Dixie Colebrook

Charles Frederick Colebrook was known by his family as Charlie but was 'Dixie' to his fellow POWs. He was born on 3 Sep 1919 in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, the only child of Fred and Lily Colebrook. Fred, a bricklayer, served in France in the Great War. He was shot three times and gassed yet survived. Although maimed for life by his injuries, Fred could count himself among the luckiest of soldiers. 28 years on, his son Charlie could do likewise.

After leaving school in Grimsby, Charlie became a butcher’s assistant, though not for long. In 1935, he joined the army aged 16 although his enlistment papers will show 18. Charlie took his discharge in early 1939 after serving for three years and completing a tour in Egypt.

In 1939, on Charlie’s 20^th birthday, Britain declared war on Germany. By 1940, Charlie was back in uniform serving with the British Expeditionary Force in France. His unit was near Arras when the order to withdraw came through. Charlie made the 100 km trip to Dunkirk safely but only after a serious confrontation with a Panzer (see postscript below). 

Private Colebrook was among the fortunate. He was taken off Dunkirk by a British fishing trawler. Ironically, the vessel’s home port was Grimsby. Just weeks after arriving home, Charlie married Marjorie Jones. He was then posted to the Middle East as ‘one of Wavell’s thirty thousand’ he would say. 

Charlie, by then a driver with the Royal Army Service Corps, soon found himself in Greece. He was captured at Crete on 29 Apr 1941. Charlie’s diary shows he arrived at Corinth on 6 May, at Salonika on 13 June, at Wolfsberg on 2 July, and at Klagenfurt on 25 July.

After his discharge in 1946, Charlie joined the British Transport Police as a dog handler. He spent 30 years as a PC before retiring in 1976. He then joined the local police force as a civilian driver, ferrying prisoners around to prisons and courts. Sadly, Charley never got to enjoy a well-earned retirement. He died suddenly, of a heart attack, in 1982 aged 61.

Charley and Madge, as Marjorie was known, had one child, a daughter Susan. Her son Peter Rose crafted this story and offered it to me for posting on my Klagenfurt POWs website.

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Post Scripts

When en route to Dunkirk riding in the back of an army truck, a Panzer tank appeared out of cover and Charlie’s truck stopped suddenly, with everyone jumping out quickly. That is, all except Charlie. He was carrying the squad's Bren Gun and its barrel became caught in the camouflage netting. While trying to release it, the German tank got closer. The hatch popped up, and the tank commander stared straight at him, observing Charlie’s plight. Charlie gave him a stifled grin as he freed the gun. They both nodded at each other. With his weapon now disentangled, Charlie jumped off the truck and ran for cover. At that point, Charlie could hear and see the tank’s machine gun following his flight with a trail of bullets. The tank commander was laughing as he did it. A story of compassion for an enemy, I think.

Late in the war, while on a work detail near Klagenfurt, Charlie was riding on the back a truck. A fighter aircraft flew low to strafe the truck. The vehicle braked so suddenly that Charlie was thrown over the top and landed on his face, taking part of his nose and some of his ear off. Taken to hospital, the doctors performed plastic surgery to repair his face. 

Charlie Colebrook, with Madge and daughter, Susan, 1947

PC Colebrook

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The men look happy enough despite the fact that it was taken in a German prisoner-of-war camp on Christmas Eve, 1941. These men were in a work camp designated 10029/GW, located in Klagenfurt, Austria, a satellite camp of Stalag XBIIIA which was located in Wolfsberg. Typically, it accommodated about 220 prisoners but the numbers. went as high as 380. The prisoners were a mix of British, Australians and New Zealanders. Some were captured on the battlefield during the failed Greece Campaign but most were captured during the evacuations of  Kalamata  and Crete.

The first winter of captivity (1941-42) was a particularly cold one but the men were optimistic. They held the view that it would be the only winter they would spend as POWs. Sadly, this wasn't to be the case. In fact it was just the first of four that they would spend 'in the bag.'.

During their internment, six POWs, were killed by 'Friendly Fire.' On Sunday, 19 February 1945,  an Allied aircraft inadvertently bombed the Camp. Three more died from industrial accidents and illness.

This website is a tribute to the men who died and survived this work camp. Most spent four years as prisoners of war.

It also commemorates the life of Michael Cister, the first of the 12 Klagenfurt POWs to be killed. Michael was not a soldier. He was a South African a crew member, galley boy,  of a merchant ship t sunk during the evacuation of Crete. When Michael arrived at the Camp he was just 16 years old. You can read how he died in "Bomb Raid on the Lend Canal."

If you think you might be related to a Klagenfurt POW, I recommend that you begin with the Roll Call. However you are free to view the photo galleries and read the stories in the order you wish.

My father, Kevin Byrne was a Klagenfurt POW. There are links to his memoir and to some of the stories he told me over the years.

My name is Michael Byrne. Feel free to contact me by email: mikebyrne02@gmail.com

Camp Life

Despite its tragedies and hardships, the Waidmannsdorf Arbeitskommando (work camp) in Klagenfurt was considered to be one of the better placed for a German prisoner-of-way. Credit must be given to the Commandant, the Man of Confidence, and to the men themselves. Some of the POWs deserve a special mention. The Man of Confidence, Sgt Stewart Stubbings, who you can read about below. Geoffrey Skinner, the unofficial 'camp clerk'. Geoff became a doctor and pathologist after the war. This would have surprised no-one. Geoff was intellectually gifted and wise beyond his years. And there was Don Munns, the head of the Escape Committee.

Hogan's Heroes, the TV comedy series of the 1960s would bring a wry smile to Kevin's face. While there was no Colonel Klink or Sergeant Schultz, some of the antics of Colonel Hogan and his men were not entirely comedic fantasy. Perhaps I should first explain how the POW camps were organised.

There were different camps for: Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers (Warrant Officers and Sergeants), and Other Ranks (Corporals and below). Camps for POWs were divided by service, i.e. Army, Navy and Air Force. Prisoners of various nationalities were generally separated from each other by fences subdividing each stalag into sections. Prisoners speaking the same language, e.g. British Commonwealth soldiers, were permitted to intermingle.

The Geneva Convention permitted non-commissioned personnel of lower ranks (called Other Ranks by the British and enlisted men by the Americans) to be used for work in agriculture and industry, but not in any industry producing war material. The Convention also specifies the conditions under which they should work, be housed and paid. At each stalag, the Germans set up sub-camps called 'Arbeitskommando' - Work Camp, in English - to hold prisoners in the vicinity of specific work locations, e.g. factories, coal-mines, quarries, rail yards, road maintenance, etc. The work camps were administered by the parent stalag (18A in this case), which maintained personnel records, collected mail, International Red Cross packages and then delivered them to the individual Arbeitskommando. Likewise any individuals that were injured at work or became ill were returned to  the parent camp's stalag. Some autonomy was given to the Stalag 18A MOC's administration staff. The German hierarchy left it to them to shell out the work assignments. POWs could apply for a particular Arbeitskommando and their choice would generally be honored if there was a vacancy.

Man of Confidence

The Man of Confidence (MOC) was a prisoner selected to liaise with the camp authorities. The MOC as the ranking NCO set the standards for military discipline and dress. This was a demanding roll as the MOC had no real military authority apart from his three stripes. Further, as he was the only sergeant in the camp he never had peers he could lean on. Kevin's work camp was populated by soldiers from three Commonwealth nations, British (about 40%), Australian (about 35%) and New Zealanders (about 25%) and the MOC had to lead them all regardless of his nationality. The MOC was appointed by the senior MOC at the 'parent' camp, Stalag 18A. The initial Klagenfurt MOC, an Australian, lasted only a few months before he was replaced. The replacement was elected by the troops. Corporal Stewart  Stubbings, also an Australian, was one of the older men in the camp. Stewart had been awarded a Mention in despatches on 8 Jul 1941 for action in the Desert Campaign. The Commandant accepted Stubbings as the new man Of Confidence and moved the original MOC to another camp.

Stewart Stubbings, b. 1906, grew up in the tiny Tasmanian town of Sandfly (pop. 157 in 2011), south of Hobart. As a teenager in 1923 he got into trouble with the law and was sentenced to three months in prison for forgery and larceny. He again was charged with forgery in 1933. He was tried before a jury but on this occasion was found not guilty. Despite his humble beginnings and chequered past, Stubbings had the ability to manage and lead more than 300 POWs unchallenged for the remainder of the war.

Man of Confidence, Sgt Stewart Stubbings, was also known as “The King” because of his penchant for pomp and ceremony. An eagle was found by a POW. It had a damaged wing and the men 'took it prisoner.' They considered this a great joke, keeping in mind that the German symbol of power was an eagle.

One important difference between the camps was that the Other Ranks (ORs)  left the camp each day for work whereas officers and senior NCO had to remain behind the wire. While working was often a hardship (long hours and a poor diet led to early deaths for some men in the years that followed the war) it had its rewards. It meant that time passed more quickly and there were opportunities to pilfer and scrounge extra food or coal for the stove. Some men in Kevin's camp miraculously 'found' a radio and for three years were tuned into the BBC.  The radio was never found by the camp authorities or the occasional snap inspections by the Gestapo. Later in the war, there were opportunities for escape - several tried and some were successful - without the need to dig tunnels or indeed to ride a motorbike over the fence Steve McQueen-style. The men got up to all sorts of mischief, mostly for their own amusement. When Kevin was sick with the flu he wanted to avoid working in the wet weather. He was appear for morning parade parade to get counted but then would slip slip back to his hut when the guards were distracted. For more than a week he hid in the ceiling of his hut to recover.

Sports

During the warmer months, the men spent their Sunday afternoons playing sports or, on occasion, two-up - an Australian gambling game that dates back to WW1. Soccer and cricket were also popular with the men forming teams under their national banner. The highlight of the sporting calendar was an athletics carnival appropriately called The Empire Games.

Sprint Race

 Games Participants

The Australian Team (1944 Games)

 2-Up School

 Test Match Scorers

 Soccer Match

Music and Theatre

Bring 300 me together and inevitability you will have men trained as tailors, commercial artists, carpenters, electricians and even musicians. So it was in 10029/GW. Theatre companies were established in all the major camps. There was a core group at Stalag 18A who would come up with scrips for plays and musicals. This group might also supply a key actor, singer or technical stagehand to ensure the show was a professional as possible. Tailors would spend weeks sewing costumes from scrounged materials. Artists would make posters and stage props while the stagehands would do the stage design and build the sets.

In 1943 the men pooled their wages to purchase a piano. The Commandant agreed to source the piano and several other instruments. The Red Cross also came to the party and supplied some instruments.

 Band Practice

While the stage photos appear blurry, keep in mind that the POWs took the photos without floodlight or flash and developed the prints themselves. This scene was from a play called "Flying High."

Scene from "Flying High" - someone had to do the female lead.

 The Orchestra for Flying High. The musicians were fitted out with shirts and ties made by the POWs themselves.

Scene from "Aladdin"

Scene from "Aladdin"

"Flying High" Stagehands

Parades

In the absence of officers or an RSM, it would be completely understandable if the POWs became less regimental as time passed. After all, most had been in uniform for only a year when they were captured, nine months in my fathers case. Yet on ANZAC Day, Armistice Day, and for the funerals of their fallen comrades the men turned out immaculately. The photos  of Michael Cister's Burial Parade shows the men looking exceptionally regimental.

Sgt Stewart Stubbings and a Stalag 18A padre lead the men out of the camp to march to the war cemetery.

Writing Home

Kevin's letter to his parents mentioned that he hoped this 1943 Christmas would be his last, that he was looking forward to "Aladdin", and that the kiwis had concocted a "home brewed lubrication." He was allowed to write a letter like this once a fortnight.

Post Cards could be sent weekly. They rarely contained more that a comment on the weather.

  

The German Lady

It was in October 2005, about the time of his 87th birthday. My father Kevin was spending a few days with us in Geelong. He and I went to a local bakery to buy some meat pies for lunch. There was a queue so we waited our turn patiently.

A tall lady, much taller than both of us, turned to my father and said in heavily accented English, “You know, I like to come to this bakery. You can see where the baking is done and it’s always spotlessly clean.”

Kevin picked up on her accent and responded in German. I was a little taken back but wasn’t completely surprised. It had been years since I’d heard him speak German. Even then, I thought that his German language skills were limited to the pleasantries.

The lady, however, was less than impressed. Offended by my father's approach, she braced her shoulders and stood even taller. Her bosoms rose over my head. "I have been in this country for thirty-seven years. You can speak to me in English! I have been in this country 37 years.

I took a step back but Kevin held his ground and continued to speak to her in German. He spoke to her politely, softly and fluently, not even stopping to search for an occasional word. I was gobsmacked!

Just when I thought the German lady was about to king-hit my Dad, she suddenly went quiet. She calmed down and, surprise, surprise, her bosoms deflated and she resumed her normal height. She responded to my father, now speaking in German herself.

They chatted in German for a minute or so but then stopped and returned to English.

“Wait a minute,” she said. You are Dutch, yes? No. I think you are from Switzerland.”

“Nah,” said Dad. “I'm from Wangaratta.”

Kevin Byrne, June 1941.

V

Friendly Fire

Oaklands is a small town in the New South Wales Riverina district. It’s population today would be, I’m guessing, about 350, a few hundred less than it would have had in 1940. Kevin, my father, worked for Kevin, his uncle, in the Rourke Brothers stock and station agency business. Kevin Rourke was an excellent auctioneer and my father, his clerk. 

Kevin enlisted in the Army on 5 Aug 1940. Sometimes I wonder whether his enlistment was simply a ruse to leave Oaklands. He had worked for his uncle since the age of 16 and was now almost 22. I think Kevin felt he was in a rut and just wanted to move on. He had been dating a local girl, Joan Dunstan, but their relationship wasn’t a serious enough to keep him in Oaklands. After completing basic training, Kevin was allocated to the Australian Army Service Corps as a truck driver in the 17th Brigade of the Sixth Division. As you'll be aware from previous blogs, Kevin got caught up in the evacuation of Greece, became a prisoner of war and was interned in Camp 10029/GW in Austria.

Joan corresponded with Kevin throughout his internment in Klagenfurt. In about 1943, she  moved to Melbourne, fell in love and got married. This news wasn’t shared with Kevin, a decision made jointly by Joan and Kevin’s family. She continued to write to Kevin regularly.

Camp 10029/GW was in the Klagenfurt suburb of Waidmannsdorf, about 2 miles from both the CBD and the railway yards. By mid-1944, air raids had become a regular event in Klagenfurt. Under the terms of the Geneva Convention, anti-aircraft defenses were not permitted to be closer than 600 metres from a POW compound. This was precisely the distance between a gun pit containing a Bofors 40 mm ack-ack and Kevin’s camp.

About one kilometre from the camp there was a small hill covered by scrubby trees. Today's passers-by would see a few hectares of uncultivated scrub amidst an otherwise tidy light-industrial area. A closer look and some scrub-bashing would reveal a steel door covered in graffiti. In 1944, after Klagenfurt's first bombardment, a contractor using POWs and forced labourers from France, hollowed out the hill and constructed a bomb shelter. In the year that followed, it would be used by the local citizenry and sometimes by the POWs themselves.

The Bombing

For the POWs in Camp 10029/GW, Sunday the 18^th of February 1945 began the same as any other. Most of the men had spent the morning working in the bitter cold and had returned to the camp at around 11 o'clock. There’s was a 6½-day work week. In the warmer months they would spend the afternoon playing sports or just resting but in February, typically the coldest month, they remained in their huts either huddled around the heater shooting the breeze, playing cards, or napping on their bed. 

On that particular day, the air-raid sirens sounded about noon and the men were called on parade. About 300 men ran for the pits dug to shelter them from wayward bombs. But taking shelter wasn't compulsory. Kevin told me that some 40 men remained behind on that day, mostly because they were either fed up, depressed, or in the camp hospital. Some never believed that bombs would ever be dropped on the camp. No bombs had fallen on the camp in the past, but this time they did. In 2014, Australian journalist and television presenter, Barrie Cassidy, published a book called Private Bill. His father, Bill Cassidy, was also a POW in 10029/GW. Cassidy wrote:

Suddenly, a line of bombs tore open the ground along the fence line, near the camp’s front gates. Within seconds, more bombs landed and ripped through the barracks. As Bill dashed for the door, the giant stove in the centre of the room came crashing down, crushing a man beneath it – the prisoner let out a piercing squeal, then fell silent. Bill realised that nothing could be done for him and charged outside.

There was pandemonium throughout the camp as the full horror of the bombing hit home. Bill joined the group of men milling around a trench that he had been dug right outside the camp hospital. He learned that a bomb had blown out the sides of the trench, causing it to collapse on three patients. Just as he registered that that two men were wailing in pain and panic, he remembered that Alan Eason had been admitted to the hospital the day before. Then Bill heard Alan’s voice, calm and measured, informing his would-be rescuers from the bottom of the trench that he had been ‘badly knocked about.’ Alan could just be seen through the gap in the rubble. While the men dug feverishly, he asked for cigarettes to be passed down to him - he said he would be all right if they kept the smokes coming. Two hours later, the men were freed. Two of them survived, but Alan died from his injuries the following morning.

Six POWs, three Australians and three British, were killed. It was thought that a bomber was attempting to bomb the ack-ack gun but somehow the bombs did not release as intended, were jettisoned, and inadvertently fell on the camp.

When Kevin arrived home, he was told that Joan had married and was living in the Melbourne. A few months later, he received this letter from Joan.

Newsagency,
162 Bridge Road
Richmond, Victoria

Sunday, 30th

Dear Kevin,
First of all, I must tell you how glad I was to hear you are home and well after such a long time. Mary Cameron told me all about your “Welcome Home.” It must have been all very bewildering for you.

I am writing to you at the request of one of our customers. We have a photo framing agency here and one day a lady brought a photo into me to be framed. I noticed that the photo was of POWs and she told me it was taken at Stalag 18A and showed me her son in the group. When I was putting the photo away I noticed someone very familiar and it was you looking very fit and well.

I told her (about this) when she came back with the photo and she then told me her son Jeff never made it home, that he died whilst in Stalag. She asked me if I had your address and if so, could I write to you and find out something about her late son. His name was Jefferson Gilbert. I hope you don’t mind but I think she would just like to know whether or not you knew him, et cetera.

Six men were killed in the Sunday bomb raid. Jeff Gilbert was one of them. Kevin knew Jeff well. They were hut-mates and on occasions they were photographed together. Jeff was one of those who made the decision not to go to the bomb shelter. Kevin told me that Jeff refused to move from his bed as an act of defiance.

Kevin is first on the left in the back row. Jeff Gilbert is fourth from the left in the same row.

On duty in the cookhouse. Jeff Gilbert id in the foreground, Kevin id in the very background.

The Australian Tug O'War team photo taken on the annual 'Empire Games' sports day. Bill Cassidy is seated first left and Alan Eason, a champion school boy rugby player from Sydney, sits in the middle with a towel around his neck.

Bill Cassidy's Story

William Edward (Bill) Cassidy, the father of ABC Reporter and presenter, Barrie Cassidy, was a Klagenfurt POW.

Click Here to read "My Father's Story."

Click Here for Bill's profile.

Photo No. 90

The Fate of Walter Tollinger

In 2015, I mentioned to Ian Brown (the Stalag XVIIIA historian), that I was travelling to Klagenfurt and he arranged for me to meet with Paul Angerer. Paul is a respected local  historian who has conducted extensive research of the Klagenfurt POW camp known as Waidmannsdorf 10029/GW. I asked Paul how it was that my father possessed photographs that had obviously been taken by a professional photographer. Through Paul I came to learn of Walter Tollinger.

Paul Angerer (2015)

In 2015 I mentioned to Ian Brown, (the Stalag XVIIIA historian) that I was travelling to Klagenfurt and he arranged for me to meet with Paul Angerer. Paul is a respected local  historian who has conducted extensive research of the Klagenfurt POW camp known as Waidmannsdorf 10029/GW. I asked Paul how it was that my father possessed photographs that had obviously been taken by a professional photographer. Through Paul I came to learn the story of Walter Tollinger.

Tollinger was a guard at the camp. Born in Klagenfurt on 1 April 1901, he was a well-known Austrian artist and photographer. He also had a keen interest in politics. Between 1921 and 1925, Walter Tollinger was a Marxist and member of the Communist Party.  in In 1933 however, he switched his allegiances to the Nazis and became a member of the National Socialists Democratic Party. But he obviously didn't like what he saw so he cancelled his membership the following year

By 1938, Walter Tollinger had become a vocal critic of Hitler and the Nazis. Even in those pre-war days this was a dangerous pastime. If nothing else though he was a principled man who perhaps took the "Democratic" title of the NSDP a little too literally.

His negative attitude to the Nazis was sometimes put on display in cafes and taverns, particularly after drinking alcohol. On 4 December 1939, in a bar in the presence of some German officers and others, he announced that "the German war in Poland is a swinishness and Hitler is a blackguard and a criminal as well!" This statement, and other information in this article, was taken from the book, Sentenced to Death – Nazi-Justice and Resistance in Carinthia. The word 'swinishness' could probably be substituted by 'pig-headedness.' Tollinger was arrested for this public criticism of Hitler though his punishment was not severe.

Professionally, Walter Tollinger was a master photographer, conducting who conducted a photographic studio in Klagenfurt with his wife who was also a qualified photographer. When Walter was conscripted to be a guard at 10029/GW, she ran the day-to-day business.

A Tollinger photo of my father, Kevin Byrne

Walter Tollinger gained permission from the camp Commandant to take portrait and group photographs of the POWs. The men paid for the prints using their meagre wages. There wasn't much else on which to spend their money. They sent the images home in the form of post cards thus assuring their families that they were in good physical condition. This policy suited both the POWs and their captives.

By 1943, the Stalag 18A authorities agreed to allow prisoners on work camps to purchase cameras and consumables (paper, chemicals, etc.) with their wages. Supposedly, the hobby was limited to camp activities though my father (or one of his friends) managed to take some photographs of their work parties.

In 1944, Walter Tollinger resumed his public criticism of Hitler. On 4 April 1944, after voicing his contempt of the German campaigns in Europe and Russia, a sergeant who had been fighting on the Russian front, answered: "coming back home as a wounded man, I have to meet such a swine as you. I won't accept to sacrifice myself for persons like you!" The sergeant then asked Tollinger to go with him to the Gestapo-headquarters, where he was challenged to repeat his remarks.

Unfortunately, Walter misjudged the seriousness of the situation. He accepted the challenge and was immediately arrested by the Gestapo.

The 'Foto Tollinger' brand was printed on the reverse side of the image.

On 11 November 1944, Tollinger was sent for trial, charged with "undermining military morale."  He was found guilty and received the death penalty. On 8 December 1944, along with eight others charged with similar crimes, Walter Tollinger  was executed by firing squad.

74 years on, the Tollinger business survives in Klagenfurt. The Plaque below is displayed in Alter Platz (formerly Adolph Hitler Platz)