Saw a film on TV this week called Land of Mines. Danish made and tells the story of a group of young German POWs after the end of WW2 being compelled to clear landmines on a Danish beach, with the inevitable consequences.
Reminded me that my cousin Harold Daynton had a similar experience in WW1. He had been captured near Albert,in France in February 1918 and had been shipped off to Germany. They were asked to volunteer for work as carpenters and as conditions in the camp were so bad many did so in the hope of better rations. They were disappointed as then a group of the men where taken back to battlefields in France their "carpentry" work job being to locate and make safe booby-trapped buildings which the Allies had vacated in the massive German Attack of 21st march.
They moved around with their Guards to various locations for different tasks. They apparently got on well with the four Guards who sympathised with their situation but explained how short of food and other vital supplies in Germany actually were. They stayed with these Guards for the remainder of the war, receiving no rations so living on what food they could steal or acquire.
On 11 November they all shook hands, with the Germans walking eastwards and the 10 British POW’s walking westwards. That took quite a time as they were actually released somewhere in the triangle of Aachen/Verviers/Maastricht and their long trudge took until late November when they reached Calais. They finally reached England on a ship on December 2nd.
