Not the Great Escape!
No tunnels; no motorbikes; no chinos and college sweatshirts; no hidden workshops turning out clothing and fake passes; no black market rackets.
Many men from the Buckinghamshire Battalion were taken prisoner having kept German forces at bay for as long as possible and at a dreadful cost. The collective national relief over the safe return of more than 227,000 British men and the rescue of over 100,000 French soldiers contributed to the popular narrative of success and the consequent amnesia regarding the plight of the men taken prisoner.
The vast majority of men of who fought in the war spoke little about their experiences and those taken prisoner, by and large, spoke even less. The impression of POW life created by popular films and TV of the 50s and 60s is that of plucky chaps spending their days planning escapes and digging tunnels.
Booklets and newspapers were regularly published by the Government to reassure families that prisoners were being well looked after, which meant they tended to gloss over some of the worst hardships that men were experiencing. Families were encouraged to send parcels of home comforts via the Red Cross. The parcels could include pencils for men who were studying for exams!
Sadly for most ordinary soldiers this was not the reality of camp life. Escaping was mostly for officers as was study and examinations, this was because under the terms of the Geneva convention private soldiers were required to work. And work they did, in mines, in factories, on the railways and on farms, at times in the most appalling conditions. As the title of Sean Longden's book so eloquently put it, they had become "Hitler's British sSaves". This book draws extensively on the testimony of the POWs themselves.amongst them Pte Les Allan, a Buckinghjamshire Battalion man who established the National ex-Prisoner of War Association after the war.
Life was harsh. Many of the Ox and Bucks were in Stalag VIIIB, later renamed 344 Lambsdorf. All working camps were harsh but this camp was considered to be one of the harshest.