The American-born Dodge, from a privileged background, was the only one among a British contingent that subsequently came to include two Churchills who was actually a relation of Winston Churchill: the connection was through his mother’s second marriage. Like Day, he was a decorated veteran of the First World War. The next to arrive was Flight Lieutenant Bertram James, usually called ‘Jimmy’. A handsome man, he had been shot down while flying his Wellington Bomber over the Netherlands in June 1940. After being greeted on entry into the camp by Day, James asked who else was in the Sonderlager. Day replied: ‘Well, there are a few renegade Irishmen who played the part of collaborators for a while – we’re still not sure which of them can be trusted.’33
James was, according to Dowse, with whom he was to share a room in the compound, ‘reserved, shy and quite’.34 Flight Lieutenant Sydney Dowse, a fellow escaper from Stalag Luft III, arrived soon after James. Blond, tall and handsome, and known as the ‘Laughing Boy’ for his cheerful good humour,35 his Spitfire had been shot down while on a reconnaissance mission over the French coast near Brest in August 1941. He had managed to ditch his plane in the sea and swim ashore without attracting attention, but must have been charmed and dismayed in equal measure to find a group of young French women waiting to greet him on the beach calling out excitedly ‘l’Aviator Anglais.’36
These four, plus the previously mentioned Frenchman, Van Wymeersch, were among the seventy-six prisoners who escaped from Stalag Luft III on 24 March 1944. All but three of the escapees were recaptured and fifty of these were murdered by the Nazis. The Frenchman was almost certainly destined to be among the victims, but through good luck and ingenuity he managed to evade execution. While awaiting transport from a prison in Berlin after his recapture, he observed a group of civilian prisoners being marched elsewhere and joined up with them without being noticed. He ended up in Buchenwald before the resulting confusion led to his transfer to Sachsenhausen.37 At the time of their arrival in Sachsenhausen, none of the Sagan escapees knew about the murder of their colleagues. They only learned about it when they read a report in Deutsche Allgemeine Zietung which they were regularly supplied with. The newspaper did not refer directly to the crime, but it was evident from a comment that mocked a statement by Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, condemning the killings.
Day was especially shaken by the news. Although he wouldn’t then have known the list of victims, he would have assumed they included some close friends. Roger Bushell, with whom Day had planned the Sagan escape, was one. Day’s escape partner, the Polish RAF officer Pavel Tobolski, was also among those murdered. So was his close friend Mike Casey. He had first known the Irishman Casey from 57 Squadron which Day commanded and they had met again in captivity.38 They had a lot in common; both were sons of the Empire. Day, whose father was a senior administrator, was born in Sarawak in Borneo, while Casey had been born in India where his father was a high-ranking officer in the Indian police force. They were both shipped home as children to be educated. Day went to Haileybury, a public school in Hertford in England, while Casey was sent to Clongowes Wood in Ireland before moving to Stonyhurst in Lancashire.39
For Dowse, the terrible news would have reminded him of the harrowing scene that occurred when he and his escape partner Stanislaw Krol, a Polish RAF Officer, were being separated after their recapture. Krol had appealed to Dowse ‘Don’t leave me! I’ve had it if you leave me! I’m finished!’40 Dowse had no choice in the matter; he was being escorted to Berlin for Gestapo interrogation. He tried to reassure Krol, telling him they would take him back to Sagan, believing at the time that that was likely. Dowse, after reading the report, would have guessed that Krol’s worst fears were borne out. He was, in fact, shot shortly after Dowse’s departure.
A sixth British officer, the last to arrive in Sonderlager ‘A’, and by far the most eccentric, was Lieutenant Colonel Jack Churchill. Although from Surrey with no obvious Scottish connections, he had assumed a Scottish identity and included in his battle kit a Scottish claymore sword, bagpipes, a longbow and set of arrows. A commando officer, he was the stuff of comic strip legend. He is said to have been the last British soldier to kill an enemy with an arrow; his son claims he killed a German soldier with an arrow near the village of L’Epinette, east of Paris in 1940.41 It would not have been beyond his capabilities for he had previously represented Britain in pre-war archery competitions. He led commando actions in Norway, France, Sicily and Yugoslavia for which he would be awarded the Military Cross. He would sometimes lead troops into battle playing Scottish martial airs on his bagpipes. The Claymore sword was not just for show either; in the Sicily landings he led an assault with his sword drawn using it to subdue a platoon of German soldiers. He was captured after being rendered unconscious by a grenade explosion while leading a group of Titoist partisans and a platoon of British commandos in battle on an Island off the Croatian coast.42 Like Peter Churchill, the Germans assumed him to be a relative of Winston Churchill, although, in his case, he never pretended to be so.
Life in the Sonderlager was not unpleasant most of the time. The prisoners were reasonably well fed. They were on SS rations, being provided with the same quality and quantity of food as their gaolers. They did better when Red Cross parcels arrived. Occasionally, the two Italian orderlies, Bartoli and Ameche, who shared their accommodation – Ameche was a cousin and look-alike of the then famous Hollywood actor Don Ameche – would prepare a communal meal using the contents of the parcels. The Russians were sometimes invited. Bessonov would wolf down his food, spitting out whatever bits he found disagreeable, much to the silent disapproval of his fellow Russians.43 During the day, the occupants could wander about within their compound. There were German newspapers and books to read. German language lessons were provided by Peter Churchill. Card and board games were played and sing-songs occupied many evenings, with Cushing to the fore. Bessonov gave lectures in which he critiqued the Soviet Union and expounded on his formula for a constitutional framework for a ‘free’ Russia. Rather surprisingly, these were attended by Harry Day and John Dodge, with Peter Churchill translating Bessonov’s poor German. Dodge was acquainted with the Soviet Union, having been arrested by the Cheka – forerunners of the NKVD – and detained for a week in December 1921 on suspicion of using a trade visit as cover for spying,44 an experience that must have contributed to his subsequent staunch anti-Communism.
A large wall map was fashioned from several sheets of paper on which Cushing regularly marked up the progress of the war, based on information gleaned from newspapers and radio broadcasts. An outdoor running track was marked out and a long jump pit was dug. A ball was made from rags and paper for netball games. Such exercises allowed the inmates to become fit and bronzed over the summer months.45 None of this could compensate for isolation from family. No communication was permitted with the outside world. They could not write or receive letters from home. They were all Nacht und Nebel (‘Night and Fog’) prisoners. Not knowing if their parents were alive or dead, how wives or children were fairing, and knowing that their families were left to wonder if they were alive or dead all contributed to bouts of depression. This was more problematic for the older prisoners like Day and Dodge, both of whom were married with children. For Day, there was the added difficulty of knowing from earlier letters that his marriage was in difficulty. Depression and mental breakdown were common in the POW camps46 and Day himself had a breakdown while in Sagan in 1941.47 The Irish orderly, O’Brien, is rarely mentioned in memoirs, leaving the impression that he had withdrawn into himself after his arrest and interrogation in Berlin.
There were frequent reminders of the contrast between the relative benign conditions enjoyed by the Sonderlager inmates and the privations endured by ordinary Sachsenhausen camp prisoners. Once a week the group were escorted to the main compound of the camp for a shower, which involved them passing a large Appell Platz (‘roll call square’) with its ominous gallows. Here they could see half-starved figures in their striped camp uniforms being marched continuously around the square carrying heavy backpacks loaded with stones. The purpose of the exercise was to test new designs for army boots.48 The marches were continued to the point of the collapse of the prisoners or the footwear. Suicides within the main camp were common. Often during the night the special prisoners would be awoken by machine-gun fire, an indication that some poor soul was suffering the same suicidal fate as Yakov Dzhugashvili. During the day, smoke from the crematorium
