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Private J. D. Caves: The Long Journey Home

Excerpt from Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War

Excerpt from Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War

This passage describes how the POWs taken at the Second Battle of Ruweisat Ridge, including Denis, travelled to Benghazi and ultimately to Italy.

Those taken at El Mreir on the morning of 22 July had an exhausting march back to a plateau, where they were left in the blazing sun without food or water. A soldier's diary runs:

"A scorching sun beat down on the shimmering rock. To lie was unbearable. To stand and feel the barely discernible breeze from the sea was impossible for more than a few seconds. Our legs were too weak to bear the weight of our bodies…. Chaps were offering watches for a cup of water."

Eventually transport came and took them to the prisoner-of-war cage at Daba. Many felt that the wearying marches back without food or water were intended to make sure that no one was in a fit state to regain his freedom by walking away.

The first stop for transport bringing back prisoners was the British cage at Daba, now in German hands-a piece of the desert enclosed by barbed wire. To men parched and some almost insensible from the exhaustion of their twenty-mile trek across the desert, the cool evening sea breeze restored some life. Officers and men were separated, there was usually another search, and an issue of half a mug of water and a few ounces of biscuit. Most men had no hunger, some had not even the necessary saliva to masticate food; for the most part they lay on the soft sand of the pen and tried to sleep. Many knew that this would be their best chance of escape-barely thirty miles from their own lines-but few had the physical resources to attempt it.

From Daba back to Benghazi prisoners were taken in large Italian trucks, sometimes in trailers, and often packed so tightly that it was only possible to stand. The journey by the coastal road took some four or five days, with stops at night wherever there was a barbed-wire pen to hold the prisoners. There was some kicking and the use of rifle butts by Italian guards, and the ration of biscuit and bully page 68

Letter sent to Denis' parents from Mrs Ada Gush in Taranaki

"Dear Sir, in case you didn't hear or receive word of a broadcast tonight from Italy (Vatican), I am writing to let you know that the name of Pte. J. Caves came over as a P.O.W. I am sorry there were no messages or camp number. If you haven't yet received letters I do hope it won't be long now. Hoping for an early peace and victory."

beef was all too little; but after the tortures of thirst during the first two days of captivity, men felt that so long as there was a reasonable amount of water they had something to be thankful for. The more fortunate were allowed to swim at Sollum or to wallow at a water point en route.

The compound at Mersa Matruh in Italian hands was the first place where thirsts were really slaked, and men were then able to take more interest in the dry rations that were issued. Some were interrogated here and, as at almost every staging point, there was a search; not many valuables remained in the possession of prisoners by the end of the journey. As at other staging camps, most men had only shirt and shorts to sleep in.

Tobruk's large prisoner-of-war compound was on the escarpment at the edge of the aerodrome. A prisoner gives his first impression on debussing:

"Seen through clouds of racing dust it seemed a hopeless confusion, shanties, blanket-huts, tin shelters and tents all higgelty-piggelty and strung together with string and rope. There was a babel of tongues and a confusion of outlandish figures and dresses-South African Blacks, Indians, Gurkas, Siamese, Springboks, Tommies and Kiwis were living together, cheek-by-jowl. All conventional values were gone. The private no longer deferred to his officer nor black man to white."

There were further staging camps at Derna and Barce, with groundsheet tents at the former and huts at the latter. At Derna an Italian commandant with 'reprisal mania' kept the prisoners short of water, allowed guards to loot and bully, and generally kept conditions as uncivilised as possible. At Barce a well-disposed commandant did all he could to provide them with necessities and to see the sick properly cared for. From Derna most of the officers were flown to Lecce, in Italy.

The end of their journey brought most of the other ranks to a camp a few kilometres south-east of Benghazi in a small stony wadi with steep sides, about 50 yards wide and 350 yards long. An oasis thickly planted with tall, shady date palms, it became known to the prisoners as the 'Palm Tree camp'. There were two main compounds, one for Free French and coloured troops and the other for British, the latter an area of about two and a half acres, which soon held over a thousand prisoners and a little later 2600. Within the wire there were buildings for a cookhouse, storehouse and orderly room; there were also bivouac groundsheets for page 69about 500 men, numbers of which were grouped together to form makeshift shelters somewhat after the fashion of sprawling bedouin tents.

Barbed-wire fences lined the tops of the gully sides, and the guards 'looked down on [the prisoners] as though it was a bear pit'. There was no sand and men slept on stones or hard rock with a top layer of dirt, many without coat or groundsheet; during the camp's most crowded period 'you could hardly step between the bodies' at night. Fleas and mosquitoes helped to make rest difficult. Latrines were dug on the slopes, but space was limited and there were always too few; in time the sewage seeped down into the central sleeping and eating area and a constant stench hung about the windless wadi. The place was partly redeemed by a plentiful supply of water from a spring, and there were even cold showers of a kind.

The food compared favourably with that of other transit camps: in the morning sweetened black substitute coffee, a quarter pound of tinned meat and more than half a pound of bread of inferior quality, and at night a cup of rice stew and half a lemon. Men brought some variety into their daily meals by cooking up the various elements of the ration, until the commandant placed a ban on fires to prevent the camp buildings disappearing as fuel. The one cookhouse which served the whole camp was difficult to control; unguarded rations quickly disappeared and others were sold at exorbitant prices, for under such circumstances money and treasure lose their value by comparison with food. Most men derived too little nourishment from the diet and became weak and listless. A great number soon had dysentery, spread by the swarms of flies, and there were never-ending queues for the latrines day and night. It was fortunate that there were British doctors at the camp to do what they could with the limited medical supplies for the hundreds of cases of digestive disorders and desert sores which daily lined up for treatment.

There were a number of books which circulated by a system of barter, and a few men had packs of cards or made them from cigarette cartons. Some made draughtboards, and chessmen from green dates or the rubber fittings of a steel helmet. Men talked over their capture and experiences in this campaign or in others. Some were bitter about their capture: 'It's hardly worth fighting for people who use you as an anti-tank weapon.' Others were more philosophical: 'Not having a clear perspective of the whole show, I shall not attempt to judge'. Apart from those on the war, there were endless discussions on food and the possibilities of escape. Rumours swept the camp periodically about a British breakthrough or the interception by the Royal Navy of ships taking prisoners across to Italy. At night some men found it possible, while gazing at the brilliant stars and moon through waving palm-fronds, to forget the filth and misery of the camp and substitute a romantic picture of happier circumstances.

In August and September the POWs were transferred from Benghazi to Italy, some via Tripoli to Naples but mostly from Benghazi to Bari. This journey was both unpleasant, as POWs were shipped in the holds of merchant ships, and fraught with danger as the POW transport ships became targets for the RAF and Royal Navy. The Nino Bixio, carrying thousands of POWs, was torpedoed and, while it didn't sink, many POWs were killed.

Denis nearly travelled on the Nino Bixio.