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AN EASY WAR?
Gordon Highlanders Prisoners of War 1940 - 1945
EDWARD AND CHARLES IRVINE
THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS
STALAG XX B
Eddie and Charlie Irvine joined the Bucksburn
Company of the 5th Battalion (Territorial Army)
in about 1938. Charlie said that he joined up in
order to learn how to drive; his test was to drive
from Mugiemoss Road to Forrit Brae and back.
At the outbreak of war, the brothers were called
up. Charlie married his sweetheart Peg on 29
December 1939, and on the following day
returned to his unit, not to see Peg again for 5½
years. With the rest of their Battalion, Charlie
and Eddie were captured at St Valéry. They
were able to remain together, and in February
1942 were sent to Stalag XXB where they
remained for the rest of the war. This was a
huge POW camp, holding about 20,000 POWs,
half of them British. Initially, many of the huts were half underground.
In one postcard home, Charlie complained that New Year had been “very stale”.
He and some friends decided to do something about this; they saved potato
peelings and distilled them into alcohol. Many of the POWs did not like the
drink, and Eddie got their share. He became so drunk that he went up to the
perimeter fence and started swearing at the German sentries. Fortunately,
Charlie was able to get him back into their hut before the sentries reacted.
In the spring of 1945 the prisoners of Stalag XXB were forced out of the camp
by their Germans guards and made to march west to escape the advancing
Russian Army.
After they were liberated, Charlie and Eddie were flown home in a Royal Air
Force Dakota, and were very relieved when they saw the white cliffs of Dover
through a hole in the floor of the plane.
When they were demobbed, Eddie and Charlie returned to work at Stoneywood
paper mill, where they stayed until they retired.