In-Pensioner John Kershaw, late Sergeant

Tell me about how you were taken prisoner of war?
Well we are coming to that now. 250 were picked to row over to Arnhem at midnight on 24^th September 1944. Midnight we rowed over there, we had to get the airborne out when they had had enough, they got our boats coming out of it, and went right through the night and then in the morning was captured. Anyway the Germans said "You were very brave men, you have been fighting the 749 German Army", I said "Well didn't know that, I have". Anyway, then we were captured there and that was that. We went to Germany [4B Muhlberg]. We went out on various working parties and finished up in the Stalag, and there was a bit too much of that, you know, slowing the blokes down.
Tell us what the Stalag is?
It's like a detention camp, a prisoner of war camp, and that was near Chemnitz, Saxony. We were put in this place in Freiburg and supposed to do a few weeks there, and we were working in a big quarry, and from there came the old [……?] and I was booked for Dachau, and this German Sergeant, he dropped it and I did about five months there and then we went on to a lead mine in Freiburg. The blokes out there looked as though they were all dying. I thought "Good God Almighty what have we got here?" They said you could have 200grammes of bread if you worked on top or you can have 500 if you work down below. I said I would take 200. Fortunately enough we were only there a few weeks and then they said pack all your kit, at 2 o'clock in the morning there was fighting in Freiburg, so that's how we got out. We eventually got back into Chemnitz.