I found this loose leaf in my dad's last small diary.
From his memoirs:
"On Tues 22-5-45, we only had to wait until mid-day to see lots of planes arrive. As long as there were more than 24 we were O.K. We counted them, about 40 in all and we knew then our luck was good.
When our group was called, we went towards a plane (I believe they were all Douglas type). The pilot then informed us he had room for only 14. That was a big blow. The chap in charge of our group had our names down and so he said the first 14 on his list would go and the remainder would go on the next plane.
Bill was lucky, he got aboard but when ‘Martin’ was called out I found another Martin there beside me. After a reference to initials, it was not me and so I was very, very disappointed. However, I managed to get aboard a plane later that day and at 2.20 p.m. we started off into the air.
It was a grand sensation, flying, whilst my stomach behaved itself. I felt quite O.K. until some unfortunate individual opposite started to vomit and soon I wanted to follow suit.
When I was able to, I gazed out of the window behind my seat and watched the land underneath pass by. We were flying fairly low and I could see quite clearly the view under us. The houses looked so small and the roads so narrow. I could see a plane flying next to us and now and again we seemed to drop a bit quite suddenly which was the cause of our vomiting. We were travelling through air pockets all the time which made the plane jolt about. The last time I was sick I felt like lying down and so made myself comfortable on the floor. I soon fell asleep and when I awoke we had touched down and the men were starting to file out!
I soon learnt we were at Reims in France.
On leaving our plane, we were soon aboard waiting lorries. These were driven by black fellows from America and could they drive!!! We scorched along at a terrific pace and every minute I wondered whether the lorry would remain on its wheels. We passed buildings which looked very much the worse for bombing and I was very interested as this was my first visit to France.
We reached the end of the journey after ½ hour or so of hectic hanging on and found ourselves at a huge transit camp which was run entirely by Americans. We were soon eating WHITE BREAD, EGGS, BACON ETC., ETC., and boy oh boy how delicious to taste these wonderful things of which we had always dreamed! It was gradually dawning on us that we were at last FREE. It was all so very exciting, having a really comfortable shower bath, a complete change of clothing and what a real thrill to have such things as candy and chocolate bestowed upon us. I began to wonder when I would wake up."
How lucky for you to have for dad's diary. What a memory. I am assuming that your dad was a POW? My dad was in the Australian Air Force and served in the Pacific region. I am still lucky to have him, he will be 88 this year.
Wow - you know the shower and clean clothes after all the talk of lice would have been my number one request - and that's saying something when there was a chocolate option!
