Scottish Catholic Observer

1939 caused the British province one of its many growing pains. The new House of Philosophy at Rossington, Yorks, was leased to the Army and 29 Philosophers became homeless. The French Province offered to shelter them and the offer was gratefully accepted. On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception the nine second year philosophers set sail for France under the care of Fathers Delteyk and Maguire. We presume they went to prepare the way. The 20 students in first year set sail on December 21st from Southampton and zigzagged their way to Le Havre. Missing Paris they continued to zigzag their way through the north of France till they reached their destination at Hennebont, Morbihan, in Brittany in time for Christmas.

Life carried on peacefully for five months. The war was something remote from our new abode. Occasionally a French student would come to say goodbye having been called to the colours. However the month of June brought us all down to earth: Dunkirk, the fall of Paris and finally the fall of France. Fr Thomas Moran appeared out of the blue one day having struggled all the way from Paris. Feverish activity behind the scenes by the British Fathers failed to find a way out of our predicament. The Germans however helped us to make up our minds. They appeared suddenly and requisitioned half of the seminary. The British decided that discretion was the better part of valour and moved out to try and reach Vichy France, which had not been occupied by the Germans.

Try not to draw attention to yourselves! A tall order for three Fathers and 29 students all trying to look like Frenchmen. Let it be said that many succeeded in looking like French refugees. We all succeeded in reaching Anger on the river Loire by train. Our route now lay south of Anger but alas the French had blown all the bridges over the river in their retreat and we had to cross by small rowing boats kindly helped by the Germans. Our expedition south of the Loire didn’t last long. Posters on the way informed us that anyone helping foreigners to pass into ‘Free France’ would be shot. After one day it was decided to retrace our steps to Hennebont. This we did on foot—a matter of 250 kilometres. The journey, taken in easy stages because of blistered feet, took us nearly two weeks. Good people gave us food on the way and many offered us shelter at nights. At last on July 12, looking like the remnants of an Orange Walk, we reached Hennebont. The following day, Sunday, was spent in bathing feet. On Monday afternoon we were all asked to report at the Town Hall.

Here we came face to face with German efficiency. The Irish and Dutch were separated from the Scots and English and immediately ushered out and sent back to the seminary. A bewildered group of eight Irish students and Fr Delteyk left us to our fate. From then on we were berated for our misdeeds and finally locked up in a barrack room for the night. Yes, we were prisoners of the Germans and odd-looking prisoners at that, as we were all clad in our white habits and long black coats and French ecclesiastical hats. That evening some French students brought each of us a haversack with some of our belongings. The barrack room had the appearance of a Christmas morning and gifts from Santa Claus. I’m sure we still have a quiet laugh to ourselves over this scene. The writer received the following: A pair of plus fours, one pyjama jacket but no trousers, one shirt (the hairy kind and definitely not his own), one handkerchief, two forks, one knife and spoon and a pair of green and white football stockings without any feet! So much for our French Confreres sense of humour—or lack of it!

The national stud for cart horses situated at Hennebont had been turned into a prisoner of war camp and next morning after listening to a further lecture on our wicked ways we were marched through the town to take our rightful place in the camp. Fr Maguire, complete with patriarchal beard, led the march. Those with umbrellas were forced to shoulder them as rifles. A German NCO [non-commissioned officer] rode alongside in his car keeping us in step. For the next six weeks this was to be our home.

Our home? Two horseboxes complete with drinking trough. Being forbidden to speak to the other prisoners was really no hardship at the beginning but after six weeks we were all pretty fluent in ‘barrack room French.’

Just as we were beginning to settle down to the routine of the camp we were transferred by train to a transit camp at Savenay near St Nazaire. This time there was no barrack room, no horse box but a few sheets of corrugated iron leaning together to give us some protection from the weather. Morale was very low as we were camped right opposite a huge hangar filled to the roof with cases of Johnnie Walker and British cigarettes. German guards and barbed wire discouraged any would-be tipplers. During our three day stay in the camp we received one hot meal and only managed to survive on ship biscuits and bully beef. Mercifully our visit was brief and after three days we were transferred to another camp halfway back to Hennebont, at St Ave, near Vannes.

On arrival the Camp Commander offered us tea; we blessed his kind heart till we tasted it—boiled. Once again we bedded down in straw. An Irish cargo boat had been sunk off the French coast so a few of the survivors joined our band. It took quite some time to convince them that they were in a prison camp as they were sure that the Dutch had picked them up. However the first one of them who left the barrack after dark was fired at by the guards and there was no doubting after that.

After two weeks we were on the move again. Travel was by the famous French railway wagon designed for 40 men or eight horses. The journey lasted two days with one night in a siding. Montreuil-Bellay, south of Saumur, was to be our next home. Here we caught up with many British civilians who had been picked up around Nantes. Fr Moran met his brother who is a De La Salle Brother and who had been teaching in Nantes. With him were three De La Salle Novices. We also met about a dozen novices of the De Montfort Society—boys we had known through our bi-annual rivalry on the soccer field at Romsey in Hampshire.

Our hosts once again only provided one hot meal a day and that at lunch. Each evening we were given one loaf of black bread for eight persons and a piece of make belief cheese or pate de foie gras (nearly genuine). This had to be divided up so as to give you some breakfast. In exchange for all this we pushed quarry trucks morning and afternoon and made one of those roads to nowhere. To supplement our meagre diet ‘volunteers’ for kitchen duty were obliged to ‘borrow’ potatoes and carrots for later use in the barrack room. God bless the Frenchman who sent the plus fours!

Just as we were settling down to this modern seminary training we were uprooted and sent on our way—destination unknown. For three days we trundled through France and finally arrived in the outskirts of Paris where we were transferred to La Grande Caserne, St Denis, which was to be our home till liberation in August 1944. Here, towards October 1 1940, we became numbers. Each one was given a number and an armband and enrolled in Stalag 220 as a Civilian Internee. The camp housed about 1800-2000 and in spite of transfers to other camps of civilians the number remained pretty steady during our four years of domicile. It was commonly reported that the camp was made up of priests, Jews and Jockeys, which was actually near enough the mark

Be British! Keep the stiff upper lip! Maybe we overdid it as the Germans were convinced that all these young students were British soldiers in disguise. As a result we were subjected to midnight visits by guards who probably expected to find us drilling round the room or digging tunnels—a slightly difficult task as we were in a large room, No 147, on the third floor! Never mind we were confident that all would be over by Christmas—but we never got round to stating which Christmas.

The new intake from Montreuil-Bellay were invited to challenge the camp at football and on the very first Sunday two fathers, eight students and one jockey lined up against the pride of St Denis, containing four players from French Division One Teams.

The prize: A silver paper cup having as base one tin of condensed milk and a loaf of black bread. We won! Have you ever shared a tin of condensed milk with 10 others especially when the Jockey lived in another room? So began the famous Clerics XI of St Denis (we had soon dismissed our Jockey). Contrary to popular press reports, we did not play in our white habits but in shorts of various shapes and colours. God bless the cut-down plus fours.

November 1940 found everyone looking for Irish grandparents but only three students succeeded and we tearfully saw them liberated as citizens of the republic. We now numbered two fathers and 18 students. About this time a rumour began to circulate that we were to restart classes but till the New Year it remained a rumour. However early in the year a number of internees were transferred to a new camp to give it some tradition. Our good friends the Montfortians were among them but two of their best football players remained at St Denis. This transfer of people gave us some breathing space and we descended en bloc to the second floor and took possession of room 53. Double-decker beds (wood), two potbellied stoves and seven windows giving us a view of the outside world—even though it was only to back windows of large tenements. The rumour of classes became a fact and back we went to classes.

In room 53 we slept, prayed, studied and entertained ourselves for the remainder of our stay. Other clerics joined us to bring the room complement up to the desired 28. Those ancient walls built in the time of Napoleon could most certainly tell stories if they could only speak. It might be as well to leave them as guardians.

Our daily routine was soon noted and respected by the other internees but when suddenly students bean to appear in the yard at all hours of the day they feared that all was not well with us. Guess the amazement on discovering that we were on holiday! Yes, we had our Christmas, Easter and summer holidays—and every conceivable saints day that we could connect with our studies and Africa.

Weekly exams, term exams, all were taken in our stride and eventually on February 2,1944 we were marched out under armed guard to the Royal Basilica of St Denis, whose tower we could see from the camp, and tonsured by the Auxiliary Bishop of Paris. What does Canon Law say about being ordained under duress! We were also given the Rosary and this caused great confusion among our fellow prisoners. Quick promotion? Everyone became a ‘Father’ overnight.

Food, as you can well imagine, was always a problem—especially with a room full of ‘growing laddies.’ Our hosts had calculated a standard diet for us. Breakfast: Nettle tea (NB not Nestlé’s tea). Lunch: a milk churn of soup. The soup changed every year; 1941—Cabbage; 1942—Carrot; 1943—leak; 1944—with the capitulation of Italy—Macaroni. Occasionally we had meat and potatoes. Supper: an eighth, sixth or quarter of a black bread loaf and a piece of margarine or cheese or jam. Naturally under the circumstances there was no choice. Mercifully the Red Cross turned up trumps and we received one Red Cross parcel practically every week and also a tin of 50 English cigarettes. Curiously enough Lent was always the hardest period, not through voluntary fasting and penance, but parcels never seemed to arrive then. We were also allowed two visits per month and as we had no relations some kind internees organised Godmothers and Godfathers for us and we were extremely grateful. These poor souls who lived on their own poor rations brought and sent us delicacies bought no doubt on the black market in Paris. God Bless them all.

Drake played bowls while the Spanish Armada sailed up the English Channel. We played football, cricket, tennis, putting, volleyball and baseball. Athletic meetings and open-air boxing were held in the summer. Cross country runs in winter; I suppose Stalag 220 originated the famous ‘round the houses’ race! Play up, play up and play the game. Even air raids by our own RAF left us unperturbed and only when the German guards chased us inside did any game come to a halt. Life was what you made it and the white fathers played their fair share in entertaining the other internees. We nearly boasted of a heavyweight boxing champions from room 55 but unfortunately his opponent in the final worked in the camp kitchen! Anyway, it cured him of boxing.

Our greatest consolation during our four years of internment was having daily the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Apart from days of travel we never failed to have Mass. For a short time in St Denis we even had the Blessed Sacrament reserved in one of the top floor rooms but a new intake of internees saw the withdrawal of permission by the Germans. In our own room we had a permanent altar for daily Mass and quite a number of lay people took the opportunity of coming daily to Mass. Through our example, I presume, some returned to their duties and a number were converted.

We also had our Crosses to hear. Brother Billy O’Shea died of cancer and was buried in Paris. Brother Joseph O’Brien went to hospital in Paris with TB. Only after liberation was it discovered that our superior Fr Maguire and two other students also had TB. One student later died in England as a result. Brother Wiseman was condemned to death by a Court Tribunal in Paris for supposedly giving the name of an escape route to England to two British soldiers who had escaped and later been recaptured. After a lot of begging by the Cardinal of Paris he was sentenced to eight weeks solitary confinement in the famous Fresnes prison.

We were not supposed to have any news of the outside world except from German sources but a number of people had wireless sets in the camp. These were assembled and dismantled before and after all BBC news broadcasts. The various parts were distributed among safe contacts in case of snap inspections. One student took upon himself the task of collecting all the news for the room and so we were usually pretty well up to date. His biggest scoop was the news of the landing on June 6 1944. Rushing back to the room with this long awaited news he was just in time for class—and class continued as usual!

Soon in August 1944 we knew that liberation was near at hand. Columns of Germans were streaming out of Paris through St Denis. Hopes rose high. We even began to pack. Just after midnight on August 23 a cry went up in the camp that our German guards had vanished. Freedom at last. What a strange coincidence that it was Brother Moody’s 21st birthday. Some key of the door! However, things weren’t quite finished for the Germans. They had their last fling and shelled Paris sending a stream of shells over the Caserne. Then we really knew fear. Mercifully the Americans arrived and all was well. The White Fathers in Paris grabbed an old lorry and came and collected us and on Saturday August 26 we left St Denis for the last time. It was with mixed feelings that we took a last look at our ‘home.’

Here nearly every student had come of age and entered manhood. We were all delighted that the Benjamin of the party had succeeded in joining us by the skin of his teeth. Now 17 students who had entered through these portals as young lads were passing out as young men.

General De Gaulle was making his official entry into Paris and going to Notre Dame for a Te Deum as we were passing in the opposite direction complete with Union Jack acknowledging the cheers of the crowd with Churchillian signs. Suddenly firing opened and we quickly huddled at the bottom of the lorry. A young French White Father who had been proudly displaying the Union Jack quickly joined us muttering in French ‘To —— with your flag!’ The procure in rue Friant, Paris, received us warmly and couldn’t have done more for us, even though we spent our first night in freedom down the cellar as German planes bombed Paris. We lived there for a month before arrangements were made to fly us back to London.

This account would not be complete without a sincere word of thanks to Fathers Maguire and Moran who looked after us, encouraged us, consoled us, chased us and blessed us. Without them we would have been like sheep without a shepherd. Both suffered physically and mentally for us and never grumbled at us. Ever? Well hardly ever. God bless them.

Of the 16 students finally liberated from their wartime seminary—surely forerunners of the 2nd Vatican Council on the training of priests—nine were ordained to the priesthood and all in Scotland in the small Border Church of the Immaculate Conception, Jedburgh. Fitting really, as Mary immaculate is patroness of the society and she certainly protected us during our adventures to the Altar.