Laurence Green - GREAT WAR TO GREAT ESCAPE: The Two Wars of Flight Lieutenant Bernard Pop Green MC

Published in 2011 by Fighting High Ltd,
23 Hitchin Road, Stotfold, Hitchin, Herts, SG5 4HP
www.fightinghigh.com

Copyright Fighting High Ltd, 2011
Copyright text Laurence Green 2011

The rights of Laurence Green to be identified as the
author of this book is asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Patents and Designs Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data.
A CIP record for this title is available from the
British Library.

ISBN 13: 978-0956269638
EPUB ISBN: 9780957116382

Designed and typeset in Monotype Baskerville 11/14pt
by Michael Lindley www.truthstudio.co.uk

Printed and bound by Toppan Printing Co. (UK) Ltd.
Front cover design by Michael Lindley incorporating
illustration by Steve Teasdale.

To Adrian Bernard Green (19192010)
and
740864 Sergeant E. L. Farrands RAF POW No. 136

Contents

Preface

Flight Lieutenant Bernard Pop Green was my grandfather. He died when I was at university and unfortunately I didnt have the opportunity to go to his funeral.

I didnt know him very well; it would be true to say that nobody did, even the close members of his family. He was a reticent man who seldom pushed himself forward, except in support of his country in the event of war. I remember him as a background presence, hovering in a rather sinister homburg hat to press a florin into my childish hand. He was not a cold man but he wasnt a great communicator. Im sure that he would be most surprised that a book had been written about him.

I put his reticence down to his terrible experiences during the First World War. He must have experienced a lifetime of post-traumatic stress, making nothing of it but becoming, as a result, more and more quiet and withdrawn from everyone around him.

He was a highly intelligent and sensitive man who would have made a very successful career in the Army had he taken the opportunity to stay in after the First World War.

When I was 9 years old my parents took me up to his house in Chichester for a family visit. My father later told me that my grandfather was about to talk, for the first time, about his experiences at Stalag Luft III when I wandered into the room to ask some trivial question. As a result my grandfathers train of thought was broken and the subject was never raised again.

Eventually he wrote five remarkable paragraphs about his recapture after The Great Escape. He called it Now It Can Be Told (this is reproduced below as Appendix 1). His whole rather modest attitude to what he did comes out clearly in these five paragraphs, along with his keen sense of the ridiculous. It is a great pity that he did not write more.

I feel that now I can give a voice to a man who was voluntarily mute on the subject of what he did in both world wars. His story is a remarkable one, because he came close to death so many times on so many different occasions, dying at last peacefully at the age of 83 in Chichester.

So, in a way, I am repaying a debt that goes back to my boyhood, and I thank Steve Darlow of Fighting High Publishing for seeking me out and enabling this book to be published.

I would also like to thank Peter Watson for his editorial suggestions, advice and encouragement. Many thanks are due to Peter Love for advice on the procedures and language of wartime aircrews. Lyle Oswald gave me some valuable observations on the Handley Page Hampden. Neil Mullard gave me some very useful advice on the rough version of the manuscript and lent me a monitor when mine suffered a fatal haemorrhage. Jason Warr sent me some copies of unpublished photographs of my grandfather in various POW camps in Germany and Poland and answered all my questions. Ian Sayer and Tim Carroll sent me a lot of useful information and photos from Stalag Luft III .

Above all I wish to thank my late father, Adrian Green, for giving me, several years ago, my grandfathers entire correspondence from the various POW camps in Germany and Poland in which he was an involuntary guest of the Third Reich. My father was also able to read through most of the rough version of the book and offered many corrections and suggestions.

Great thanks also to my Aunt Kitty, my fathers younger sister and my favourite aunt. She cast her rightfully critical eye over the manuscript and corrected many solecisms. Both my father and my aunt were invaluable sources of information on my grandfathers rather enigmatic life.

This account could never have been written without the great help of Jennifer Green, my grandfathers daughter from his second marriage. Jennifer took great trouble to put many of the unpublished photographs of my grandfather, taken in several camps over a four-year period, on a disk, which she sent to me. She also answered several important questions and sent me a colour photograph of his medals.

Tom Tulloch-Marshall did valuable research on my behalf and painstakingly pieced together my grandfathers hair-raising service in the Ox. and Bucks Light Infantry and the Machine Gun Corps (the Suicide Club) from 1914 to 1918. I thank him for hard work under trying circumstances.

Last, but never least, my wife, Kathi, has been a great help and comfort, with many useful observations and suggestions and constant encouragement and support.

Laurence Green
October 2010

Chronology