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IN GERMAN PRISON CAMP
How Australian Airmen Fare
MELBOURNE, Nov 19.--Life in a
German prisoner-of-aar camp for
non-commissioned airmen has been'
described by an English flight-ser
geant who returned to London late,
last month with other prisoners of
war repatriated on exchange. A
number of Australians are in the
camp. This was anrnounced today
by the Minister for Air (Mr Drake
ford), who has recei',ed details of
the flight-sergeant's report.
Most of the guards at the camp
came from Hamburg, 2ne of the most
heavily blitzed German towns. Every
one of them had lost relatives in
the Allied blitzes and every one had
lost his home. None attempted re
prisals against the prisoners except
a professor of German language who
declined to teach "compatriots of
air gangsters and terror raiders" any
more of his native tongue.
Mr Drakeford said that among the
Australians in the camp were Flight- i
Sgt E. G. Brown, of Victoria Park
(WA). and Sgt J. D. Evans, of,
Subiaco (WA).
The report stated that the Aus
tralians were associated in the camp
with nearly 900 Canadians, Ameri-1
can, English, Scottish and Welsh
airmen. Five interpreters supplied]
the verbal link between the men and]
the guards until suflicient German
had been learnt.
Breakfast consisted of a cup of
tea, a couple of slices of heavy
brown-black bread made apparently
with 50 per cent of potatoes. The
prisoners' rations were meagre and
the prisoners' main food supply was
Red Cross parcels for which the
Australians expressed deep gratitude.
The prisoners did theh own cooking1
in huts on coal fuel stoves.
After breakfast those who wished
could attend classes in shorthand,
languages and many other subjects,
many of them conducted by volun
teers from the prison colony. Sport
was highly organised, and champion- I
ships were conducted in most major,
sports. The cricket championship
was won by the Australians against
Wales. Equipment was supplied by'
the Red Cross, the Australian Com
forts Fund and kinared organisa
tions.
Prisoners watched or listened toi
Allied raiders on the way to Rostock'
and other targets nearby. Once the
prisoners dived for cover when one
of three RAF night-raider stragglers
strafed the camp locality from low
leveL The raider, a Lancaster, had
been fired on from a Nazi anti-air
craft gunnery school near the camp,
and on the return trip it replied with
ita machline-guns,
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