Description
Mr. Weir describes bribing a guard to help them with their long walk.
John Weir
Mr. Weir was born in Toronto on July 22, 1919. His father was DSO MC in the First World War, a colonel. He was machine gunner in the 19th Battalion, and was gassed at Vimy and suffered from then on with asthma. After seeing the horrific pictures of the trench warfare from his father's service, Mr. Weir decided to join the Air Force rather than serve in the trenches. He joined the service the day after war was declared and began his training in Winnipeg. He started off as a pilot officer-provisional but wanted to be a fighter pilot. During his service, Mr. Weir was shot down in Barth and captured. He was a prisoner in a Gestapo jail, and was involved in "The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III". He was moved to various prison camps and witnessed atrocities of the Holocaust. He eventually escaped on a forced-march from Bremerhaven to Lübbecke by bribing a German guard.
Transcript
We were to walk to Lübbecke. And I was really concerned, I said, whether they would feed us, or could feed us. Cause it was, it was pretty evident the war was over. So, I had been taming a goon up at, in Bremerhaven ever since we went up there, giving him a little coffee, a little sugar, a little chocolate maybe a cigarette here and there, and getting information or "buying him". And so the first night out on our walk, it was raining cats and dogs, we built a mud hut, a sod hut. The four of, there were six of us, eight of us I guess. And we were the only ones that were dry I think, in the place. And I said, "I will see you guys in a little while", and I went out and I found this guy. And I said, "I'll cut a deal," in fluent German of course, I said, "We will sign, there'll be four of us, and we will all sign a letter of amnesty so you won't have to go to a cage, you'll go straight home." And he said, "Yeah." And I said, "In exchange for that, we want a farm two-wagon cart, a horse, a driver and you are to be our guard with your gun and anytime it looks like somebody's going to question you, you turn your gun on us, and the story is you are taking us to a prisoner of war camp in Lübbecke." And he said, "I'll think about it." And I said, "Well, think about it right now, because," I said, "If it isn't you I'm gonna get somebody else." He said, "I'll think about it." So I said, "Okay, I've got the mud hut over there, 4 o'clock's when we want to take off in the morning." Cause we can go the rest of the night and all of the next day and we would get well ahead, because there were over 2,000 of the guys, and I figured they couldn't be fed.