31 BBC Edward Ward

Yes, the moment release was, without any doubt, the greatest of my life and in the lives of all my fellow prisoners of war of off-leg 12b. We'd been moved from the camp in which we'd spent 18 weary months and had gone through somewhat anxious period, expecting a further move from day to day.

But the move never came and every day brought the American troops nearer to us and their spectacular advance through Germany. We were standing at the edge of a slag heap in the little railway town of Lullar, a few miles north of Geeseon, when the great moment came.

It was epitomized by a great cry of the American tanks, a concerted shout which went up in English, French, Russian, Polish, Dutch, Italian, German, in fact an almost every conceivable language from the peck group of people from every corner of Europe and the British Empire, to whom the arrival of the Americans meant deliverance.

To us of off-leg 12B, the senior British officers camp in Germany, which included Levenbrigaderes, it meant the end of a long, wearier term of imprisonment, dating back to Dunkirk days for some. To the French, Belgians, Dutch, Russians, Poles and others, it meant emancipation from slavery.

Rumors have been flying around for days about where the American troops were. trucks returning from the front were continually claiming to have missed capture by minutes. But early on Wednesday afternoon it became plain that the Americans were very close.

Our temporary camp was a group of huts out in an open field with a slag heap and an arms factory which had long since ceased active production behind us. About three o'clock in the afternoon things began to warm up.