From Fire to Faith and Freedom

nothing to eat but sugar beet which we washed and peeled and chewed before spitting it out. It was indigestible. We also found pig swill which we washed and boiled and ate. It was basically something to put in your stomach to try to keep it quiet:' In the camp Jimmy found a space on the barrack block f1oor. "I was at my lowest. I tried to walk but was too weak:' The camp had a bakery and Jimmy persuaded one of the Frenchmen working in it to take his watch in exchange for five loaves. Jimmy's close friends throughout his ordeal were Dizzy Matthews, a navigator from Beverley in Yorkshire; Jock Nicol, an air gunner; Norman Caper, a Canadian from Winnipeg; Johnny Forward from near Pontypool in Wales and a chap called Brian whose surname Jimmy forgets. Norman was known as their bread cutter. "He had been in charge of our bread since we had been in Poland;' Jimmy explained. "He always made sure we had the same number of slices each from our ration which was always the same and as our numbers grew he still made sure we had the same number.

In January of 1945 as the Russians advanced from the east the prisoners were ordered out of camp and marched off to the west. With their belongings packed in cardboard boxes on their backs they were on their way to Stalag 3A at Luckenfalde. It was an army prison camp but they were squeezed in as well. Jimmy had managed to get some new boots but they were a size too small. As they started their march there was ice, snow and a temperature of minus 15 degrees. They spent the first night in a barn where they covered themselves in straw and managed to keep reasonably warm. But the morning brought a problem for Jimmy. "I had taken my boots off and when I woke up they were frozen solid. So not only had I a pair of boots that were a size too small - 7s instead of 8s - but now they were frozen. "The German guard came in and shouted rouse - (meaning get up, wake or move). I managed to get the boots on but from then on when I took them off I kept them under my clothing to keep them warm. Despite the small boots and the weather my feet held up - and we were on the go for a week before we were put on a train to about 17 miles south of Berlin. We had

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