Kiwi Kriegie

A New Zealand Airman remembers
his experiences as a POW in World War 2

60 Years ago today!

"However with the onset of winter I contracted a dose of the flu.

A family in the little village of Fecamp took pity on me
and kept me at their farm for the latter part of December.
It was here that I was to be captured.

The area around Amiens is as flat as a pancake and though
it is all intensively farmed the people are centralised,
they live in villages and go out by the day to work their
particular hectares, then come home at night to live in a heap.
The village of Fecamp near Montdidier was of this nature.

The farm which gave me shelter and at which I was captured
was in the middle of this village. Approaching it from the road
all you saw was a long wooden wall maybe two and a half metres
high with a big gate which opened inwards big enough to drive
a horse and waggon through and a small wicket gate for people.

Passing through the gate you found yourself in a sizable courtyard
bounded on three sides by buildings. To the left there was a chicken run
and rabbit hutches. To the right there was a lean-to woodshed and
implement shed which then went two storied with a stable below and a hay loft above.
Then another gate opening on a small orchard and vegetable garden.
Along the side of the courtyard remote from the road, the house and the cow byre
combined, sort of built into each other. I guess for conservation of warmth.
The final side was a blank wall bounding the next farm.

The most dominating presence in the courtyard was the midden
or dung heap which had at its lower side a duck pond,
small and I guess shallow but fairly fetid. The midden was basically
the sodden straw mucked out from the cow byre from time to time.
This also absorbed any household refuse and acted as a great hunting ground
for the chooks. It was easy to see the origin of the references to the
'Cock on his own dung heap'. In one corner of the courtyard,
thankfully at some distance from the midden and the duckpond,
was an old fashioned hand operated pump.
This was the source of water for the farm and all therein.

Going into the house proper which you did straight from the courtyard
but up one step, you entered the main room of the house.
To your left was one bedroom opening off, then a wood burning range
on four legs with a hot water tap in the side, an oven and a cooking top.
It was in a small alcove. Past this there was another small bedroom.
The Patron slept in the first room, mother and daughter slept together in the second bedroom
The back wall had windows opening on to the small orchard.

Off the other side of the kitchen, the right hand side from the door,
there was another room which was obviously the parlour.
The only furniture was a small table or two, a couple of hard chairs
and a sad looking potted fern. Another room opened off this
which would have been a spare room. This is where I slept.
The parlour looked out into the courtyard and the spare room overlooked the orchard.
This was the sum total of all the rooms.

No bathroom, no toilet in fact no privy at all, no outside dunny, no long-drop.
One can only surmise that this was another purpose of the midden.
For myself I used the orchard.

The whole place had tiled floors throughout, blue and white from memory.
It was fairly solidly built with a type of concrete block outside
and lath and plaster inside.

No pictures or any decoration on the walls, just calcimined plaster.
The main room, the kitchen was dominated by the kitchen table
which could seat eight or ten people on hard chairs and a wooden bench.
There were a few wooden chests about and a dutch dresser.
Not much crockery, you each only ever had one plate, an old fashioned soup plate
with shallow sloping edges. No cups, bowls instead. Knife fork and spoon.
The table knives were only for use of the women and effete characters like shot down airmen.
The men, would produce their own pocket knives to eat with,
paring off the meat of a chicken or rabbit bone neatly between knife
and agile unwashed thumb. A large fresh loaf of bread would always be on the table
together with a large and sharp knife. One cut off chunks of bread,
at first I made the mistake of trying to cut slices, this was not on at all.
One soon learns. Hold it hard against the chest and draw the knife sharply down
and to the right. A large wedge is the preferred product.

Breakfast was always a bowl of cafe au lait
and a large hunk of bread for dipping.
Typical dinner would be a full plate of soup and I do mean full,
right to the outside sloping edge of your plate.
When you had slurped that, you cleaned your plate out with a piece of bread
and got a great heap of hot potato salad,
very tasty and if you were lucky a small piece of meat say a small chop.
Black market of course. You drank rough red with this, diluted about
one third with water. Tea would be maybe a couple of waffles
with butter and sometimes a glass of mulled wine with spice in.
Beds were comfortable, mattress a bit softer than down in Brittany.
We had sheets also, then a quilt of I think flock, a pillow even.
We went to bed early and got up early.

The family would march off to work on the farm at about eight each morning.
First would go father, 'Le Patron' in corduroys and gaiters
walking ahead smoking a roll your own cigarette and carrying nothing,
two paces behind would come mother and daughter
laden down with hoes rakes buckets and other clobber.
I tried to go and help but they wouldn't let me,
they were worried about other spying eyes I think.
However I was allowed to go out and chop wood in the courtyard.
This I enjoyed. Then daughter would come home about eleven to prepare midday meal.
This was always fun in a very fractured French and English way.
At about twelve would come the Patron followed at two paces by Maman, with all the gear.

I had seemed to admit to the name of Robert at the start of my stay there,
and it turned out the Patron's name was also Robert
and 10 and behold daughter was also Robert, or 'Roberr' as it seemed to be in French.
This lead to a lot of togetherness which in other times could have been fun.

Basically of course I was a time bomb waiting to destroy them.

I knew but didn't let myself think about it.
Whether they realised or not I'll never know.

In the end of course destroy them I did.

As General Sherman said, 'War is hell'. "

Galbraith Hyde

I don't think his presence in the small village would have remained a secret
for very long.

Even keeping indoors or at least in the courtyard would not be enough.

But after the weeks of sleeping rough and scrounging food, the next two weeks of comparitive saftey, comfort and food, helped restore enough energy to cope with the trials that lay ahead.

In the 1970's on a trip to Europe, Dad tried to connect up with this part of the story. To tie up some loose ends.

There was a newspaper clipping that said there was a plaque in the church, commerating the bravery of the family that sheltered him. ( They were of course shot once he had been betrayed). The daughter was still possibly alive.

When he returned from this trip all he said was " that it didn't work out".

He never talked about it,
and we never felt we should ask.

Timothy Hyde

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This page created - December 17th 2002

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