HK Aftermath in Europe

Aftermath in Europe

On the way up in Holland, we came across a barbed wire enclosure that was a German concentration camp. The inhabitants looked like scarecrows. I was so shocked that I couldn’t stick around. After the war, we rounded up all the displaced people in that part of Germany. We put them in camps and it was my regiment’s job to guard them. In our DP camp, there were murders every night. The DP’s came mostly from Ukraine. They had been taken by the Germans during their occupation of the Ukraine into Germany to be forced labor. Now, they were to be shipped back home. Only they did not want to go back. The Russians considered them as collaborators and execution waited for these returnees.

Our next job was to bring the German prisoners from Holland back to Germany. There were about a million of them. The Canadian Army prepared barbed-wire enclosures every 25 miles from Amsterdam to Oldenburg, a distance of around 500 miles. Each camp had a field kitchen. They were divided into lots of 1000 men and they would each be moved to the next camp every day until they all reached Oldenburg. The guarding was done by our armored cars, one at the front and one at the back of the column. This exercise got a little tricky when we were going through towns with winding streets. This was particularly so in Germany where the inhabitants felt sorry for their returning soldiers and came to the street to offer water and food. They were a sorry-looking sight. Not at all the goose-stepping master race marching 16 abreast down the Champs Elysee.

During this period, I had a leave where I spent seven days in Scotland, five days in Paris and three days in Brussels.

Getting home from overseas was on a point system based on length of service. I was a comparative newcomer and had just over 50 points. Anyone under 50 points stayed in the army of occupation and the others had to wait their turn. The five-year veterans had over 200 points. One morning in June, I noticed an order in the Orderly Room for a clerical course in Aldershot in England. I volunteered to get back to good old England.