Like most old soldiers, Donald 'Coker' Cargill preferred not to talk about his experiences during WWII till the passing of several decades had softened the more painful edges of his memories. But when he did decide to talk about his years as a Prisoner of War, so remarkable were his stories his family wanted them preserved. They are tales sometimes so audacious as to be funny. Yet they are no less courageous for that. Was it this courage that ensured he lived to tell the tale? The quick-thinking that so often outwitted the Germans? Or the youthful brass neck that made even his captors laugh?
Perhaps all these things helped him survive where friends he served with did not. But maybe it was simply luck.. Because Coker considers himself a lucky man. Whatever tragic losses he has suffered in his life - and there have been several - he has, for the most part, held onto the natural cheeriness that's such an endearing part of his character.
Though he's now in his eighties, you can still picture him as the good-looking, cocksure 21-year-old who went off to face that great adventure, leaving a worried young wife and toddler son.
His smile is still infectious as he recounts the laughs he used to have, he and his comrades-in-arms, bluffing it out on the run from a POW camp. And if this account skims over the worst of his experiences - the horrors witnessed, the deprivation endured, the losses keenly felt - it's because that's how he chooses to recall them. At least in public.
Donald Martin Cargill was born in Edinburgh on the 21st April, 1918 and was brought up in Elgin by his granny Elsie Mathieson in a two-storey house near Lossie Green. He left school at 14. His first job was as a message boy for Pullars of Perth, who had a shop in Commerce Street at the time. Later he worked on a petrol lorry, and from the age of 18 had "odds and sods of jobbies."
"I was on the dole maist o' the time," he says. "Jobs were affa scarce in them days."
He married Millie in 1938. Encouraged by the bounty offered and the chance to travel, Coker had joined the Territorial Army. So when war broke out in 1939 he was among the first to volunteer for service.
"We didn't get called up", he explains. "When war broke out we just went down and reported to the Town Hall. We were in the regular Army then."
He enlisted in the Seaforth Highlanders Territorial Unit, 6th Battalion. In it there were lads from all over Moray and beyond, and some older soldiers too. They were stationed at the Drill Hall, which was beside the Cooper Park (it's currently incorporated into a new library building) and did their training in the park in readiness to go to France.
War had been declared in the September, and Coker and his fellow recruits went first to Aldershot and then to France in early January 1939. Their task was to defend a gap in the Maginot line, a long stretch of fortress-like defences erected specially to protect France and Belgium against German invasion. Though determined to do their duty, it was a hopeless task for the ill-equipped young soldiers.
"We only had about 60 rounds of ammunition, an old rifle from the first war, and two Bren gun carriers for the whole regiment We were sitting ducks, no doubt about it. We'd about as much chance of stopping the Germans advancing as the Salvation Army would have!" he jokes ruefully.
While many of Coker's fellow soldiers made for mass evacuation at Dunkirk and a mention in the history books, he and his friend Lance Corporal Jim McCulloch were among the unlucky ones chosen to stay behind and defend the position.
"We were the boys that should have got all the praise," he points out, "not them that escaped in boats."
"Every day we were fighting rearguard action. We had been holding defensive positions for quite a while when the Germans broke through. There had been a big push in May 1940 so they went through us like a dose of salts.
"We lost a lot of boys. My best mate was killed just beside me. I aye mind him turning round to Millie in the High Street, before we left, saying, 'Dinna you worry, I'll look after him'."
Despite their resolution to fight it out "to the finish" the braveheart Scots who survived were taken prisoner instead. After a march of several days, their German captors herded them into a railway truck for the journey across Germany into Poland.
At Berlin they halted briefly so the Germans could show them off to jubilant crowds. Once in Poland they were taken to a Prisoner Of War camp called Stalag XXA near Marienberg.
This was a real Propaganda photo taken in Stalag XXA in 1943. The POW's worked in the camp laundry and were allowed to wash their uniforms and clothes anytime and could have a hot bath after work. My father Donald (Cocker) Cargill is middle back row.
What were conditions like in the camp?
"It was bad, but it could have been a helluva lot worse," says Coker.
Within the huts the soldiers maintained their ranks. Their Sergeant Major was still in charge and it was up to the men themselves to keep their Spartan accommodation as clean and orderly as possible.
There were 40-50 men to a hut and they slept in bunks, in rows of three.
There was little food. Once a day they'd queue up for a bowl of barley soup and a slice of bread. It was unappetizing fare. "But anything tastes good when you're starving," says Coker.
"We had a little loaf between 5-6 of us. As the bread got scarcer, more had to share. There was a lot of childishness," he says, euphemistically. "The boy that was cutting it took his life in his hands if he didn't cut it equally!"
Polish winters are hard. Sometimes it was 20 degrees below zero. Yet there were bright spots in the prisoners' existence. Some attempt was made to provide them with recreation.
Football games among the different nationalities in the camp were organized. Coker still has a medal to show for it. There was also a concert hall.
"Sometimes we didn't bother trying to escape because things were quite good in the camp," he says. But in the five years he was there he did try, five times.
The first attempt was in the winter of 1942.
"Me and my mucker got out of the camp all right", he recalls. "It was dark and it wasn't that well guarded. We got under the wire and away.
"We thought all the rivers would be frozen and we could cross them no bother. But the first ditch we came to, my mate fell through the ice. A run and a jump and he landed in the middle!
"I said we can't go on further, it's freezing. I'll go back with you. So we crept back in. It learned us a lesson though ….not to go in the dark for a start!"
Undaunted, they made their next attempt in the summer.
Coker and his mate 'Mac' - real name Jack Northmore - had been working in the camp laundry where they amused themselves by taking a razor blade to the seams of the German uniforms, nicking the stitches so they'd fall apart within a short time.
"The uniforms had come from Russia and were often very dirty, so the boss of the laundry thought it was too much soda in the laundry to blame!" laughs Coker. "He used to keep telling us not to put so much in."
"The Germans were usually easily fooled. I must say we were streets ahead of them as far as using our loaf was concerned."
This time, Mac and Coker didn't just nobble the uniforms: they filched them, bit by bit - a jacket here, a pair of trousers there, a belt - till both were fully kitted out in the perfect disguise.
"We thought this was a good enough idea, so we could travel through the day, as long as no-one asked to see our papers," says Coker.
"I was dressed as a Private but the uniform Jack had got was a Lance Corporal's, and that stopped a lot of lower ranking soldiers from checking us out.
"We just walked out. Nobody challenged us."
Congratulating themselves on the success of their daring plan, they yet knew they couldn't afford to be complacent.
"We walked all the time, but we used to keep ourselves smart so as to avoid attracting attention, brushed our boots and shaved and all that sort of thing."
They were looking for allies who might help them.
"Our idea was to get as near to Warsaw as possible because we might meet in with the Polish partisans fighting against the Germans. We would listen at windows to see if the occupants were speaking Polish or German. If they were Polish we would go to the door and explain we were British Tommies and ask if they had any food to spare, or cigarettes.
"We tried not to endanger them more than we could help. They just left food out for us. They aye had plenty of eggs. We lived on boiled eggs and slices of bread.
"Sometimes we would come across two or three British boys - other POWs - working in a field. They'd had Red Cross parcels. Jack would shout across to them and they'd tell us where the food was left unguarded at night when all the men were locked up."
On one memorable occasion, Cocker and Mac came upon a garden full of beautiful apples. Rather than steal them, they thought they'd do the honourable thing and go to the door offering to buy some with loose change they'd found in pockets while doing the laundry.
"When we went to the door it turned out to be the Burgermeister - the sort of mayor! He said, "Heil Hitler!"
"Mac asked, could you sell us some apples? He said, 'Certainly, for the sons of the Fatherland! Take what you want, for free!"
"That stripe on Mac's uniform was coming in affa handy," Coker chuckles.
Mac, who Coker describes as "a babyfaced ex-public school boy" had worked alongside a German and been taught to speak the language pretty well. Coker himself had picked up a smattering as he went along. Both Scots were also very fair, which helped them pass easily as Germans.
In the 2-3 weeks they were on the run, they covered a fair distance: 300-400km. In the end though, their empty bellies betrayed them.
"The way we were captured was, we had gone to this house to ask for food and a young Polish loon came to the door and said come in. And when we got in, two German soldiers were in there.
"We tried to bluff it out, and they didn't say anything, but we had an idea they knew there was something not right. They never challenged us like, but they smelled a rat and reported it to the authorities in the town we were headed for.
"The next day we were walking along and all of a sudden German soldiers with rifles were right across the road. This boy, an officer, came up on his horse and asked us for our papers and of course we didn't have any. He said, 'Who are you?'
"I said to Mac, 'Just tell the truth'. We said, 'We're just having a wee walk round, a bit of a holiday from the POW camp.'
"He listened and laughed and then he said, 'I was a POW in the last war, in Edinburgh, and they were good to me. So I will be good to you.'
"I said I came from Edinburgh and he was delighted. I said to Mac, 'You come from Edinburgh too.' He was a bloody Londoner!"
"That officer was right good to us though. He gave us soup, bread and fags. He kept us there for 2-3 days and said, 'Feeling fit now?' He sent for someone to escort us back to camp.
"It was an SS boy that came and I mind there was a post with a sign on it, he fired a couple of bullets into it. He couldn't speak English, so that was his way of warning us that if we were going to run he wouldn't miss!
"He took us on the train. There were a lot of Germans on leave and they were delighted at seeing two Tommies captured. They thought we would get shot when we got back."
Coker and Mac - still in their stolen German uniforms - eventually arrived at a special punishment camp where the officer in charge looked them over and remarked, 'Well, you look a damn sight smarter than my bloody shower!'
"He asked how long we'd been on the run, and when we told him he said it was marvellous. He showed us on a map where we'd been, how far away we'd got from the camp, and said he couldn't understand how we had gone so long without anyone asking to see our papers.
Because he obviously admired his new prisoners' spirit, and thinking to play a joke on their countrymen, he invited them to take the roll call of their fellow British POWs.
"We thought it would be a good laugh," admits Coker. "The men were told there were two new guards - pretty rough boys. So we took the roll call and we had to try not to laugh at all the dirty names they were calling us, not realising we could understand them.
"I aye mind this Glasgow boy, he was at the end of the line; he said, 'We'll soon sort out these square-headed bastards!'
"I just turned round and said, 'Look mate, just watch who you are calling a square - headed bastard, or I'll have you!' He was tongue-tied. The Germans were pissing themselves laughing."
As soon as the other prisoners grasped who they were, they crowded round them, asking questions. The British sergeant major even asked if they could vouch for another lad from north-east Scotland who'd also escaped from Stalag XXA some time back but who they'd kept in isolation for fear he was a spy, since no-one recognized him.
"Right away I knew who they were speaking about," says Coker. "The poor bugger had been kept away from everybody all that time."
Coker and Mac were sent back to Stalag XXA for court martial. They claimed they had simply "borrowed" the uniforms and were given the maximum 21 days solitary confinement with only bread and water and a plate of soup every third day.
"They had a queer system where you got 21 days for your first escape, I think; 10 days for your second and 7 for your third," Coker recalls.
"After your third you started at 21 again. It was something to do with the Geneva Convention."
While prisoners were in solitary their mates would smuggle in the odd fag to them through a hole specially made in the brickwork,or by leave it on a ledge for them to find. Then, when they came out, their Red Cross parcels would have been saved for them. Attempting escape earned men kudos - not only among their fellow prisoners but even with their captors.
The Germans had a grudging respect for Tommies whose records showed they'd demonstrated courage and cleverness in trying to escape. Each time an escapee was courtmartialled he'd offer up the expected response, "It's a soldier's duty to escape Sir!" and it was accepted that it was.
"Most of them were trying to escape. It was always the same boys," says Coker.
None of them thought of themselves as heroes particularly and their fellow prisoners didn't treat them as such.
Yet it must have been tempting to sit tight and ride out the storm rather than risk being shot. Some guards, who knew they'd be punished for failing in their duty, even tried to bargain with prisoners - give them the cushier jobs if they'd behave.
Men like Coker would still risk their lives repeatedly. Why?
"It passed the time," he answers, with a shrug.
So it was that the daring duo's next escape was not so much to avoid punishment as to bring it upon themselves!
"We were in a working party in a sugar beet factory and it was bloody hard graft; twelve hours at a time," explains Coker. "After about two weeks I said, 'Bugger this. I'm not staying here to do this. I'm getting out for Christmas.'
"It was night-time and the factory wasn't wired off or anything, and there were maybe four guards to 50 blokes. So we just escaped.
"I knew we would get captured but it was a lot easier loafing about in solitary than bloody knocking your pan in. We got into the town (Riesenberg), still in our British uniforms, and sat in the square smoking a fag. We got some funny looks like, but nobody challenged us."
After two or three days in the cold without much to eat, the squaddies were nearly on the point of giving themselves up when matters were taken out of their hands, Coker recalls.
"Two SS boys came and asked us for papers. We said we are just out here because it's Christmas. We were only about 7-8km away from where we'd started and one German soldier was told to escort us back.
"The boy was in a right rage. You're not supposed to tie anybody up but we did get tied up. It didn't strike us till later the poor bugger was missing his leave or something like that.
"Christmas, and here he was escorting two Tommies into the nick!" Coker laughs sympathetically, understanding only too well his enemy's annoyance.
"I had a marvellous escape after that," he says. "When the Russians were coming through, we wanted to meet them, so we escaped. All the prisoners were being taken back into Germany from Poland and so on. They marched for weeks and weeks. They had a helluva time of it.
"Well I escaped about two days into the march - me and about half a dozen boys. When we came to a big lot of trees we asked the guard if we could go for a piddle and we just never came back. There was nothing they could do about it - there were thousands of boys and only 50-60 guards."
By this time Coker and Mac had been split up. "It was fine when we were together," says Coker regretfully. "We aye escaped. They gave him a job in a working party so we were separated."
Coker and his new 'partners-in-crime' retraced their steps to the village where there were still some POWs in a compound.
"We stayed there and I mind there was a boy from Elgin there, a butcher by name of Mackay," recalls Coker. "One of our main meals was roast pork. He killed a couple of pigs and cut them up."
Unfortunately the first people to stumble across them were not Russians but Germans.
"They came all round the compound, and the German officer said, 'Who are you?'
"We said we are POWs, we have all got jobs here. He said, 'Where's the guard?' We said 'He's away to the village to try to fix up billets for us there. He just hasn't got back yet.
"The officer said, 'Just carry on.' He said, 'You will be going back to London and we will be going to Moscow'. They knew the war was over. We were going to wait for the Russians. Then this boy came and said, 'I have lost my two pals. The Russians were coming and they shot our own boys. They shot first and asked questions afterwards.'
"We'd heard stories like that already, so when he told us that we thought we'll just have to go. There was no use waiting on them. They might just have shot us.
"This German officer - a decent bloke - said: 'Well Tommy, if you want to wait for the Russians that's OK by us. But we have a train of wounded coming through any day now. We will get you onto that if you like and that will get you further into Germany.'
"So we said, 'Aye, bugger the Russians!' Life was cheap to the Russians. And that officer kept his word. He said, 'You can come now under escort.'
Coker and his fellow POWs were on the train for about a week with little water and even less food.
"As a matter of fact, I don't even know how we existed," he marvels. "One time we stopped and there was a trainload of neeps nearby so we went and helped ourselves. The guard let us."
The desperation of men who'd fall ravenously upon raw vegetables meant for cattle feed can only be imagined.
Indeed Coker has always suspected, though he can't be sure, that Russians who had been taken prisoner and were also on that train had been killed at some point and their bodies dumped in a mass grave, their captors not having the resources to keep them all.
Although POWs became accustomed to not having much to eat - and in some ways Coker looks back at that time as the period when he was fittest - it did make him angry later to see good food wasted.
"After the war we hated to see folk not wanting this and not wanting that," he admits.
The train took its miserable human cargo right into Fallenborstal, a big POW camp.
"After a couple of weeks there, me and a boy Craig from Buckie got out under the wire and into the wood and escaped," says Coker. "I ran up against the British Army tanks.
"I gave myself up to them and I was such a sight - I had khaki trousers on and only a vest. I had a helluva job to try and identify myself. I had no papers, nothing. The officer said, 'Where do you come from?'
"I said, 'I don't suppose you know Elgin? It's a small town between Inverness and Aberdeen.' This boy turned round and said, 'Excuse me sir, we have got an Elgin boy in our platoon, in a tank.'
"The officer said, 'Bring him up here.' I was quite confident the boy would recognize me.
"But he was looking at me, not knowing me, and I says to him, 'I see a family resemblance here - if I'm not mistaken you are a King, and your family stay near the college. You have a sister, Maisie.' He said, 'That's right.'
This was the boy who was supposed to be identifying ME and instead I was identifying HIM!
"I said, 'D'ye nae mind the ice cream cart that came round - d'ye mind who was on it?' He minded it, so that was another identification."
The British forces Coker had handed himself over to were on their way to liberate the Fallenborstal camp. Two or three days after that, he found himself on one of their lorries, then on an airfield and finally landing in High Wickham in England.
He'd a few days in which to be checked over, spruced up and kitted out in a new clean uniform before being allowed home to Elgin on leave.
"Some poor boys didn't get home - they wouldn't let them because they weren't fit. But I was fine. I was as fit as a fiddle" he declares.
In fact it was his birthday the day he was travelling home. When he landed in England, he'd sent Millie a pre-printed telegram announcing when he'd arrive. Only he and one other soldier, a Jackie Wilson, were expected.
Coker's "distinguished service" had been mentioned in Despatches - a great honour - and news of his remarkable exploits had spread.
"I just stepped off the train and there was a wee crowdie," he remembers. "I didn't realize it was me they were looking for. The bloody streets were lined."
Millie was there to greet him with son Donnie, who by now was six or seven. Coker's daughter Margaret, who was born just nine months later, recounts a story that when the schoolboy first saw the heroic figure he could only remember hearing about, his first reaction was: "Is that wee mannie my Dad?"
Family and friends thronged the pavement en route to their home in the High Street. "It was kind of emotional like," is as much as he'll say. But you can imagine there was many a damp hankie that day.
Coker's leave lasted about six weeks. Thereafter, instead of letting him serve out the remainder of the war nearer home, the army stationed him down in Derby. On September 2nd, 1945, the war ended.
When asked how he viewed the war, Coker jokes: "A nice long holiday at the Government's expense." But seriously, he paid a personal cost too.
"I lost my best friends; my pals," he says simply. "One who was in the RAF, Adam King from Keith, was my mate for years. I met him when I was home on leave and that's the last time I ever saw him.
"He said he was going out on reconnaissance and that it was a dangerous job. He was killed somewhere over the North Sea."
In more recent years Coker has been at memorial services and reunions at home and abroad, hoping to meet a few of his old fighting comrades who survived, but "there seem to be very few boys around that I served with," he remarks. "At St Valery I did expect to meet one or two, but there was not a soul. It was a bit disappointing."
Private Cargill, service number 2820565 - a number he can still reel off with ease - needs reminding sometimes that not everyone his age is as relatively sound in mind and limb! He counts his blessings, just as he did all that time ago as a Prisoner of War.
"I just say I'm lucky I was good natured," he concludes. "I never used to look on the black side of anything. I just used to think to myself, 'Here's me playing football and other poor buggers are getting killed'.
"We were lucky being prisoners. At least we would see Blighty again."
Sadly, Donald Cargill, died on the 25th February, 2003. Following a well-attended funeral, at which his service to his country was remembered, he was buried wearing his war medals.
