Friendship after 56 years

  German and Australian become friends, partly thanks to "De Wete".

Ack-ack

On Walcheren , and especially in Flushing , friend and foe closely watched the air raid.  The citizens had to look on with regret how one "tommy" after another was shot out of the grey rainy sky.  This gave the German garrison great satisfaction.  After all the depressing news of German defeats and allied victories of the last few weeks this was to them proof that every now and then the opponent could be dealt a stiff blow.  The crew of a quadruple flak (a four-barrelled 2cm cannon) under the command of "obermat" (leading seaman) Hans Bannick on the 'Boulevard Bankert'  ("Bankert Esplanade") in Flushing continually engaged the many escorting British fighter planes - "The bombers flew much too high for our quad" - but much to their regret they had not managed to down any of those fast Spitfires.  Soon this attack was over too - the Australians and the British flew off to the west, and the noise of battle in and around Flushing died down.  The quad-flak had not long been stationed on the Flushing esplanade.  Bannick tells us: "In July 1944 I was transferred from Holland to Walcheren , and assigned to the 'Marine Flak Abteilung 810" (Navy anti-aircraft unit 810).  I was stationed in Koudekerke at first, but after the dykes had been bombarded we had to leave because of the seawater and ended up high and dry with our quad on the esplanade in Flushing right near the broad stone stairway behind the bandstand and close to the hotel Britannia, the HQ of Seekommandant Ashmann.  We, the four crew members of our gun, were billeted in a shop (of the Van Gelder sisters), next door to a former pension (Madjoe on the Boulevard Bankert), right opposite our gun.  It was a good spot and every now and then civilians would pass by, probably people who worked in the dunes, or air-raid wardens, or firemen.  A few times they asked us if the could take some of our coal for their own use, which we, after talking it over, agreed to.  We had a good relationship with them, and also with people we met in the cafes with whom we would drink a glass of beer when we were off duty.

Binoculars

When a few minutes later on that rainy afternoon Bannick stood looking out over the grey waters of Western Scheldt, alert for enemy "Tiefflieger" (low flying planes which, almost invisible in the half-light of the early morning or late afternoon, would approach for an attack) he thought he could see something bobbing up and down in the sea.  He grabbed the binoculars and peered into the distance.

What he saw could be a man's head.  He called one of his mates and the two agreed that it was probably a person.  Bannick decided to go in a rubber dinghy and have a look and, if it really was a human, to pull him out of the water.  It was possibly one of the allied airmen.  An NCO said it was senseless to go and risk your life for an enemy; a terrorist airman who participated in allied air raids on the 'Heimat' and who perhaps went out to murder your own relations in Germany , or had already done so.  However, Bannick and his comrade ventured out on the sea, but without helmets or arms, because they realised that the British, who now occupied Breskens and surroundings, could clearly see through their binoculars that Germans from Flushing went out onto the water.  Hopefully they would realise on their side that 'Jerry' was not undertaking an assault, but were going to rescue a human being, and of theirs to boot.

A drowning man

"As the bathing beach was practically chock-full with anti-landing obstacles, we could not use that, and had to scramble down the sloping embankment of the esplanade, near our gun, at a spot where we had earlier made a pathway through the barbed wire, to get to our dinghy.  There was not a lot of room in our dinghy, and we paddled as fast as we could against the incoming tide to the spot where we had seen the floating ‘thing’ before it was perhaps too late.  Soon we saw that the ‘thing’ was indeed a person in a life jacket, who appeared to be unconscious.  We lifted him as carefully as we could into the dinghy and undertook the return journey.  That was easier now because we had the current with us.  When we got back to our gun there were a couple of officers waiting.  We carried the heavy ‘tommy’ up the embankment and lifted him high so that the men on the esplanade could take him from us.  When I finally reached level ground the officers had taken ‘our’ man away and disappeared in the direction of the ‘Wehrmachtsheim’ (the Strand Hotel) and I never saw him again.  Later on one of my comrades told me that the man was still unconscious, so that our attempted rescue might well have been in vain, and also that the man was an Australian flying officer."

John Dack – for it was he – only regained consciousness a few hours later, probably in a bed in the sickbay of the Hotel Britannia, the local German headquarters.  "For you the war is over" a grinning blond medic said to the pilot when he came to.  But he, dead tired, immediately fell into a deep sleep.  The next morning John Dack was carried by horse and cart to a house where he met some other captured airmen.  Afterwards this group was taken via the 'Jaagpad'  ("tow path") along the 'Kanaal' through Walcheren to Middelburg, where the prisoners were accommodated in a former school.  Some still had their parachutes, and these were torn into strips to bandage their various wounds.  Also some scarves were made from the parachute silk.  The Australians had to stay the entire day and night in the school, and received very little to eat.  Three of their number, amongst them John Dack, were then taken to an army doctor who bandaged their wounds, after which they were taken to a hospital and ended up in clean beds.  (These were probably in the Military Hospital behind the 'Houttuinen', or in the hospital near the 'Noordpoort' (North Gate).

Prisoners of war

John Dack remembers: "The Dutch nurses, most of whom spoke English, were very sympathetic and cared for us well.  I was washed for the first time since I was shot down.  I was amazed that the German medics shared their meagre tobacco ration with us.  The army doctor cleaned my wounded arm, and a dentist tried to contrapt a denture for me, and apologised for the fact that he only had horses' teeth available.  Unfortunately the denture just fitted."  After a night in the hospital the three were returned to their fellow P.O.W.s in the school.  Here they were put in a horse-drawn cart and taken to a town in the north (Veere?).  There they ended up in the dirty, stinking and unlit hold of a barge, the hatch of which was bolted shut.  The barge departed in the night, and the vibration and the overwhelming stench of diesel fuel kept them more or less awake during the entire journey.  At about 5 o'clock the next morning the group arrived in Dordrecht , from where they were transported by train to a P.O.W. camp in Germany .

On Friday 3^rd November, a good ten days after Hans Bannick and his comrade had rescued John Dack from the sea off Flushing , they too were taken prisoner.  "During the shelling in the night of 1^st November we sheltered in a bunker a little distance from our gun.  There we were relatively safe.  When in the morning the noise stopped, we went back to our quad, which I ordered to be readied for action.  Luckily no shells had fallen near us.  By midday two of my operating crew had disappeared, so that there were only two of us left, really too few to operate our quad effectively.  In the evening I risked going to the Britannia to get some information.  The N.C.O. who, on the 23^rd October had upbraided me for risking my life to rescue an enemy, now said that, in order to ensure that when taken prisoner we would receive the best possible treatment, we had to be as nice as possible to the tommies.  I considered this to be quite cowardly: First leaving a defenceless enemy to his fate, but later on more or less begging the same enemy for mercy.  I heard that our battery commander, who was stationed in the town, had been killed in action, and that I now had to look after my gun and myself and had more or less been left to my own devices.  On the way back I was fired upon by a flame thrower, but luckily without getting hit."

"The next day, 2^nd November 1944 , two soldiers and a marine reported to me.  We were expecting air raids on our gun position, but these did not eventuate.  For us the day passed rather quietly.  In the evening I risked, together with two NCOs, going to the back of the nautical college in the direction of the town centre, but there we came under rifle fire and went back, after which I resumed my post at my gun."

That Friday, at about nine in the morning, the crew of the quad on the Boulevard Bankert, whilst hiding in the gun position, witnessed the capitulation of the last German stronghold in Flushing , the Hotel Britannia.  After the occupants of the HQ of Colonel Reinhardt (Seekommandant Aschmann had already retreated with his staff to Veere via Middelburg) had been taken prisoner by their Scots adversaries, Bannick and his comrades expected an attack on their position, but this did not happen. The Nazi flag on the building, which they had probably forgotten to take down the previous day, was pulled down, most likely by one of the tommies.  After that it became rather quiet in and around the still smoking ruins of the once so beautiful Grand Hotel.  To his surprise Bannick discovered that his canteen and bread-bag which hung from his belt had been damaged, and that their dog, presumably hit by a stray bullet or shell fragment, lay dead in her shelter.

Alsatian

"In Koudekerke we already had a beautiful, young Alsatian dog, and when the water came we took the animals – the dog had had a puppy in the meantime – with us to Flushing .  They were more or less entrusted to me.  I quite enjoyed this and looked after them every day.  Often I took the older animal with me on walks along the esplanade and through the town to be admired by civilians and soldiers alike.  Mother and pup had their shelter near the gun.  We were not allowed to have animals in our room, but they still went there, especially during bad weather.  How this beautiful animal died I don't know and there was little time to ponder this for long.  I am sorry that I don't remember the animals' names."

After Bannick and his men had rendered the gun inoperable, they very circumspectly sneaked their way unseen to a bunker a few hundred metres away.  Bannick also took the pup in his coat pocket; the animal would otherwise soon have died of starvation.  There were four other soldiers in the bunker.  They crawled into a nearby trench and awaited developments.  After some time a group of about twenty British appeared, bringing with them a German officer.  This man advised them no longer to offer resistance, but to surrender, which all eight of them did.

Hands up

"The British ordered us to raise our hands while our personal arms were confiscated.  They then took our wristwatches, which all disappeared into their pockets.  We had no time to collect photos, letters or other personal belongings from our billet in the shop.  We had to leave behind everything there.  When we were led away, I lowered my hands to get the dog, but one of the British gestured that I had to keep them raised.  I showed him the pup after which he nodded that I could hold the little animal in my hands.  We marched, escorted by the tommies – I later heard that they were Scots – who had their bayonets on their rifles, to the landing beach where I had to surrender the puppy to one of them.  I don't know what happened to the animal afterwards. Each one of us was now again frisked by one of the British, but this time much more thoroughly.  The man who searched me spoke flawless German.  When I asked him how he had learned this he told me that he had lived in Canada , but was born and raised in Schweinfurt .  I could not comprehend that, for the Nazis had always told us that it was impossible that even one German would serve with the Allies.  We had to wait a long time on the beach until a landing craft was available to take us to Breskens.  At last I arrived in a POW camp in England ".  

* De Wete is the newsletter of a local club on Walcheren in Nederland .  

Written by Hans Tuynman, with thanks to Jules Braat in Vleuten.

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