Missing The Boat: War Stories of Thomas Alan Dirkin

71 The detonation of all the shells results in a continuous thunder without the ability to identify individual explosions. 9. Allied planes killed many POWs who were marching. For many of the dead, they were so close to the end of the war, yet would not return home because of “friendly fire.” In the book The Last Escape by John Nichol and Tony Renell, they describe the scene after the British planes attack. “Human remains lay everywhere. A torso was lodged in the branches of a tree. A head lay on the ground.” Bob Morton, a POW who was there, and interviewed for the book, added “I saw a pair of legs with nothing attached to them – just lying in the field, complete with trousers. I remember one chap whose stomach had been ripped out.” In total, about sixty men were killed in the friendly fire incident by the British RAF. With the other attacks from the Russians and Americans that my father referred to, I am sure the death toll was in the 150-200 range. 10. Hitler was dead at this point and the end of the war was insight. 11. This point in the war was very dangerous. While many German troops and civilians were realizing the war was, for all practical purposes, over, Nazi sympathizers and the Hitler youth were prepared to fight and die. My father would have had to be very careful as to his judgments over “good” and “bad” Germans. 12. At the end of the war tensions between the Russians and the other allies were high as politicians were turning to issues of control and borders, anticipating the end of the war with Germany. British POWs were captured and held by the Russians in some areas of Eastern Europe, to be used as bargaining chips. My father, by talking with the Russian colonel, had to weigh up the risk of freedom or imprisonment, this time by the Russians. 13. Many POWs spent weeks waiting to get back to Britain once they had been freed in Europe. Universally, the waiting to get home after years of captivity was cited as one of the most difficult experiences to endure. In my father’s case he was lucky to immediately get back to England, but I have wondered about how he adjusted to his abrupt return. Repatriation Back on English soil, ex-POWs would be sent to processing centers, Cosford in the English midlands, for example. They would fill out a questionnaire and see a psychologist. Many, of course, needed medical attention. They would be