My Scrap Paper Diary: From Snake Bite to POW 1941-1945

Vic Petersen was a member of the 2/11th Battalion A.I.F., Army number WX 571 and found himself in the Battle of Crete on May 20th, 1941 against the Germans. He was in a section of the Allies that defended Retimo, on the Island of Crete during the German airborne invasion. Many thousands were captured by the Germans. Many others were told by Commanders to make for Sfakia on the other side of the island in the hope of being evacuated. They were instructed to smash their rifles to make them of no use to the enemy.

The Crete Battle finished at the end of May and Vic and a small contingent of Allies escaped to Tymbakion on the south side. Here the men were captured by a German patrol and marched back over the mountains to the northern side. During the march that lasted three days the prisoners were refused water and food. By the time they reached Retimo they were in a poor state. After retiring for the night Vic was bitten by a poisonous snake and close to death. He was saved by a German doctor and he eventually recovered.

Vic began writing a diary to record his life as a POW. He found whatever pieces of paper he could and wrote daily notes on these about what was happening to himself and those around him. His general knowledge came to the fore when he wrote a daily note called "Oil" about happenings in the other areas of the War. The Oil news came from the view points of the Germans and the Allies. He kept this up over four and a half years. During these years he produced 1440 notes and hid these on his person and in his knapsack.

The 151 POWs sent to Tymbakion, Crete, began working for the Germans grubbing out thousands of olive trees. The men were told the cleared area was in preparation for grape growing. Like most of the German propaganda it was found to be false and the real reason soon surfaced. From grubbing olive trees to building an aerodrome, Vic was soon predicting what was happening to him and the other prisoners.

At the end of 1941 Vic and the other POWs were dispatched by trucks to Heraklion. A scary ship voyage took the group to the hellhole of Solonika. During the movement across the Mediterranean Sea to Greece their ship was shadowed by a British submarine and fired upon. Luckily the torpedo just missed leaving the men shaken and pleased to reach land safe. The stay at Solonika was short but unpleasant. From Salonika they were loaded into cattle cars under brutal conditions and taken by train into the centre of Germany to a prison camp called Stalag VIIIB. One of the main issues the men had trouble coping with was the drop in temperature, with many days below zero.

Vic was allocated a work party where he helped maintain the railway lines at Bodisch and Konigshan. He stayed alert to all the activities he was involved in and looked after his mates. He was considered by his other members of the Work Party to be the Man of Confidence and therefore was looked up to. He had fingers in many pies even writing letters home to the spouses of inmates.

Communication with the outside World was slow and sometimes non-existent. Vic was often without letters from family and friends. He yearned contact with the family. In May, 1945 Vic was placed on a train and moved across the German countryside. Other prisoners from the Stalags had already begun marching day in and day out towards Berlin. He eventually was released by the Americans and returned home. All of his notes of his incredible life as a POW were taken and typed by a family member. By a quirk of fate, eighty years later Vic's story came to light.

By preserving this diary, it will become a valuable resource for researchers and others who are keenly interested in our history, as in the future other first-hand accounts become lost over time. This book is a tribute to our history and the men who experienced it.