads. More fell out by the side of the road and lay down crying. As we left the village behind we heard shots. On we marched. How many lads we lost that day I don't think anyone knew. Down the road about half a mile we could see another column which we found out later was waiting for us at some crossroads. When we reached them we were told to fall out for a while, which we did. Looking at the other column they had more officers and NCOs than we did and looked more organised than we were. In fact we saw they had Red Cross bags with bandages and medicine. They had a look at some of our worst lads but there was one thing they hadn't got and that was a magic wand. While we were busy talking to our new pals the women SS had left unseen and we never saw them again. Roughly we were now altogether about 800 to 1000 men.

The column moved off but after about two miles we all stopped at a sawmill with large buildings for storing timber. The soup was ready for us this time. After we had eaten we went to find a spot in the sheds. There was a small stream close by and we all took the opportunity of stripping off and having a wash down. When we were dressed we felt a lot better but the body lice were eating us alive. The officers came round to see how we were and we felt we weren't on our own like we did when we started out on the march, we had somebody who cared.

We were told we only had fifteen miles to do that day and we would spend a few days at our next destination. That sounded great. Coming back to the guards, they were now 125 strong with the other column guards. Climbing up into the mountains, the snow was about a foot thick in places, but it was soft and thawing steadily. One of the guards who walked at the side of us got chatting and he said the war was nearly over. He was ready for going home. Who wasn't? I asked him the date and he said 9 May. I muttered aloud "Happy Birthday Mother". At that point we topped the rise and looked down into the valley. What a wonderful sight, the sun shining, the green grass, the daffodils and crocuses out in full bloom, blossom on the trees, the river running full, it was grand to be able to see it and smell it. We reached a small town by late afternoon. Passing the school, the children waved to us and we made our way up through the town to a large farm with a wall round it, where we were all herded in and the gate shut and guards posted.

The first thing we did was to dig a latrine in the farmyard and then we lit fires to toast a bit of bread or roast a few potatoes which we found in the barn. They tasted great. One of our pals had some tea leaves left from his parcels so we boiled a tin on the fire full of water and our pal put some leaves in. It smelt lovely. Somebody had gone to try and get some milk. There was a shout from one of the guards as we were sat round the fire. He pointed the rifle at us and we moved from the fire. He fired at the tin of boiling water and when he hit it, he laughed. He was about eighteen years old and we had had trouble all along the march with him. He was responsible for the deaths of a number of our comrades. Later, three were using the latrine and he fired at them. One of them fell in the trench trying to get away quickly. The guard once again laughed. The soup pans were brought under a shed and the officers were told we had to cook our own food. The officer detailed six men as cooks and everybody gave a hand with the potatoes and turnips. The meat was a sheep and everything went into the pot except the wool.

We were all bedded down for the night. It was a lovely evening, warm and clear. We had had our soup and bread and were trying to doze off when about six men came climbing over us. I knew by their dress they were not our lads. In fact they were the Resistance. They had got in the farm to get volunteers from us to take over the guards. I went along with some more of the lads with the Resistance, who had guns. How many volunteers there were nobody knows but one by one every guard was taken prisoner, including the Captain and his wife and along with the officers. By 9 o'clock in the morning they were all housed in the school-house, guarded by us.

The officer in charge was from New Zealand and his headquarters was just up from the school. I was made his runner. Taking a message down to the school-house from him, I stopped to talk with the lads, some were on guard outside the school on the road. They were keeping their eyes peeled on the roads in the distance, with binoculars, when suddenly they spotted a lorry about four miles away, coming our way. Off I went to fetch the officer and his staff. By the time we had returned, the lorry had arrived. It was a Russian Patrol miles out of their way. Fifteen Russian soldiers had taken the rifles off our lads and wanted to shoot the Germans there and then, but our officer explained what we had gone through and we would try them when we were relieved by our own troops. The Russians were satisfied, shook our hands and drove off through the town.

I could not wait for the Americans to come. Making my way back to the HQ at the top of the town, all the officers were out, looking up the road, which after about 200 yards bent to the right and disappeared over the hill. Trees lined the road, but the thing was we could hear a tank, but whose tank, theirs or ours? All the lads were stood together looking and praying it was ours, when finally it rounded the corner. I saw the star, it was a Sherman tank. The tank pulled up near the town green followed by a lorry with food on board. The officer of the tank looked round and said to our CO, "Bloody hell, these men are dying on their feet, get the grub out". Boxes and boxes were brought out. There was everything you could want and cigarettes, we had a birthday, but for some it was terrible, they ate sugar and butter just as it was and drank beer till their stomachs swelled up, then they were ill. More help arrived to cope with this situation including doctors for the worst cases. The American tank commander called our officers and asked how many prisoners, German he meant. We told him 125. Twenty five in all were picked out of the prisoners, including Trigger-happy and our officer plus the guard who kicked our lad in the water-filled ditch.

They were lined up under a bank, asked if they wanted a blindfold, the officer gave us the tommy guns and automatics, shouted aim and fire, it was all over, they were dead. By now three ton lorries were arriving and loading the lads on them, the sick first, and off they went. After about an hour we arrived at an airfield. The buildings would house about one thousand personnel so we knew we should be comfortable for the night. As we disembarked from the lorries the Yanks gave us tomato juice in half gallon tins, it was smashing. We all found rooms easy. It was lovely to sleep in a bed with blankets. We were awakened next day by the sound of planes coming in to land. They were Dakotas, about fifty of them. Then there was an announcement over the tannoy to go to the dining hall for breakfast and then down to the control tower to get in the planes ready for the next journey. About twenty got in a Dakota and we were off, touching down at Reims in France where we spent the night under canvas. It was now June but we could not sleep, we were too excited. The lorries came to take us back to the airfield at Reims. Lancaster bombers were waiting there to fly us home. I was busy talking to the wireless operator and did not know we had landed at Portsmouth. Leaving the plane and saying thanks to the crew for bringing us home, we were told to go through a large marquee where there were nurses with what looked like large fire extinguishers full of white powder, which they blew down our trousers and down our shirts back and front to help kill the lice we had brought back with us. After the white powder we were led in small parties to a large hangar where long tables were laid out with everything you could mention and a band played on a makeshift stage. After the meal we reported to the bottom of the room, gave our name, rank and number and when we walked outside a NCO put us in a lorry, about ten of us and off we went, not a very long journey, arriving at a camp in a wood not far from the airfield, we could hear the planes.

At the camp we filed in one by one to see the MO who gave us a slip of paper with LICE on. Down we went to a large ablution unit and there we were told by the NCO to take all our clothes off and leave them outside. This we did then we proceeded into the shower room where we shaved all our hairs off, stood under some blue fluid then got washed with carbolic soap till we were pink. The NCO inspected every one of us before we moved into the next room to get our new clothes. We felt like new men. The announcement over the tannoy said that tea was ready in the dining hall after we had settled in. The meal was first class and an officer made an announcement that we were allowed out of the camp if we wanted, or there was a cinema on the camp and breakfast would be at 8 o'clock. We would be on our way home before 12 o'clock.

It was time to leave for the station. I arrived back at Elsecar in the evening, about 5 o'clock. It was warm and the kit-bag was getting heavy as I dropped off the bus. Turning the bottom of the street I looked up and nearly ran back. There were flags and bunting across the street and in big letters it said 'Welcome Home Geoff'. Only a couple of people were coming down the street and one said "Is it him"? And the other said "No, too thin". Turning down the passage, on the wall at the bottom was 'Welcome Home Geoff' in coloured lights. I knocked on the door, my mother came and broke down. My weight was six stone. My first day home was very eventful. People came to say they were glad I had made it home safe. I was given ten weeks leave on double rations which helped me go from six stones to nearly thirteen stones. My papers to return came together with a rail ticket for Beaconsfield near Slough. After three weeks the postings came. I was to return to Alnwick, Northumberland, to the castle. The training was light and there were a lot of young men who had just joined up. Then I found I was on CO orders at 9 o'clock. About 14 were present, ten were defaulters and three were there for not behaving themselves. I was marched in with my beret still on, saluted the CO and then he told me I had been given a C in C Certificate for bravery, signed by Monty, which I still have today. We had a celebration that night in Alnwick.

Geoff and friend Sid Bedford, courtesy of the Barnsley Chronicle.

The time had come to get demobbed. It was just before Christmas. I went and got my old job back in the foundry and believe it or not I started work on New Year's Day 1946.

These extracts have been selected from Geoff's memoir 'Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire'. Geoff still lives in Yorkshire and has kindly donated the jacket he wore on the march to the Second World War Experience Centre.

	Service in Normandy and Holland.
	This page: prison camp and the long march.