Description
Object description
British signaller served with Royal Corps of Signals in GB and North Africa, 6/1940-6/1942; prisoner of war in Campo PG 116, Benghazi, Libya, 6/1942-8/1942, Campo PG 54 Fara Sabina and Campo PG 49, Fontanellato di Parma, Italy, 9/1942-9/1943 and Arbeitskommando E715, Auschwitz III-Monowitz Concentration Camp, Poland, 10/1943-1/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Aberdeen, GB, 1915-1933: family; education. Aspects of period as fisherman in Aberdeen, GB, 1933-1939: line fishing for halibut off Greenland and St Kilda; seine fishing in North Sea; cod fishing; drift net fishing for herring in North Sea; nature of rivalry between fishermen from different ports; danger of being washed overboard; incident of two Kingston upon Hull trawlers lost from icing in Arctic; nicknames trawlermen gave each other; use of Icelanders in trawler crews; effect of North Sea drift on Bear Island, Norway; payment of Aberdeen fishermen.
REEL 2 Continues: reasons for becoming teetotal; reaction to declaration of Second World War, 3/9/1939; joining Royal Corps of Signals, 51st (Highland) Div in Territorial Army, 1937. Aspects of period as signaller with Royal Corps of Signals in GB, 1940-1941: call-up to Royal Corps of Signals, 6/1940; nature of training and role, 1940-1941; attitude of Polish pilots towards Germans; question of fear during German Air Force bombing campaign; public morale and question of how it stiffened during bombing; search for unexploded bombs in Sydenham area; strange effects of bomb blast. Recollections of period as signaller with Royal Corps of Signals in North Africa, 2/1942-6/1942: voyage aboard HMS Ascania from GB to Egypt via South Africa, 1/1942-2/1942: mystical story of grandmother's death date; attachment to searchlight unit in Tobruk, Libya, 1942.
REEL 3 Continues: German Air Force attacks on Tobruk, Libya, 1942; fall of Tobruk, Libya, 21/6/1942. Recollections of period as prisoner of war in Campo PG 116, Benghazi, Libya, 6/1942-8/1942: treatment of sick prisoners of war by nuns, 7/1942-8/1942; nature of prisoner of war illness; refusal of Gurkha prisoners of war to unload war supplies at Benghazi. Aspects of period as period as prisoner of war in Campo PG 54 Fara Sabina and Campo PG 49, Fontanellato di Parma, Italy, 9/1942-9/1943: transfer to Brindisi; move to Campo PG 54 Fara Sabina, 1942; work parties, 1942-1943; recapture by German airborne troops sent to liberate Benito Mussolini, 9/1943; role of prisoners of war aiding Germans looting art works, 1943; period in Campo PG 49, Fontanellato di Parma; work for Italians breaking up gravestones for road metal; reaction to death of prisoner of war from nephritis; move by train to Verona; attitude of Germans to prisoners of war after fire-lighting episode during Royal Air Force raid. Recollections of period as prisoner of war in Arbeitskommando E715, Auschwitz III-Monowitz Concentration Camp, Poland, 10/1943-1/1945: attempt of Germans to establish prisoners of war skills; work emptying trucks of clinker to cover muddy ground.
REEL 4 Continues: sabotage of German wood supplies; use of Allied air raid to get limited taste of freedom; second United States Army Air Force raid, 13/9/1944; sheltering under machinery during air raid; results of air raid on I G Farbenindustrie methanol factory; how prisoners of war kept records of events; sight of Austrian Jews entering camp; sight of removal of corpses from gas chambers; use of camp inmates to scavenge corpses for personal possessions; how Sergeant-Major Charlie Coward smuggled himself into concentration camp by changing identity with a Jewish inmate; memories of Charlie Coward and Andy Porteous; South African medical officer who kept fit men off work as sick; visit to Polish dentist; how he was labelled one of 'Churchill Gangsters'; attempts to gain information about course of war; use of illicit radio and how two valve radio was found by Gestapo; question of overconfidence displayed by prisoners of war as German defeat neared; contacts with Soviets and Poles.
REEL 5 Continues: prisoner of war bartering; labelling of pro-Germans as 'Gummi-Deutsch'; prisoner of war collaboration with Polish Resistance; punishments; work of prisoners of war alongside Jewish concentration camp inmates; prisoners of war feeding of Jewish inmates with surplus rations; how Jewish inmates refused to accept knives from prisoners of war; organisation of prisoner of war escape attempts; work regime; allocation to Strafarbeit Kommando as troublemaker; aid given to escaping prisoners of war; sabotage of German equipment; work in I G Farbenindustrie methanol factory; United States Army Air Force raids on I G Farbenindustrie methanol factory; evacuation of Jewish inmates, 1/1945; organisation of prisoners of war march westwards and shooting of Jewish stragglers on march, 1/1945; attitude towards Jewish camp inmates; attitude towards Kapos who had Jewish boys accompanying them.
REEL 6 Continues: question of homosexual relationship between Kapos and boys; lack of contact between British prisoners of war and German concentration camp hierarchy; hearing of what happened in Treblinka Extermination Camp. Recollections of march from Auschwitz III-Monowitz Concentration Camp, Poland to Regensburg, Germany, 1/1945-4/1945: how prisoners of war wore German guards out on march; slaughter of lame horses for meat; German guards' shooting of Jewish straggler; acquiring potatoes; change in attitude of German guards; arrival in Regensburg. Aspects of period as ex-prisoner of war in Regensburg, Germany and GB, 4/1945: reasons for liberation of police car; confiscation of German doctor's car; trading of doctor's car with United States Military Police Corps policeman in exchange for flight home; sight of Douglas Dakota taking off from Le Havre, France; arrival in Haywards Heath, 5/1945; journey back to Aberdeen; physical condition. Reflections on military service and period as prisoner of war: attitude towards Germans; contact with German he knew on march from Auschwitz III-Monowitz Concentration Camp.
REEL 7 Continues: attitude towards Germans during Second World War; attitude to having served in Second World War; reaction to memory of Austrian Jews arriving in Auschwitz III-Monowitz Concentration Camp; story of Jewish inmate who was beaten to death with iron bar in I G Farbenindustrie methanol factory, Auschwitz III-Monowitz Concentration Camp.
