Lives in Cricket No 28 - Keith Carmody

69 Wednesday with a little luck. But when ‘some Americans got away’ on 6 May, ‘shots were fired and 10 or 12 trucks went back empty’. A ‘very poor situation – little food’ soon became far worse. The following day, Keith and Ken Todd ‘just missed out on trucks that Peter Pearson and Bruce Keen got away on from Luckenwalde’. Then on 8 May more trucks departed ‘empty as they were not official … This was a blow to our morale as it is now 16 days since we were liberated’. Listening to ‘CHURCHILL’S “V DAY” announcement’ the same day was no compensation for separation from his closest friend. Each of the next three dates was ‘day of depression – no news’. His mood was unrelieved by weather suddenly warm and sunny, nor by the departure of 900 Norwegians, ‘8 to 10 to a lorry on a 3,000-mile journey to NORWAY via MURMANSK’. Filling his time by walking and sun-bathing, he wrote ‘a letter card to Josie’ on 17 May. His longest ‘Log’ entry for some time came on 18 May, with ‘news that Hitler ordered in April that all Krieges to be shot but WEHRMACHT would not do it’ followed by the comment, ‘Now 27 days sitting and waiting’. At last, on 19 May, came hopes that weren’t dashed. On a day when he listened to a broadcast of the first day of the Victory ‘Test’ match at Lord’s – ‘ENG 247 AUST 2-84’ – and to ‘a violin recital by a Polish doctor’ – there was a ‘Rumour that we are leaving tomorrow morning for Halle by Russian lorries’. Soon ‘RUMOUR TRUE – LEAVE CONCENTRATION CAMP at 1440 hrs Russian time’. After all the tension and tedium of his weeks at Luckenwalde, Keith described repatriation through a ravaged German landscape in a concise, unemotional last ‘Log’ entry, dated ‘Sunday 20/5/45’ and noted as the 344th day since his capture by the Germans: Most bridges down on main autobahn BERLIN-LEIPZIG – arrived at tributary of ELBE where we crossed by pontoon bridge to AMERICAN lorries which brought us to HALLE airport at 2000 hrs (2100 Russian time). One day earlier he could scarcely have imagined he would be back in England in time to get match practice before the second Victory ‘Test’ at Lord’s. Prisoner of War