By December 1944, Stalag Luft III was overcrowded and prisoners, who had long relied on Red Cross parcels to supplement their poor rations from their Luftwaffe captors, were down to half a parcel, per man, per week. Bruce Lumsden, a navigator from 195 Squadron, whose Lancaster had crashed in Allied territory in early November 1944, found himself in Stalag Luft III’s Belaria satellite compound, settling into one of the 12 barrack-type huts which contained five 20 foot square rooms, with a smaller one for the block leader (dubbed by his underlings, the Blockhead).
Lumsden’s new quarters was
crammed with six three-tiered bunks, a table with eighteen stools, a bench-top
cupboard to store food, and a cast iron stove which, if there were any briquettes
on offer, would heat the room. His bed, in an overcrowded space, in an
overcrowded camp where he would never be truly alone, was his ‘own small piece
of territory’.
Lumsden joined seventeen others
in Room 7, Block 18. They were a mixed bunch of seven RAF men, five from the
USAAF, one South African, one Canadian, one New Zealander, and three
Australians. As well as adjusting to captivity, they had to learn to live with
each other. John Dack of 463 Squadron, one of the other Australians, had a head
start. He had been captured with his crew member, Canadian Frank Major and had
met Lumsden at the interrogation centre. Cy Borsht, another Australian and also
from 463 Squadron, had been lost on the same operation as Dack and Major. Dack
recalled that ‘Cy is much shorter than me and we were known as Mutt and Jeff.
I’m not sure who was which. He had the ability to bring people together in
quite close relationships’. Generally speaking, Borsht succeeded but it was
very much an eternal joint effort to maintain cordiality. There was one squeaky
wheel—‘an overbearing character’—one of the Americans. But, as in any family,
he was tolerated, because ‘he was one of us’.
Each room was called a ‘mess’.
The inhabitants pooled their Red Cross parcels and scrupulously shared
everything out. Everyone in the mess had his own task. Some groups rotated the
jobs, others designated them permanently to the individuals. Although he had no
great aptitude for it, Lumsden agreed to be his mess’s cook. To volunteer for
such a position was particularly courageous. If he failed, the mess starved. Happily,
he proved more than competent in his new role. Dack remembered that meal times
were ‘generally very pleasant social occasions, mainly due to Bruce’s patience
and understanding, and above all, his ability to make things palatable.’
Long term prisoners had
hoped that the war would be over by Christmas. By the time Lumsden arrived, it
was all too obvious that that would not be the case. Lumsden and his new
friends soon set about planning their Christmas dinner. Old stagers had been
planning for months. They had saved up little titbits from when the Red Cross parcels
had been plentiful and some had already had quite a good store cupboard of festive
niceties. Lumsden’s mess, however, ‘were the newest kriegies’, with few stored
up supplies, because ‘desperate hunger drove us to eat every crumb and morsel
of our meagre rations’. Lumsden worried if it would be possible, ‘from our
slender resources, to place on the table on Christmas Day a meal that even
slightly resembled a traditional Christmas Dinner?’ Somehow, they would do it.
Nobby Clarke, who, as ‘quartermaster’,
was in charge of the pantry, started eking out their rations even more
stringently. He sliced the bread thinner, he scraped the margarine so finely
that the bread had barely a covering. He swiped the tastiest items from the
parcels before Lumsden could even start planning his next meal. Somehow, almost
miraculously, the ‘goon rations’ one day included semolina and molasses, and a
Christmas parcel from the American Red Cross arrived full of nutritional ‘wealth
beyond our wildest dreams’.
The most precious items
in Nobby Clarke’s pantry were the ingredients for the Christmas pudding. In a
recipe that bears no resemblance whatsoever to anything from my family cook
book, Lumsden mixed together crumbled crusts of Reich bread, a chocolate D-bar,
semolina, crumbled American biscuits, raisins, prunes, sugar, molasses,
margarine, Klim powdered milk, four 4 cups of pre-cooked barley, a tin of orange
juice, a spoonful of coffee and a pinch of salt.
When Lumsden had finished
blending the mixture—all 21 pounds of it—each man honoured the age old
tradition of stirring the pudding and making a wish. None revealed his wish—it
would not come true! But, as Lumsden recalled, decades later, ‘you may be sure
that the same wish came from every heart.’
Pudding stirred, wishes
completed, the mixture was poured into a calico bag, tied up, boiled for four
hours, and then hung from the rafters ‘to await the day’.
Lumsden also made a Christmas
cake from a combination of scrounged and saved camp ingredients and American
Red Cross largesse. Despite Lumsden’s lack of culinary skill, his mess had
faith in him. When the cake came out of the oven, ‘with the whole mess watching
eagerly, it looked and smelt superb!’
Pudding and cake sorted,
it was time to deck the halls, just like they, or their families would have
done if it had been a normal Christmas at home. Decorations were of the home
made variety and improvisation was the name of the game in a camp where every
man was trying to create a festive air with scant resources. Toilet paper was
turned into streamers, coloured by crayons, and were festooned from wall to
rafter. They saved white card from the Red Cross parcels and John Dack and Cy
Borsht, Room 7’s other Australians who had artistic talents (they were both
studying architecture) produced individual table menus. As much as they could, Lumsden
and his friends created a sense of home and celebration in the dingy prison room.
And then it was Christmas
day.
Each man who had arrived
in camp had experienced some sort of trauma—crash landing in flames; baling out;
battle wounds; death of comrades; survivor guilt—not to mention the despair of
being taken prisoner and assorted difficulties in adjusting to captivity. Each
man was older than his years and yet, to Lumsden, ‘the joy and excitement of
Christmas morning was close to child-like in its unabashed naiveté. It is not
possible to explain how war-hardened young men, locked up in a prison camp in
far-off eastern Europe in mid-winter could be so softened by the consciousness
that it was Christmas morning.’
After a breakfast that in
itself seemed a feast, morning appel and a short church service, they began
their preparations for their biggest meal since imprisonment. They decided not
to serve dinner until after the 3 o’clock roll call, so they wouldn’t be interrupted.
Lumsden started boiling the pudding at 1.30 pm and it ‘boiled merrily away at
the back and other pots and cooking dishes were in place’.
As he stood at the stove,
stirring and checking, and breathing in the aroma of a well-cooked and much
anticipated meal, Paul Louis … a most likeable American Jew and a friend of
mine’ asked if the deeply religious Lumsden would say grace before the meal.
Louis may not have shared Lumsden’s faith but he knew that Christmas was more than
just a religious celebration. It represented family and hope. ‘Somehow’,
Lumsden recalled, Louis ‘felt this was the most significant and should not be
omitted’. Even so, he was reluctant.
While imprisonment tested
the faith of many men, Lumsden had found succour, strength and comfort from the
Christian fellowship of a bible study and prayer group. They, however, were in
the minority and were, perhaps, treated as suspect by the majority: in a camp
which had developed its own language—‘kriegie-speak’—Lumsden and his friends
had their own entry in the camp lexicon: ‘god botherer’. Given this, ‘I
protested that other members of the mess might object. But he had already put
it to the company and the desire, he told me, was unanimous.’ Cy Borsht was one
who valued faith, regardless of creed. He and his close crew had worshipped
together. As Dack recalled, they took ‘turns to visit each other’s church, or,
in Cy’s case, the Synagogue.’
Lumsden ‘was much
touched.’ They may have come from all walks of life, but Lumsden’s mess had
formed their own family—symbolised as much as anything by the sharing of ‘household’
tasks, and the solemn stirring of the Christmas pudding—and they had much to be
grateful for, despite their situation. He accepted Louis’ invitation to say
grace.
And so, ‘…we rushed back
to the hut [after appel] hardly able to contain our excited anticipation. I
cannot remember the words I used in my grace, but I recall the quiet
participation of every man present, especially when I expressed our thoughts
for our homes and families and for our return to them soon’.
Grace said, very item on
the menu was carefully shared out eighteen ways. Then, tin plates laden, the
men ate and enjoyed the tantalising flavours. John Dack recalled that ‘not one
of us could possibly forget the emotions of that particular Christmas Day.’ He
believed that their memorable day had been because of the ‘character of one
man, and his ability to make us all feel as one. That is apart from his ability
to feed us.’ But each man in that mess had all played their part in creating a
small sense of home despite the difficulties of captivity: the ‘twice daily
appels, ablutions, discussions sometimes bordering on arguments, talking and
dreaming about food, trying to find something to read, anything to find relief
from the ever present boredom.’
Christmas is a day of sharing,
for remembering happy times, and for looking towards the future. When Cy Borsht
artistically rendered the Belaria ‘Xmas Bash’ in his wartime log book, illustrating
the Christmas tree, fully laden table and a smiling cook holding the plum
pudding, he made a slip of the pen. When he recorded the date, he noted it as 25
December 1945. Perhaps he was dreaming of a future Christmas, with the same
sense of happiness and festivity, but in a time of peace.
Peace would come, but not
for many months, and Lumsden and his friends would endure much hardship before
they returned home and to their own families. One thing was certain: ‘Every man
knew that as long as he lived, this had been a Christmas dinner that he would
never forget.’
This account of Christmas in Belaria for three Australians and their wartime companions is drawn from the recollections of Bruce Clyde Lumsden and Irwin John Dack. I would appreciate any assistance in locating their families. (The illustration comes from another source.)
I include a link for one of my favourite Christmas
carols. It is a newish version of The
Little Drummer Boy by my favourite singer and his Christmas guest. It
includes a special wish for the peace on earth that Bruce Lumsden, John Dack,
Cy Borsht and their comrades fought for.
