Private Leonard Murphy
Unit : The Welch Regiment
Served : North Africa (captured)
Army No. : 3970504
POW No. : 221683
Camps : P.G. 65, P.G. 53, Stalag VIIIB / 344 (E711 / E711A Heydebreck)
Len Murphy was born on the 31st March 1920, and enlisted in the Welch Regiment on the 20th June 1940. He was from Plumstead, London, and had worked as a butter blender. He was captured at Benghazi on the 29th February 1942. He was at P.G. 65 from April 1942 to May 1943, and then P.G. 53 until June 1943. He was transferred to Stalag VIIIB in September 1943, and thereafter, according to his POW questionnaire, worked as a labourer at E711 Heydebreck until January 1945, although his account below, courtesy of the National Ex-Prisoner of War Association, names it as E711A.
Humorous Moments
A few funny things that happened on the way to the forum. Don't get me wrong, we did not have a wonderful time.
One day quite a number of us were back in camp early and decided to have a game of football. I was in goal, when the German Sgt Major who had been watching decided to take part, pushing me out of the goal and taking my place, well the lads all thought this was funny and after a while decided to kick the ball at him, after several goes Peg Leg as he was known got his revolver pointed it at the lads and said, "the next one who tries to score will be shot". We all thought it was rather funny, but thought better of it, we did know that he was joking.
Another time we were working on a particular job which was digging out silt from a pit similar in size to a small swimming bath, about 6 metres wide and 10 metres long (approximately). There were 21 of us, so we were allocated one metre per man, dig it out and load on to a railway wagon, accord arbeit (piece work). It sounded good so we started, finished and back camp before midday. Come about the fourth day things got worse. We were split into groups one lot shovelling to three other groups so at 5 o'clock we decided to go on strike, the guard sent back to camp, and out come Peg Leg (the Gerry Sgt Major). I was promoted to act as interpreter, I explained as best I could that the work had become too hard to finish, meanwhile the others were gassing away he could hear them, although he could not fully understand that they were saying he knew enough, so he drew his revolver and said, in German "all those not working over there, and all workers over here," Needless to say we all went over here, we had to carry on working till 9 o'clock. When we got back to camp every[one] was waiting and cheered us in.
The following morning we went to march out to work as usual but as we got to the gate Peg Leg was waiting, he turned us back into camp and gave us a day off.
What a pity that there weren't a few more like him.
True or False
First to put in the picture I must explain that when we got Red Cross food parcels we wanted quantity not quality, so we used to swap coffee or tea or such like for bread, with the civilians in the factory. But in camp we had a barter system, too complicated to go into detail here, however we used to swap a sponge pudding for 10 cigarettes, or 2 tins of diced carrots, or 2 tins of peas, etc etc.
The story is that on the other side of the canal that ran down the side of the factory site, there was this house that was set back in the woods, which according to rumour was a house of ill repute, set up for the civilian workers.
Apparently so the story goes (knowing our squaddies I don't disbelieve it) a couple of the lads got over, surreptitiously entering by the back door, after a short period as they were leaving a girl called one of them back and gave him a tin of peas change. Everything has its price.
Often when we had a Canadian parcel, we used the large packet of biscuits to make a cake, which was passed around the room, with lots of ooohs and aarrrs, the heavier it weighed the better it was appreciated.
At 6.30am one morning we were waiting for our guard to come, when a little chap about 5 foot tall appeared carrying a rifle longer than he was and said, with a Yankee twang, "Say youse fellows where's Kommando 21", (this was our working party) of course we were all surprised and all talking at once, he said, "I came to Germany on a holiday, and they whipped me into the Army."
It turned out to be a good thing for us, after this anything we wanted to smuggle out, he carried in his haversack, things we wanted to swap with the civilians for bread mostly, also he would warn us of any searches.
Another time I went sick, which is quite a palaver in itself. Trying to explain your particular ailment to somebody that doesn't understand you, so Peg Leg duly entered my name in his book, and we spent the rest of the day picking up paper, leaves, etc etc. Sometime after this, it was on a Sunday, about 2 foot of snow lay around about, we had no fires because we had no coal, everybody is freezing. Peg Leg appeared in the camp seemingly to be going from hut to hut getting various people out, everybody is curious until he comes to our hut. In he came looking all around spotted me and said "Murphy outside". Well my heart fell in my boots as the saying goes, once outside we fell in and marched out of the camp, nobody had any idea of what was going to happen, we marched about a mile, until we got to a railway siding, our job was to unload coal for the camp. Another side of this particular German.
The Kommandant in charge of our camp, was said to be a gentleman farmer, we also had an Under Officer (we thought he was a bit feminine). We also had two Australian sargents looking after us. One particular morning we were on roll call, the officer heard one of the lads talking about him, a bit of a do started and the officer drew out his revolver, with that the bloke ran, with the officer waving his pistol running after him, in and out of the huts, with all of us cheering like mad. It all ended happily.
When the air raids started on one particular day, against all orders we ran into the forest and spent the next couple of hours, picking blue berries. When we got back to camp, Peg Leg was waiting outside and started chiding us by waving his arm up and down, then when we got closer he pointed to our lips, saying, "You have been blue berry picking".
p.s. Don't say why didn't we escape, we weren't prepared.