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Anniversary march honours horrific 1945 trek faced by naval and RAF prisoners

A rare and grainy image of the prisoners on the march in 1945
31 December 2024
Wartime Fleet Air Arm aviators will be honoured when 30 descendants and families march for 60 miles through Poland and Germany – as thousands of prisoners of war did 80 years ago.

The small group will recreate an horrific trek by 10,000 prisoners made in snow and temperatures as low as -25C from the former Stalag Luft III camp – renowned the world over as the setting for the Great Escape – and the town of Spremberg, where the march ended in January 1945.

The recreation is intended to raise awareness of the prisoners’ plight – and funds for military charities.

Among those braving the harsh temperatures – though not expected to be as low as 1945, one of the coldest winters in Europe in the 20th Century – is James Castle, inspired by his RAF aviator great uncle and Fleet Air Arm pilot John Kiddell from his home village of Hartfield, in East Sussex.

Stalag Luft III,­ on the outskirts of the small Silesian town of Sagan (today Żagań in Poland), a dedicated camp for fliers – not just RAF and US Army Air Force personnel, but also Fleet Air Arm aviators, many captured during the opening months of the war.

Among them was future Carry On film star Peter Butterworth, actor Rupert Davies who was a mainstay of British TV in the 60s as Inspector Maigret and Lieutenant Kiddell, shot down on a raid against Schiphol airfield near Amsterdam in July 1940.

In the film, Kiddell served as the inspiration for the fictional character Ives – played by Scottish actor Angus Lennie – who suffers a mental breakdown and is shot trying to escape by scaling the fence in broad daylight. 

A pilot with 825 Naval Air Squadron, John Kiddell struggled with his mental health in captivity and was shot dead aged 24 in July 1943 – either for trying to sneak under the wire or by refusing to come down from the hospital roof.

Mr Castle’s great uncle Tony Parsons arrived at the camp in January 1943 and was still there when it was evacuated two years later.

When the Red Army’s winter offensive threatened to overrun Germany’s eastern provinces in January 1945, the Nazis ordered prison and concentration camps evacuated and the inmates sent west – almost always on foot – as potential forced labour for industry to sustain the Third Reich’s dying economy.

The prisoners were utterly unprepared for the treks – known variously as ‘death march’, ‘the long march’ or simply ‘the march’. They lacked suitable clothing or food, overnight accommodation was rudimentary (factories, school buildings, warehouses), and the guards were merciless; men too weak/ill to continue were simply left to their fate by the roadside.

It took the captured airmen seven days to march the 60 miles to Spremberg, where they were packed into cattle trucks and shipped to camps across Germany by train, mainly to Bavaria.

No accurate records were kept, but based on the death rates among other Allied prisoner convoys at the same time, it’s likely at least 120 men died on the Stalag Luft III trek.

The recreation march, organised by the museum which now preserves the prison camp, will be condensed into three days.

Mr Castle, who’ll be marching carrying the standard of – and raising funds for – the Defence Medical Welfare Service will use the opportunity to pay homage to Lt Kiddell at the former prison camp, before stepping out in memory of the 10,000 marchers alongside Americans, Canadians and fellow Brits.

“The original March started in a -20C blizzard,” said Mr Castle “I doubt it will be this cold with global warming, but I hope that we will be doing it in the snow – I would like to have a minor experience of what they endured.”

You can support his fundraising efforts – the DMWS provides welfare support to serving personnel/veterans and Forces families – via https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/dmwsthelongmarch

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