Trapped in the stairwell they hid as the Germans closed in. A grenade was thrown
down the stairwell but hit a beam above them, the explosion deafened them (Bill had
hearing problems for the rest of his life as a result), but the shrapnel caught the German
who threw it. With other German soldiers approaching they decided the best course of
acon was to surrender, Bill shouted “Kamerad” as he had been told and with his good hand
in the air went up the steps.
They were lined up against a wall, fearing they would be shot, only to be searched
and then removed for interrogaon. Eventually they were marched along a road in the
blazing heat, refused a drink and suering from his wounds Bill was helped along and kept
alive by the others who fetched grapes and tomatoes from the roadside. Aer what felt like
hours, using a sck for support and covered in blood he was very weak as they walked
along. Eventually, and with blood squelching in his boots, a German sta car pulled up
beside the group. Two ocers got out and shouted at the guards about the state Bill was in,
they covered the back seat of the car and sat him down between them. Oering him water
and whisky or brandy from a hipask, they drove him to a white building with a red cross
painted on it. Loaded on to a stretcher, Bill was about to be taken inside when the older of
the two ocers shook his hand and said, “Good luck Tommy”. The other ocer did the
same and he was taken inside.
Bill spent two to three weeks in the hospital, where he had the best sleep he’d had
in some me. Americans were also in the hospital, and despite rules against smoking they
were handing out cigarees to everyone. They were then moved to a railway, where they
were put into a cale truck with straw on the oor. The journey lasted for three days, over
the Brenner Pass. It was very cold inside the truck, and if you needed the toilet you had to
go through a crack in the door. Although aer a day no one needed to, as again they were
not given water for the journey.
He was taken to Stalag 7A at Moosburg, where he was immediately placed in the
camp hospital. The room where he was kept had three-ered beds with straw maresses,
those on the boom bunk got a mouth full of straw when the paent above moved. One
aernoon they were sat talking and smoking, a doctor who they all despised caught them
and sent them to solitary connement. The connement cell had only two glass bricks at the
top for light, and the bed was two planks atop some blocks with threadbare blankets. Upon
his release he was not allowed back into the hospital. It was mid-winter and Bill was sll
only in a short-sleeved shirt, allowed only one hours exercise a day with German Shepard
dogs for company he was given a Frenchman’s jacket by the camp padre as he could see Bill
suering from the eects of the cold. Later, he acquired a Brish greatcoat to keep him
warm. One memory of his me in the camp, is the random roll calls that the Germans would
call for in the middle of the night. You had a very short me to get out of your huts to the
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