Beyond the Wire

Told to attack the Anzio beach head nineteen year old Arthur Vickers lasted barely two weeks as a fighting British soldier before being captured by the Germans.

Herded onto a cattle wagon he was transported into the heartland of Poland where he was forced to work down the mines in one of their notorious Labour Camps.

With the advancement of the Russian Army he and thousands of other prisoners were frog marched out of the camp and forced to walk fifteen hundred miles in the depths of winter across Poland, Czechoslovakia and Germany. He witnessed the horror of the Concentration camps, saw fleeing members of the Gestapo burn their papers, and watched as the men on the march dwindled in number through starvation, exhaustion and sheer terror.

In April 1945, half starved and exhausted himself, he made his break for freedom.This is his story; from call up to liberation and how he survived Beyond the Wire.