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The King's Most Loyal Enemy Aliens

Germans Who Fought for Britain in the Second World War

The History Press

The Pioneer Corps

War broke out on 3 September 1939, changing the status of Germans and Austrians living in Britain. They were immediately classified as enemy aliens even though they had been granted refuge as victims of Nazi oppression. Three and a half thousand refugees were living in Kitchener Camp, a transit camp on the Kent coast. The majority volunteered for the British Forces because they wanted a direct hand in defeating Nazism. They had seen too much in the countries of their birth to sit back and allow others to do the fighting. By the end of 1939 the British Government permitted enemy aliens to join the non-combatant Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps (AMPC), the only unit open to them at that time. Those who enlisted took the momentous step of swearing allegiance to King George VI, donned British Army uniform and received the King's Shilling. They became affectionately known as 'The King's Most Loyal Enemy Aliens'.

The alien Pioneer companies were trained at No 3. Training Centre of the Pioneer Corps, initially based at Kitchener Camp under the command of Lord Reading (Lord Rufus Isaacs). A number of men of alien nationality living elsewhere in Britain, who had also volunteered for army service, were sent directly to the camp for training. Derelict since the First World War, it had been given by the British Government to Jewish relief organisations in 1938 to be rebuilt as a transit camp for men fleeing persecution. Reconstruction began after Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, when on 9 November 1938 the Nazis burned synagogues and smashed Jewish businesses throughout Germany and Austria. Kitchener Camp was rebuilt using the skills of 200 refugee craftsmen from Germany. The work was carried out under the supervision of British architect Ernest Joseph and aided by two refugee architects, Viennese-born Dr Walter Marmorek, and Berlin-born Dr Rudi Herz. Both enlisted in the Pioneer Corps. Walter Marmorek served with 74 Company and in 1943 transferred to the Royal Engineers, eventually posted to Italy and Austria. He attained the rank of major. Rudi Herz joined 220 Company and then 77 Company of the Pioneer Corps. In 1943 he also transferred to the Royal Engineers and in June 1944 embarked for service in India where he remained for a year as chief engineer in Bangalore. In October 1945 he was posted to Germany to work on designing buildings in army quarters and camps for the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). He was demoblised in September 1947 with the rank of captain.

Six Pioneer Corps companies were raised at Kitchener Camp, each consisting of about 300 men. These were nos 69, 74, 77, 87, 88 and 93. Five of these companies were sent to France in early 1940 to join the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Before they left, the men changed their names in case of capture and signed the following declaration:

I certify that I understand the risks ... to which I and my relatives may be exposed by my employment in the British Army outside the United Kingdom. Notwithstanding this, I certify that I am willing to be employed in any theatre of war.

The declaration is a poignant reminder of their commitment to the freedom of Europe and the personal risk that they were prepared to undertake to secure that freedom.

The first to be raised at Kitchener Camp was 69 Company which arrived in France on 23 January 1940. The men worked around Rennes in Brittany with a railway construction company. On 1 February, 74 Company landed and was stationed in Rennes and then Bruz (15km south of Rennes) working on roads. On 18 March, 87 Company landed and commenced work with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps at the port of Le Havre before moving to Harfleur. In April, 88 Company arrived and worked alongside 87 Company in guarding the docks at Harfleur. Finally, 93 Company arrived on 11 May 1940, the day after Holland had fallen to German forces. They worked initially on road construction at Bruz and then handled stores at a railway dump and road construction at Château Bray. The companies were essentially an unarmed manual labour force, supporting the BEF, and remained in France until their evacuation in mid-June 1940. Only 77 Company remained in England, stationed from February at the Royal Engineers Stores Depot at Donnington.

Back in England, men of German and Austrian nationality continued to enlist at Kitchener Camp and train for the Pioneer Corps. Alfred Perlés, the metaphysical writer and friend of Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell, who was training for the Pioneer Corps contrasted the mood of the refugees with that of the nation:

The fears that obscured the minds of the Pioneers were well founded in fact. These men were desperate because they knew from their own experience all the atrocities of which the Nazis, unloosed, were capable. Nearly every one of them had been subjected to the cruelty and brutality of the Hitlerites. The English, on the other hand, had never experienced this fear. They were apprehensive, of course, of the war situation in general but they were not really afraid. Their very ignorance of the thoroughness of German native brutality, which none of them had experienced in the flesh, saved them from the panic with which the victims of Nazi oppression seemed to be seized. Had the English actually known, as the refugees did, the terrible tortures and ordeals in store for them should the Germans be able to get a foothold in these islands, they too might have lost their heads and given in before the struggle for life and death was actually to take place. It so happened that their ignorance of the true danger, coupled with their nerve, saved the world from the terror of Nazi domination. England could resist only because the English had no idea what they were resisting, nor how heavily the dice were loaded against them.

For Harry Rossney (Helmuth Rosettenstein), one of the 200 craftsmen reconstructing Kitchener Camp, all hope lay in Britain: 'England, at that hour, was the hope of the world, of freedom and tolerance. We clung to its apron, blessing the day we were allowed to set foot on it, albeit originally on a temporary visa.'

When in the late spring of 1940 Belgium, Holland and France was overrun by Nazi forces, panic struck the British Government. There was the very real possibility and fear that Hitler would parachute German spies in British uniforms, 'Fifth Columnists', into Kent and infiltrate the refugees. As a result, the remaining refugees at Kitchener Camp were moved overnight with No. 3 Training Centre to Willsworthy Camp near Lydford on Dartmoor in the heart of Devon. Morale was low and the weather on the moor was terrible. For several weeks, the men camped in tents in dense fog and heavy rain. Nicolai Poliakoff, more famously known as Coco the Clown of Bertram Mills Circus, had also enlisted in their ranks and entertained the men with his comedy sketches in the NAAFI tent. In his autobiography Behind My Greasepaint, he writes:

The weather was very bad, pouring with rain. It was not enough that the weather was wet but I had to pour buckets of water all over myself and get wetter still; but I didn't mind that as long as I could make the boys laugh.

Alfred Perlés, who served with 137 and 249 Companies, describes the depressing conditions on Dartmoor, interspersing his memories with no small amount of humour:

The camp proper – a tent camp – was reached after half an hour's cross-country march from the village [of Lydford]. It was a most desolate place. We lived in a meadow like cattle. None of us was used to living under canvas, and we all felt highly uncomfortable. The tents seemed too small, yet eight men had to find accommodation in one tent, together with their full equipment. ... The weather too changed overnight and the first morning we woke up in the tents it was raining outside. Rain is always depressing at the best; but when your abode is a tent it is tragic. We did have floorboards – not all the tents had them – but they did protect us from the chilly damp. ... There was a wash-place in the open: cold water and a few washbasins, hopelessly inadequate for the whole company. Only the inveterate cleanliness fiends went out in the rain for a wash. The latrine was an abominable contraption, seemingly conceived and constructed by a paranoiac corporal. It was no longer the lack of privacy that bothered us, but the total absence of any minimum of comfort. At night it was quite a hazardous matter to venture to leave the tent, as all the tents looked alike in the rigorously enforced blackout. Yet blackout or no blackout, a man has to get out of his tent once in a while when the cold and damp begin to have their effect on the bladder. Gorloff [a colleague] had marked our tent 'Ritz Hotel' with a piece of white chalk.

Frankfurt-born Edgar Bender was assigned as army cook on Dartmoor. From there he was sent on detachment to a quarry near Mary Tavy, again as cook but also on general work including loading and unloading goods trains. He writes in Reminiscences of the Pioneer Corps: 1940–1942:

On one occasion I unhooked a goods wagon to push it into a more convenient position for unloading and stacking the contents and on hooking it up again I must have fixed it wrongly. It came away later. As the railway line from the quarry to Plymouth station was downhill all the way, we had a telephone call from the station to say that a lonely goods truck had just rolled into the station!

With no washing facilities at Willsworthy Camp, the men bathed in the fast-flowing River Tavy. Complaints about the conditions were finally heeded and the men were moved to Hilltop Holiday Camp at Westward Ho! on the North Devon coast. Edgar Bender was responsible once again for cooking duties:

From our detachment in the quarry we were sent to a former holiday camp by the sea near Bideford. I had to cook again, at first in the field. I had to send out a 'fatigue party' every day to collect drift wood for my Aldershot oven. This was a mud tunnel built over corrugated iron sheets in a trench. The meals were cooked in large oval pots. It was all very primitive. Breakfast for 200 men had to be ready by 8 a.m. As well as cooking, I helped in our work of building large rectangular pits in the local golf course for storing high octane aircraft fuel.

Westward Ho! with its miles of sandy beach and pebble ridge was an idyllic setting, seemingly remote from the realities of war. It was a secluded haven where the men could enjoy the delights of a Devonshire cream tea, rationing not yet having taken hold. Training continued in anticipation of forming more alien Pioneer companies. It was a tense time with fears of an imminent German invasion. Harry Rossney writes:

We were training hard, but still without weapons. Only noncommissioned officers and officers were armed, most of these were British. We were also guarding the area against agents being dropped, or invasion forces taking advantage of good landing beaches. Bideford Bay was one. I remember one dark stormy night being alerted to rush to my post overlooking the bay. My weapon a pickaxe handle. With tin-hat, gas mask and gas cape, I flew as fast as my legs would carry me. Running up the dunes at 3 a.m., pitch-dark, I was challenged: 'Halt, who goes there?' Breathless and with a strong German accent I tried to explain who I was and what I was doing there. I did not get very far before I heard a rifle being cocked nearby by an English soldier behind bushes. My heart stopped beating. In those fearful days it was 'shoot first, ask questions later'. Then another command: 'Hold your fire! Raise your arms! Advance to be recognised!' A sergeant approached cautiously and asked me a question. I could breathe again. It would appear that they had moved another Regular Army unit in to guard the area. They did not know that a group of friendly aliens were billeted not far away. We were then confined to camp for 7 days to give the local people a chance to get used to the idea of foreigners with German accents running around in British Army uniform.

Meanwhile the Germans were advancing through Western Europe at alarming speed. By May 1940 Belgium, Holland and Denmark had fallen. German troops finally swept into France and broke through the Allied lines cutting off Dunkirk and trapping the British Expeditionary Force. Paris was declared an open city. The British Government ordered the immediate evacuation of some 300,000 troops from the beaches around Dunkirk in an epic rescue operation. It was to be another month before the alien Pioneer companies were also evacuated. In the intervening period there was great anxiety and uncertainty with rumours abounding that they might be left behind. William Ashley Howard (Horst Adolf Herzberg), who was later in the Royal Navy, was stationed in France with 88 Company:

We had been billeted in a camp on a hilltop overlooking the docks of Le Havre. During the day we were assigned to loading and unloading freight in those docks. During the night we were bombarded by the Luftwaffe. On 19 May our daily routine was abruptly interrupted by Jeeps patrolling up and down the sea front hollering instructions to return to our units. Having clambered up the hill to our base, we reported to our section sergeant. We were told that we were on standby because the Germans had swept through Belgium overnight and had moved into French territory. We stood patiently in our huts, gas masks on because we expected an attack. We were told to have an early night.

At about 1.a.m, our agitated sergeant shouted instructions in his German accent that we must prepare to leave at once and only take essentials – a toothbrush and aftershave. We were marched down the hill on that starlit night to waiting lorries. We clambered aboard in a state of unease and foreboding. Where were we going? We soon had our answer. One of our learned members looked up at the night sky and exclaimed in his thick German accent, 'Looking at ze stars, I can tell ve are going to ze frontline'. There was great consternation all around. The general consensus was that this was impossible – we were unarmed. We were moving along, mostly in silence, and after about two hours we arrived in a sleepy village. It was about 4 a.m. and most of the houses surrounding the village square still had their shutters closed. We were told not to make a noise or speak German. At around 8 a.m. a staff car swept into the square and out stepped a brigadier. His gloved hands tightly grasped around his swagger stick. He mounted his soap box and called us to attention and then instructed us to stand easy. His plum, lisp voice declared words along these lines: 'Men of 88 Company, as you are probably aware, the enemy has broken through on several fronts and is heading in this direction. I therefore call on you to fight side by side with your British comrades. You will be given arms and ammunition with appropriate training. May God bless you all.'

We were stunned. Within the next two hours we were issued with Lee Enfield rifles. Most of us had never seen a rifle before. That afternoon we were marched to a field, each carrying a rifle. We assumed that we were about to receive instruction on how to use it. No. Our florid-faced sergeant major of Irish descent decided that first we must be able to handle the rifle like a soldier on parade. We were shown how to slope arms, order arms and present arms. We practiced incessantly whilst the enemy was closing in. The following morning we were each given five rounds of ammunition and shown how to load, aim and fire. Shooting was prohibited unless we saw the whites of the enemy eyes. We were moved closer to the frontline, on guard at all times, even through the night. During the third night I was on guard duty for four hours, marching up and down the highway with my rifle in the slope arm position. I had five rounds of ammunition in my pocket. Halfway through the watch the duty officer carried out his rounds and asked me whether there was anything to report. I replied, 'Yes, see over there at the foot of the valley. A flashing light is going on and off.' 'Well,' he replied. 'We'll investigate in the morning.' So much for reassurance.

Over the following two days the advancing German Army swung towards Paris and away from us. Once the immediate crisis had been averted we were rapidly disarmed and once again became noncombatant, digging trenches near Rennes.

The five alien Pioneer companies were finally evacuated from St Malo in June, the sound of German gunfire clearly audible in the background. One of William Howard's lasting memories of that day was the sight of French citizens lining the streets and jeering at them for abandoning them to the incoming German forces: 'they called us all the names under the sun for walking out on them, but we walked to fight another day.'

Once back on British soil, the Pioneer companies were taken to Westward Ho! to re-group, with the exception of 88 and 93 Companies which went first to Alexandra Palace in London. After re-grouping they were sent all around the country on vital construction work, guarding strategic depots, fire-watch duties and clearing up after bombing raids on London, Plymouth and Exeter. Others were involved in constructing civil defences around the south coast.

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Excerpted from The King's Most Loyal Enemy Aliens by Helen Fry. Copyright © 2013 Helen Fry. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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