A Letter to My Daughter

Extract from account of second P.O.W camp escape. WW11
Europe 1943

Let me say to you Dear Helen, that escaping was not a picnic! It indeed was a nerve wrecking, heart stopping event! The tension was terrible! Every movement we heard was treated with suspicion. Every rustle of leaves brought uneasiness. Even your mates' voices, suddenly asking a hushed question, caused the blood to flow much faster!
Why then, you may ask, bother to break out at all ?
Well, adventure and the fact that one's youth was wasting away and one needed to do something to prove that life still held some sort of challenge.
That, I feel was the answer.Still here we were with a grin on our faces and looking over our shoulders. Just in case!
Eventually, after a couple of hours, we emerged from the darkened wood. It was a moonlight night with occasional cloud blackening the sky and shrouding our journey.And as such a night had helped our exploits across the road so it became our downfall !
About 4-30am  the following morning we had to, according to our home made compass and map, make our way across open fields and along country lanes if we were to get nearer to our target of Prague . We were doing just this when, all of a sudden, a team of about ten Home Guard members, pounced out of the darkness and we were surrounded! Unable to dash or even move! Rifles were pointing at us and we were ordered to march on !
Now, due to close supervision , I was unable to unload myself of the map and when we arrived at a hut in a small village nearby we were duly searched and, of course, the map, plus money that we had was discovered.
This caused a terrible commotion ! Especially as the map was dated 1943!
Everyone there more or less panicked ! Phone calls galore. Then silence . We all looked at each other . Then questions, questions and more questions!
We had , during the earlier rumpus, renewed our agreed plan not to reveal the sources of our hand made map and compass!!
So, as they made no progress this meant we were further marched to a police station in the vicinity.
Our continued silence there caused an outburst with my pal, Jim Gormley . A lad from Liverpool. He received a crack over the head with a cane. We were then informed we would have to await the arrival of  The Gestapo!!
We were all knackered . What with no sleep, starving with hunger and all our cigarettes taken from us! We felt rough ! We were made to sit on a narrow bench and if we started to sway with sleep, we were immediately clobbered over the head in a vicious manner
After a long wait two members of  The Gestapo plus an Army  High Ranking Officer came through the door ----------------
( Read on to discover the outcome of this terrifying encounter with Nazi Germany's most feared Henchmen!!)