The Shields Gazette 30/04/1945 reports:
“German brutality and callousness are record in a diary kept by Corporal J.H. Trotter of *2 Ryknield Way, South Shields, who is home after being liberated by the American Armies.
He had been a prisoner of war in German hands for eight months. The daily entries tell how, in an effort to stop the men from falling into the hands of the Allies, the Germans marched them 38 miles in 28 days, on starvation rations, making the men sleep in snow and rain in open fields.
Many who fell by the way were beaten and kicked before being left to starve or die from cold.”