Tommy was training at BTC No. 12 in Chatham when he was given leave to visit family in Zone Centre, Kent Co., ON. Tommy came home from Camp Ipperwash with Cpl. Florence DeLaunney for a short leave in March of 1943. BT 4/03/43. BT 5/11/42. Tommy was reported returning to London, ON. after 4 days leave. CDN 31/08/45.

It was reported in the “Zone” column that Thomas, who had been a POW in Germany since 7 June, 1944 (D-Day +1) was reported as safe in England.

Reported returning from overseas duty aboard the vessel Queen Mary docking at New York City.       (CDN 11-07-1945)

The following story is courtesy of Son, Tim Humphrey.

ADVENTURES AS A PRISONER OF WAR

Story told to a company publication called Somerville Industries, London ON in 1948:

TOM HUMPHREY PASSED THROUGH SOME GRIM EXPERIENCES WHEN HE WAS TAKEN PRISONER BY THE GERMANS..
Tom Humphrey, one of the Cafeteria staff,
Tom enlisted in the North Nova Scotia Highlanders in September of 1941 (A102978), went overseas in March of the intensive following year. After training in England, his regiment went to France in the “D-Day” assault, forming part of the advanced elements of the invasion forces. In the fighting around Caen, two platoons of the N.N.S. Regiment pushed too far ahead of the advance, and were surrounded by the enemy and surrendered. Tom Humphrey was with one of the platoons, and life began to get rugged for him and others from the moment of his capture.

The German troops stripped the prisoners of anything valuable like watches, pens, wallets, rings and the like, then hustled them back to Caen. The mood of the enemy soldiers was ugly in the extreme and at Caen, 15 of Tom’s fellow-prisoners were taken aside and shot down in cold blood. These Germans were part of the Hitler Youth Panzer Division commanded by General Kurt Meyer who, after the war, was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the brutalities witnessed by Tom Humphrey. Tom himself was so severely kicked and beaten by his captors probably because he was an N.C.O. that he was knocked unconscious and had to be carried by his mates for several days.

The prisoners were marched from Caen to an improvised camp at Rennes, a town out 100 miles way. They continued their journey on foot, prodded by the bayonets of their surly guards and, to crown their bad luck were strafed by America fighter-planes during the journey. A dozen prisoners fell by the bullets of their allies who, from the air, mistook them for a column of German infantry. After a month at Rennes, where a number of prisoners were gathered, Tom was crowded into a boxcar with 50 others. He was 32 days in the car, living on black bread and infrequent rations of water until, at last, he was placed in Stalag IV-B at Muhlenberg in Germany. In this camp he met other captured members of his unit and were badly mistreated too, as they can testify.

They had been shifted from place to place and left on sidings for days on end because the enemy lacked the transport to move them to a prison-camp, It must be remembered that the European boxcars are only half the size of those used in Canada. What such a car would be like after a month, with very little ventilation and tightly-closed doors, can be imagined. The Nova Scotia boys told the story that 30 men had died of wounds and suffocation in one of the cars and the bodies had to be piled at one end of the car because the doors were never opened. Three more days in a boxcar followed, and on this trip the train was attacked by Allied bombers, which were striking at every bit of transport in German territory at that time. One of the train cars was hit by a bomb and several prisoners killed. Others took advantage of the confusion to escape.

The German guards grew excited; remaining prisoners from the smashed cars were shot! Once they arrived at the Prisoner of war camp they where given prisoner numbers. When Tom arrived at Stalag IV-B, beatings and shootings were almost a daily occurrence, As a punishment for stepping out of line, there was solitary confinement and the cell was an underground dugout measuring three feet square by about four and one-half feet high! It was lined with concrete but the Germans had draped the walls with barbed wire, “just to make it more comfortable for sleeping,” you would be fed a slice of black bread and a glass of water once every two days. The days were Hot and did not see daylight cramped in a concrete box to small to stand or stretch out in and unable to lean against the walls because of the barbed wire, But as the invasion forces pushed into Germany, treatment of the prisoners improved. In the camp were French, Russian and Serbian prisoners, and over 6000 of these were the Red Army.

The food was nothing short of atrocious, the prisoners receiving a sort of soup or skilly”, made of boiled water with cabbage or pumpkin mashed into it, and one slice of black bread per day. On special days this ration was augmented by the addition of two or three under-sized potatoes, but the potatoes were often rotten, just as the bread was mouldy. “If it hadn’t been for the Red Cross parcels,” Tom maintains, “many of us would have died of malnutrition.” As it was, numbers of the weak and injured did die.
Tom Humphrey in March, 1945, was moved to Dresden with a group of prisoners and put to work in a German sawmill. After a month of comparatively good treatment, he was moved to a small town in Czech o-Slovakia, where the Germans had converted an unused salt mine as a prison base. The place was also an enemy transport depot for the district and, soon after Tom’s arrival, a force of American aircraft came over to bomb and strafe the concentration of vehicles which were close to the mine. The guards ran for cover and about 200 prisoners took the opportunity to make a break for freedom, Tom among them. He teamed up with another Canadian and two Irishmen from the British Army: they managed to hide out in the nearby forests for three days, getting occasional meals from sympathetic Czechs until the four men stumbled into a woodcutting party under an armed German guard. Taken by surprise, the escapees were recaptured and taken back to the salt mine. A week later, Tom and two of the men escaped again. They had found an air-shaft leading from their section of the mine to the surface and, one foggy morning, crawled along it to attempt a second break. The German guards had grown very lax as they saw defeat ahead, and Tom and his mates made a clean getaway. They walked the country to Carlsbad, Germany where they reached the America lines. It sounds like a simple operation, but it took the last ounce of strength from Tom and his two partners. They were in the last stage exhaustion and their boots had to become tattered leather. They were able to cross the country without hindrance because they wore the overcoats and beret of a French collaborationist labour unit. A number of these Frenchmen were prisoners in the mine and since they were sympathetic to the German cause, were allowed to wander about during the day. Tom and his friends borrowed greatcoats and caps from three collaborationist s before escaping from the mine, and managed to pass as Nazi sympathizers themselves. In fact, they passed a column of retreating S.S. troops one day and the Germans called out, advising the three they had better turn around, unless they wanted to be captured by the Americans. After reaching the U.S. lines, Tom was flown to England, where he was hospitalized for six weeks. He had lost 60 pounds of his 130 pound body during his captivity, and it took a further eight months in Westminster Hospital (London, Canada) to recover completely from his experiences.
Tom Humphrey wasn’t very happy about the talk concerning the next war. He suffered, and thousands like him died, and it’s hard to think that many wouldn’t be scared mentally for life.

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Sources	CDN (25/05/45), Courtesy of Tim Humphrey, Son, Somerville Industries, London ON, CDN (11-07-1945)
Supplemental Information	The son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred & M. Humphrey, the second of four sons from Bothwell, ON.

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