The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz (35 page)

Myself (right) with Charles Calistan (centre) and Cecil Plummer (left) relaxing in Cairo before going to the desert, 1940. Charles and I had friendly boxing matches. He was an Anglo-Indian who won both the Military Medal and the DCM and I believe should have had the Victoria Cross too for his bravery at El Alamein. He was killed in Italy in 1944.

A British Bren gun carrier in Egypt, 1940. The driver and commander dropped down behind the armour during combat but we were open to the air and vulnerable to grenades. The Bren gunner behind was the most exposed.

A British soldier fixing the tracks on a Bren gun carrier, a job I did many times in the desert.

Italian prisoners resting after a long march are guarded by a Bren gun carrier in the Western Desert, December 1940.

A Bren gunner in action around Tobruk, late 1941.

A Ukrainian woman called Paulina (left) and an unknown friend. She worked in the offices of one of the German engineers at the IG Farben site and tipped off the POWs when shipments of materials were expected so we could plan sabotage. I carried the photo home inside my uniform.

A corner of the sprawling IG Farben site showing the building we POWs called the Queen Mary because of its chimneys. The site contained many separate construction sites and miles of pipework on overhead gantries.

The South Africa football team at E715. I am on the left of the front row. I have always suspected the photographs were a propaganda ploy by the Wehrmacht to distinguish their handling of the POWs from the SS treatment of the Jews.

Prisoners marching from the direction of Buna-Monowitz (Auschwitz III) towards IG Farben, a journey I made twice. The striped uniforms of the concentration camp prisoners can be seen towards the back of the column. The SS barracks are visible in the distance and the legs of a watchtower and a small earth covered bomb shelter for the
Postens
are in the foreground. The entrance to Auschwitz III is hidden behind the watchtower.

Huts believed to be part of Auschwitz III in the snow.

At my desk as Chief Engineer of UMP in the 1960s. I had a successful business career but it was years before my nightmares about Auschwitz III eased.

The receipt for compensation offered by the British Government for my time spent as a POW. I thought it was an insult.