Fighting Through Podcast WW2 Episode 104 – Tenth Anniversary with more WW2 veteran s and family stories

More German second world war stories including the sinking of the Bismark.

More great unpublished history!

Intros

Intro Passage 1 ww2 memoirs

Happy tenth Anniversary to me, to you and the show. Today, I’m celebrating and with the input I’ve had from you, and it’s going to be one helluva party!

Intro Passage 2 ww2 podcasts

The 23-year-old Hood, whose 42,000 tons made her the world’s biggest warship, had, in the years between the wars, become the prime symbol of the might of the Royal Navy. But she had never been in action – until now.

Intro Passage 3 ww2 tank memoirs

I started the engine up and checked that the floating tank screen was OK, and waited. There were 4 tanks in front of me. The ramp was lowered and the first two tanks went down the ramp and got underway. But the third one as he drove off the ramp it went down like a stone, his screen must have collapsed.

Intro Passage 4 ww2 WRENS history

After going through the terrible bombing raids on Sheffield, I joined the WRENS.  Everybody was talking about joining up, and my friend and I just decided to get on with it.

And Here’s today’s Battlefield Secret surprise  story – with more to come

On 9th May 1941,the crew of HMS BULLDOG forced U-110 to surface and the crew to abandon ship. The U-boats crew think their submarine is sinking so do not destroy the enigma machine or code books. The Captain saves a book of poetry he’s written about his girlfriend instead.

The Royal Navy board the Submarine that is now starting to sink and seize the enigma and code books. In one move they have manged to change the outcome of the war and assist the code breakers at Bletchley Park in smashing the German codes.

To give the illusion that the submarine has been lost, she is sunk and the crews sent to Canada to a prisoner of war camp so the chance of escape back to Germany is impossible. The German High Command never know about the books from U-110s capture until the end of the war.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/754427714964136/permalink/1682478342159064/?rdid=C4mzt6h6eLyTSER3&share_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fshare%2Fp%2F9j382bZ4cVizdp1Z

Jon Walters – Facebook WW2 Stories of Chaos and Courage. Link

Welcome to this ww2 podcast

Hello

Hello again and a very special WW2 anniversary welcome to the Fighting Through second world war podcast. 

I’m Paul Cheall and this is episode 104  - a special production to celebrate over ten years in podcasting, sharing family stories, memoirs, and interviews with veterans in all the countries and all the forces. And I’ve got some special treats for you in this episode. And once again I dare you to listen!  

There are going to be some repeats of previous material, but there’s also going to be fresh stuff that reflects your favourite theatres of war or characters.

Over the last ten years, You the listener. Binged. Consumed. Laughed, cried, Shared and dared to listen. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. Thanks to you I’m top of the WW2 rankings with all the major podcast players. 

There are so many good stories. Precious gems of history. That have either been found in car boot sales, eBay, readers family stories or BBC people’s war postings. And I feel very privileged on some occasions to be the first person outside an immediate family to read the account in question. 

And I feel really proud to have been able to share it with you, my very dear listener. 

So

Are you ready to be thrilled and spilled?

Do you dare to listen?

Are you ready to feel the adrenaline running up your spine?

When you hear another amazing story for the first time?

OK, to borrow a phrase from President Eisenhower, Let’s go!

I’m going to be all over the shop at times but I have tried to keep some sort of structure to the show. I’m going to cover many of your favourite stories and also a stack of new material with some new full length memoirs on your favourite topics.

I had just under 40 responses on my anniversary show content ideas. Your time was not wasted and I’ll be feeding the results in as the show progresses. Thank you!

A few War Whispers - Short stories

I’m going to warm up now with some of my own favourite short stories from my entire WW2 podcast.

British resistance woods – The hidden bunker - Bridget Hunter

This is an absolute cracker about the secret British resistance during the Second world war.  It’s set in North Hertfordshire

As a child I remember that as I was going to bed, my grandfather would be getting dressed into his warm clothes. He would wrap his rifle in sacking, and tie it to the crossbar of his bike, and go out.

When I asked where he was going, he said rabbiting.

In later years, in the 60’s, we went out for a drive, and he led us to some woods. We entered the woods, with him guiding the way by looking at the trees. We came near a bramble patch, and he told my husband to move the bushes and undergrowth, which exposed a stone slab.

He lifted the slab and there was a tunnel with steps down into it. My husband went down and found a room. All my grandfather would say is “oh, it’s still here. That’s where I spent the war.”

It turned out that when the war first started, my grandfather was recruited into the Service Auxillary — a secret army or resistance. People were recruited and trained to gather and pass information in secret.

One would be a hit man, a sniper. My grandfather was a farmer, good with a rifle, so he became a sniper. It was his job to pick out the enemy and shoot them.

If there was invasion his first job would be to shoot the chief of police, because he knew all their identities.

And listener, did the chief of police know this? If not, who would have given the orders about it. Oof.

The story was taken from the BBC People’s War website and it’s written by Bridget Hunter about her grandfather Magnus Kelday Smith.

TR

Brian Moss joining the army

Sapper Brian Moss features many times throughout this podcast, with adventures during the London Blitz, North Africa and storming Gold Beach on D-Day. You heard his stories on this show long before they became his newly published memoirs. This one goes right back to the beginning of the war where he’s joining up.

He’s just passed the interview and taken the King’s  , but he has one last hurdle to over come:

“My medical board examination was held in Crewe in the old library premises on Prince Albert Street. The doctors of Crewe had all been pressed into service and were examining long queues of men. One of them did feet. Another did heart and lungs. And so on. The eye chap said, “Put your hand over your right eye.”

This I did, and read out loud his card to him.

“Put your hand over your left eye,”

I brought down my right hand, and put my left hand over my right eye again. He didn’t notice! Thus it was that my AB 64 today gives no indication of defective vision. The Army never knew. In six years of war they never found out!

That’s from Mines, Bombs, Bullets and Bridges: A Sapper's Second World War Diary by Brian Moss – and a better memoir you’d struggle to find. Link

Petch

Dad’s Major Petch WW2 diaries from 1940’s Dunkirk were not without humour.

There was considerable confusion throughout the BEF campaign in France with the enemy tanks continually getting round to our rear. One night our transport Sgt. got lost and knocked on the door of a tank to ask the way. A Hun opened the door – our Sgt fled on his bike unharmed.

At Albert one of my L/C told a rough reservist in my Company to go into a dark dugout and see if any Hun was there. The reservist in a polite manner unknown to him before said ‘after you, Corporal!’

Ep 9

German eyes

Iain Elliott Originally Amersham in Bucks. Now Colchester.

I’m still in the early episodes. Well I thought I was. Just listened to D-Day through German eyes. I&II. It certainly opened my eyes to what the Germans went through as well as the Allies. And lots of things o didn’t know.

Keep up the great work mate. Am surprised you are still going. But so glad you are.

Why thank you Iain, that was a right old Bully Beef sandwich wasn’t it?! But I do know what you mean my friend. And I’m surprised too!

Onto Germany then ..

War writer Jonathan Trigg entertained us majorly judging by the repeat listens I recorded.

D-Day German eyes – Trigg  Ep 47 Avge3 downloads per ep 7,500. German eyes 16k!

This segment from the book is set on Utah Beach in the lead up to 6 June 1944 with the Germans set to defend against the invading Americans.

“Arthur Janker was from Flensburg in Germany.

He was an officer in Karl Wilhelm von Schlieben's hugely understrength 709 Infantry Division.

At first sight, Janker looked at the typical belly army soldier, narrow shoulders, thick glasses and of barely medium height.

You could almost see the unfit for service certificate in his tunic pocket.

But tied around his neck on an old shoelace was Nazi Germany's highest award for bravery, the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

It was very rare indeed for such a junior officer to have earned such a medal.

Janker and his 75 men of three company were in an unenviable position.

Unlike the topography over to the east that favoured Franz Gökkel and his comrades, there were no cliffs or high bluffs an assault force would have to negotiate to get at them.

The beach, often called La Madeleine, by the locals due to its proximity to the tiny hamlet of the same name, was long and flat, and the dunes behind it were low.

Janker's strongpoint was sited near La Grande Dune, but the term was misleading.

The Germans had tried to maximise their meager defensive resources by clustering entrenchments and fortifications together so they could mutually support each other if attacked.

So Janker's own position was buttressed by another four.

While not flush with heavy weapons, Janker did at least have a few, including a small anti-tank gun, two dismounted ex-armoured car pedestal guns, a first world war vintage field gun, various mortars and machine guns, one of the latter fitted in an old French Renault tank turret, and most prized of all an 88mm, the most effective and feared anti-tank gun of the war, in an enfilade position just to the north.

The trenches were in good shape, the men well disciplined and alert, a consequence of Janker's time with them since recovering from wounds received on the Russian front.

Nicknamed the Ivan by his new comrades for obvious reasons, he'd made himself unpopular at first by bringing a touch of rigor to his sleepy posting.

First he banned the locals from walking through his defensive position to go fishing on the beach, and then he carried out a practice drill one night, his men shooting at an imaginary attacker.

Oberst Leutnant Kiel at regimental headquarters was apoplectic.

That Ivan has clearly gone off his rocker, he just can't wait for the show to start.

But Janke had made friends in high places.

On an inspection visit back in early May, Rommel himself had toured the area, and on being introduced to Janke had asked to see his hands.

Slightly baffled by the request, Janke had taken off his issued grey suede officer's gloves and showed Rommel his hands, all scratched and bloody from working with his men on the barbed wire.

Rommel beamed.

Well done, Leutnant.

The blood on an officer's hands from fortification work is worth every bit as much as that shed in battle.

Never one to go overboard with praise, the desert fox then complained to Janke about the lack of obstacles on the beach itself, but Janke was a match for the disgruntled Field Marshal, explaining to him that whenever they placed them in the sand, the high tide simply washed them away.

Rommel let it go.

A month later, in the dark of the night, with the landing still a few hours off, Janke walked up and down his trenches, stopping to speak to a lone sentry manning a scissor telescope looking out to sea amidst the blackness.

Anything out there?

Nothing, Herr Leutnant, they won't come in this weather.

There had been a storm for the last 24 hours, and Janke nodded his agreement before saying good night and heading off back to his bunker to get a few hours sleep, or maybe even take a shower using the watering can his men had rigged up for him.

Before he got there, the drones of hundreds of aircraft engines filled the night.

They had to be Anglo-American.

The Luftwaffe hadn't been seen for weeks.

Uneasy, Janka used his field telephone to call WW2 and speak to his friend, Leutnant Ritter.

What do you think it is?

I have a feeling that something's up, but probably nothing that concerns us.

I hope you're right, Arthur.

Of course I am.

I'll come and have a tot of your cognac tomorrow just to prove I'm right.

Janka knew that given his combat experience, his fellow officers looked to him for leadership.

But even so, despite his calmness, he had extra rations issued to the men.

It distracted them from the aircraft noise, and no infantryman turns down more food.

Janka then went to bed, but couldn't sleep.

He was lying there smoking when the telephone rang.

It was battalion headquarters.

Enemy parachutists probably dropping behind your position.

Janka acknowledged the alarm, slammed down the phone, and shouted to Feldwebel Hein to get the men to stand too.

Unsure of what was happening, Hein thought it might be resistance saboteurs.

Janka sent out a small patrol to scout the area behind and to the south of his position.

Not long afterwards, a short burst of fire was heard from the patrol area.

Janka's men came back shepherding 19 captured American paratroopers.

The patrol commander explained to Janka that they had come across the paras wading waist deep in the flooded fields and had opened fire, killing several and wounding two.

The rest had surrendered.

Sending the wounded to be treated at his first aid post, Janka questioned the remainder and then reported to battalion.

19 prisoners of the American 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Regiment.

The line went dead.

Janka checked the phone.

He could only reach the two strong points to his immediate left and right.

That did it.

He knew something big was afoot.

But he also knew that he and his men were now effectively isolated from the rest of their regiment.

He went to check on the two wounded prisoners.

An enlisted man with a bullet wound in his jaw.

And a young lieutenant, only to have the latter complain loudly to him that the orderly treating them was violating the Geneva Convention by carrying a weapon.

The orderly in question was Gefreiter Hoffman, a Russian front veteran like Janka.

Ever correct, Janka ordered Hoffman to take off the sidearm.

Having complied, Hoffman told his boss that the two paras were very restless and the officer kept on asking him what the time was and when they would be moved inland.

In a wood a few miles away, German medic, 22 year old Fritz Miller, had been sent out by his commander to look for wounded paratroopers.

He carried a pistol having just come from the east.

On hearing a noise he found another German soldier looting the body of an American paratrooper.

Incensed, Miller shouted at him to stop, only to be told where to go.

Having pulled a ring off one of the man's fingers, the looter stood up and walked away.

But only got five yards before a shot rang out and he dropped dead.

Confused, Miller ran over to the American's corpse only to find that he wasn't dead, just badly wounded.

Instinctively, Miller began to treat him and then after a couple of minutes he was hit by a cigarette that seemed to have fallen out of the sky.

Soon he was being showered by cigarettes and although he didn't smoke, he stuffed them into his pockets, planning to trade them with his comrades.

He realised that the cigarettes had been from other American paras in the trees above him, thanking him for looking after their buddy.

Back at WN5, Arthur Yanker had left his stone-built headquarters with its watering can shower and cosy billet and taken up post in his battle position, which consisted of a hole dug in the sandy soil at the end of a trench, showed up with some rough-hewn wooden planks.

Yanker strained his eyes to see through the mist and saw aircraft away to the north, that then turned and came straight for the tiny patch of land 400 yards long by 300 yards wide that was Strongpoint WN5.

They were so low he saw the doors open in their bellies.

Bombers!

Then it was just ear-splitting noise and huge concussion waves that knocked Yanker off his feet and half buried him.

Struggling, he managed to dig himself free, but his left shoulder and arm were numb.

Two of the ammunition bunkers were on fire and the anti-tank gun was wrecked.

One of his soldiers, an elderly man from the Ruhr, was badly shaken.

Everything is wrecked, Herr Leuchnant.

The stores are on fire.

We've got to surrender.

Janker didn't panic.

He'd won his knight's cross by leading his company to capture a hill from the Soviets.

Loudly proclaiming that no one was surrendering, Janker ordered his men to clean up the rubble and repair the trenches.

He then called Leuchnant Ritter again.

How is it with you?

Nothing much here.

Looks as if they were after you lot.

Ritter was right.

Moments later, a flight of fighter bombers screamed in, spraying Janker's position with cannon shells.

The two bunkers with the 5cm guns and their crews were blown to bits.

Then the Armada began to appear.

18 ships started to bombard positions inland.

Artillery batteries, headquarters, supply and ammunition depots.

Then they turned their guns on the beach facing strong points.

Feldfable Hein shouted for permission from Janker to open fire on the nearest destroyer with the FK-16.

In the absence of any fire from his own artillery, Janker agreed.

What he didn't know was that the observation post for 901 Artillery Regiment, camped out in the church bell tower at Saint-Marie-du-Pont, had been shot away so the battery was blind.

And also under air and naval attack itself.

Also under attack was his reserve company, Lieutenant Schoen's NR-13.

And his indirect fire support was the former Russian guns of the Army Coastal Artillery Regiment, outside Saint-Martin de Varaville, some two miles away.

In desperation, Janker ordered one of his men to get on a bicycle and pedal to the guns with instructions that they should start shelling the beach as soon as Janker put up two green flares.

Meanwhile, Feltwebel Heinz and his gun crew took aim at the nearest destroyer.

It was like throwing pebbles at an elephant.

Heinz's gun-fired armour-piercing shells weighed in at 15 pounds, about 7 kilograms of metal, and high explosive.

One of the bombardment flotilla, the Royal Navy monitor, the Erebus, fired shells more than a hundred times bigger.

1,938 pounds in imperial punch, or 879 kilograms in metric shock and awe.

And in any case, Hein's first two rounds fell short of the target.

He didn't get a chance for a third.

Three quick salvos from the destroyer, the first and second bracketing the gun, and then the third bang on.

Also hit were Janka's headquarters bunker, the fire control station, and most of the remaining mines, detonated by the blast and concussion waves.

The naval bombardment didn't last long, less than half an hour, and then the landing craft were nearing the shore.

Alongside them were what Janka and his men thought were mini gunships, but were in fact one of many allied secret weapons designed for the landings.

Duplex drive swimming tanks.

The floatation skirts and extra propeller of the new weapons weren't able to cope with the rough seas.

But in the relatively calm waters off Utah they worked well, and only four of the original 32 failed to make it ashore.

Twenty allied tank crew drowned with their vehicles when their LCT, landing craft tank, hit a mine, as described by Admiral Morton Dayo on the Tukulusa.

Higher than a length she rises, turns slowly, stern downward and crashes back into the bay.

The American 4th Infantry Division's 8th Regiment were the first ashore, coming under fire from Janker, Ritter and their surviving troopers.

But most of the German's heavy weaponry was gone, and the few machine guns and mortars left weren't going to stop an assault as big as this.

The first assault wave was well trained and well prepared, and methodically began to eliminate the few strong points and bunkers of 709.

20 minutes after the first American troops hit the beach, the duplex Shermans arrived, and the unequal battle was effectively over.

Janka's sole remaining gun, the much-needed 88, had been damaged in the bombardment and managed to fire just one round, hitting a Sherman before giving up the ghost.

In desperation, the young officer turned to what he hoped was an ace up his sleeve, the Goliath.

This box of explosives on tracks had been designed as a remote control vehicle that could be steered by its operator to an objective, such as a tank, and then detonated, destroying both itself and the enemy.

One-shot weapons though they were, they were also pretty sensitive souls and the air and naval bombardment had damaged both their drive and control mechanisms.

A few limped out of their holding bays before breaking down, but none came close to any Shermans.

Janker then sent up the two flares as the agreed signal to his supporting gunners.

No shells came hooking overhead to smack into the Americans.

His peddling messenger lay dead in a roadside ditch less than half a mile away, killed by an allied fighter.

American C Company 1st Battalion 8th Infantry had Strongpoint WN5 as their assault objective.

With the Shermans providing direct fire support, the American infantrymen moved in to finish off Janker and his men.

They passed a German corpse, run over by a Sherman, and described by one officer as ironed flat like a figure in a comic book, the arms of its grey uniform at right angles to its pressed and flattened coat.

Black boots and the legs that were in them, just as flat and thin as if they'd been cut from a sheet of dirty cardboard.

Janker, still suffering concussion from the naval barrage, turned to his runner.

It looks as though God and the world have forsaken us.

What's happened to our air force?

The Russian front veteran understood the situation, but hadn't won the Knights Cross by throwing the towel in.

So he picked up his rifle and exhorted his men to carry on fighting.

The Shermans lined up and fired point blank at WN5.

One by one, the trenches were smashed.

First the mortar, then the ancient half-buried Renault tank turret, and its lone machine gun manned by the fighter Friedrich, proud wearer of a pair of bottle-bottom spectacles.

Somehow, Friedrich survived a direct hit and scrambled clear, his leg badly torn up.

Hoffman, the now disarmed medic, was killed.

On the beach, the Americans were now landing undisturbed.

Ammunition was running low among the surviving defenders, but in one of war's many cruel ironies, a US assault squad discovered a broken-down Goliath.

Bemused as to what it was, they threw a couple of hand grenades at it and missed.

One intrepid soul dashed over and wedged a grenade into its forward hatch.

But not realising it was basically a big unexploded bomb, the resulting blast killed him and half his buddies.

By now, Janka was alone, still firing but without hope.

This, then, is the end for Utah Beach.

A German fighter is positioned and he was again half buried in the sand and knocked unconscious.

He came around to find a GI dragging him out.

Even then, he wouldn't give up and lunged for a rifle on the ground.

Only for his would-be rescuer to casually bat his arm away and say, Take it easy, German.

That was from D-Day Through German Eyes by J Trigg– there’s a link to the book on amazon in the show notes. And Johnathan has a whole range of German Eyes titles in his stable, including Barbarossa and VE Day.

Save the Last Bullet

From one German story to another …

Ben Etheridge Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.  

German boy soldier.

More Australians 😂

Richard  Wagner St. Louis Missouri United States

I really enjoyed the excerpts from Save The Last Bullet. As an American most of the information I have received is from the Allies perspective. Although I thoroughly enjoy all of your content it is very interesting to get a glimpse of the German side.

Mark Chidester Pennsylvania USA

I really enjoy hearing the stories from the average soldiers from other countries ( other than USA ) including the German side. I have never been as interested in the pacific theater as much, but maybe if you can get a hold of any from the Japanese perspective.

I really like your PS endings. Like a little encore.

Mark, hang on for the PS – I might have something just for you! ????

Susan Weiss Australia

Willy the boy German soldier

Here we go then guys

One of the most impactful memoirs we've had on this show has been. Episode 69 about the German boy soldier. Heidi Langbein, Allen's. Father's Memoirs. About His war experience at the age of 14. Since being on the show, Heidi has managed to get the memoirs published through Pen and Sword. Together with.an Audio book, narrated by me. 

That is, save the last bullet. Available on Amazon.

Here’s one of the most dramatic episodes of fighting you’re ever going to come across:

Willi has just arrived at the front to take on the advancing Russians.

I’ll warn you it’s quite gory.

Chapter 17 The Last Bullet

As we approached Wiener Neustadt to engage the Russians

on 31 March 1945, I saw the majestic Neusiedler Lake

straddling the Austro-Hungarian border in the distance.

Something in that beautiful but unfamiliar view reminded me how

far I was from home. For a moment I was back at Opa Johannes’

farm, running through the tall wheat fields that swayed and rolled

in the wind like soft golden waves. Suddenly it all became real. A

chill ran up my spine, making the hair stand on end at the back of

my neck. I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat, my body willing me

to jump off the moving truck. But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t turn

back and leave. I was trapped. I was coming inexorably closer to the

war, whether I wanted to or not. At that moment it became clear to

me that didn’t want to be there. I just wanted to go home.

Our convoy slowly approached the front line. The sky was leaden,

moisture was in the air from recent rain. We reached an open field

that was a muddy mess from being trampled by the troops and

equipment of the Panzer unit.

Everything was abuzz with activity.

Trucks, tanks and guns were moving around everywhere, seemingly

without a clear direction, although I felt there had to be a purpose

to all the movement that I just could not discern. I swallowed

hard. This was it, this was the front, and I was going to fight my

first battle.

Suddenly I heard the first real cannon fire I had ever heard in

my life up close. It was a blast so strong that my feet lifted off the

ground, my heart jumped out of my chest and my hero’s blood no

longer ran red. My hero’s blood ran brown, because I was so scared

Save the Last Bullet.indd 87 02/09/2022 13:36

88 Save the Last Bullet

that I shat my pants. Not having another uniform to change into, I

had to drop my trousers and make do with some grass to wipe off

what I could and get on with it.

Everybody who had arrived in the convoy was dispatched to the front line with shovels. Our leaders knew more or less where the Russians were going to come from, and we, the tank-hunters, were told to dig deep holes in the ground. We were to make the holes as deep as we were tall, so that we could stand in them. The terrain was flat, but the ground was damp, making it difficult to dig because the soil was heavy with moisture. We struggled to get the job done.

As we dug, we had taken off our Sturmgewehre and our Panzerfäuste,

but we kept the weapons next to us.

‘Los, los, Kameraden!’ shouted the lieutenant with urgency.

Time was of the essence. We dug faster.

Eventually we were done, and we nodded at each other before climbing down into our holes. We could just barely see over the tops of them. Behind us, we were told, was the Italian Bersaglieri light infantry division. They were supposed to spring into action once the Russian tanks were hit, which is when the Russian infantry armed with bayonets would emerge from behind the tanks to fight the German Panzerjäger on the ground. This Italian unit was supposed to march forward and stop the Russian grenadiers advancing. That was the plan. However, the Italians’ loyalties had been divided since 1943, when their Prime Minister Marshal Pietro Badoglio had negotiated a cease-fire with the Americans, the British and the French, and an Italian expeditionary corps had joined the Allied forces to fight the Germans. We were a bit concerned as to what extent the knowledge of this situation might influence the actions of our good Italian Bersaglieri friends standing behind us on that fateful day.

We stood in the holes we had dug, about ten metres apart. In each

of them there was a fourteen-year-old boy like me.

We each had four Panzerfäuste with us. Since this was a single-

shot weapon we prayed we’d have enough time to run back to the supply truck to get more in case we ran out and there were more tanks coming.

We stood quietly in our holes. Each of us was alone with his thoughts, not knowing if they would be his last. Sound was amplified in the oppressive silence, and with my senses heightened, I could hear the rustle of leaves on nearby trees and my neighbour shuffling his feet. Time was running out.

I felt the ground vibrate. A growl so deep it hurt my ears filled the air, increasing in intensity. Then a dark wall of tanks appeared over the horizon, advancing fast. There were too many to count. I swallowed.

We had been given clear instructions by our officers: ‘Let the tank advance to a distance of exactly twenty metres from you, no more, no less.’

You had one shot at this.

I was an excellent marksman. I raised the Panzerfaust on to my left shoulder, aimed quickly and shot off my first shell. Fire blasted out of the back of my weapon, as designed.

My back felt hot. I held my breath for a split second. The shell penetrated the hull of the tank and the tank exploded, just as we had been told it would. It burst into flames right in front of me, so close that I felt a wave of heat hit my face.

My comrades were firing, too, but it seemed to make no difference. More and more tanks came at us. The blasts were deafening, the air heavy with the smell of burnt metal and flesh. To my right, a tank drove straight toward the hole of a fellow soldier. The tank stopped over the hole and swivelled around in a circle on its own axis twice, grinding itself into the ground; I watched in helpless horror while the poor fellow’s shrill screams pierced my skull. After a moment he stopped screaming. The tank had crushed him. I knew that guy; he was one of the Flakhelfer from the military vehicle. Another Panzerjäger delivered a fatal shot to the tank.

Breathless, I quickly refocused my attention on what was in front of me to avoid suffering the same fate. There was no time to mourn my friend. Just in the nick of time I shot a second tank that was fast approaching, but they kept coming, and we kept shooting. We were vastly outnumbered. The wall of tanks was upon us despite our desperate efforts to stave them off, then from behind their shadow the grenadiers emerged and charged in force with their bayonets. The Italian Bersaglieri who were supposed to have our backs were nowhere in sight. I knew I had to get out of the hole, but not before taking out as many Russians as possible with my Sturmgewehr. I started shooting. The other fellows did the same thing as the grenadiers continued to advance, some falling dead or wounded along the way, the rest of them marching on to fulfil their mission, impervious to the fate of their fallen comrades.

A burst of hot air scorched my left cheek. I shot a glance in the direction of the searing heat, scanning for the nearest foxhole. My mind did not immediately comprehend what I saw. Blood was spouting from a headless body in pulsating spurts where my comrade had stood just a minute ago. His head was missing. A frozen grip closed my throat as I stared at what had been my friend, draining me of all strength and will, as if the blood leaving the dismembered body was my own.

A shell blasted off nearby. The sound shook me out of my stupor, and I tore my gaze away, electrified by the instinct to survive. I could no longer keep the Russians at bay as I had no more ammunition for the Sturmgewehr. I only had my pistol left. The SS had taught us: ‘Comrades, take care when you are at the front, and save the last bullet for yourselves. To fall into Russian hands and become a prisoner of war is a fate worse than death, because they torture people.’

The Russians had closed in on us. I scrambled out of the hole and shot at the grenadiers with my pistol, but I ran out of ammunition 76 and was left with one last bullet. I looked down at it in a moment of indecision. Now what?

Suddenly there was a Russian in front of me.

He pointed his bayonet and thrust it toward my belly. I quickly grabbed the Sturmgewehr which was slung over my shoulder and shoved it at his bayonet, blocking it, so that his thrust was diverted from my belly to my right leg, the blade of the weapon slicing my leg open from knee to ankle. Blood gushed out of my wound. I looked up, and for a brief instant I hesitated. The Russian grenadier was a young kid just like me; he had straw-blond hair like so many Russians, clear blue eyes and the high cheekbones typical of Slavs. We made eye contact. I saw no malice in him, just a guy doing what he was told. As he recovered his wits and struggled to dislodge his weapon from my leg, I fired my last bullet into his head.

German Boy Soldier bloopers

I’ve been in two minds what to share next and decided you might need a relaxant, so here’s an outtake from my narration from the Audio Book of Save the Last Bullet. It’s Willie’s earlier days in the army before he gets into any fighting. He’s taken up amateur dramatics to make a little extra cash while he’s living away from home. He’s in a production with a serious operatic flavour.

>>> theatre sketch

And here’s one or two other outtakes from my work narrating that audio book.

Even though I do try hard I have often found myself mispronouncing words, frequently to my own frustration and amusement. And nothing tested me more severely than wrapping my tonsils around the German language.

I’ve Never been exposed more mercilessly than when I narrated Heidi’s audiobook. Here’s some outtakes from my recording sessions. 

Remember that I’d already struggled with a great many words in it. And what an obstacle course it was. You have to concentrate so hard with languages - and I just came to one or two phrases that broke the camel’s back …

I know Heidi is pronounced Heidi, not Heedy. But when you come across a word you’re not familiar with it’s not so spontaneous…

>>>>> 

And turning to a more serious aspect of Heidi’s book to finish off this segment. This is when Willi has returned home after the war and my goodness how his reflections have a bearing on current modern times! What a powerful book this has been to read and narrate. If you want to get hold of it there are links in the show note

s plus a link to audible where if you play it right you can get a free introductory membership.

War stuff 2 Operation Mincemeat

Right a Quick quiz for you:

What second world war event has been depicted in 2 books, 2 movies and now a theatrical production in London, involving a dead body? The answer is:

Operation Mincemeat which was a successful British deception operation of the Second World War to disguise the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily. Two members of British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who died from eating rat poison, dressed him as an officer of the Royal Marines and placed personal items on him identifying him as the fictitious Captain (Acting Major) William Martin. Also placed on the body was correspondence between two British generals that suggested that the Allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia, with Sicily as merely the target of a feint.

The movie, The Man who never was, has now been followed up by Operation Mincemeat

A New Musical comedy in London – maybe more, who knows.

Operation Mincemeat is the fast-paced, hilarious and unbelievable true story of the twisted secret mission that won us World War II.

The full effect of Operation Mincemeat is not known, but Sicily was liberated more quickly than anticipated - and losses were lower than predicted. I know when my Dad landed there, there wasn’t any resistance to the landing itself, so the operation may well have helped deceive the enemy.

I wish I had time to explore this more but for now I just thought I'd share the headline about this curious WW2 operation, which even after books, movies and a play, I'm sure is destined to provide more surprises.

Claude Reynolds, Lancaster Rear Gunner

Many listener survey votes for the late Claude Reynolds, Lancaster Rear Gunner.

Dean Hayton from Scarborough feedback

I just listened to both Coffees with Claude Reynolds. What a quick-witted and charismatic guy. Hearing his captain volunteering him on an extra mission was hilarious, in hindsight of course. I don´t think Claude found it funny at the time though.

Derek Whittle Falkland islands

You can’t beat your old gardener for a good yarn – Claude

And Derek you nearly had me there old son because Falklands? Get the heck out of here – I know for a fact that you live in Dartford or some other place in England!

Paul Newport

Paul, I developed a close friendship with Ernie as Claude was known as. I was one of his carers for a number of years.  I learnt so much about Ernie's service life, where he trained, his station at Fiskerton Lincs (where the actor Richard Attenborough was stationed), his life as the tail gunner, his crew colleagues, the action he was involved in, and his post war life.  Ernie was one of life's real heroes and I had and always will command the greatest respect for him.  Hero ❤️

Paul Newport Norfolk. Facebook

For all you guys, here’s ten minutes of Claude up in the clouds.

>>>>>> 

Thank you Claude.

Friend of Kurt More German Atlantic U Boats

Tristan smith said

My grandad was on the submarines during WW2 & sadly was killed in action of Malta 

They didn’t call them iron coffins for nothing !

And OMG Mark Chidester wrote in:

Hi Paul,  I really enjoy your podcast. I just recently listened to the u-boat episodes. They reminded me so much of my friend Klaus Grutzka. He was born in Breslau and was in the German Navy during World War II. He was an engineer on a destroyer and then a submarine.

The story he told me was that he joined the navy to avoid being drafted into the Wehrmacht. The U boat U-1205 was captured and was then scuttled. He said, “then I spent three years as a guest of the King of England”.

Regretfully, I was too shy to ask much more about his experiences. He became an artist and painter. He designed the Dortmund beer logo. Klaus eventually moved to  Pennsylvania USA where we met and became friends. I was working in photo processing and helped Klaus with making prints of his artwork. I fondly remember a few times that we had gone out together painting and sketching old industrial structures and sites. Klaus passed away in 2011.

Mark Chidester

So

Episode 78 was the WW2 family story about a German Submariner in the Atlantic, later to become a POW in Canada.

German submarine U-111’s

tour of the North Atlantic during the second world war was as exciting a story as we could wish for.

I’m not going to revisit it but I’d recommend the link to episode 78 in the show notes.

But here’s a short segment

“I was in the bow sound detecting station, at the very front of the boat. The engine sounds of our attacker were pounding in my headphones. He w       as directly over us! Then, four splashes and seconds later, four explosions rocked our boat! Find out what happened next in episode 78.

Listener I so wish I had another U-Boat story to share with you but these stories are as rare as, well, U-boats!

However it was my luck just a few weeks ago to be in a sale room and stumbled upon a pile of old newspapers from the war period and I snapped em all up at £3 a pop – couldn’t believe my luck. I’m going to be sharing stories from these newspapers at various times in the future.

And what I’m going to share with you right now is a newspaper article about a German ship the Bismarck. May 31 1941 Daily Express British paper – so this was a couple of weeks after the sinking.

Here goes. If you’re listening on Apple you’ll be able to read the transcript of this at the same time as you hear it.

…..

READ

Plus Churchill

Wiki

52,000 tons when fully laden

42,000 tons when built.

So the paper estimate was pretty accurate

So that’s a bit more German material covered to satiate everyone’s thirst for more insight into the enemy side of the war.

Oooh – hang on …

I think a message is coming in from somewhere ..

Blimey,           I’m just getting a message here             from Rainer Schoenthier son of Kurt Schoenthier who was the hero of the episode 78 war memoir about U-111, the German U-Boat.

“Hi Paul. This may or may not be of interest to you, but I thought I might pass it along just in case you could use it. 

 My dad had a very good friend by the name of Helmut Keune, pronounced (coin-eh). Helmut was a survivor of the Bismarck. He and my dad visited often and I listened to many of his stories about the Bismarck. Unfortunately he left no notes or memoirs of any of this. 

However, the major Canadian magazine McLeans, interviewed Helmut in 1949 and published it in a featured article. Helmut talks about his experiences during that epic final hair-raising battle and his subsequent capture and recovery. Here’s the link to that article from 1949. https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1949/7/15/what-happened-in-the-bismarck

Rainer Schoenthier son of Kurt Schoenthier

What Happened In The Bismarck

When mighty Hood sank to Bismarck's guns, the Royal Navy hounded down the “unsinkable" Nazi and sank her. One of the few German survivors here tells his story

IAN MACKENZIE JULY 15 1949

SCHRIEBER-HAUPTGEFRIETER Helmut Keune was busy over the teleprinter in the radio room of the unsinkable Bismarck the glory of the Nazi Navy—that day she slipped out of the Baltic sea bordering Sweden and Finland, under a grey, storm-filled sky. Code messages from headquarters in Kiel clacked out of the machine. The British were prowling the North Sea, watching, waiting. It was May 19, 1941.

That was the last time Senior Ship’s Writer Keune saw Germany. He was 23; a strong handsome youth; an ardent Hitlerite.

Now, 31, Helmut Keune lies in the paraplegics ward of Sunnybrook Hospital for Veterans in a grassy park in North Toronto. He will never walk again. But he’s learned something about democracy and wants to become a Canadian citizen.

When the British caught and sank the great Bismarck he was washed unhurt onto the deck of the destroyer Maori. As a prisoner of war in northern Ontario his back and legs were broken when a skittish team of western horses pulled a loaded sleigh over him.

But here is the story just as it happened. Helmut Keune was born in Unna, 60 miles north of Cologne, deep in industrial Germany. His father was (and still is) a coal miner. Helmut was 16, a strapping good-looking boy, when Hitler came to power. He started selling bicycles and radios in a shop.

The conflagration of racial hatred and perverted patriotism which Hitler touched off in a sullen, defeated Germany consumed Helmut like a wisp of dried hay. He was a Hitler Youth.

At 20 he was conscripted into the Reich arbeits dienst, the German Labor Corps which shouldered shovels like rifles with a mocking leer at the Treaty of Versailles and marched off to build military roads, singing the songs that soldiers sing.

In March, 1939, set in the simple, steel-hard mold of socialism in jack boots, he joined the permanent German Navy. His above-average intellect took him off the decks into communications, with the rank of writer.

When war was declared, Keune was assigned to Bismarck, then nearing completion in Hamburg.

All through 1940 the British Admiralty knew Bismarck was under trial in the safety of the Baltic. By the end of the year they knew she was ready to break out into the Atlantic where Germany wanted to reinforce her aerial and submarine operations.

When France fell in 1940 the pocket battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were moved to Brest on the French Atlantic coast, but constant bombing immobilized them for a time. In the spring of 1941 the Royal Navy awaited Bismarck’s emergence from the Baltic.

Keune had been told only what the world knew about Bismarck—namely that she was 35,000 tons (rumors had her displacement as high as 55,000 tons); knew also she had eight 15-inch guns, 12 5.9-inch guns and a speed of 30 knots. But the most interesting intelligence about the Bismarck concerned a novel and highly elaborate compartment which, the Germans believed, made her unsinkable.

When Bismarck put to sea that May 19 1940, Admiral Guenther Lutjens told his crew over Bismarck’s broadcast system his plan was to get into the Atlantic, avoid contact with British battleships and smash up convoys. Lutjens added that if all went well the voyage would last several months; supply ships would meet Bismarck at secret rendezvous. The crew cheered.

The Cruiser Prinz Eugen sailed with Bismarck. Together under a weather cover they cleared the Skagerrak and put into an unfrequented fiord near Bergen, Norway, on the morning of May 21.

Keune thinks this move was probably part of the evasion tactics, but British Coastal Command aircraft spotted Bismarck and Prinz Eugen in the fiord a few hours after their arrival. Admiral Lutjens set off to rush the Atlantic that same day.

A few hours after Bismarck had been located in the fiord the weather closed down and further observation was impossible. Admiral Sir John Tovey, Commander-in-Chief of the British Home Fleet based on Scapa Flow, still didn’t know on the morning of the 22nd whether Bismarck and Prinz Eugen had left the fiord or not. Keune says at this time they were heading north for the Denmark Straits at full speed.

The hunt started late on the 22nd when a British plane from the Orkney Islands swept up and down the fiord, at great risk of hitting the sheer mountain sides and sent out the electric news that Bismarck and Prinz Eugen had sailed.

In Bismarck, says Keune, everything was running sweetly. Most of the crew believed they had eluded the British net. Working at his teleprinter, Keune sent up signals to the bridge from German bases. They were in code and he could not understand them, but he says he could tell from their volume and speed that there was no undue anxiety either in Germany or “up above.”

Bismarck’s chances of escape from the narrow waters were boosted by low clouds and driving snow. All the crew knew how important it was to get into the Atlantic. Once fancy-free in that broad ocean they could subsequently return to French ports and would never have to run the gauntlet again.

At Scapa Flow things moved swiftly. Admiral Tovey dispatched Rear-Admiral W. F. Wake Walker with the cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk to the Denmark Straits to patrol between Iceland and Greenland. He ordered Vice-Admiral L. E. Holland, with the capital ships Hood and Prince of Wales, to lie in wait westward of the straits out of which Bismarck would have to pass to reach the open ocean. Tovey then sailed himself in King George V and took up a strategic position westward still of Hood and Prince of Wales.

On the evening of May 23 Norfolk and Suffolk spotted Bismarck and Prinz Eugen steaming at high speed southwest down the straits. They had rounded the north of Iceland and were hugging the ice-girt coast of Greenland within half a day’s sail of the Atlantic proper.

Keune says word got around the Bismarck that two cruisers were shadowing them. In the radar room two specks marking the positions of the British cruisers remained in the screen despite Bismarck’s efforts to lose them by constant changes of course.

Norfolk and Suffolk hung onto Bismarck’s heels like terriers during the night of the 23rd while remaining cautiously out of gun range. They were able to tell Admiral Tovey of all her movements so that Hood and Prince of Wales could manoeuvre for attack.

The 23-year-old Hood, whose 42,000 tons made her the world’s biggest warship, had, in the years between the wars, become the prime symbol of the might of the Royal Navy. But she had never been in action. Now, with new Prince of Wales, she closed in on Bismarck. Between them the British ships had 17 heavy guns to Bismarck’s eight.

Before dawn Keune and his shipmates were ordered to battle stations. At 6 a.m. Bismarck and Hood hove in sight of each other, and Hood opened up with a broadside.

“She hit us first,” says Keune. “One shell struck the stern. Where it went in there was just a small hole but where it came out you could have driven a hay wagon through. Then another shot landed up among the aircraft catapults and blew the captain’s motor boat to pieces.”

Bismarck replied with her 15-inch guns. And Prinz Eugen hammered away.

“I didn’t see it happen because I was on duty below,” says Keune. “But after we fired the second broadside I heard a great roar in the distance. Then all of a sudden the Admiral came on the loudspeaker. He was quite excited for a naval officer. He said we had sunk Hood with our second broadside from 23,000 yards. He said she just blew apart in a sheet of flame and went down immediately.

“The action had lasted less than five minutes. We were all amazed and proud. We knew Hood was England’s biggest ship at that time and it was great news to us.”

 The sinking of Hood was a combination of good shooting and good luck. A shell found out a magazine. She sank in two minutes and more than 1,300 men were lost.

Prince of Wales was also hit when Bismarck turned the terrible fury of her broadsides upon her. One 15-inch shell bored through the bridge, then exploded, killing or wounding every man there except Captain J. C. Leach and his chief yeoman of signals. Jammed gun-turret mounts cut her fire power. And Prince of Wales broke off the action.

“We were surprised when Prince of Wales didn’t attack,” says Keune. “Then we figured she must have had a big shock to see Hood go down like that and was getting a bit cautious in case we were some sort of wonder ship.”

Bismarck and Prinz Eugen continued their voyage southwest, pushed down the coast of Greenland toward the open Atlantic. Prince of Wales, Suffolk and Norfolk kept on the trail out of range. Aircraft, based in Iceland, flew out to assist observation, noticed that Bismarck was leaving oil in her wake.

“The hole in our stern was huge,” says Keune, “but it didn’t slow our speed. Engineers tried to close it off but the water-tight doors had jammed. Some fellow's never stopped working under water in diving suits trying to close them.

“Even the ship’s barber had to help. He wasn’t strong man, not a real sailor at all. But he showed up bravely working in that hole. The last I heard of him was that he had burned his nose with an acetylene welder. Word went round the ship ‘The barber’s burned his nose,’ and we had a bit of a laugh.”

Meanwhile, the British Admiralty, with the certainty of doom, was planning Bismarck’s end before she could reach port. Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville was ordered out of Gibraltar with the aircraft carriers Victorious and Ark Royal, battle cruiser Renown, cruiser Sheffield and six destroyers. The old battleships Rodney and Ramillies were called off Atlantic convoy duties to help.

Twelve hours after Bismarck sank Hood, that is during the evening of May 24, two flights of torpedo-carrying aircraft were launched against her by Victorious and one hit was obtained.

“It was not serious,” says Keune. “I was sitting on a table in the mess at the time. Suddenly I was sitting, on the floor. But the torpedo failed to pierce the armor. It blew up outside the ship. We knew we were in for it though.

“The Admiral came on the speaker and said signals showed that half the British Fleet was moving up to tackle us and we must all be prepared to do our duty to the utmost.

“Everybody was very quiet, but determined. They were all the sort of guys who shrugged their shoulders and said, ‘Either we get out of this mess or we don’t.’ ”

At 3 a.m. on the 25th visibility was so low that the shadowing cruisers lost contact with Bismarck. She was then 350 miles SSE of Greenland. Efforts to find her were redoubled. Coastal Command of the Royal Canadian Air Force sent out patrols from Newfoundland but without luck.

During this period, says Keune, Admiral Lutjens ordered Prinz Eugen to separate and make her own way to Brest. Royal Air Force planes located her there two weeks later.

It was 10.30 a.m. on the 26th, 31 hours after the cruisers lost the scent, that Bismarck was next sighted by a Catalina. She was then steaming like mad eastward for Brest, only 500 miles away.

“We were very hopeful,” says Keune, “we were beginning to think we would get away. And then that darned Catalina saw us. We put up a terrific ack-ack barrage and drove her off. We thought we still had a chance.”

Forty-five minutes later, however, aircraft from Ark Royal sighted Bismarck and kept her under observation while other British ships manoeuvred for attack        with their signals and code experts in Bismarck worked frantically to try to piece the messages together.

“We could sense the attack building up,” says Keune. “We could almost feel the British ships closing in on us so great was the tension. The speakers kept all informed of the latest moves and we got very cold and deadly.”

Two waves of torpedo aircraft from Ark Royal went in at 5.30 p.m. on the 26th.

The first was beaten off by ack-ack; the second scored two hits.

Keune remembers only one. It marked the beginning of the end. The torpedo struck the Bismarck’s rudder when it was on 15 degrees and locked it in the turn position. So great was Bismarck’s momentum that she made two complete circles before control was regained.

“We had to steer with the propellers,” says Keune. “One propeller ran at full speed and the other at half speed to keep us straight. Every time we wanted to change course the engine speeds had to be adjusted. It was a clumsy business. The drag of the rudder pulled us down to eight knots. The ship’s hospital was full of wounded and dying.”

Keune recalls with warmth that prodigious feats of courage and devotion to duty were performed by artificers working on the rudder over the thrash of the propellers while Bismarck kept under way. Several fell into the wake and were left to drown. They worked all through the night of the 26th.

Darkness gave Admiral Tovey, now moving up in King George V, a chance to use his lighter forces. He unleashed the tribal-class destroyers Cossack, Maori, Sikh and Zulu at Bismarck.

All night the destroyers darted at the lumbering battleship, but none of her guns was yet silenced and she kept the attackers at bay with radar-controlled gunfire. So accurate was Bismarck’s fire that it was a miracle none of the destroyers received a direct hit. Salvos straddled them whenever they tried to get in close.

The destroyers fired 16 torpedoes, both Cossack and Maori claiming hits.

Keune says that during the night word came over Bismarck’s speakers that a hit had been scored on a destroyer, setting it afire.

“The ship was all closed down,” says Keune. “The only air we got came through automatic ventilators. Somewhere there must have been a big fire, for a great gush of hot, bright yellow smoke came through the ventilators into the radio room. We had to put on our gas masks.

“Then the loudspeaker system gave out. Something went wrong with the telephones. All orders had to be given by officers and petty officers hurrying round the ship to various units. The mechanical firing and aiming equipment failed and each gun turret had to work separately over open sights. There was a steady loss of control.

“There was hardly anything for me to do in the radio room. I just sat tight at my post and awaited orders. I believe a couple of messages I sent up to the bridge said it was then impossible for the German bases in France to send us aid owing to bad weather.”

Throughout the night the men working on the rudder never left the job, although many were stricken. Once, says Keune, Bismarck stopped. Then she got going again. He heard they were only 400 miles off Brest at daybreak on the 27th.

Death on the Decks

As soon as dawn broke Bismarck opened up with her big guns on the shadowing cruiser Norfolk and drove her off to safer distance. The gunners, says Keune, had had no sleep for three days.

At 9 a.m. King George V and Rodney closed. Both delivered a series of broadsides which shattered Bismarck’s superstructure and filled the upperworks with wounded. Unable to swing or speed Bismarck could not reply effectively, although her turrets kept firing. One by one, however, they were battered into silence.

Keune says one shot hit a magazine full of 105-mm shells and after the terrific blast and carnage a sudden unearthly silence descended over the mortally wounded Bismarck. He could hear the moans of the maimed in the corridor outside. A petty officer came in and told the radio staff to get out on deck as the captain was preparing to scuttle.

The radio room was now full of cordite fumes and a choking yellow smoke. Strangely enough, says Keune, the electric light was still burning. He inflated his life belt and joined a line of men waiting in the corridor to get outside on the deck.

The British battleships and cruisers hammered home broadside after broadside into the helpless Bismarck. Rodney scored a torpedo hit. At 11 a.m. Admiral Tovey ordered Dorsetshire to move in and sink the silent and burning Bismarck with torpedoes.

Keune says about this time he was struggling to get along a corridor past buckled plates and shattered bulkheads. He w'as told that down in the engine room many men were sacrificing their lives to open seacocks so that the “unsinkable” Bismarck would not become a prize.

They received two torpedoes from Dorsetshire and for the first time felt Bismarck list. Everywhere the torn and twisted steel was festooned with the entrails of mangled men. There did not seem to be any decks any more. The ship w'as merely a crumbling honeycomb of plating and girders, many of them red-hot.

When Keune and his companions reached the door leading onto deck it was jammed three quarters shut, permitting the passage of only slim men. Several stouter men tried to get through, failed, and stood back calmly to make way for others. The deck suddenly took on an angle of 45 degrees. Keune let the air out of his life belt and squeezed through the door.

He was still wearing his gas mask and as he put his face outside a lump of shell neatly whipped off the filter. He thought he had lost his chin.

The deck, he says, was an indescribable shambles. He has a vivid recollection of human limbs frying on white-hot plates.

The officers were waving their arms and rallying men to points at which they judged it safest to jump overboard. Even at this late hour the abandoning of ship was under a certain measure of control.

Keune put almost his last breath into his life belt and jumped from amidships into the icy North Atlantic. Towering waterspouts from British shot rose near him. He swam desperately away from doomed Bismarck, looking back at the ship as he rose with the swells.

Behind the Canadian Wire

As Bismarck’s list became steeper officers led jumping parties over onto the side which now became the upper plane. Some gunner let off a last defiant burst of ack-ack fire as he and his gun submerged.

Bismarck began to roll over so fast that the men caught on the side had to run against the revolution until the keel was under their feet. And below them were the men in the engine room, now upside down under a thousand tons of machinery.

For a moment Bismarck steadied herself, bottom up. Keune, exhausted, turned over on his back and saw the stern of Bismarck rise like a mighty tower into the air and rain down a mingling of deck tackle, boats, debris and men into the frothing sea.

She disappeared fast, like a duck diving.

After an hour of swimming Keune was swept alongside Dorsetshire which had lowered a network of rope ladders. Her sides reared above him. He grabbed the ropes and half hauled himself out of the water. But he hadn’t strength to pull his whole weight clear of the sea. Several times he tried and failed. Then a wave carried him away.

He recalls: “I said to myself: ‘Okay. This is it!’ And somehow 1 didn’t mind very much. 1 was getting very tired of it all.”

Floating in his life belt he fell into a state of semiconsciousness, but st irred himself when he found a much lower ship alongside him. The waves were so high that on their peak they lifted him above the deck. He swam toward her and in a few minutes was literally washed aboard the destroyer Maori.

He was carried below, where the first thing his enemy did was give him a cup of tea. Then they gave him a large glass of whisky. As he was drinking this a squadron of Focke Wulf aircraft, arriving belatedly to the rescue of Bismarck, attacked. Maori came through, but the destroyer Mashona, carrying other German survivors, was sunk.

Constant attacks by German aircraft hindered rescue work. German submarines were sounded in the vicinity, and the British fleet, had to disperse, leaving several hundred men to die slowly of cold in the water or end themselves swiftly by releasing the air from their life belts. From Bismarck’s complement of 2,000, 103 were saved.

Keune was disembarked at Gourock in the Clyde. He spent eight months behind wire in an old cotton factory at Bury, just outside Manchester, then was transferred to Canada.

He was sent to a POW camp at Monteith, near Timmins, Ont. He was then of magnificent physique. He stood six feet tall and his weight was 180 lbs. He did precisely what was required of him under the Geneva -Convention, but no more. At night in the bunkhouse with his fellows he sang vainglorious songs of Germany’s might.

It appeared to him in those days he was just passing time until the moment the German officer prisoners would march into camp and march him out to help take over defeated Canada.

Keune was cocky until Feb. 2, 1943. This date is etched into bis memory: it marked the victory of the Russians over the Germans at Stalingrad.

“  he says. “A few of us prisoners started to have secret fears of not winning after all.” When the Allies got a foothold in Normandy he knew Germany was beaten.

Says Keune, “I’m not going to say I was glad. I wasn’t. But I began to wonder what was going to happen to me. I took an interest in the Canadians working with us. I wanted to find out what sort of guys they really were. When your future is in other people’s hands you want to know all about them.”

When the war ended Keune volunteered to work deeper in the bush at Longlae, Ontario, because he was told he would enjoy more freedom there. He still had only a few words of English, and although he remained cold to his Canadian overseers he says he couldn’t help respecting and even liking some of them. He was given a team of horses to drive.

On March 8, 1946, he loaded a cord of lumber onto his sleigh and drove his team through the bush to a point where he would pick up a second cord.

“They were young, crazy horses from out West,” he says, “and they were always trying to get away from me. One side of the sleigh struck a stump of a tree hidden under the snow. I was thrown forward and fell down among the team. I yelled to them to ‘Whoa!’ but they were scared. They reared and stamped on me and broke both my legs. Then they bolted. They

pulled the sleigh right over me and broke my back. 1 passed out.”

Helmut Keune now sits in his wheel chair in the sunny paraplegics ward at Sunnybrook. Around him are Canadian veterans similarly disabled. He has passed through two nightmare years of operations, loneliness, pain and heartsick ness. And this has left its marks upon him. But something else has happened.

The jovial, white-coated, “first war” orderly comes around with the afternoon refreshments and Keune neatly whisks around in his chromium chair. There’s the usual soldier badinage. Keune takes tea and slums a friendly grin with the orderly. Someone calls out an acceptable soldierly insult. Keune waves a hand in mock anger, grins hugely.

Keune was a Nazi. He doesn’t try to hide this in the hope that he could better his chances of citizenship. He was a Nazi until he saw the pictures of Belsen, when, he says, “I could hardly believe my eyes.” He’s not ashamed of his German birth, “because not everybody was a boss of Belsen.” And he is proud of his German Navy Service. “1 didn’t start the war. I just fought for my country like all the other boys here. Somebody had to lose.”

Learning English gave Keune a great lift toward his rehabilitation. Then he was able to understand fully the eagerness of the other men in his ward to help him, to realize that no one hated him, to join in the salty ward humor.

In the past eight years many things have happened to Helmut Keune. Perhaps the most important happened at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto last year.

A group of Sunnybrook’s paraplegics had been taken to the Exhibition, their wheel chairs lined up in front of the grandstand. Olsen and Johnson were cavorting about with a microphone.

After exchanging wisecracks with several men, Olsen toted the mike up to a wheel chair occupied by a stiffbacked and stern but handsome Keune, whose steel-grey eyes at once registered embarrassment.

“Hi, Mac!” said Olsen, “and where do you come from?”

The cripple stared coldly through the clown and remained mute.

“Come on, old man!” cried Olsen. “Don’t be shy! All these good folk want to hear from you!”

“But He’s a Good Guy”

From the next chair Jimmie Coutts, curly-haired ex-tank driver, with a broken neck, murmured:

“He comes from Germany. He’s u POW. Leave him alone.”

Olsen swung around on the crowd in excitement. “Now ain’t that somethin’ folks! We gotta prisoner here!”

“He was in the Bismarck,” whispered Jimmie Coutts. “But he’s a good guy.”

“He was in the Bismarck!” exclaimed Olsen into the mike. “But they say he’s a good guy. Come on, folks, let’s give our old enemy a big hand!”

Silence. Then a few faint boos. Then a rush of hushings. Then the wheelchair veterans either side of the captive began to clap. Immediately there was a thunder of applause and cheers from 25,000 throats.

At that moment Jimmie Coutts saw a tear trickle down the tense and graven face of Helmut Keune. From that moment Schrieber Haupt gefrieter Keune has not wanted to go back to Germany.

Did anyone else cry just then, besides me?

Are there any family connections with Helmut Keune listening to this? Get in touch, please!

Rainer, thank you  so much for taking the trouble to send that in – amazing at so many levels.

Part two:

Wilf Shaw, The Wrens, special guests, Australian Les Cook, Kisses on a Postcard, snipers, POW's, Gallipoli, Stan Perry and D-Day all feature