The March from Sagan as chronicled by Leslie William Sinclair Thick in 1945

My father was Leslie William Sinclair Thick. At the start of the war, he joined the RAF and trained as a navigator in Canada and the USA in 1941 and 1942.

He was in a Halifax, Mk. 2 DK 172, which was shot down on the Dortmund raid on 23rd May 1943. He parachuted safely as did three others of the 8 man crew.

My father was moved to Stalag Luft 3 at Sagan, where he was given a Red Cross ‘Wartime Log’. In it he detailed prisoner life including the forced march westward from Sagan.

After he died in 1990, my mother, Nora, had copies made for the family and presented the original Wartime Log to RAF Lynton-on-Ouse. The book is in the Memorial Room. I wanted to put this entry onto the BBC People’s War so that anyone interested knows that the Log is there.

The March from Sagan
(begun 27th January, 1945)

We had all been aware of the situation which confronted us. The Russians were advancing rapidly towards the Oder. If they succeeded in crossing the river, it was extremely likely that our captors would move us. Already we had heard that the prisoners from Kreuzburg were on the march and although nothing had been heard of them for days, they were expected to arrive at Sagan in the near future. Kreuzburg was east of the Oder. Faced with these facts, although we were optimistic enough to allow our thoughts to dwell on the possibility of being over-run by the Soviets we were reluctantly compelled to admit that the Germans would evacuate us long before such contingency might occur. Preparations were made accordingly.

For almost a week, everyone in the camp had been engaged in making some form of rucksack in which to carry his kit for the march. I had rigged up a Red Cross towel and a leather belt. The finished article was worn in the same manner as RAF webbing, and my kitbag was slung from the shoulder straps by means of leather shoe laces let into canvas and hooked over metal belt hooks taken from a tunic and sewn to the webbing. Having loaded the chattels into the bag, I tested the structure in order to ascertain whether it would stand the strain. It did; and with the boots repaired and spare rations set aside, we stood prepared to move at a moment’s notice. We were not expecting to be entrained for this seemed unlikely in view of the chaotic state of German transport, and the nearness of Sagan to the front line.

It was Saturday, 27th January. Evening. Dinner was over and Johnnie, Corky, Alf and myself had settled down to a game of bridge. At about 8o’clock Phil, who had gone to a meeting to get some grief, came rushing in somewhat breathless, and announced that we were to get our kit together and stand by to move in about half an hour. After a moment or two’s silence, during which each man fought desperately to regain his sang-froid, Hank’s voice rang above the babble which burst out. “Let’s bash,” he said. So we bundled our kit into our rucksacks and bashed. As a bash it was a distinct success. Much bread spread thickly with marge and jam, barley goo laden with Klim cream, meat and potatoes, and as much honey as we could eat. Even so when time came for us to depart, much had to be left behind, unconsumed.

Meanwhile the whole block was a shambles. People were frantically sorting their belongings and tossing out articles which they could not take with them. Clothing was being given away and the rest was torn up. Tom Gray gave away a brand new naval tunic which he had received recently in a parcel. For my part I had some 50 classical gramophone records and these perforce I had to leave behind. I left them intact for it seemed sacrilege to destroy them. Letters, notebooks and other oddments were burnt. Much to my annoyance, I could not take my notes on banking, philosophy, economics etc., which I had compiled. Labour not wasted, yet they will never serve to refresh my memory again. We had large numbers of cigarettes in reserve, so took as many as we could. Those which we could not carry, we burnt or put water on them. We were determined that the Germans should not benefit from our misfortunes. As it was they must have done well from the food in the Red Cross store and that left in the rooms. When Belaria passed the camp after we left, they saw the censorines and odd goons already going in for the kill! There was enough soap in our room to last Sagan for many weeks.

Of course we did not leave until morning. The night was taken up in an appel, sandwiched between snatches of sleep, and making a sledge from odd wood and mounting it on skates. Un fortunately, when we got onto the snow, one of the skates broke and the contraption had to be abandoned, an action which we came to regret later in the day.

At six o’clock in the morning we marched out of the camp, past the Red Cross store where each man was issued with a food parcel and on to the road which ran around the outer edge of the camp. It was getting light by this time. 62 Block, the flagship, was the last to leave and for us in the vanguard, there followed an hour of waiting in the snow and the bitter wind until the whole column of some thousand men was drawn up along the road. We heard later that 62, being last out, they had run out of parcels and broke them open, extracting D bars and light rations. The guards swooped down in the passing and for the remainder of the march, we were confronted with the spectacle of goons bashing D bars, which was the hardest thing of all.

The first day we marched in bitingly cold weather, across flat country for the most part,
unsheltered by woodland and at times in what was almost blizzard conditions. There seemed to be no definite marching orders or orders. Halts were made at odd times, and for varying periods, more for the benefit of the posterns that for the prisoners, we felt. It had been arranged that we would march in threes, but that idea fell through from the start. Some men were pulling sleighs, some moved up from the column, others gravitated to the rear. We were a motley crew. But we kept going and that was the main thing. Discipline was lax; the guards were too overburdened themselves to exercise much control. During the afternoon, one man ran off into a bush presumably with the notion of escape. Heaven knows why in such foul weather. The posterns being too cold and too encumbered with baggage to unsling their rifles, his friends shouted “Come back, you bloody fool.” He returned.

At 2.30 in the afternoon, after we had covered some 12 kilometres, a halt was made for lunch. We stopped where our road crossed the Breslau-Berlin autobahn. It was a desolate spot. The wind sped across a bare expanse of snow, whipping savagely at our clothes, and chilling our fingers as we stood exposed to the elements upon the bridge. Frozen sardines are none too warming, but they did provide nourishment.

For some unknown reason we stayed at that place for an hour, cold and miserable. Alf with his piles hanging down to his knees — put it in his words. At 3.30 we were on the march again — destination unknown. After 4 more we halted for ten minutes and partook of a few calories. At each stop we ate two or three sugar knobs and prunes. Sometimes we would extravagantly consume a biscuit. Just before 5 o’clock we reached the twon of Halbau, and then followed at agonizing wait while the Major (a good type or rather a good bxxxxxx as bxxxxxxs go) sought billets for the night.

For the first hour the wait was interesting and not too unpleasant. Our particular section of the column had halted opposite a small alleyway from which after a few minutes some French workmen emerged, bearing cans of hot mint tea. We gave them cigarettes. Then some enterprising individual hit upon the idea of knocking together sledges and selling them to us for cigarettes. By the end of the hour almost everyone possessed a sledge. That halt turned out to be a godsend, for sledges were ideal for transporting kit overe the snowy roads. Rumours were rife — peace rumours — to which we attached little importance or faith. While we waited, a party of Mongols clattered past on horseback, urged by a couple of Germans. They seemed completely unaware of anything around them and rode away down the road along which we had come — poorly mounted on scraggy horses. Villainous looking devils they were. We classed them as Russians turned renegade. They would get short shrift from Joe if ever they were retaken. The destiny of the world was being shaped all around us and the air was alive with a tense expectancy upon that cold Sunday afternoon in late January.

In the distance we heard rumbles and report of shell or mortar fire. Sometimes we would think it was advancing Russians, and always we were hoping against hope that we should be over-run by (as we termed them) Joe’s boys.

In the meantime, the major had been scouring the town to find billets for the night. By this time it was bitterly cold and we walked (rather stumbled and tottered upon chilled feet) up and down in an effort to keep the circulation going. At last we shouldered our kit once more and the column wound through narrow streets to the church. But the Americans had got there first and the church was full. There followed another wait for an hour in the snow, during which time the temperature steadily fell, and with it our spirits. Our bodies, bent under the weight of our packs, seemed to have frozen into that unnatural posture and, learning on sticks, we much have resembled old beggarmen. Never before have I been so cold. When I was young, my fingers and toes had sometimes been cold, but that evening in Halbau, my whole being, body and soul, was iced up.

Then, praising Allah or God or someone or other, we shuffled off down a few more streets between two gateposts at which the goons tried to count us, into a large enclosure, which turned out to be the playground of a school. Up the steps, up the stairs and into the schoolroom we went. We dumped our kit and ourselves on the floor. It was good to rest and it was warm. After a while we ate bull biscuits, bread and cheese and Klim. We were hungry. Then we spread our blankets and turned out the light. As I crawled into my sleeping bag, the blackboard caught my eye. Upon it was written ‘Poetry — a spot of Hamlet’, and the words:

“There’s not a joy in the world can give like that it takes away,
When the glow of early thoughts declines in feelings dull decay.”

We slept. Packed like sardines, but we were warm.

March 3rd, 1945

Somehow I cannot bring myself to write these days. And so my “March from Sagan” must remain in my memory. Assuredly there is no need for me to note it all here, for it will remain forever indelibly printed upon my mind. Cooking at Halbau, bread for coffee, the refugees on the roads, Frauwaldo and the gaulheiter. The school at Lippa, the milk churn by the roadside (my first fresh milk for nearly 2 years). Trading cigarettes for onions, apples, bread and potatoes. Then Muskau, the factory, the Nazi manager, the soup there, and again the trading. The thaw that set in at Muskau, sledges jettisoned. It was harder marching with 30-49 lbs of kit over hard roads. Then the night in the bar — the halt by the wayside that next morning outside Spremberg as the air raid sirens went. The barracks at Spremberg — more soup — and a charcoal driven tank. Down the hill and to the station. The runaway horses on the hill, the crash and the wailing of women.

Entrained journey by box-cars — the visit of the German Embassy official. Finally Luckenwald — the bloodiest place of all. Rations ever falling, no parcels. No more.

One Saturday Morning (having lost all count of time)

Tomorrow it is exactly five weeks since we arrived here. These past weeks have been the most pleasant in my life. For one thing the food has been short. It is amazing how short tempered one becomes when one is ill-fed and hungry. Four weeks without Red Cross parcels, and existing on short Goon rations was no joke. Food consisted of one fifth of a loaf per day, with a quarter each Sunday and every other Wednesday. We had in four weeks, two treacle, two cheese spreads and two meat spreads. We put sugar on for a sweet spread as all Red Cross jams had run out. A soup at midday with potatoes and a daily issue of marg. apart from odds and ends, which we organized for ourselves. Two mint tea brews from the kitchen each day supplemented our one coffee brew or tea re-brew minus milk. Every night there is a raid and the lights are extinguished regularly at eight o’clock. To cap it all we had no cigarettes to allay the hunger. But the past six weeks since leaving Sagan has taught me much. I have known hunger and cold to a greater degree than I have ever before experienced, and it will make me more appreciative of food thrift, and I think more sympathetic and understanding of other human hardship.

New parcels are here. There are one hundred thousand which have arrived since the beginning of the week. Already we have had one (a bash parcel)issued and another coming up any day. The Norwegians who gave us one fifth of a parcel when we were short, have given us one fifth of a fourteen pound Swedish parcel which we should get today. The mess is running along the old lines — the Hunks — Vic combination doing a fine job. Hunks has made us a mammoth cake for tomorrow which consists of four and a half packet s of American biscuits, one pound sugar, three and a half pounds of raisins, prune kernels, one tin Klim, half pound of marg. It looks wizard — the biggest ever — and it will be iced. I am having mine with thin k chocolate cream and cherry jam poured over it. Yes, morale has gone up five hundred per cent.

We have given the Norwegians cigarettes and rumour has it we are giving them an American parcel. Yes we are lucky. One feels sad to see the Russians pass by, walking slowly, bent double. They have no parcels — if only we could make them an issue. Those boys I saw yesterday morning had legs and limbs twisted, tramping past on sticks. The sight affected me deeply. For the debt we owe them — and which the world owes them — is greater than we can ever repay.

However life goes on, there are ups and downs. Looking back, things which seemed so bad at the time, never seemed quite so bad in the glow of a later gladness. My prayer is that all people who suffer may at last say the same.

Since all my poetic efforts were perforce left behind, I think perhaps it is a good idea to re-write one or two in this log. The Yanks look pretty disheveled around here. Yankee doodles not so dandy.

Saturday, April 21st 1945

“April was when it began.”

At noon today, after we had been hearing heavy gunfire, since before dawn to the South and North, moving later to the South-West and North-West, the goon guards left their posts and marched out. Where? We wonder but do not know. As Ian remarked this morning — we seem to be in a pocket with a zip fastener to the West. Latest report — Russian front six miles away. O.D. working smoothly. Strips on sports field. Free men again — all on our own. Roll on our liberators! My day was Friday. By next Friday we should be on the road home.

Sunday, April 22nd 1945 — “The day of Liberation.”

Yesterday morning the Germans marched out — this morning the Russians came in. Last night there was heavy gunfire all around and our position was obscure and ticklish. There were goons in the woods around the camp and arms in the fire-pool. But of our liberators, not a sign. Goon prisoners were in the cooler and the Russians were in the woods with guns and others were making contact with the Russian forces. But it the Germans returned, or types in the wood turned ugly — and they were panicky enough — there was likely to be trouble. Nerves were on edge and cigarette consumption soared. Just after we turned in, an aircraft was heard above the camp: it was a clear moonlit night. Suddenly we heard him diving down towards us. As he was just North West of our block, there came the loud tearing crackle of common fire. We hit the deck in a hurry. For an awful few minutes we thought the Goons had become particularly bloody-minded. It was a merry night with aircraft around almost continually. But no more attacks.

This morning the Russians came. Tanks, armoured cars. They ploughed down the wire. We were free. Tavarich!

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