Biographies & Memoirs

8

The Corinth Cage

Australians and New Zealanders had provided the combat troops for Lusterforce, and most of them had been evacuated. The majority of the prisoners in Frontstalag Corinth were British, Cypriot, and Palestinian – drivers, engineers, logisticians, clerical troops, and labourers. There were also 4,000 Italian prisoners in the camp. Originally captured by the Greeks, they had been released when the country fell and had promptly begun looting the town, so, allies or not, the Germans had thrown them back in prison.1

Conditions were dire. There was no shade or shelter. Many had lost their greatcoats and blankets. Ralph had kept both, so during the cold nights he shared his with Gerry and Wal. Rations consisted of weevil-ridden lentils and Greek Army biscuits which were so hard many soldiers broke teeth (or dentures) on them, before they learned to soak them in water – usually in a steel helmet-turned-cauldron – to create a sort of communal porridge.2

Part of the reason for their plight was Greece was already in famine. Imports had vanished, and Bulgaria had occupied the primary bread-producing region in the north-east. Soon the Germans in Athens had sent a grim warning to Berlin: it must ship grain to Greece immediately to prevent mass starvation.3

There were no washing facilities, but the Germans permitted daily beach trips. The chance to wash was welcome, but as days grew to weeks the four-kilometre round trip proved too much for men on starvation rations. Malnutrition was leading to increasing numbers of instances of ‘black-outs’: any exertion would lead to unconsciousness.4 There were a few washbasins of water to keep the 12,000 men hydrated.5 A single ditch running two-thirds the width of the camp was the camp toilet; some satirical soul had made signs dividing the trench by rank. Cases of malaria and dysentery rose fast. Coping with dysentery at the trough was an intense exercise, with men blacking out over the pit; the lucky ones fell forwards. Many of the guards were young and recent conscripts, and youth, incompetence, bad luck, or bad timing meant they had been assigned to second line units following rapid advances, and played little part in German victories. Resentful, they took it out on the prisoners by brutalizing them in random assaults. Some guards would patrol the latrine ditch and kick squatting men in the chest.6 German combat troops won Hitler’s affection with great victories; these guards looked for it by kicking starving men into a latrine.

There would have been more deaths had it not been for the heroic efforts of one woman, Ariadne Massautti, the seventy-year-old Greek Red Cross administrator who was head of the Corinth POW hospital. As soon as the 2nd Fallschirmjäger seized Corinth, she had gone in search of a German medical officer and convinced him to send troops to locate any doctors among the Allied prisoners. With half a dozen prisoner-doctors, she treated the wounded and sick, while occupying Corinth’s best hotel – to the chagrin of the German officers.7

Prisoners who were fit for work had to load bombs onto Luftwaffe planes, which was a severe breach of the Geneva Convention.8 The dire conditions broke many friendships, but drew Ralph, Gerry, and Wal together. Surviving captivity meant a new morality emerged. ‘Corinth had taught me there was only one law,’ recalled prisoner Barney Roberts, ‘the law of the German gun. Hunger bred in many a single-minded sense of self-preservation which seemed to thrive on distrust and larceny.’9 This instinct of self-preservation inspired violence by prisoners as well as guards. There were no safeguarding protocols, and with British Empire prisoners in the majority, the Italians were now vulnerable. Some prisoners went into the Italian section every night in search of a victim who would be given a beating, and any valuables snatched. Enough violence administered, and enough booty looted, the attackers would withdraw until the next night.10 Ralph was disgusted by his comrades. He’d experienced plenty of beatings during his youth, and been robbed himself just days before, and he was determined to survive in a better fashion.

Trading at a local market was permitted for anyone who still had money or goods to barter – the Greek farmers sold a modest range of dried fruits. But almost no one had any money left; only the Palestinians, wise enough to know that robbery would follow capture, had somehow stashed their cash.11 Ralph had his pen and hoped it would fetch a reasonable price, but going to market, he knew, would invite the attention of the guards on duty. That was not always a bad thing, as one of them often intervened when a prisoner was not getting a fair price, usually to haggle on their behalf.12

Ralph was not so lucky. While he was attempting to bargain, a passing guard clubbed him on the side of the head with a single ferocious blow with a rifle butt. Ralph’s ear filled with blood. When the guard lost interest, Gerry and Wal hauled Ralph up. He would be nearly deaf in his left ear for the rest of his life.

Discouraged from trading, other prisoners found creative ways to stave off famine. A few Brits fashioned schoolyard slingshots to hunt sparrows – the camp record was sixteen in a day. One group managed to capture and carve up an unfortunate stray dog.13 Faced with a breakdown in normality, many prisoners became more religious. Ralph was among them. Two captured chaplains began to lead church services, which proved very popular. ‘When you are starved, of necessity filthy, lousy, and ragged,’ Ralph wrote, ‘when nothing else seems worth hanging on for, an inner faith in something, in something independent of either yourself or earthly tyrants, gives a comfort which alone makes the struggle seem worthwhile.’14 From the camp the prisoners also saw part of the invasion of Crete when German planes filled with Fallschirmjäger flew overhead on 20 May. Gerry, Ralph, and Wal stood counting: sixty-seven out, forty-seven back – the Germans took heavy losses. The Allied force, led by Freyberg, was low on supplies, and lower on morale. They struggled with the island’s defence. The Germans broke through; another evacuation followed.15

At Corinth, meanwhile, conditions worsened. Advancing through Crete, the Germans began finding the mutilated bodies of Fallschirmjäger, and held the British responsible. First the camp authorities cut rations, then they said they would kill five prisoners for every German that showed up disfigured.16 The corpses were not in fact the work of Allied soldiers, but Cretan civilians. The islanders did not like being invaded and, when Germans landed in their villages, individual citizens and militias attacked. Many German paratroopers were unable to disentangle their parachutes from trees, olive groves, and houses, or retrieve their weapons fast enough to avoid being met with Cretan pitchforks, hoes, clubs, and kitchen knives, and mauled to death.17 In Corinth, the Germans dropped the matter and restored rations once they learned the truth, and instead murdered many Cretans for their defiance. The Allied defeat in Crete would bring another 12,000 prisoners to the Greek camps, after Ralph and his fellows had been sent on to the Reich.18

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