As temperatures drop the week of Remembrance Day, Vernon’s Brent Applegath thinks back to the Second World War and the conditions his prisoner of war (POW) father, Thomas Alan Applegath, faced near the end of the conflict.
Wretched. Awful. Terrible. Horrible. You can’t go wrong with any of those words to describe what Applegath and about 1,500 other POWs faced from the Germans.
Applegath, from West Vancouver, was a Pilot Officer with the Royal Canadian Air Force who signed up voluntarily for the war. He and seven others were shot down in their Lancaster plane over Belgium in late 1944.
Applegath parachuted to the ground at speeds of 20-to-30 miles per hour, and was captured by the Germans. His pilot died, two airmen escaped and the rest joined him at POW camp.
He was believed to have been sent to Dulag Luft 7 – Dulag Lufts collection and interrogation centres for newly captured airmen before they were sent to permanent camps.
Joe Walkty, a Canadian airman, served as interpreter and spokesman for Dulag Luft 7 POW residents. He documented life in the camp in a diary, excerpts of which were published in a Canadian newspaper in September 1945.
On Jan. 21, 1945, prisoners were awakened at 3:30 a.m., told to pack their bags, and prepare to march 150 miles in one of the most brutal German winters on record to Stalag IIIA in Sagan. Applegath was one of 1,565 men counted by the Germans, put into sections of 500+ men each.
The march, wrote Walkty, lasted until Feb. 8, when they arrived at their new Stalag. Along the way, they marched in knee-deep snow, had the air “cutting their faces like knives,” the wind was “blizzard speed,” and the weather was “extremely cold.”
Walkty wrote: “As a result of the march and the deplorable conditions, the morale of the men was extremely low. They all suffered from extreme malnutrition. In the hospital, there were 69 cases of dysentery, 20 of frostbite, 23 of septic foot, 40 cases of diarrhoea, eight of bronchitis, 25 of muscular rheumatism and numerous other ailments.”
There were also 150 men counted in the barracks suffering from malnutrition, too weak to stand on the parades. Conditions at the new Stalag were poor. There were 400 men crowded into spaces that normally accommodated half that many. No beds were provided. Men slept on the floor, so close together “it was impossible to move.” No clothing or shoes could be procured at this camp.
Like many veterans, Thomas rarely talked about his war stories upon returning home. He did, however, have fierce battles with the youngest of his three sons at the dining room table.
“We had to eat everything on our plate. I refused to eat things because I hated them,” said Brent, 68, a retired teacher who has lived in Vernon for more than a quarter-century. “Then, mercifully, we got a dog and the dog would eat the food if it had butter on it. But with my dad, it all stemmed from his time in the camp and the march.
“Provisions were terrible. They had very little food. They were starving to death. They’d go into the local fields and foraged for the vegetables and things the villages would throw out for cattle or pigs.
“They got horrible dysentery as they were eating stuff covered with fecal matter.”
His dad never waited in line, either, because of the camps. “If it was a movie or the PNE, and there were lineups, he wouldn’t go,” said Brent.
“He’d say, ‘I used to wait in line for toilet paper. I’ll be f—-ed if I’m ever going to wait in line again.’”
Thomas and others were freed from the POW camp at the end of the war. He ended up breaking into a commandant’s office after the Germans left the camp in the middle of the night with Russian troops approaching, and stole his records which were on file, not wanting them to fall into Russian hands. Brent has those records in his collection.
When he got out of the POW camp, Thomas weighed 90 pounds.
He could slide his wristwatch up his arm to his armpit. He suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
“He tried hard not to drink heavily,” said Brent.
“But there was no reaching out. No help for veterans. The expectation was, this was your lot in life, suck it up and deal with it. I don’t think anybody managed to deal with it.”
Thomas forged a career in the finance industry, working in savings and loans for family friends at – of all places – a Volkswagen dealership in Vancouver. Brent said it was one of the hardest things his father had to do post-war.
“He’d go to work and listen to the technicians talk in their German accents,” said Brent.
“He wasn’t a prejudicial man but that imprint was pretty strong.”
Thomas died in 2000 after an accident at the family cabin north of Kamloops. He was 76.
Brent hopes sharing his dad’s story gives people an appreciation of what happened to prisoners of war.
“Not just that they went to jail but they had no idea what was happening with the war. The mental abuse they suffered, especially in their 18 months of incarceration,” he said.
“These air force guys were 18-to-24 years old.
“How many people do you trust with a car between 18-24? These guys are taking off in bombers en masse.
“At 25 or 26, you were the old man. They gave that much of their life.
“Ask privileged kids today to give up four years of your life with an expectation you’d probably die, I doubt you’d have a lot of people complying.”
Veterans of all conflicts will be remembered throughout the North Okanagan at Remembrance Day ceremonies Friday, Nov. 11.
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roger@vernonmorningstar.com
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