Johnson, Paul Behind the Wire

The Road to Oflag VII B Eichstätt

Diaries and letters from soldiers who were held captive during the Second World War have been preserved in large numbers, but rarely are they as detailed as those of John Blomfield Dixon, who lived in the town of Ware in Hertfordshire. After joining the Territorial Army in 1938, he quickly progressed through officer training and was transferred to the East Riding Yeomanry as a sergeant when the Second World War broke out. After his death in 2013, his family inherited a collection of scrapbooks, folders, maps, photographs and documents, as well as a small stack of well-thumbed brochures that reflected his insatiable appetite for describing his training, life and death during the retreat to Dunkirk, his humiliating capture by the enemy at the height of the Battle of Cassel, and the long, arduous journey through a series of officers' camps that would eventually take him to Oflag VIIB in the Bavarian town of Eichstätt. Supplemented by a series of annotated photographs, some of which are previously unpublished, this book provides insight into the long, arduous days, the miserable food shortages, his thoughts of home, the woman he desperately loved, his hatred of his captors and fellow prisoners, the murder of his comrades on and off the battlefield, the tireless efforts and disasters of escape, and his passion for theatre life, which found expression on the dusty stages of the prison camp. All of this conveys a picture of his experiences and feelings. His views and opinions on the wild and inaccurate rumours and propaganda spread by both the German and Allied press paint an often distorted picture of the course of the war at that time. The Normandy landings in June 1944 brought the sudden realisation that freedom could soon become a reality. However, the frustration and fear of impending liberation culminate in a terrible catastrophe just as freedom is within sight. This happened on 14 April 1945, when the prisoners were fired upon with machine guns from US aircraft on their way to Moosburg. Fifteen were killed and another forty-one wounded. Liberation also brought its own frustrations, which are expressed in the final diary entries and supplemented by a post-war summary of his long journey home. Combined with a narrative drawn from both official records of the period and the recollections of men who served or were imprisoned with him, the carefully selected entries not only provide one of the most detailed pictures of life at Oflag VIIB, but also serve to commemorate the service of John Blomfield Dixon and those with whom he shared his imprisonment.