Jack Birbeck

John Thomas "Jack" Birbeck
Born	c 1921
Died	2 September 2010(2010-09-02) (aged 89)
Education	Boston Grammar School (1932-37)
Occupation	Telephone Engineer, Bomb Aimer
Employer	Post Office, RAF
Spouse	Sylvia

John Thomas "Jack" Birbeck was educated at Boston Grammar School (1932-37). After school he joined the Post Office as a Trainee Telephone Engineer. He joined the RAF on 15 September 1941 and went on to flying training. He failed the flying training, unable to judge the height during landing because of a sight defect, and became a bomb aimer on Lancasters.

His pilot on Lancaster PMD² was Cliff Annis, another BGS alumnus. They were shot down when nearing their target on a mission to Nuremberg on 27 August 1943. Jack spent the rest of the war in Stalag Luft III and, after the long march, Stalag Luft IIIa.

After returning home and being discharged from the RAF in December 1945, Jack returned to the Post Office in Boston as an engineer. In 1959 he moved to Leicester, where he stayed until his retirement in 1983. His wife, Sylvia, died in 1998, and he moved to a care home. Despite being disabled, Jack lived through his computer, appearing very lively to anyone who was in touch with him by email, and he wrote his biography which was privately published.

Shot down over Germany

An article written by Jack Birbeck and published The Old Bostonian, Issue 39 - Spring/Summer 2004. This article predates his book Birbeck's War by five years.

I was the Bomb Aimer in a Lancaster crew with 103 Squadron, based at RAF Elsham Wolds in North Lincolnshire. My pilot and skipper was Cliff Annis, another Old Boy of BGS. We had met at Operational Training Unit and had "crewed-up" together.

On the night of 27/28 August 1943 our target was Nuremberg. Apart from difficulty in gaining height due to the under performance of one engine, the flight to within sight of the target markers had been uneventful. We had just turned on to the last leg and the bombing run when we were attacked by a German night fighter. The attack set fire to one of the port engines, but we managed to extinguish the fire, although in the process losing considerable height and the use of one engine. We resumed the bombing run and almost immediately after I had dropped the bombs were attacked again. This time the whole of the port wing was set on fire. The pilot lost control and gave the order to "abandon aircraft". My station in the aircraft was over the front escape hatch and according to the drill I had to be first out. I opened the hatch and went out and, as my parachute opened, saw our aircraft falling nose down in flames.

Picked up

I landed in a tree on the edge of a wood, and some hours later was picked up by the Volkssturm, German Home Guard. Eventually I was taken to a village pub where I found Cliff, my skipper, laid on the floor. He was drifting in and out of consciousness and appeared to have bullet wounds in his neck and foot. I did manage to get a doctor to him but nothing was done for him then. It turned out that Cliff had a broken neck and he spent most of his time in Germany in hospital and was repatriated with a prisoner exchange in late 1944.

In the late afternoon I was taken away by three Army officers and by various stages over the next 2 days arrived at Dulag Luft, the RAF and USAAF interrogation and transit centre at Frankfurt am Main. The search and interrogation was an unpleasant experience, but almost exactly as per intelligence lectures. After this procedure we passed into the transit part of the camp. At this time of the war Bomber Command’s losses were at their highest, probably averaging about 40 aircraft a night. Each heavy bomber carried a crew of seven, and although all would not survive, the Germans were very busy at Dulag Luft. Thus it was not long before a load was assembled to be transported to a permanent camp. The standard transport for prisoners was continental cattle trucks that bore the legend “40 Hommes 8 Chevaux”. They usually crammed at least 50 bodies in; there was certainly not enough room for everybody to sit down at the same time. After a three-day journey we arrived at Sagan in Silesia.

Stalag Luft III

A short lorry ride took us to the gates of our destination. The camp, Stalag Luft III, was situated in a cleared area of pine trees and at that time there were five compounds. We were destined for the North Compound which turned out to be the scene of The Great Escape. As we, the new intake, went through the gate we were besieged by the inmates, looking for old comrades and seeking news from home and progress of the war. We were immediately directed to the Camp Theatre to be addressed by the notorious and formidable Wing Commander Day. We had to await his arrival and when he appeared we got a vigorous telling off for not standing up when a senior officer entered the room. We were reminded in no uncertain terms that RAF discipline still applied with all the conventions etc. of the Officers Mess, and deference to rank. He went on to tell us that it was our duty to make life as difficult as possible for the Germans and, if we could, to escape. He outlined the escape and security organisation in the camp. Individual escape attempts were not generally approved and ideas were expected to be submitted to the Escape Committee then schemes thought viable would receive support from resources available.

Camp life

Normally we were allowed to run the internal affairs in the camp and the Senior British Officer (SBO) was in overall charge. The SBO was a Group Captain but, because he spent much of his time in hospital, his deputy W/Cmdr Day fulfilled this function regularly. A senior officer was in charge of each block. As officers we did not have to work so had plenty of time to make a nuisance of ourselves to our hosts. We enjoyed the "privileges" of our equivalents in the Luftwaffe and were thus classed as barrack troops-the lowest category. We received the minimum rations, mainly the staples: bread, cabbages occasionally, more rarely minced meat and barley. Fortunately up to D-day we received a regular supply of Red Cross parcels. There were six of us in my first room and we were not overcrowded. Each room organised a cook and a “stooge” on a rota basis. The cook made the best of the materials available and the stooge assisted him. The stooge also made the tea and coffee. We used stooge-days as gambling counters and a poor Bridge player would often be condemned to months of stooging.

The tunnelling exploits from North Camp are well documented in book and film. Within days of my arrival Tom was found, Dick was abandoned as an escape route but retained as a store, and the decision made to concentrate on Harry. I was on the "Duty Pilot" rota, this meant sitting at the main gate, booking the Germans in and out. They knew we did it and would often ask the DP if "so and so" was in the compound.

Normally armed guards only came into the camp at roll calls. The rest of the time characters we called "ferrets" patrolled. They wore overalls, carried side arms and used to crawl under the huts looking for signs of excavation and listening to conversations. Some were dangerous, others "tame" and open to bribery and ultimately blackmail. But back to the Duty Pilot, his job was to set off an elaborate system of warning signals when a dangerous "Goon" came into the compound. All illegal activity would then cease. Among the prisoners we had expert forgers, tailors, radio builders, and almost any skill you could think of. My speciality was making cooking utensils etc. out of empty tins from Red Cross parcels, a noisy occupation so not very popular.

Notable POWs

There were a number of people there who were well known then, or became celebrities after the war:

• W/Cmdr Bob Stanford-Tuck Battle of Britain fighter ace
• Lt/Cmdr John Casson, son of Dame Sybil Thorndyke and Sir Hugh Casson (Correction: Sir Lewis Casson was Dame Sybil Thorndyke's husband and father of John Casson)
• F/Lt William Reid VC
• W/Cmdr Roland Beamont, expert at shooting down Flying Bombs and post war test pilot of first jet fighters
• Lt. Peter Butterworth Fleet Air Arm pilot who, after the war, appeared in the “Carry On” films
• Rupert Davies who went on to play “Maigret”, the television detective
• Cy Grant, a post war television personality
• James Pestridge later a regional TV presenter
• Len Whiteley, trumpet player in Billy Cotton’s band
• Paul Brickhill, author of “The Great Escape”
• Aidan Crawley, politician and MP

Shortly before I arrived W/Cdr Douglas Bader had been transferred to Colditz. Other OBs I met in Stalag Luft III were Reginald Van Toen, Arthur Staniland, and right at the end, in Luckenwalde, Phil Brown, an old form mate. There was also another Bostonian, Albert Boothby, although not an Old Boy of BGS.

Belaria

Early in 1944 a large number of us were moved to a satellite camp, Belaria, on the other side of Sagan. The big advantage of this camp was its situation, right beside a main road. Further down this road there was a Luftwaffe base which employed a lot of civilian girls and we used to congregate near the wire to see them ride past on their bikes with their skirts flying up. Among the people moved from North Camp were all the known troublemakers including the Canadian mining engineer in civilian life in charge of the construction of Harry. Now we were twelve in a room, albeit a much larger room. At dusk we were locked in the blocks and shutters were placed over the windows. Lights out was at 10 o’clock. During darkness guard dogs were let loose in the compound. In bad weather and after dark we usually played Bridge and most of us were real experts.

Towards the end of March we heard that Harry had been broken out and were then stunned to hear that of the 76 who escaped, 50 had been shot. I do believe that our Luftwaffe custodians were nearly as shocked as we were. They allowed us to hold a memorial service and they kept well out of the way.

We had a secret radio and every day one of the RAF security officers came into each room and read the latest BBC bulletin. The Germans provided a loudspeaker in the camp (the radio was in the Admin. part of the camp), and every day at 4 pm a communiqué from the German High Command was broadcast. Their reports were fairly truthful but usually a day or two behind the BBC. We had to be careful to mark our wall maps according to the German reports and not the BBC.

D-Day

By late spring of 1944 we thought that a landing in Europe must come soon. At least that was our fervent hope. Thus we started making bets on the date. Because we had no money the bets were really forfeits and one loser had to crawl round the perimeter on his hands and knees. This was executed in ceremonial style. My losing bet, by five days, was to shave my head.

6th June 1944 at Sagan was a miserable wet day, but we were soon to be cheered up. Just after 1 pm our radio reporter came to tell us that Allied troops had landed in Europe. We had to contain our excitement until it was announced by the Germans in their 4 o’clock bulletin. It was headline news in all the newspapers next day and the general theme was that it would all be counteracted by the "V-weapons".

As the Allies pressed further into Europe our Red Cross parcels supply became less reliable. The influx of new prisoners increased and the Germans announced that they were going to build additional huts on the sports field. To compensate for loss of facilities we were offered country walks "on parole". This entailed promising not to escape and most of us refused the offer. By late summer the new huts were completed and with most of my old room I moved into new accommodation. We were now eighteen to a room including six American officers.

By late autumn 1944 our Russian Allies were swiftly advancing from the East and we realised that it was very likely that we would be moved westwards. However we had to spend another Christmas in captivity, but after the celebrations we started to save from our now depleted Red Cross parcels food to sustain us on what might be a long march.

The move west

On 27th January 1945 at 9.30 pm we were told to be ready to leave in thirty minutes. There were several false starts after this order but eventually we left at 5 am on Sunday 29th. It was snowing heavily and there was about six inches of snow on the ground. The delays had given us time to make sledges to carry our belongings. I should mention here that our radio went with us and, as always, survived several searches. We must have been a strange sight, straggled over the German countryside, 1200 bodies in a wide variety of dress, pulling sledges. I was wearing an ankle length Polish Army greatcoat. We marched 20 kilometres on the first day and were put up in farm buildings for the night. Everybody was cold, wet and hungry. The second day was a repeat performance, but we rested on day three because of congestion ahead. While we were resting a thaw set in so that when we set off the next day we had to abandon our sledges and a lot of our luggage. The march continued in this pattern and on the fifth day we were fed for the first time, a fifth of a bread loaf. We were thankful that we had had the foresight to save rations from our Red Cross parcels.

On the 7th day we arrived at Spremberg, and were accommodated in a large shed belonging to the German Tank Corps. Here we were each given a litre of hot liquid with no solids in it and then loaded into the standard cattle trucks.

Luckenwalde

Seven hours later we left on a 60-mile journey to Luckenwalde about 30 miles south of Berlin. The journey lasted all night and until dark next day. After detraining we were marched to the camp in pouring rain and, for no apparent reason, were kept outside. When we saw the new accommodation we were appalled. It was a large barn-like building, unheated, damp running down the walls and had an earth floor. The beds were three-tier in blocks of twelve and a single layer of hessian served as a mattress. This was Stalag IIIa, a huge camp with thousands of prisoners of many different nationalities. We were the only RAF people and it turned out that our Group Captain was the senior officer and he eventually took command. Another big change, not in our favour, was that the Wehrmacht were now in charge of us and they had no sympathy with the RAF.

A bad dream

The next three months were very hard; probably the worst aspect was the shortage of food. In the middle of April the Germans made a last effort to move us again. We spent three days and three nights loaded in trucks at Luckenwalde station, but they couldn’t find an engine to pull the train, and we were returned to the camp. On 21st April we woke up to find that the German guards had gone and at mid-day a Russian tank spearhead drove through the camp at high speed. Unfortunately conditions did not improve under the Russians and for political reasons they delayed repatriating us.

On 7th May I was one of a small number who got away on American lorries. I spent the night of VE Day in Brussels and arrived back in Boston on 12th May. The May Fair was in progress and, suddenly, everything seemed very normal and Luckenwalde just a bad dream.

Bibliography

• (2009) "Birbeck's War" - Printed by Welland Print Ltd

External links

• Memoirs typed using one finger, BBC News