How I Met Rommel: Memoirs of an Officer

By Martin Langley

An biography with a difference.
Part 1 Jim Langley’s life as a boy right through to post WW2 and his time in SHAEF intelligence.
Part 2 has never before published signed letters from several well known historical High Command Germans including Rohn, Hydrich, Raeder, von Papen and even a birthday card sent to Hitler in 1936, copies of actual escape maps used by Capt Langley and his analysis interpretation the original Operation Sealion papers.

Capt Langley claimed to be protected by ‘luck’. Maybe it was a guardian angel looking over his shoulder? You’ll have to be the judge. Follow his life story as a boy in England to fighting in North Africa, being captured in Tobruk where he exchanged words with Gen Rommel’s aide and his daring home run escape helped by many Italian people who all immediately recognized him as a British POW, and his post war Intelligence work in SHAEF. He was almost shot by accident by prince and had several close enoucounters with women while escaping! This book is based on a recorded interview by The Imperial War Museum, London and actual war documents dating back to 1936.

This book is intended to be an appreciation for a man who served his country and also to suggest that maybe there is a higher spirit looking down on some people. Jim Langley is 99 and still active in his own home in Henley-On-Thames, England when this biography was published.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Langley
• Release date: Oct 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311439017

Martin Langley

Born in London, England. I have been in surveying, real estate valuation/appraisal and adjusting for my career. I recently moved over to writing and started with a biography of my father's life and times. That book was special in that it was a tribute to him and more importantly validates his generousity in allowing me to have custody of the original documents he acquired while working in SHAEF that can now be shown the light of day. None of the documents had any military value then or now, but they are of historical interest. I was permanently injured in a flying accident in the mid 1960s but it hasn't slowed me down. I hope to be doing more books in the future. Thank you.

Book preview

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How I Met Rommel

Memoirs of an Officer

Author: Martin Langley

Contact: [e-mail]

Self Published 2014

Published at Smashwords by Martin Langley

Part 1: Memoirs of an Officer

Part 2: Documents & photos

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Copyright 2014. All rights reserved.

First published September 2014

Revision 1 October 2014

US Copyright Office registration pending

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Preface

In every war there are heroes and those who want to be heroes and some who will be heroes who would never recognize their own heroism. Capt Jim Langley falls into this latter category.

His story is unusual. Not so much because of one heroic adventure which many serviceman and women have had thrust upon them by often unintended circumstance, but because from 1939 to 1945 his activities were a whirlwind of self-induced adventure. This adventure put him in a string of circumstances that few encountered individually let alone amassed together impacting one officer.

In 2011 he was interviewed by representatives of the British Imperial War Museum. The interview was recorded and achieved. It is from these recordings that this story is based. All the events in this book are based on his recordings and are factual. The events have been fleshed out and color added to make the story more readable and supplemented by the memory of many stories he would recount as we walked Chan the Pekingese around the block in Park View Rd, Ealing.

In late May 2014 Jim Langley celebrated his 99th birthday. His mind was sharp and critical as he read the draft of his memoirs. In May 2015 he will receive the Royal telegram to celebrate his 100th birthday. The Royal telegram is one of those quirky British privileges that mark a century of life.

This book is divided into two parts.

Part 1 is the self-contained story of Jim Langley’s World War 2 exploits and his daring and lucky escape to freedom through to his immediate post war analysis of historical documents in Flensberg that gave him unique insight into the thinking of High Command minds on both sides.

Part 2 contains photos and documents that relate to the story as well as copies of actual original unpublished documents and letters signed by well known German officers and officials. Only one document was released to the Imperial War Museum in London being signature of Admiral Doenitz.

These documents had no military value and do not relate to the story but some may be of interest to students of history.

These documents are not intended in any way to patronize the German signatories. These men were enemies of freedom and they were rightly punished for their crimes. But, they did fashion history and their actions changed the world map. The present is always a product of the past.

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to Acting Major Charles William James Langley; alias my father.

Jim Langley saw active service in North Africa and while a POW in Italy made a home run escape through to Switzerland. His story recounted here is based on fact. The towns and event all actually happened. The descriptions have been embellished to paint the scene for the reader. The lower rank names are fictitious although the names of senior ranks officers were real.

It is to my father that I dedicate this book and hope that those who read it might be inspired to know that luck and persistence of spirit together creates opportunities for a unique life.

In 2012 he was interviewed by The Imperial War Museum at his home in near Henley-on-Thames in England from which the body of his story is molded. What he didn’t tell the interviewers was the many stories he shared with me privately. His energy for prolonged narration was being taxed at the time of the interview. He was given the unprepossessing reference number of 32220 for the interviews.

The essence of this book is factual, but the story has been embellished to provide a descriptive picture of the events.

As the time of writing this book in early 2014 my father still lives on a farm close to Henley-On-Thames in England in a converted stables of a mansion whose foundations were set some 500 years ago owned by my brother-in-law.

We love you and thank you for your service.

Martin Langley, Houston TX

Feedback welcomed at [e-mail]

Copyright March 2014

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Table of Contents

Preface

Dedication

Chapter 1 1921 Bath, England

Chapter 2 1915-1920

Chapter 3 1925 Bath to Norwich

Chapter 4 1928 Chiswick, West London

Chapter 5 1939. In the Army now

Chapter 6 Early 1940 My First Promotion

Chapter 7 Summer 1940 Midlands West Coast

Chapter 8 1940 It Starts

Chapter 9 Invasion!

Chapter 10 Northern Ireland

Chapter 11 Destination Malta

Chapter 12 Revised Destination – Alexandria

Chapter 13 Gippy tummy

Chapter 14 Warder Duty

Chapter 15 Action in North Africa.

Chapter 16 Active Duty!

Chapter 17 History of the Siege of Tobruk

Chapter 18 In Tobruk!

Chapter 19 Special Observation Duty

Chapter 20 Another Offensive

Chapter 21 Crusader

Chapter 22 The Useless Objective

Chapter 23 Captured in full flight

Chapter 24 How I Met Rommel

Chapter 25 Italian POW Camp

Chapter 26 Escape!

Chapter 27 Drunk on the run!

Chapter 28 Destination Como

Chapter 29 The Countess

Chapter 30 The Priesthood

Chapter 31 First Class with a policeman

Chapter 32 The Smuggler’s Gap

Chapter 33 Lady Luck

Chapter 34 E.D.U.

Chapter 35 Post War - Tiny

Chapter 36 Orders for Special Skiing Duty

Chapter 37 The Prince and the Party

Chapter 38 Mislaid documents

Chapter 39 What next?

Part 2 - Documents, Letters & Reports

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Chapter 1 1921 Bath, England

Hey Jimmy, who do you think is going to be the luckiest you or me? Graham said in the darkness.

At six years old the darkness of the night seemed foreboding. The rough linen sheets had their usual quota of starch that made us aware of the comforts of home. The post-war, WW1 that is, era had an unusual calm of normality. The war to end all wars had ended only a few years earlier and we all looked forward to a much promised better world free of strife. Hope bloomed.

Graham, my brother, always seemed to have most of the luck. He had won the conker competition by beating Big Bills’ oven dried monster only two days ago. Conkers were the fruit of the horse chestnut tree. Kids skewered holes through the middle and dangled them on strings. Each combatant had one swing at his opponent’s conker until one conker was smashed from its string and lay in broken pieces on the ground. The winning conker gained a ‘notch’ rather like a biplane flying aces of WW1 racking up their kills. Winners hardened their conkers in ovens. Losers used fresh soft conkers. It was a good job that Big Bill didn’t see the rusted used nail in Graham’s conker that auspicious day.

I dunno, we’ll just have to wait and see, I said as I looked up, closed my eyes and drifted off to a land of make believe.

We woke up the next day to forget our conversation of that cold night; at least for next forty years or so.

As it turned out it was my luck that brought me to the ripe old age of 99 and going strong while my dear brother Graham passed on some twenty years earlier.

It was also my luck that brought me through the most unbelievable incidents of the Second World War. These included meeting the German’s most famous General and making him laugh and almost being shot in the face by a young Austrian prince after the war was over.

Besides these ‘lucky’ incidents I was one the few POW’s who made home run escape and joined SHAEF and interpreted German documents in the uneasy post war peace. Finally, it was my ‘luck’ that brought me into the presence of the most wonderful woman, Joyce, who became my wife and friend.

Was an angel looking over his shoulder giving him his ‘luck’?

You decide.

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Chapter 2 1915-1920

I was born May 1, 1915 in Bath in Western England. Bath was named by the Romans for its hot springs that was the catalyst for the many colonnaded bath houses. Bath itself was always a picturesque town overlooking the Solent estuary. The Solent was a gateway from Western England to the Atlantic Ocean. Ireland lay to the West and Cornwall the home of the legendary King Arthur extended south with its huge single arm and two beckoning curled fingers called Land’s End that was home to the famous Cornishmen.

The ancient public Roman baths had long since given way to less majestic buildings. Dad’s house was not one of the beautiful ancient terraced homes that celebrated and mirror the Victorian affluence associated with modern Bath which still survive to this day. No, we had a modest two-bedroom house on the outskirts of the town in which I shared a bedroom with my brother Graham.

My father was a typical post Victorian man. His squat pug-like features made him a formidable presence even in his retirement. You might be forgiven for thinking him a bare knuckle prize fighter. He would stand his back to the fireplace contemplating the world. His mind was sharp as a tack. He would play cribbage with my son several decades later and never failed to win. He could see numbers almost before they appeared.

My mother was petite figure whose positive outlook was to affect me for the rest of my life. She had been a dynamite woman in her day full of pious spirit was typical of the post Victorian spirit. She enjoyed the middle-class life afforded by the skills of her husband from tireless hard work.

My father was an insurance agent in an era when insurance was focused on expanding into the lives of the ordinary family and when integrity still had meaning on both sides of an insurance policy. Even in the early years Dad made a good living and he was able to support us all in a middle class environment.

A ‘trap’ was a simple two wheeled buggy often seen in the older black and white Western films, but which were common in all major towns and cities. We owned our own trap that was pulled by a spritely horse rented from the stables. The streets of all major towns and cities were full of horse manure from these romantic modes of transport. The romance of transport was not always a pretty sight at the tie ups. But, it gave employment to many a man who secured contracts to clean the streets of Victorian and Georgian England.

The trap gave the impression of affluence and status necessary for successful business networking. Many roads outside of the town centers were still not paved. Many though had a hardened surface of tamped clay and cobbles. Every Sunday would see us trotting out in our trap to the local church.

We had one Sunday best set of clothes, a pair of shorts and shirt for school and one second hand pair of clothes for play. In those days play was limited to throwing stones and sticks but well away from prying eyes in the town.

I found Bath a boring town. There were always too many eyes peeking around curtains at us young boys. So our souls were kept in check as we passed the time of day. Dad was strict in part because he had to maintain an aura of impeccability and partly because that’s the way he was. I didn’t relish the regular discipline he dished out for my merited acts of disloyalty that indirectly impacted his business. I could hardly be seen throwing stones and breaking windows that may have been insured by my father!

The world grew slowly in those days. I knew only that the sun rose and fell each day and that luck was something I had to make myself.

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Chapter 3 1925 Bath to Norwich

As usual church was boring that rather overcast day. The grey brick soared skyward to allow God to reach us poor souls. Our mare had soiled the roadway and was attracting swarms of hungry flies that enjoyed the free Sunday manna. I wore my Sunday best; well my only Sunday clothes. The grey shorts were pressed and my white shirt itched from the extra starch that typically marked a successful month.

We chanted praises and did our duty. After a long sermon on fire and brimstone the service ended and we trotted back home.

Graham and I were summoned to the living room. What ‘ave we done this time? Graham was worried. Secretly I was too. Was it our church performance or the catapult that I had made?

Boys, we are moving to Norwich. That’s in Norfolk on the East Coast north of London. It seemed that Dad’s good work has resulted in promotion to a new office. We breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t to be a disciplinary session!

I won’t bore you with the details of a move across the entire width of England. The train ran, or rather casually jogged, along the tracks with the clanging of metal wheels on the shiny crossing points. The flash of station lights was a welcome change of dull open country scenery as we rushed pasted the small stopper stations on our way to London. At London’s King’s Cross we changed for a local stopper train that casually sauntered northward one stop at a time to our final destination.

Travel it seemed was part of my destiny. I was later to make a long distance journey with the benefit of a train to earn my freedom from the Nazi grip on POW’s. Many of those POW’s never returned. My luck held.

Norwich was a small and picturesque town that had more promise for a growing lad. We had a terraced house again and I still shared an unheated room with my brother. But, we were almost full grown boys at the tender age of ten. We found that we could open the rear window and shiny down a caste iron drain pipe to the ground. Freedom for a few hours and my roaming spirit found its place.

At the age of eleven I passed the basic first examination of my career called the ‘11+’.This test qualified me to go on to a higher school education at the age of 13.

I still wore those ugly blue-grey shorts regardless of the temperature. The winter frost and snow made my fingers turn white while goose bumps stood up on my skinny legs and my little thingey shriveled and was barely visible. I wondered if it would grow again when the sun warmed the earth. It did.

I had the choice of going to the City of Norwich School for Boys or Norwich Grammar School. For a reason I cannot remember I chose the latter. The grammar school was rough and tough but they would work us hard and I wanted to succeed.

I had to learn the basics of Latin declension with the essential remembrance by rote of the Latin ‘mensa, mensa, mansam, mensorum, mensis, mensis’ or some such worthless rot. I never did understand why we have to address a household object as ‘O Table’ in such a way. It was not until twenty years later when I qualified as a lawyer the value of my grammar school Latin found some modicum of justification.

Much to my surprise between the point of selecting a school and my first day of school we were once again quickly up-rooted. My father was transferred to West London in a growing suburb called Chiswick.

London was the jewel in the business crown. Dad was not going to pass up this opportunity to get to the big leagues. The company must have felt that a dynamic successful agent could sell more in a London suburb than in an historic town. They were right.

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Chapter 4 1928 Chiswick, West London

The move was uneventful or at least that’s as it seemed to me. We were still a dozen miles from Central London and that dynamic area known as The West End and the notorious red light district called Soho.

Soho was well known to us kids even at as far away as we lived. How the word had spread that this wonderful area of naked lustful attraction even existed was knowledge whose source seemed to come with the wind. We knew nothing of the realities of life of course.

Chiswick is pronounced ‘Chizick’. It’s one of those typically British proper names which confuses everyone rather like Reading being pronounced ‘Redding’. We have to blame the French Normans for much of our confusion. We blamed the French for most everything before we were EU partners and it was no longer politically correct.

We blamed them for an out dated Maginot Line that let the German blitzkrieg blister through France taking British Expeditionary forces by surprise. Maginot was a fixed linked fortification of ground based guns. It was a joke to the Germans who simply walked around it for the most part and sent a small glider contingent to take out the key salients. In fact the