The Final Days

Fred Coulter

"The Germans were rounding up all of the POW's in Oberwart to take them back to Stalag 18A. Me and Ron, another POW, (This could be Ron Tudor) hid until they had gone. That night we walked back to Bernstein. At one point we walked right through an SS camp, but we got through alright.

When we got to Bernstein, we went to the castle. The old Count took us in and we stayed there for about a week until the Russians arrived. The villagers in Bernstein suffered a lot then.

To stop the Russians getting too drunk, the Count broke all of the wine bottles before they arrived and would only give them cider to drink. He gave me a bottle of whiskey, telling me that he had been a Hussar himself.

When the Russians left, they took me and Ron with them. They marched us East as far as Budapest, where we decided to escape as we were going in the wrong direction to get home. So we gave them the slip and walked back to Oberwart, where we were picked up by some New Zealanders looking for stragglers."

Eric Fearnside

"At four o'clock in the morning, we heard the cries, "Raus! Raus!" and we were tumbled out of bed for the last time at Wolfsberg. Shivering with cold on the parade ground, we were told by the Commandant that we were being evacuated to a safer area. Taking only essentials, we marched off into the unknown.

At first, the going was easy, but as we reached the mountains, it became more tiring. After twenty miles we lay down where we were. A chap in the engineer's shed at the camp had invented a little stove made from two tin cans soldered together, and we all had one, so it wasn't long before the darkness was lit by dozens of stoves brewing up.

We scrambled over the Tauern Pass, bitterly cold walking through snow; twenty miles every day for eleven days.

We finally arrived at Markt Pongau prison camp, where the German guards offered us their rifles. The date was the 10th of May, 1945. The war had been over for two days."

The Long March

The Germans had decided that as many British prisoners as possible should be moved from their camps in eastern Austria farther west into the Salzburg redoubt area. They were to move towards Markt Pongau or, if necessary, farther west towards Landek. On 13 April the Russian forces were in Vienna and some of the prisoners were already on the march. Towards the end of the month the sick and unfit left Stalag XVIIIA at Wolfsberg by train and nearly all the other British prisoners had already set off on foot. Those in the Arbeitskommandos to the south and east of Wolfsberg were also on the move. On 23 April a column of 400-odd from Wolfsberg arrived at Markt Pongau, and over the next few days hundreds of men poured into the camp. Some had come from as far as Graz and had been on the march for a week or two. Like those prisoners who had travelled south through Bavaria, they had been able to obtain a good deal of food from local farmers; they had found tramping across a pleasant countryside in the spring under such conditions a rather agreeable break from the routine of prisoner-of-war camp life.

(Prisoners of War: W. Wynne Mason)

The Route

Mrs L Crawte has sent me a remarkable record kept by her late husband, Sergeant Harold Crawte, of the places passed through and the distances traveled on each day of the march from Wolfsberg to Markt Pongau

Map of the route	Sgt Crawte's original document

In August, 2002 my son Chris and I drove along the route of the Long March from Wolfsberg to Markt Pongau (now St Johann im Pongau). A journey which took the POWs 13 days in May 1945, took us just over 4 hours.

From Wolfsberg, Route 70 travels north, following the course of the Lavant river. At Frantsach the valley begins to narrow and steepen, with heavily wooded slopes on either side. The road continues to climb until Twimbeg where it passes under the viaduct carrying the A2 autobahn high above.

Just beyond Twimbeg, the road turns onto Route 78 and leaves the narrow valley for a broader upland. However it continues to climb, through Bad St Leonhard, to the highest point at Obdacher Sattel (954m). The road now starts to descend gently through Obdach and Kathal.

Beyond Kathal the rolling hills open out to reveal the broad flat valley of the Mur river that flows east and then south to join the Danube in Croatia. At Weisskirchen the road leaves Route 78 and turns onto Route 77 to pass through Judenberg. For the next 100 kilometers the road, now Route 96,  follows the Mur valley, travelling upstream.

In passing through the villages of St Peter, Unzmarkt, Teufenbach, Murau (now Route 97) and St Georgen, the valley narrows gradually but maintains its character. However, by Tamsweg (Route 95) it is obvious that the hills ahead are gaining in altitude and becoming mountains.

At Mauterndorf the road turns onto Route 99 and starts to climb. At Tweng the altitude is 1300m and the slopes are becoming steep and rocky. For the next 10 kilometers the road climbs, passing through tunnels to finally reach the top of the Tauern Pass at 1739m. The ski resort of Obertauern now sits astride the top of the pass.

Beyond the top of the pass the road drops steeply into a narrow gorge which opens out beyond Untertauern to reveal the town of Radstadt. Here the route turns onto a minor road and passes through Altenmarkt and Wagrain before a final climb and a drop down a narrow valley into St Johann.  

Markt Pongau

(Note - Markt Pongau is now known as Sankt Johann im Pongau, as it was before the war. It is a small town to the south of Salzburg.)

Although some marching columns did not get as far as Markt Pongau, a sufficient number arrived to bring the numbers to nearly 13,000. Since the capacity of the camp was reckoned by the German authorities as four to five thousand, it needs little imagination to picture the overcrowding of sleeping accommodation and sanitary facilities. A medical officer comments that there were ' sick men lying on the floor in every corner of the hospital'. Though Red Cross supplies were on hand they were insufficient to cope with such a mass of men for any length of time, and the food situation could soon have become serious again. On 2 May the German guards were withdrawn, though fighting was still going on in the adjacent areas where the German forces had refused to capitulate. As in most camps, plans had been made months before for such a situation and a properly organised scheme was immediately put into operation. But by 6 May it was apparent that the controlling of the cosmopolitan mass of men then in camp was becoming increasingly difficult. On that day several hundred prisoners broke out of camp and looted a German goods train. A Swiss representative who had been stationed at the camp for some time reports that order was re-established by the camp leaders without any serious incident with civilians. But it would have been unwise to have risked a repetition. A medical officer was immediately sent up to Salzburg to contact the American forces, and a party of American troops arrived the following day.

(Prisoners of War: W. Wynne Mason)

Views of Markt Pongau Camp
Tented Camp	Union Jack	NZ Article	Tent Group
Sidney Puzey group			My Father & others

From then on the food problem at the camp was solved by distributing supplies of American army rations, and arrangements were made for the speedy evacuation of the released prisoners, of whom some 700 were New Zealanders. British liaison officers, one of them a New Zealander, were in the camp by 17 May, and on the 20th the ex-prisoners began to move by lorry to the Salzburg airfield for the flight to France and on to England. Most of our men from Markt Pongau and adjacent Arbeitskommandos seem to have reached England by the end of the month.

(Prisoners of War: W. Wynne Mason)

The following is an extract from the diary of L/Cpl F.H. Cooper, 4th Hussars. (Provided by his son, Cyril.)

20 April 1945: Departed Wolfsburg by passenger train to Seldwick. Changed to second passenger train to St Michael. Left St Michael in trucks attached to a German troop train, this train was attacked and the final 9Km of the journey from Bischoshafen was on foot.

22 April: Arrived Markt Pongau late stay in Forhagen overnight.

23 April: Transferred to NCO’s lager, Sgt Maj. Sudeby, 4^th Hussars I/C.

Weather colder than Wolfsburg with snow. No facilities for cooking and very difficult to find bedding. There were issues of parcels and cigarettes. Camp buildings being torn down to provide firewood.

25 April: Many aircraft flying over but noted as unusual as they were not in formations but going over in droves.

30 April: Head count for bread issue said to be 3,500 English in the camp.

1 May: Air raid warning.

1,2,3 May: Snow and slush making life difficult.

5 May: Own police take over duty and police the town.

6 May: Visit by Protecting Power.

8 May: Americans arrive 08 15. An advance Section of Paras to police the camp.

9 May: Americans now taking over and enforcing discipline within camp, no one allowed out without a pass. A convoy arrives with parcels and a Colonel to take command of evacuation.

10 May: Major Lambe returned to the UK

19 May: First party of 2,500 men depart the camp for Salzburg Airfield.

25 May: Left Markt Pongau 0830 for Saltzburg Airfield. 113 lorries, 25 men on each.

St Johann in 2002

The village of St Johann im Pongau has changed considerably since 1945 but there are still echoes of those few days in May when the weary POWs waited for transport home. When I visited the town and tried to find the location of the camp shown in the photographs below, I was surprised to discover that part of the area is still inside a military camp with restricted access. 

Michael Mooslechner, an Austrian historian from Salzburg, has kindly identified the location of Stalag XVIIIC, Südlager (South Camp) and has sent me an aerial photograph of the camp taken by the RAF in April 1945.

Aerial Photo	Camp location

Going Home

This left-hand picture is courtesy of Frank Hardy, an ex-POW. It was taken after the liberation of the camp at Markt Pongau in May 1945 and shows the POWs being taken from the camp on their way to Salzburg and a flight to the UK. The next two pictures are courtesy of John Gregory and show the POWs boarding Dakotas at Salzburg airfield.

The following two photographs were sent by Dan Donaldson, son of Tom Donaldson, 18 Bn, 2NZEF. I'm fairly certain that they were taken at Salzburg airfield. Tom is on the right of the group of three in the right-hand picture.

Supply Drops

The following passages are taken from the diary of Ben Haller Jr, a Bombardier with the 461st Bomb Group.

"On May 9, there was a call for volunteers to fly cargo missions to drop supplies to Allied POW camps in Austria. The purpose was not only to get food and medical supplies to these people as fast as possible, but also to arm them so they (both British and American soldiers) could officially be in charge of their camps and adjoining towns before the Russians could race in and claim they had "liberated" our people. My diary shows I flew on 5/9 to the Americans held in the German prison camp at Spittal, Austria, northwest of Villach. Dropped twelve 350# cans of supplies from 1,000 feet. Flew over the most beautiful country, mountains and lakes I've ever seen. Went over Klagenfurt where nothing is left intact. What a mess. The POW's waved wildly from barracks roofs and out in the roads."

"On May 10 or 11 I flew another one to Wolfsberg POW camp where the English fellows are. Saw streams of German trucks, guns and carts for miles pouring in to surrender to the Allied troops in this area. Dropped from 800 feet."

"I failed to make an entry for May 16 for my third and final Cargo Mission, which was excusable because when I returned to my tent in the 767th Squadron area there was a cablegram on my bunk informing me that our first child, Benjamin III, had been born at 12:15 a.m. May 9, just 14 minutes after the official surrender took place! I can't recall the name of the POW camp but it was again in southern Austria, near the Villach and Klagenfurt area. The volunteer crews carried no gunners, of course, although I think a few guys were allowed to ride strictly as passengers to see from low level the landscape we'd been bombing from high altitude and to be able to say they took part in those historic flights that meant little to anyone else, but everything to the POW's on the ground."

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