Silk, H
Henry Albert Silk
From: Mark Silk. November 12, 2013
Henry Albert Silk was born in 1922 but gave his data of birth as 1920 in order to join 6th Battalion, Royal Tank Regiment. He held the rank of Corporal, No. 7887494. He was captured on November 20th 1941 at Sidi Rezegh North Africa. At first he was held in P.O.W. Camp number 53, Urbisaglia Macerata. His POW No. was 28728. He was later moved to Stalag VIIIB (344) Lamsdorf.
He was originally assigned to a working party at Hiedlbreck (E711A Heydebreck). Late in 1944 he was moved to one near Auschwitz.
On 21st January 1945, ‘we were given orders to pack and be ready to march by 13.30 hrs. We had been expecting something like it for the last two days. The snow was falling heavily and it was below freezing. It was the beginning of an experience I will never forget and if I could have foreseen what we were going to endure, I would never have believed we would see England again, in fact, I wouldn’t have attempted it but not knowing what each day had in store for us, we kept on and it was sheer guts and courage that kept us going and the thought of England and home and the will to beat the Germans of breaking our spirit, we won in the end’
24th, ‘We arrived at a small mining village, we only covered 16 miles but I think we walked double, for every step we took forward we slipped back two. Our shelter was an old school with stone floors but like a feather bed to my weary body.’
‘Three solid weeks we have been marching, which brings us to February 10th. We had practically given up all hope of liberation, our belief was the Germans were just taking us anywhere; they definitely were not going to give us up so easily. God knows where we would finish up. There wasn’t any use in escaping, especially in this wild country, miles from any front line, the civilians dare not help you, it would be death for them and you couldn’t blame them.’
‘Today is Sunday 11th March. The beginning of the 8th week of our march, it just seems as though we are walking around in circles, waiting for the war to end, or just trying to find a place to dispose of us …… as soon as we arrived the civilians brought us some hot soup and bread, what we would have done without these people, I don’t know….’
‘26th March Another 18 kms and an issue of 200 gms of bread, the German cart-horse broke his leg the previous night so they shot it, rationed it to the columns, very tasty and a change to eat fresh meat.’
The march lasted till 28th April ending near Moosburg, Stalag VIIA. ‘We could sense the uneasiness among the guard. At 08.15, American infantrymen walked into the yard with hearty greeting from the lads, the guards surrendered. Three to four hours later, tanks and infantrymen moved in the area. Small bands of SS were still holding out and sniping but were soon dealt with.
At 7 p.m. orders to march to Moosberg, columns of troops pass us on the road, a lovely sight, smoking cigars for a change.’
Read his diary recording his experiences on the long march
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