My dad, Ernie Rutter, was a machine gunner's mate in WW2. He joined up at 19 years old in 1939. He always said he knew war was coming, so he chose where he went before he was called up and told where to go! He'd been a coal miner since he was 14 and he said he wasn't going to spend the war stuck down a mine (Bevin Boy). He trained at Aldershot and Catterick before he was posted abroad later that year.
His battalion was attached to a Highland Division (Seaforth?) on the Maginot line, but he said he only fought for a short while before being pulled back to St. Valery in Northern France because of the German advancement. Unfortunately, that didn't last very long either, and in May/June? 1940 they surrendered and began a long journey to Poland. My dad never really said that much about that journey - they partly walked and were partly locked in railway animal trucks. He did say it was the survival of the fittest and if you got the chance, for example, to "acquire" a better pair of boots than yours then you took them!
He finally arrived at Camp XXA (66) near a place called Torun after what must have been a horrific journey and that was his home for the next 5 years. He used to make light of it, saying that at least he wasn't behind bars as he worked on a farm, although he did say he roasted in the summer and froze in the winter. But he did at least learn how to plough a field and milk cows!
He said the guards didn’t really bother them as long as they did their job, and there wasn't really much point in escaping as they hadn't a clue where they were other than somewhere in the middle of Poland. He said they occasionally used to wander off for a day or two just to cause a bit of havoc and would end up being locked up for a day or so, but that was about it.
He was in Poland till the end of the war in 1945 when, I seem to recall him saying, he somehow ended up in Luneburg on his travel home where he was put onto a very uncomfortable plane and flown to England!
Just to end on a lighter note, my dad told the story of his actual arrival home. He got the very early milk train from Newcastle to a tiny station a couple of miles from where he lived and managed to get a lift on a coal wagon the rest of the way. So it was about 5.30 in the morning when he knocked on his door (after over 5 years away). His mother (my grandma) opened the door in her dressing-gown and said "Whey wor, Ernie, what time’s this to come knockin’ on the door?" Fabulous!!
