The War In Norway And Sweden, Part Two

This story was submitted to the People’s War site, having been transcribed from an audio recording by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of James Renshaw, and has been added to the site with the his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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Part One is at: A4797886

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Now, we were living in the Salvation Army in Stockholm, and we had to turn up every day to see the Consul. I ran out, having only two shirts and one only has two collars, so I ended up wearing a silk scarf. The Consul called us in one at a time, and queried, “Why are you wearing a scarf, where’s your collar and tie?” I explained to him that I had one collar in the wash, and the other was dirty. “Well,” he said, “this won’t do y’know, you represent England, you know. Get that muffler off, and be available at six o’clock tonight.”

I’d had 2 ½ years in Sweden now, no sign or sight of anybody doing anything for me. We waited until six o’clock, then suddenly there’s a knock on the door. So we opened the door and there was a fellow in a chauffeur’s uniform. So we gathered what few belongings we had; I was in a trilby hat, burgundy raincoat, silk scarf and collars in my pocket, and any toiletries that I had. He said, “Jump in the car.” So we jumped into the car. It was absolutely black, we didn’t know where we were, we didn’t know where we were going, all we knew was that we were in the taxi. So we finally pulled up outside a door, so we rushed in and when we got in, there were two Norwegian gentlemen, young seamen, and we all got chatting. We didn’t know what we were there for. The fellow came back again and said, “Right, go in there and sit yourself down.” Now, in there, was a Pilots’ dressing Room. There was everything from helmets, to flying boots to jackets. So, what do we do with all that? Well, we got rigged up in all this lot and his last words were, “Watch out there, and when you see a flashing light, run, and run like you’ve never run before.” So we’re all sitting around waiting, and all of a sudden, a light flashed, and we all rushed across the tarmac, and we came to a Wellington Bomber with its side door open. We were virtually pulled in by an airman, and he said, “Sit there, sit there, sit there. That’s your seat and that’s your toilet, there’s a pack of sandwiches and there’s your coffee. When I go like this, pull your masks down and put them on.” So, we’re all sitting there, locked in, not knowing what to do. I wasn’t going to move off my seat for that toilet anyway. So, we could hear a rumbling and we knew we were under way; we knew we were going north. We flew up and finally climbed above the height of the German fighter planes from northern Norway, up towards the North Pole and came down into Scotland, where we landed. In the meantime, I was ‘took short’ because cold weather is a natural laxative. Anyway, we arrived at an airport in Scotland, and I jumped out and opened my bowels right there on Scottish soil.

We were then shepherded again, into the Officers’ mess, but they couldn’t accommodate us lying down, but we could use the lounge. Come next morning, someone decided we should have breakfast. Now, we found it very peculiar that a fighter pilot should have to pay for his breakfast; all the pilots from the fighter squad had to go in and buy their food. Anyway, we had a jolly good breakfast, y’know, we had not seen eggs and anything like that. So, a young fellow came round and wanted money. We’d no money, we’d just been in Sweden, so he said, “Somebody will have to sign for it.” So I signed my name for four breakfasts and four railway tickets from Scotland.

By dawn, we’d both decided, Stanley and I, that we’d both go back and report to the navy. We were kept incarcerated for a couple of hours until the big navy boss came. He took me to one side and he said, “Who won the cricket match at Lords this year?” We had been in contact with nothing, absolutely nothing. “Who won the cup then? Who won the Derby race meeting? “ I said, “I know nothing about any of that.” “Alright,” he said, “who’s that other bloke outside?” I said, “That’s my mate, Stanley Cooke, a seaman wi’ me. He’s been wi’ me for the last 2 ½ years.” “OK,” he said, “now you go out through that door there.”

So I went out through that door there, then he called Stanley in and asked him the same questions, the final one being, “Who’s that bloke in that room there?” “That’s Jim Renshaw,” he said, “I’ve been with him for 2 ½ years.” So they finally decided that, yes, we are English, yes we are navy men. “Oh, by the way,” he said, “don’t forget to report back down to barracks.” Now, we’d got to go from Scotland, on a wartime train down to Plymouth. It took us 24 hours to get to Plymouth. I obviously went to my fiancée’s house, much to her surprise Well, we decided that we’d report in at 9 o’clock in the morning, so I went to see the bloke, I went in on my own. He said, “Who are you?” I said, “I’m Jim Renshaw.” “What’s yer number?” I gave him my number, my service number. “What ship?” and I told him. “Are you sure?” “Yes!” “Who’s that fella out there?” I said, “That’s Stanley Cook. He’s been wi’ me for the last 2 ½ years. “Alright,” he said, “Oh,” he said, “before you go, come back Monday,” he said, “and have yer bloody hair cut.” That was my greeting. And Stanley had to go through the whole lot too.

Anyway, I rejoined the navy, and they were gathering the remainders of 45 survivors. They got them out from Sweden one way, and they got them out in other different ways and they got the whole 45 seamen there, doing one particular job. The job was cleaning out female gas masks. Of course, females used gasmasks as handbags as well, and what we turned out of those handbags was nobody’s business. A lot of rude stuff there was. We were there for weeks, following the same routine, doing nothing, because we’d signed the treaty. We signed that, declaring that we would not fight any more Germans. They’d taken our fingerprints, and if we were caught again, we’d be shot. We finally finished up back in the navy and there was so little that they could do with us, that they had to discharge us. So I was one of the few discharged.

Unfortunately, one of my other shipmates was on one of the other craft that was captured and he finished his time in Germany as a prisoner of war. I never saw Germany as a prisoner of war, I saw it in Norway. It’s an experience you have to live through to understand it. I eventually got married and I then joined the dockyard navy, a tug section of the Royal Navy; I join all the tugs in the dockyard. I served there for forty odd years, losing half my hand in the process. I received the Queen’s Medal.

But, you know, looking back, it was amazing how we learnt to live in such cramped conditions. 45 people in a cattle truck, a real filthy environment. We did it sleeping, standing up using one corner of the truck as a toilet. Then we were marching through twenty feet of snow, from this blasted hotel, it was on a border station between Sweden and Norway and it caters for the highfaluting skiing fraternity that we had in those days. We had Norwegians with us, and we asked, “How much further?” With their limited English, they’d say, “Four miles.” Now four miles is 6 ½ kilometres, which is a considerably longer. It was actually somewhere in the region of 25 miles and it took us the best part of a week to cover it. It’s important to note that the men were naked, absolutely naked. They swam naked from the ship; they were picked up naked, taken to a school naked, then over the border naked. They had to be told to get onto a train. This was April the tenth in 1943; the sea temperature in Narvik was averaging 12 degrees below freezing. But due to the speed of the tide, it cannot form any ice.

I can recall the ship going down and I know she’s still down there. The Norwegians have made a museum of a couple of them. I’ve never managed to get back up there to, shall we say, have a look at it all? I lost every possession I had, including my bankbook, all my kit, everything went, and I finished up……….what did I finish up in? I was naked when I woke up. I was on a bunk with the chief stoker nursing me and I managed to scrounge a pair of canvas trousers, and a jersey of sorts, and in the next cabin to me was a civilian. They wouldn’t give him any leeway, but we got rumours that he was a relative of Winston Churchill. I became friendly with him, and all of a sudden, he disappeared and left his cabin open, and he left a pair of fisherman’s Wellingtons, so I nabbed them, but they were much too big. He was never heard of again. Of the Officers that were salvaged, we had one of them dead, and they made us carry him; I didn’t carry him, four lads carried him. He was dead and his entire bowel was hanging out, so I stopped the four of them and shoved it under his life jacket. Then they finally decided to cover his face and turn him over and take him away, and away he went. The Germans took him and they took the only living officer we had. I’ve never seen him since. From close on 200 seamen on the ship, only 45 of us survived. Most of ‘em, being like me, we put up with 2 ½ years of it.

I make a point to my own children, that it they go to foreign places, then they must learn a little of the language. My learning of a little of the language has stood me in jolly good stead, insomuch as they permitted me to leave the camp and go and live privately, 200 miles away with a little family. And they fed and clothed me, in fact, the son of the family (they had sons and daughters), deferred his father’s Will, he didn’t want his father’s property. Somewhere in the woods, they own a portion of land, which they have turned over to me. They made it in my name, so, somewhere in Sweden is a plot of land that I can legally claim, but I’d rather not go back, no, I’d rather not go back.

Pr-BR

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