Lives in Cricket No 28 - Keith Carmody

63 Prisoner of War his twenty-second letter from Josie, Keith drew two dates in the prisoners’ sweepstake for German surrender: 15 March and 6 May. Quentin Richard Petersen’s memoir conveys the tension gripping the camp: It was clear by the end of December that the Soviets were likely to overrun Stalag Luft III soon … The possibility of mass execution by the Goons was an alternative taken seriously by the average kriegie … The most likely possibility was that we would be evacuated to the west before we could be liberated. And plans for that possibility concerned us more and more as the physical evidence of the Soviets’ presence became increasingly evident with the sound of artillery, heard louder each day, at appel. As appel was dismissed, individuals would shout, ‘Come on Uncle Joe!’ Days of uneasy speculation ended abruptly on 27 January, ‘Saturday: Panic – 2030 – 30 mins to evacuate’ was Keith’s ‘Log’ entry. For almost three months uncertainty hovered over the prisoners, as they were marched through sub-zero temperatures and blizzards to languish in overcrowded, undernourished confinement. Hopes of repatriation co-existed with fears of death from Allied air raids pounding Germany into submission. * * * * * * * Concerned with surrendering to the western Allies rather than the Russians, the Germans moved the 11,000 prisoners in several groups, on varying routes, but all westward out of the path of the advancing Soviet Army. The sudden evacuation of Keith’s group, numbering some 900, ended prematurely but briefly: they ‘started on way but returned to pit at 0500 hours after making sled’. This improvisation acknowledged the difficulty the snow presented for wheeled traffic. It helped the movement of some personal belongings – though most men preferred to carry theirs in backpacks – but there was no way it was going to save the PoWs from exhausting days on painful, often frost-bitten feet. After a two-hour sleep they marched 26 kilometres before sleeping in ‘a very poor barn’. A march of 17 kilometres the next day was followed by a rest day and then further marches of 21 and 25 kilometres. Eventually, after plodding ‘with packs on backs 25 kms to within 7 kms of Spremberg … 100 of us slept in a small barn’. By now, of course, the German guards were as demoralised as the exhausted prisoners. In his letter to Bullen, Eric Stephenson added