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The Death March from Hell

Maurice Jones was born at 71 Trench Road on 25th November 1923. Before his parents moved there the house had been a pub. It was called ‘The Greyhound’, and had its own spring that was drawn upon for brewing. But Maurice’s father renamed the house ‘Rewa’, after the hospital ship on which he had returned home from his WWI injuries in North Africa. The Germans torpedoed the ship, but all 700 men except the engine stokers survived.

Outside the army, Maurice’s father, Ernest, was a shoemaker in Wellington, and his grandfather a stonemason who helped carve the facade of Shrewsbury Station. But Maurice has been unable to trace many details of his great grandfather – there are just too many Jones to choose from!

From an early age Maurice wanted to join the county regiment and as soon as he was 19 – like his father, grandfather and great grandfather before him - he joined the 1st Battalion of the Kings Shropshire Light Infantry (KSLI). He had become the fourth generation of his family to serve their King, Queen and Country.

The 1st Battalion earned great respect during WWII. They were among the first troops to be sent to France, they suffered the first British casualty of the war, and they were the last battalion to retreat from Dunkirk in 1940.

After Dunkirk the battalion spent a couple of years in the UK, which was when Maurice joined them, and then they went to Italy. Here, on an October night in 1944, Maurice and a small troop of men tried to creep up on the Germans position that was defending the rugged mountain terrain of Monte Ceco.

“It was a risk, but it was worth a gamble”, says Maurice. But the men were spotted in the moonlit night and in the morning they found themselves trapped in some farm buildings. So they surrendered and were taken to a Prisoner of War (POW) camp in Labinowice, Poland.

Life at the camp was very basic, and there was a strict daily routine. The day began with a roll call soon after 6am. After that the POWs were usually sent out to work, clearing rubble from air raids. Their daily rations were a loaf of black bread shared between four men (three at Christmas) and a very small portion of margarine. Soup or sauerkraut was served twice a day, at 11am and 3pm. That was it.

Break from the routine was rare. But someone had got hold of a radio, and they gathered around it every day to listen the BBC news. And on his 21st birthday Maurice’s fellow POWs surprised him with a small cake, some biscuits and sultanas that they had saved up from their Red Cross Parcels.

“Conditions were nothing like Colditz, on TV, which was an officers’ camp and where we all wanted to go”, says Maurice. But, like Colditz, the POWs survived by niggling at the Germans in whatever ways they could. They would move around to confuse and annoy the guards whenever they were being counted, and when they were put to work they would deliberately do as little as possible. And the more Germans shouted at them the less they did.

Back in Wellington Maurice’s parents were worried that he had been killed, but in December 1944 they received news that he was thought to have been captured, and was a POW. His mother described the news as the best Christmas present she ever received.

But all was not over. One January morning in 1945, as the Russians approached Poland, the POWs were told to be ready in an hour’s time, carrying nothing but one blanket each. And with the temperature minus 35 °C they set off on what Maurice calls their 500-mile ‘Death March’. For 11 weeks they marched through the snow and freezing cold back towards Germany. The conditions were so awful that about 90% of the 5,000 soldiers died. But Maurice – who clung onto his life by exchanging his watch and fountain pen for four tiny crusts of bread - was one of the lucky few that survived. And aged 81 today, he is still alive to tell the tale.

The ordeal ended in early April 1945 – days that Maurice still remembers well. With rumours that the allies were sweeping through Europe their Germans captors suddenly ran off. Twenty-four hours later an American Sherman tank come up the road, and the POWs were free. By now they were desperately hungry, but the only food the first American solider had were some pickled gherkins! Later, however, they were given white bread and donuts. And that night, for the first time in years, they went to sleep in a bed with sheets!

Within ten days Maurice was back in England, starting six months recuperation in the Royal Shrewsbury Infirmary, where he was diagnosed with frostbite, malnutrition and jaundice. During his stay he remembers being visited by the Mayor of Shrewsbury, who gave him a cigar, and Miss Shropshire. And on Victory in Europe Day, 8th May 1945, he heard the bells of St Mary’s Church ringing out loud to celebrate.

His parents were thrilled to have their only child alive and back home again and put a notice in their front window. It read, ‘We have to thank the Red Cross for the return of our son who was only kept alive by Red Cross parcels. Your contributions have helped.’

Much to Maurice’s frustration he never got fit enough to return to the KSLI, so he joined the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in Donnington. But he was well enough to take part in the Victory Parade in London, in 1946, which was attended by Churchill, the Royal Family and millions of relieved and jubilant Britons.

In 1953 Maurice married Vera Anthony, whose father was the Headmaster of Ketley School. By now he had left the army and embarked on 25 years with the police - first in London and then in Birmingham. And for the last 12 yeas before he retired he was Curator of the Shropshire Regimental Museum. “It was the best job of my life”, says Maurice, who is author of a shelf wide of books, published and unpublished, on his family’s army experiences, the KSLI, military music, and more. “But goodness knows what’s going to happen to it all.”

And whether your interest is military, historical or social, the museum is well worth a visit – telling the story of 250 years of bravery by Shropshire soldiers, not just during WWII.

The Shropshire Regimental Museum, in Shrewsbury Castle, is open 10-4, Tuesday to Saturday (But closed for the winter from 4th October)

You can read more soldiers’ wartime memories on the BBC web site, ‘A Nation at War’, www.bbc.co.uk/ww2

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